Ouch!

Hey, I am not sure if I told you but while I was home for 5 weeks in during June and July, I was working on my first draft for my dissertation which is due September 15th. I e-mailed the draft to my dissertation supervisor Gary on the 14th of July.

This past Friday I meet with him to discuss it and his critiques were very disappointing and extremely harsh but in all very good and helpful.To tell you the truth, the hardest part was not the fact that he thought the draft was poorly written but the fact that I dedicated night and day to that 56 page draft for two and a half weeks straight.

Now when I say dedicated, I am talking no sleep, shutting my family out, stressed out. It was a not so pretty two weeks (and then some) of my life. During the five weeks, I spent a full week with my niece that I have not seen in months and I did not make any time to hangout with her. She asked me to play with her and I didn't because I was writing the draft. I made this draft more important than her.

I was overly stressed and I put my all into that draft but now it felt like it was all for nothing. I am sorry, but I am never doing that again, I know it is my dissertation and it is important but it is surely not important than my niece. I wish I had that time back and I would have put this silly draft on the back burner instead of my niece. Wow, I am literally in tears right now thinking about it. I so regret my actions. Starting now, I will not put my family on the backburner for sheets of paper, it seems so silly to me. Gosh, what in the world was I thinking.

What's silly is that Gary is extremely picky at my writing. When I reviewed his comments, I realized they are very personal. It is like he did not like a word or phrase I used because he personally would not have used it himself. Then he goes and writes in his suggestions. However, I would never write like him because obviously I am not Gary, plain and simple. For instance, I initially wrote:

The New York Times and the Washington Post characterized them as the “rebels” or “guerrillas” and in a few reports they were even described as “insurgents”. Although their actions said otherwise, the Moujahedeen were not referred to as terrorists, dictators and human rights violators.

Gary suggested:

Twenty years ago, the New York Times and the Washington Post characterized them as the “rebels” or “guerrillas” and “insurgents”. The Moujahedeen were rarely referred to as terrorists, dictators and human rights violators. The contrast with today's portrayal of the same groups could not be more profound.

Now this is a great suggestion and only an idiot would refuse to use it, but that last sentence is so not me. Do you know what I am saying? It is like having a conversation with someone and you think to yourself, "I would have never thought of that" or "I would have never said that". This is how I feel with 85 percent of Gary's suggestions.

It is hurtful because in some places he is telling me to edit my work and I’m thinking, "I did". I seriously pushed myself to finish the draft on the 12th of July so I could have two days of editing. I had my friend Alakie, my sister Romise and my bro-in-law Mark all take a look at it, including myself and I was very critical. I can't edit my writing so that it doesn't become my writing anymore.

There were also plenty of areas in my draft where he is saying information was not relevant and some of them I agree with and other I didn’t. I feel as though I need to include this information to explain the point I am making. It is like someone telling you a joke about a priest, a baker, and a carpenter that lived on a hill but they don't mention that part, instead they start at the middle of the joke and you're left asking "what?". You have to give some background to the point you are making.

The sad part is Gary is marking my dissertation, so I have to follow his suggestions or I fail. The thing is he is a good supervisor but he just doesn't get me at all. The one thing I hate is teaming up with someone who does not know and understand me.

However, a sister has to do what a sister has to do. We’ll see what happens. Adios now.

D

Productive

Today was a very productive day, so productive that I am still doing work. I am just taking a break to keep in touch with you all. I woke up a bit late in the morning did a few errands enjoyed brunch and went straight to the journalism department at Cardiff University to get some print out done from the New York Times and the Washington Post, which are the two newspapers I am doing my discourse analysis for my dissertation. I had to print out articles from LexisNexis because it is not free directly form the newspapers’ websites. I also e-mailed a few people I would like to interview for my dissertation.

I e-mailed Alexander Cockburn he is the co-editor of Counterpunch, the online newsletter described as "America's Best Political Newsletter". Mr Cockburn e-mailed me back within the hour and told me to call him anytime to discuss the issue of U.S. media reporting on U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan. Since I am taking a break tomorrow to enjoy the beautiful weather at the beach, I will give him a call on Thursday.

I e-mailed this organisation called Afghanistan Peace Organization, which is located in California, hopefully someone e-mails me back. It would be great to speak to people from Afghanistan to get their opinions about how the U.S. media reports on Afghan issues from the past 30 years.

This is what I enjoy most about my dissertation, the people I speak to and the varied opinions they have. What I love most is to pick someone's brain and discuss an issue, especially political issues.

I will focus on asking Mr Cockburn questions regarding the topics: Journalists involvement in the balancing act of being critical or patriotic of American foreign policy; Media blurring of U.S. foreign policy in Afghan history; Have Americans received the whole story about Afghanistan over the past 30 years?; and plenty more issues.

One of the articles for my dissertations will be titled, From heroes to terrorists: why were the villains of the War on Terror, the heroes in the 80s? All three article titles for my dissertation are in the form of questions, so I can stay focus and answer the question. According to my supervisor Gary Merrill, that is my problem, my focus is everywhere-I am trying to dip my finger in everything, which is true. However, I can't help it; this dissertation is fascinating to me.

So back to my productive day, which I should remind you is not over yet. After printing out and e-mailing, I went to dinner at my friend’s house; they are Polish, Kasia, Justyna and Diana. They have such a beautiful house and the rooms are small and comfortable. I brought Spanish Rosé, which I disliked and triple chocolate ice cream. I also brought goodies form Victoria Secret for Kasia and Diana. I recently came back from the states and they asked me to get them a few things at Victoria Secret, but by the time I got to Victoria Secret the semi-annual sale was over and the things they wanted were too expensive so I brought them Victoria Secret's Secret Crush Body Lotion. It has such a beautiful scent. They liked it, which was good.

Justyna made a delicious dish of spinach, chicken and mozzarella cheese. I really enjoyed it. I had polish soup and cheese on toast (that was oddly good). Diana, her sister and her sister's friend are going to the beach tomorrow, so I will tag along with them. According to BBC, the weather will be 30C, which is 83F and sunny- so that is beautiful beach weather.

So now I am going to read the printout from the newspapers and also from Counterpunch, since tomorrow will be a very unproductive day because I will be baking in the sun evening out my tan. Tomorrow morning I am thinking of going from I nice run around Bute Park before going to the beach that would be good, that will tire me out for the rest of the day and I can have a nice nap on the beach and also enjoy reading my novel from Eric Jerome Dickey Liar’s Game. I pick up two of his books from the airport coming back to Cardiff for the plane and bus ride.

Well, back to work for me, talk to you all later.

DaMak

Early Bird

Just to let you know, I wrote this entry on June 24th, but again never publish. Well, continue on.

I decided it would be a good idea to keep up with this bogging thing. So here I am again. Well right now I am listening to my favourite mixed album on Real Player. I titled it Hotness because it has Yolanda Adams, Somkie Norful (that is by far the funniest name ever), it has Mary Mary, Kirk Franklin, Beyoncé’s song from Fighting Temptations. It is a great album, I play it all the time non-stop.

Well it is Saturday morning, 9:30. I am up this early because I am staying with my parents and they are old, so they sleep early and wake up extremely early. I think my mom was up since 6 this morning. I woke up at 7:30 on my little pull out cot in the living room because of the ruckus from the kitchen. So I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t really. Oh well, I’m up now, which is a good thing because I feel like I get so much done when I am up in the morning rather than in the afternoon.

Today, I should be heading to New Brunswick to hangout with my good friends Deji. Matter of fact he is my best friend. I am going to try to get Melissa out to have lunch with us too. I know she is studying for her mid-terms but everyone has to eat sometimes. We’ll see, I will give her a call in a few hours when it is normal to call a 22-year-old on a Saturday.

Deji is a awesome person to be around, but he could be a bit of a guy too much, yapping about cars 24/7 like I give a hoot. Once he starts yapping about cars during lunch I am going to start talking with a British accent, he absolutely hates that. Oh it will be great hanging with him again.

I am thinking of going to Stuff Yur Face, to me that is the best hangout spot in New Brunswick because it is the best joint to pig out in. I will so indulge myself in something extremely fattening and delicious. After lunch, there is really nothing else to do that I could think of. That is why I love Cardiff, well the UK because it is so social there is always something to do. Right now I am so into the pub scene, which is non-existence here in the states. I like hanging but with a nice group of people from time to time and just go to a pub and have a drink or two. There is not much of that here. In the states, pub or as we Americans call them ‘bars’ are not open 24/7 and if they are those are not the ones you want to go into because it full of violent drunks. Food is usually not served in bars here in the states. You want food you have three options: make it yourself, go to a restaurant or go to a fast food joint.

Ok enough from me. I am going to watch the World Cup football match with my dad. Bye

Take Two

Yes, it has been a while since I wrote. I would apologize but I know I will do it again, so there is no need for apologises. Actually, I wrote this entry June 22nd but I never published it. Don't ask me why becase I honestly don't know.

I wish I could start from the very beginning or at a “juicy” part of my life but to tell you the truth I don’t feel like it. So instead I will start from now. Let’s get the basics out of the way first; my name is Damaqu Meronvil, I am a 23-years-old Masters student at Cardiff University…silence… it is in Wales…which is in the United Kingdom…bingo. Seriously, everyone I tell out Cardiff University here in the state looks at me with such a blank face and so I attempt to clarify by telling them it is in Wales, and again the blank face. I could never win. But when I finally say it is in the United Kingdom they understand as though that is the country. Actually, people around here may think that the United Kingdom is a country. Well as for me I always thought Ireland was part of the United Kingdom until I was set straight by my Irish flatmate here in Cardiff.

Alright, back to the basic, so yeah I am a Masters student studying International Journalism. There are days I enjoy it and there are days I want to crawl under my bed and hide from the world because it seems like it will crash on top of me. Cardiff is a great place to be, but honestly I don’t think I was emotionally ready for the independence I got myself into. However, because of Cardiff I learned a lot about myself and lfe, I think, well hopefully I did.

You know it is the oddest feeling living away- far, far away from home with no family or familiar face in sight. There are the days that are exciting and the days you think to yourself, “what in the world am I doing here”. I experience the latter about a few times a week. But through all this blah blah blah complaining I always find myself doing, I really enjoy Cardiff mostly because of the people I met, relationships (romantic ones), friendships, and just the vibe in general.

Something else I always find myself doing is starting something like this, exactly this, a journal, a diary, a blog whatever you want to call it but never go pass the second entry. Wait, I’m lying I did do something similar while I was in living in Valencia, Spain. I started typing into my Yahoo Notebook like a diary. I was there for six months and I wrote about five entries, very angry and very happy entries. Trust me that is impressive for a person like me. I usually stop at the first entry and then get bored after that and forget about it; almost like what happened with this blog. I just recently remembered it. Hopefully, this time I go beyond the first entry and continue on, which is what I am doing now. I am not trying to make this like a daily habit or anything but I hope I can remember from time to time to come back to this and build up something.

Well like I said we’ll see.