A fine mess of contradictions

Coming to an end...

So finally this long year has come to an end. Admittedly it has been one of my most painful in memory. Not necessarily emotionally but more mentally. It was a constant barrage of endless assignments, evaluations, events, and who could forget the festivals, carnivals and other such scary things that take place around Southwestern Ontario that we were forced to attend.

But it has also been filled with many amazing things.

After a professor would tell you that you suck at writing/editing/reporting you would leave enraged and disheartened. But then standing outside the door would be some of the brightest, coolest and overall fun people you've ever had the privilege to meet. These girls (and some boys but very few) are what made the year worth it. Even if none of them end up becoming the editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail (though I have no doubt many of us will reach such success) or help me land a sweet job someday like this networking business is all about, I thank them and love them with all my heart.

When I was in Ghana last year and I found out I got into my master's in journalism I knew I was up for a rough year. I would like to refer to it as one guest speaker did as "eating your peas." You don't like it but it's necessary to get where you want to go. So hopefully, through strange twists of fate and luck I will end up going to where I actually want to be. I'm not nostalgic- someone please remind me of the hell we went through if I ever claim to miss school- but it's just another milestone I'm passing on the way to.... well that is yet to be determined.

There are so many things I still want to do and this year has kind of helped me figure that out and kind of made me more confused. I just have so much I want to do before I settle down, get a mortgage, have kids, find a husband. Maybe I'll never have any of those things but isn't that supposed to be some sort of natural progression? I guess this is just another building block in my life, and someday it will be completed and maybe I won't even recognize what it looks like, maybe it will have changed from what I thought.

But I still want to live and work in Africa for a year, learn to play the guitar, become fluent in French, move somewhere in France and live on baguettes, work for an NGO, write for a fashion magazine, and there are about a million more things but I don't want to list them all. But I guess I just have goals and hopes and am looking forward to getting to those, though I'm sure it won't be easy.

If anything this year has taught me perseverance. In the midst of failures and successes whenever someone told me I couldn't do something, it only made me want to do it more. If anything I guess I'm just proud of that. It's not to say I didn't cry tears of frustration but I did the things I thought were important. I did a documentary on a student refugee from Southern Sudan, a radio story on HIV/AIDS research, I wrote about Western's financial investments in Sudan, and I did a documentary on domestic violence in immigrant women. I wrote about things and reported on topics that I felt were important and learned how to do it more effectively. So this program has given me that, and the opportunity to meet everyone from a wedding planner for gay weddings, politicians, heads of communities, people in need and just overall interesting people and that has a value in and of itself.

So now I continue on to other things, hopefully exciting, and see where they take me.

posted by Kate @ 12:40 PM