Hey guys.   So here’s the deal:  Nick Kristof of the NY Times is holding a contest whose winner will get to accompany him on a trip to Africa to do some reporting.  The link to the post announcing the contest is here. All I need to do is submit a 700 word essay or a short video detailing why Nick should choose me.  I’ll be shooting a video.  I would like to have as many eyes view this thing as possible before I submit it; after all journalists have diverse audiences.  Anyway, I’ve included a draft of my script after the jump and if you guys have the time, I’d love for you to take a look

Win a Trip with Nick Script </rhyme>

Me standing near a blank wall or walking down Skiles

Hi Nick! My name’s Mike Donohue and I’m a Public Policy major at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA. I’ve always enjoyed following you and your fellow columnists in the New York Times so when I saw your column announcing the chance to go on a trip with you, I had to jump on it.

So why should you pick me? Simple!

Shot of Earth or something similar

Because

I want to change the world

Through law and diplomacy

Driven by an undying sense of justice.

Me walking somewhere

Alright, I’ll admit this sounds like empty rhetoric. But everyone needs a grand statement that guides them through life, and this one’s mine.

Allow me to take you along with me through my mission statement.

Different shot of me or some other establishing shot

Until recently it was the chief job of people to grow, learn a trade, and provide for a family. Only the elite could affect the world and only in a slow, clumsy way.

Shots of communications, cell phones, and computers

Then came the age of fast transport and telecommunications and all of a sudden the world shrank to the size of a transistor. Corporations went multinational, distance ceased to be a large issue, NGO’s appeared, and citizens found their voices through blogs, online video, and social networking.

Shots of Service/Journalism

These tools enable people like me to affect the world through direct methods, such as service projects, and indirect methods, like journalism. I am in an especially well- suited place to do good because of my good fortune to be receiving a quality education and to be living in a country as free as the United States.

Another shot of me

Different people change the world in different ways. Some do it via new products, others through journalism, and others, like me, wish to use the law and the relationships between governments to help people.

Courtrooms/UN

We’ve come a long way from the global wars of the 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th centuries. Wars are often regional now, and very seldom between nation states. Different countries, with a few notable exceptions, negotiate with words and economics, not bombs. This changed world-state requires diplomats and lawyers in order to help great swaths of people. I intend to be one of those.

Me again

All of these goals and plans mean naught if they don’t have some sort of motivation. Call me idealistic, but my motivation isn’t money, or power, or even a desire to help the little guy. My motivation is to see justice done.

Declaration of Independence

My feelings are best put into words by Thomas Jefferson that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I believe that all men and women deserve the chance to enjoy these rights. What they do with them is a matter for them to decide.

Me once more, perhaps switching

Now I’ve talked a lot about who I am, but not really why I should be the one to go with you on this trip. I’m a public policy major, or as I like to think of it at Tech, I’m a people engineer. I solve people problems using the tools of technology, policy, economics, and diplomacy. I will be an asset on your trip to Africa because I am a technically minded policy analyst and I feel that such a viewpoint will uniquely suit me for reporting on the situation in Africa and how the developed world can help with technological assistance and appropriate policy decisions.

Whoever you decide to take with you this summer, I wish you the best of luck and safe travels. You give these people a loud clear voice in the West amongst the noise that is our busy lives.

Farewell and good travels.

]]> http://jxk089.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/win-a-trip-with-nick/feed/ 1 jxk089 http://jxk089.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/a-rats-retrospective/ http://jxk089.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/a-rats-retrospective/#comments Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:15:11 +0000 Mike http://jxk089.wordpress.com/?p=77 ]]>

What follows is some musings on fall 08. It’s mostly for me, just to get my thoughts on paper. But if you wish, hit the jump.

I can’t believe I’m halfway through my first year of college already. I look back at the boy I was just four months ago and I am astounded at the change.

Just a little while ago I thought I was going to be a student of the sciences. Just a little while ago I thought myself as academically invinsible. I thought myself to easily be a member of the elite. Heh. How naive.

I trivialized classes, work, and friendships. Battered by thirteen years of mind numbing coasting, I thought Tech would be more of the same. Instead I discovered my deadly sin of choice to be pride.

So I came out of my first semester with a bloody nose. I’m not calling it a bad semester, though. I made new friends, continued to excel in my chosen arena of mock trial, and focused myself.

I realized that college really is the beginning of the rest of your life. In college you don’t prepare for some invisible next step; you prepare yourself for becoming an adult that will change the world.

So suffice to say, I’ve learned more than calculus this semester. And next semester is the time to put that knowledge into practice.

I will throw myself into my new major and find an internship for the summe r that will provide meaningful experience. I will continue to do well in mock trial and help the team get far in the amta competition. I will strengthen my friendships. Most of all I will endeavor to shape myself into a man who will change the world for the better, not motivated by profit or a lust for power, but by a genuine desire to help the people of the world live better lives.

I won’t fool myself by thinking I’ve “found myself.” I’ll probably change in a big way at least once more before I get out. But hey, that’s college.

So I’m in college.  And college is the place where I should be finding myself, right?  Hit the jump for an interesting and illuminating story.

I was in seventh grade, the middle of middle school.  It was the beginning of the year and I was sitting in science class, getting ready to absolutely blow the class away with my genius.  Then Mrs. Hayes, my slightly odd teacher handed out the assignment.  It was meant as an exercise in analysis and objective thinking.  We were to pretend we were archeologists in the year 3000 (or some other far future date).  During our excavations of western North America we discover a small copper disk with a bearded man inscribed on the front (i.e. a penny).  We were then to speculate on what it could be, it’s importance in its society, etc.  Simple enough, right?  One problem, I couldn’t do it.

All the other kids immediately went off and began writing novels on this penny while I just stared at the page.  I was stymied by the total lack of information.  So I began asking my teacher question after question, trying to learn more about the year 3000: “Do we have coins?  Do we even have money?  Is there religion?  What have we found in the past similar to this?  What is our knowledge of this American society?  How precious is copper these days?” and so on and so on.  Mrs. Hayes quickly grew frustrated and told me to just do the assignment.

That night I was still working on it when my dad came to help me.  I began explaining how impossible it was to do such a vague assignment, how anything I said would be way off base and completely open to being destroyed by the teacher for my unjustified assumptions.  My dad told me to make those assumptions since they obviously weren’t being provided to me.  At this point I was nearly in tears with frustration.  Why couldn’t they understand?  I needed more information!

I eventually finished the assignment, probably doing it half-heartedly and still making an A, and forgot about it.  I realize now, though, that that episode tells a lot about me.  Fast-forward 4 or 5 years….

My senior year of high school was when I really ran into a wall as far as work was concerned.  Mr. Bires English class easily provided me with the toughest challenge.  I’d stay up late working on a paper due the next morning, spending the majority of the time just staring at the page, unable to come up with anything at all.  I’d hem and haw, go to my computer, procrastinate (thank goodness facebook was blocked), and wait until panic would push me to doing the paper.  This class was different because I was no longer analyzing, instead I was creating new material from nothing.

This year I’m running into a similar problem.  I’m working on creating a big report that needs to be published sooner rather than later to a lot of important people.  And its hard.  I’m actually really intimidated by it, which is odd considering how I laugh in the face of math and physics problems as well as the most difficult witness.  But I was walking down the street today and had a small burst of inspiration that may explain a lot:

I am not a creator, I am a facilitator.

I have a very difficult time creating a new design, concept, idea, story.  Nothing comes and more often than not, when something does come, I am incredibly frustrated over my inability to translate the concept to some medium.  But when I am facilitating or working with someone else’s idea, I shine.  I can tear apart a paper, analyze it, and then put it back together, complete with red inked glue.  I can take a team, lead them in coming up with an idea and then help them accomplish that goal.  I can carry out instructions to the T and do it better than most.  I can learn and learn and learn, without breaking a sweat, and do problem after problem without difficulty.  But when I need to be creative, when I need to create something out of the box, I freeze.

Is this a bad thing?  Probably.  But I think it has driven me to an appropriate career path.  As an attorney, I will have a very clear job: put the bad guys in jail.  I will analyze and speak, but I won’t have to create anything outside of the ordinary.  As a physicyst I would have to come up with new ideas eventually and I don’t think I would be able to do that.

This is a major weakness, and something I need to work on.  But I’m glad I flashed back on that penny, showing me how I needed a framework, a very strong one, in which to function.  But I guess that’s also what college is for, right?  Pushing your comfort zone, doing new things, screwing up normally and having the kick to get back up.  So I’ll continue working on my creative side, and while it probably won’t be up to Picasso’s standards, I’ll be able to get by.

Well, the school year’s about to start and that means my life is about to pick up again.  My musings on the summer and the coming year after the jump.  Be warned, it’s a fairly negative post.

So overall, I give summer a rating of bleh. Yeah, not particuarly good, but not bad enough to warrent a bad rating either.  I’ve just felt I’ve been in limbo since I graduated.  I’ve been done with McCallie and dealing with the seperation from those guys but I don’t really have anything big to look forward to for Tech.  Living away from home?  Been there, done that farther away.  Hard classes?  That’s what they all say and I’ve yet to have a class that I’ve taken from beginning to end and struggled with.  New things?  I’m not really doing anything different, just the normal Mock Trial, Band, MUN stuff.

The summer itself didn’t really help much at all.  Nothing incredibly exciting happened other than my grandmother dying, which wasn’t fun at all.  My family went to Orlando without my sister since she was in Europe and that whole week felt beyond stagnant.  It’s a really bad thing when one goes on autopilot in Orlando and doesn’t feel much wonder at all.  I worked at Target, made some money, and pretty much killed my brain in the process.  I didn’t really hang out with friends that much; I know I could have made more of an effort.

No, the big thing I did this summer was zone out on my computer, watching videos or reading blogs or reading the Times.  That is not healthy at all.  For once in my life, I had nothing pressing due.  No papers, no activities, no big long absenses from home, just work.  And I wasted it all.  I tell myself that this was a transition summer, and while that is true, it’s no excuse.  I had two whole months to better myself and I came out only monetarily richer than when I went in.

It doesn’t help that my entire family joined in the apathy.  I feel like we’re so apart, draw to our five seperate computers.  My mom is always working on some band/pta thing, my sister is doing who-knows-what in her room, my brother just watches tv all day and complains bitterly when he’s dragged out, and my dad works and when he gets home he seems to be on the computer, too.  I’m not blaming anyone for this, it’s something wrong with my whole family and I’m as much to blame for it as anyone.  My guess is that it will work it self out as we all mature, but it better work itself out quickly.  I couldn’t stand it this summer.

I guess that’s all behind me now.  Tomorrow I start anew at Georgia Tech.  I have some easy classes so I should be able to feel things out pretty well in this first semester.  Goals?  I have a few I guess:

• Have a 4.0 (I’m hopeful)
• Win some award if there’s an invitational for Mock Trial (Depends on the level of competition in college)
• Rush (While it may be uncomfortable, it shouldn’t be too bad)
• Do something social at least once per week (This’ll be the tough one.  It all goes back to that apathy thing.  If I can manage this, I’ll be in good shape)
• Have something cool to do over winter break (I really don’t want to go back to Target)

Well, I need to get up extra early tomorrow to begin my college odyssey.  To my fellow freshmen, good luck!  And here’s to the start of a good year.

Giz Explains: OLED, the Future of TV

I’ll take five, please.

Soaring Fuel Prices Take a Withering Toll on Truckers – NYTimes.com

Forgive the flashback to AP Econ.  This is really weird because there are so many concepts I just learned about in econ: perfect competition, imports/exports, and others.  Funny when the stuff you learn in school actually applies to real life.

Barefoot in the Park? Watch Your Step – NYTimes.com

Oh come on.  I’m all for being careful, especially with children.  But going barefoot causing infections and stuff?  Sure it may happen, but I may also spontaneously have an elephant fall on me from the sky.  That doesn’t keep me from going outside.

Seriously though, there’s careful and then there’s obsessive.  The world’s a big scary place, but I don’t think that means an anti-barefoot ban on the nation’s parks is in order.

From xkcd.com

From The Consumerist:

When husbands, boyfriends, and sons go shopping for womanly gifts, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel for store clerks—these guys usually want to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible, and either they’ll decide in a snap what to buy or they’ll happily take your advice on what makes for the best gift.

Amen.  This also applies to teenage boys buying tuxedos and to a lesser extent corsages.