squint your eyes and look closer.

the height of pretentiousness.

I recently purchased a Nikon D40. Well, it's no D90, but I got what my money (credit card) could pay for. I'm mostly just messing around with it, but it has reminded me how important the camera is in our culture. Photography is hardly an art form in most people's hands, but it brings people together. It captures and conveys, it distorts and crops out the unwanted. A lot can be said about the dangers of photography, and certainly a lot will continue to be argued. But as a personal tool, it makes people smile. And it makes people happy to be where they are. Sometimes it's the only reason people get together in a beautiful place. Sometimes proof is all we need. One morning on a tour bus in Ireland, I was so hung over that I got out at every stop just to be in a picture. Then I stumbled back inside and tried to fit in five minutes' sleep. In a way, I'm okay with that.

Thesis is coming along. Page 20.

We watched Martin Luther King, Jr.'s March on Washington speech in my communications class today, and right in the middle, my eyes filled up with tears. I want to start something. I want to be so completely passionate as to give my life for a cause. I want that equality he dreamed of, that we are still so far from reaching. What can I do? I am hardly eloquent. I am one woman. I want to bang my head against the wall. Thus the tears. Because forty years later, we're still frustrated. We should be frustrated. We should be making change happen. Instead, I'm in class, talking and not acting, thinking and not doing. I'm part of the problem, yes.

I studied for my midterm with a guy from my English class today. It was nicer than studying alone. Especially because of his British accent. He knew how to pronounce all those British-y words in Victorian novels that I always mess up! Quite an accomplishment.

So now you understand.