More on yesterday's thought ..

I've been doing some more research on this whole area of media and the relationship to self. There is not much work being done, except for a bit on post-traumatic stress and war journalists.

I thought this quote summed up why I think this is an important area of study.

"Good journalism depends on healthy journalists. For the general public to be kept abreast of important world events, it is essential that the news not be filtered through the emotional distress of the men and women recording history."

Reporting Under Fire: Understanding Psychopathology of War Journalists
By Omar Ghaffar, M.D., M.Sc., and Anthony Feinstein, M.D., Ph.D., M.Phil.

For those of you wanting to go further into this, the article can be found here.

Also interesting findings -- which is pretty consistent with what I've seen -- we're drinkers but not heavily into hard drugs. Bit of pot. Bit of cocaine. Lots of scotch.

It's an interesting read, especially for those in this biz.

Merry Almost Christmas

I can hardly believe it. It looks like we're going to be having a white Christmas in Windsor. This hardly ever happens -- if Christmas isn't brown down here, it's a slush Christmas.

But no. It's cold. It's snowy. And it's lovely.

My Christmas season is pretty relaxing so far, and I like it that way. I'm working at a modest pace, putting together radio shows and getting ready for the radio broadcasting course I'm teaching at the University in January. This is probably the most exciting development -- I really do like teaching and I really do love teaching radio in particular, so it's a good thing to do.

More than several people have said "so, are you going to do your doctorate?" Well, I'd have to do a Masters' first, but it's an idea I'm kicking around. There are a few areas of research I'm interested in. One of the main things that intrigues me is the role of the self in contemporary media. The dominant idea that I am developing (informally thus far) is that we are not allowed to even HAVE a self. This is rooted in the dogma of objectivity. And because we are encouraged to remove the self from our work, our work also becomes divorced from all the other selves we are writing about, and are writing too. And that's one of the reasons why we have such weak programming on the air.

Okay, I'll save the rest for my thesis.

I'm training myself to go easy on myself and not to need to accomplish everything I want to in two hours. I'm in a comfortable place right now and really happy I have everything I need for the next little while -- good friends, a good place to live, enough to live on, interesting work and a mind and body that works really well.

I am happy. I don't have a clear map of the road ahead, but I am finally learning how to live with the mystery.

Love
Victoria

Quick Update

Well, things are moving ahead really nicely down here. My art installation "Mixing Addictions" is going together really well and I actually have the self-discipline now to work on it in both a systemic and spontaneous way (this is one of my biggest challenges).

AND ...

I have been offered a sessional instructor job teaching radio broadcasting at the University of Windsor. I am still pretty amazed .. I've done some teaching before but not at the university level. This is a very good thing. Maybe I'll even start to think about doing a master's ... not sure where all this is going but it's a good direction.

More later. Got to get to the studio.