Saturday, August 25, 2012

The Royals and the Press

Yesterday, as I watched Good Morning America on the local ABC affiliate, a report came out about Prince Harry's wild partying in Las Vegas.  According to the morning show reporters, London's Daily Mirror leaked photos of the prince as he was dancing around naked in his hotel room.   Despite the request of the Royal Family to not release the pictures, the tabloid did it anyway, claiming freedom of the press. When did it become alright to show embarrassing and incriminating photos of the "Spare to the Heir" after being told to respect his privacy?

I learned in my News Reporting and Writing class about muckraking, and what the Daily Mirror has done would constitute as muckraking.  I bet the girl that sold those photos got a huge sum of money, and, according to the tabloid, plans on telling all for $1 million or 630,000 pounds.   Most of the newspapers and magazines there had adhered to the wishes of the Queen and Prince Charles to leave Harry alone.

What the young man has done in his room was his business, not the world's business. Just because his Great-Aunt Margaret, Uncle Andy, ex-Aunt Sarah and even his mother Diana has been dragged through the mud by the tabloids, it doesn't mean it's officially open season on his antics.  Sadly, Diana died at the hands of the paparazzo, using her as a case study on what happen when the paparazzo goes too far.  Can Harry turn it all around and keep his nose clean, like his brother and sister-in-law, or does he fall prey to the paps?

Friday, August 17, 2012

Death of the Girl That Said Yes All of the Time

I unplugged myself from all things Internet for a few days to work on myself.  I wanted to reevaluate all of my relationships I have with people, and I began to notice a  pattern within myself that I didn't like. I said 'yes' to a lot of things I should've said 'no' to on several occasions, like birthday parties, get-together events, and more stuff that left a sour taste in my mouth. I invited people to things and got excuse after excuse after excuse as to why they didn't want to go: it's sounds boring/it's raining/I just want to be lazy/it's too far... the list goes on and on. It took an exercise during a meeting I was at on Wednesday to realize that I haven't said 'no' enough. 

I got an invitation to a birthday party from a friend of mine yesterday via Facebook. I wanted to put my new outlook into practice and hit the "Not Going" button.  I didn't feel bad about doing so. When she asks, I'm just going to give her an honest answer. I've given her the benefit of the doubt all of the time, and I'm tired of it.  I didn't want to say 'yes' to going out to see her when she's said implicitly and explicitly that she has no intentions on traveling within the city on public transit to hang out with me. I'm going to busy myself with schoolwork, honor society work, newspaper, car/apartment hunting, and filling out applications to several universities. She can catch me when I'm done with school, if she feels like not being lazy.

The word 'no' is going to be my new favorite word. I don't want to be a doormat anymore, or be the one that says 'yes' to everything and getting 'nos' from everyone.  My time is valuable and none of it can be wasted on petty stuff. I will say 'yes' from time to time, depending on what it is and how far in advance are certain events. For the most part, the girl that always said yes ceased to exist as of yesterday. School starts on Monday and work begins on Tuesday. Time to prepare for classes!

Friday, August 10, 2012

Birthday Bust


My thirtieth birthday came and went, along with a cancellation for Girls’ Night. I won’t go into the details of what happened, but I wish the woman a lot of luck in finding gainful employment. Several people did send me Facebook messages saying happy birthday to me, that made me smile.

Last year, I wrote a little piece on my twenty-ninth birthday that went through in some detail about the perils of being a summertime baby and not being able to celebrate with my classmates.  I also got a huge surprise from a then-boyfriend who asked me for the one thing I didn’t want to do on my birthday.  He’s no longer in my life, that’s another blog entry for another day.

I wanted to celebrate big at one point; I knew I wasn’t going to be employed at the time of celebration, so I just gave up on the idea. Maybe I should give up altogether in wanting a celebration for any more of my birthdays to come. I definitely didn’t want to celebrate by myself, either.  Oh, the joys of being broke and underemployed at a time when it really counts.  

Next year, I will have my food, birthday cake, and alcohol, even if it's by myself. It'll be my party with the one person that cares about me the most. There will be pictures to document the joyous occasion.