Being somewhat productive

Just not in terms of my internship. I know I haven't been writing much, but that's because every day has been relatively the same here in the pit. Yesterday I was given the glorious opportunity to take a cab uptown to pick up tickets for my boss for Shrek the Musical. I guess I can add cab-hailing and busy-work to my resume? A few interesting things outside of my internship have occurred though which I'd like to briefly highlight. Well, just one thing is standing out. The other day, on my way home from the gym, I found that a mass of people had formed in Union Square. These people were protesting the controversial election that just took place in Iran. To be honest, I'm a little confused on what is going on over there because I haven't paid close enough attention to the news. Yet, what I do know is that it would be pretty awesome to witness a REAL military coup going on somewhere in the world after studying so many of them in Latin American Politics. An ironic statement coming from me though, considering the second thing that has happened outside of my internship that I'm sharing. That is that I received an email yesterday inviting me to join the Wake Forest Scholars program which, I guess, is a corps of people who are eligible to be nominated for fellowships, grants, scholarships based on merit. I'm bored, so I jumped on the opportunity to test-drive my essay. Here is the prompt and what I wrote this morning... if anyone reads this blog, which I'm pretty positive no one does, I wouldn't mind some input. Just know that this is more of an overblown rant than what I'll actually be submitting. Sometimes... all the time... when I write, I get in trances and just put down what I feel and think. I guess that's what happened here....

ON A SEPARATE SHEET, respond to this prompt in one page or two pages (suggested 500 word maximum). As with any writing, consider anecdotal evidence from your experience to support your thesis and viewpoint. Don’t worry about polished prose: get your ideas down honestly and personally.

In what do you believe? How might your talents and personal characteristics work to support you in that belief?

I believe in peace. I believe in the word itself, its phonetic ability to calm nerves and invoke hope. I believe in the weight it has carried across oceans and throughout centuries. I believe in its literal meaning, the opposite of war, the lack of chaos or violence. I believe in its existence, not just in literature, in retrospect, or in a utopian paradigm far beyond the reach of humans, but within the arm span of every person to walk this Earth. I believe that we, as human beings, have the power rhetorically, mentally, and physically to achieve a placid understanding among each other regardless of the situation and despite the resources, or lack thereof, at hand. Men, women and children have stood up for peace with words and numbers. Leaders have risen from the darkest caverns of humanity, standing among the harshest of enemies and above the most threatening of dissidents, demanding that we find another way. I look back at the most outstanding people of human past and see a glimmer of hope that we, too, in a world that cynics declare tainted by technology and pop culture, can surpass the aggressive norm that we often resort to and rise above the expectations of our generation.

I have become fixated on the potential of peace through both my studies and personal experiences. I am involved in a very random assortment of extracurricular activities on campus and off campus, from the Wake Forest Dance Team and the Board of Investigators and Advisors, a division of the Office of Judicial Affairs at WFU, to a camp counselor at Camp Wayfarer in the Blue Ridge Mountains and a Public Relations Intern with the New York Knickerbockers. Throughout each of these engagements I have encountered various tests of my strong will, curiosity, morality, and patience, all of which have given me hope that even the most trivial and biting of quandaries can be solved by taking a step back, surveying the situation, and collaborating with my peers in order to devise the best solution. Yet, beyond my personal experience outside the classroom, I find the larger scale arguments for peace that I have encountered through discussions with professors, writing papers, and reading historical documents, to be most compelling. From learning about the oscillation between military regimes and democracy in Latin America in my Latin American Government and Politics class, to analyzing Nelson Mandela’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech for my Historical/Critical Research in Communication course, I have witnessed the makings of peace in the most trying of times in human history. It is these findings and these experiences that have motivated me to believe in peace and it is the academic and social challenges that I hope to overcome in my future that I believe will prepare me to perpetuate my thoughts into actions that, if I am lucky enough, will help me help the world change itself.

In one of his more famous songs, John Lennon begged the world to give peace a chance. I think we all believe in giving peace a chance. Yet, what I believe in, what my talents and personal characteristics have drawn me toward, is the idea that humans are capable of giving peace more than a chance. As can be proved as truth from the past, we have the ability to give peace the opportunity: the opportunity to grow from soil corrupted by the gravest of apartheids, the opportunity to withstand the most intimidating of threats, the opportunity to flourish in the most compromising of situations. This is a belief that has taken me a long time to acquire, but one that I hold close to my heart and steadily in my head, unfettered by the seemingly obvious counterarguments on which the modern world has become so reliant.