You're A Graduate. Get a Job. Oh Wait, You Can't.

When they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn't know. "Oh, sure you know,' the photographer said. "She wants," said Jay Cee wittily, "to be everything." - Sylvia Plath

Old heart, old love. Old heart, new love. I try my hardest not to be naive. I know that of all the decisions I could have to make, this is not a bad one. I try to be diplomatic, and I enjoy most people I meet. Maybe I am a politician at heart beyond Shippensburg.

I can't find a job in journalism. This is getting horribly ridiculous. I don't understand how anyone expects my generation/recent grads to get ahead if all would-have-been-five-years-ago-entry-level-jobs now require 3-5 years experience. Does my college television station count? The resounding answer, which I'm almost starting to hear getting yelled back at me through the bolded descriptions on job boards and industry rejection emails, is NO. Does my internship help? Somewhat - it shows I have an iota of understanding about how a major television news station works. But it's not enough. What is enough?

So I'm back to serving. I loved doing it at school. I was almost more sad to leave my co-workers at Fridays than I was to graduate college. The place was worth it. I've been doing a training session for a new restaurant chain (which, due to my inherent paranoia, I will simply be referring to as "The New Place"), and I like the direction that corporate wants to take The New Place in. I think I'll make great money - and it's a close drive from my house.

And then Fridays called me. One in my area at home wanted an interview with me. So, even though I was already "in" with The New Place, so to speak, I decided to go meet with the people at Fridays. And was informed that I was hired. Fan-freaking-tastic. I really don't want to work two serving jobs at once - that's a little much, especially since I'm looking for full-time work. Would you like to spend 60+ hours per week between 2 restaurants? If you just answered yes, then you should probably make your way to the emergency room for a catscan because you're clearly concussed.

I hashed this out on the drive home with a good friend from college. He pieced me together when I thought a break-up had "totalled" my life at the time, kept a watchful eye over me while I cavorted around the bar in which he worked, and spent countless afternoons watching everything from "Shrek" to "Sherlock Holmes" on his couch with me. So what did he think? He backed what I had been thinking: stick with The New Place. I loved my old job so much that anything further at a new location with the same company might be a let-down. And do I think I'd make better money at The New Place? I think I might. I can't help it. I just think "Fridays" and I think of what I had 6 weeks ago.

Somebody make me stop thinking through restaurants and keep thinking journalism. Or magically add "3-5 years experience required" onto my resume.

Oh, and by the way.
Dad: Well, that's good. But don't forget your degree.

Is A Blonde Ambition Becoming Reality?

While home over Christmas break, I decided to return to my former internship to help out (and refresh old networking ties). On my last day in the office, my mentor came into my cubicle and suggested a job-opening that he thought I would enjoy: producing the news for a small-market television station in Georgia.

For those who don't know, the journalism industry is a hierarchy - you can't just start at the top of the food chain (the top television markets). While working in the Philadelphia-area would be a plus, it also wouldn't likely be a reality for me. Philadelphia is the fourth largest media market in the country (preceeded by New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, respectively). Generally, the talent (reporters) who work there are people who started out twenty years ago working for stations in towns that not many have heard of.

This afternoon, I finally heard back from the lady at the station in Georgia who interviewed me a few months ago. She wanted to know if I was still interested in the position.

I'm finding myself at a crossroads.

I've always wanted to change the world. I got into journalism in the first place because I wanted to be able to use my public access to make others aware of the issues of the world (especially those issues that included human rights). I've set myself up to try to be as successful as possible as a journalist: I learned French and Spanish, became active with our campus television station, kept my grades up, and landed an internship with a major television station.

I've jumped all the hoops.

Is this my chance to change the world? And if it is, if this is my foot in the door to doing that, if this is a way for me to get started doing what I love, what is my deal? Why am I freaking out?

Everything in my life up to this point has been so routinized: go to elementary school, go to middle school, go to high school, get into college, go to college. And now I'm sitting 5 days away from graduation, and I think I'm having a quarter-life crisis. For someone who prides herself on being spontaneous, I hate not knowing what is supposed to happen to me in a few months. I'm aware that getting a job is supposed to happen. But the "openness" and amount of choices available are daunting.

When I sit back and look at the "bigger picture", it's exciting. The possibility of a fresh start, a warm environment (where my hair would be sure to look like Mufasa's mane on a daily basis), and new people thrill me.

The possibility of leaving everyone and everything I know behind doesn't.

And what would a transplanted Philly/hippie/horrible vegetarian/opinionated blonde look like in rural Georgia?

Impermanence

I was there - lying in the green leaves, eyes shut, wings circling above on wooden arms, pretending I could fly. It carried my mind away.

So You Think You Want to Be Picked For Jury Duty...

I recently sat on a jury to hear a mock trial case on campus concerning domestic violence. I found it to be more challenging than I originally thought it was going to be. We were advised that we might not be permitted to take notes – such activity is usually discourage/prohibited in real-life trials as doing so might allow a juror to “stake out” a position or miss something more important while writing down a point.

As a journalist and chronic note-taker by nature, I did not like this restriction. I found myself grasping for details that I thought I had nailed down until I found myself trying to regurgitate them.

I listened intently through the whole case, and thought I knew what I was going to vote – until we started deliberating.

In this case, there was not a lot of hard evidence. For a murder, for example, the hard evidence would be the dead body. In this case, we had a murder weapon (though whose prints were on the murder weapon was not disclosed to us) and, in theory, there were pictures of the crime scene as well (although those also were not disclosed to us).

Therefore, when we started deliberations, most of what we were arguing about stemmed solely from the testimonies that had been given to us from the trial – more specifically the testimonies of the defendant and the alleged victim. This allowed our debate session to quickly spiral into simply recounting what had been said on the stand as a means of defending their juror positions. Hard evidence might have made this a more simple case to decide – but as in real-life, domestic violence trials don’t always provide that opportunity, and juries are forced to do exactly what we did – solely take people on their word.

Juries are often forced to decide cases that can have political repercussions and ramifications. This point has contention with the debate over whether juries should have that power. American juries are, after all, twelve theoretically average American citizens – a jury of one’s peers. Given that, should “average” people who do not have extensive backgrounds (or even basic ones at that) in law and/or politics and government be charged with deciding the fate of another person?

At the other end of the spectrum, however, we don’t necessarily want the government making those decisions without some input from the citizenry. The most awesome power that the American government has over its citizens is the option to fine them, jail them, or kill them. To give government complete control over that would be dangerous, and would allow for more opportunities of government tyranny. Therefore, allowing a group of inexperienced citizens decide a case might be better than an experienced government that is capable of manipulating the rules.

Cases are also supposed to be about more than one’s own beliefs, even though one is on a jury as a community of peers of the defendant. As an advocate against domestic violence, and a friend to a few who have suffered through it, I found it somewhat difficult to put my biases aside and help make a “fair” conviction.

While listening to the testimonies during the trial, I found myself becoming increasingly aggravated, remembering what the people in my life have and are going through. I was recognizant, however, of the warning of why we were not going to be able to take notes during the trial – taking notes might allow a juror to “stake out” a position and not be open to other views of the trial.

By bringing my own personal experiences into the situation, I was effectively doing the same thing. I had to put aside my views to give the defendant as fair a trial as possible, remembering that all are innocent until proven guilty – just because those situations in my life had occurred did not mean that they were being repeated in another form through that trial and those people.

While struggling with repressing my bias in deliberations, I still found the defendant (in my opinion) to be guilty on three counts: reckless endangerment, aggravated assault, and attempted homicide. While we were able to unanimously vote “guilty” on the first count, we were split fairly down the middle for the second count. I was the only one who thought he was guilty on the third count.

While defending my position, and while others attempted to get me to change my vote, a colleague on the jury attempted to get me to do a “deal”, asking “Would you feel better about voting not guilty on attempted homicide if we were able to get him on the second charge?” Such bartering within the jury is not something that is supposed to occur. The mention of the possibility of this deal made me hesitate: I arguably would have been more at ease with convicting him on two counts rather than one, but I still thought he was guilty on all three counts. I would have been recanting my guilty vote as a compromise on what I felt was right.

While this was only a mock trial, such deal-making within an actual jury can be dangerous, especially when considering a crime as serious as attempted homicide. Jurors might be eager to just be done with the deliberations process so that they can be done with their duty as jurors. Someone who is tired of holding out against a group or trying (and failing) to persuade a group might just give in instead of “wasting” more time.

After all, convicting on a lesser crime still holds the possibility of sending the defendant to jail – it would just be for a smaller amount of time. While noting that this is a dangerous proposition, and suggesting that it might be something that the American judicial system should look into banning, it is something that largely cannot be prevented. No one else besides the jury is allowed in deliberations, and jurors do not possess accountability. Furthermore, the system is dealing with the unpredictability of human nature: just because we are told to do something does not mean that we are not tempted or that we will not do it.

I thought that as a political science enthusiast that this mock trial would positively enlighten me. I also naively thought at one point (before this trial) that I WANTED to get picked for jury trial, just so that I could be a part of the process. And now? I know why it's being left to me instead of a group of experts, but still. If I was the one on trial, I'd want the best of the best in that deliberation room figuring out what to do with me.