Journalism is sometimes like granite.

Tuesday:

I got to write about the persecution of the Baha'is in Iran. Honestly, this reminded me what journalism should be all about. The Baha'i faith is a peaceful religion, based on love and unity, but they have been stripped of all rights by the Muslim Regime for years. They can't own land, get a government job or pension, their marriages and divorces aren't recognized, many can't receive an education, they get arrested and executed under ridiculous charages ... It definitely took me aback reading the 2008 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. A group of Iranian professionals all over the world just signed a letter entitled "I Am Ashamed!" detailing their distress about being silent over such injustice in Iran for so long and promising to stand against it from here on out. This is the type of journalism that is meaningful and can make a difference. This is why I do what I do.

When I got back to my apartment, I made spinach and cheese raviolis with a spinach salad, and it was amazing. Then I helped Rachelle make eclair cake for our floor progressive dinner, which was last night. Also, I went to bed at, like, 11 p.m. that night -- be very, very proud of me!

Wednesday:

I wrote about the 67 organizations (some religious, some humanitarian) that wrote a letter urging Obama to sign the Mine Ban Treaty (10 years old) and the Convention on Cluster Munitions (Dec. 2008). Very interesting topic. Then I began working on a story about Evolution Weekend, in which over 1,000 congregations celebrate the union between evolution and faith. This is obviously a controversial topic, and I talked to a lot of people.

That night we had our progressive dinner! First, we had spinach dip and chips in the girls' apartment. Then we waited (and waited) for the boys to finish boiling their potatoes, and then we had baked potatoe with all the fixings in their apartment, and then we finally finished with the amazing eclair cake in our apartment. Fun!

We had a lot of leftover eclair cake, so Rachelle and I took it up to the guys on the top floor. Naturally, we ended up staying and talking forever, and suddenly it was past midnight. I definitely didn't get as much sleep as I had wanted! But it was definitely fun between viewing the photos from Tanzania of a half-eaten giraffe and reminiscing over old school Christian music groups.

Thursday (Today!):

I'm still in the office, so the day's only 2/3 gone. But I spent all day finishing the research for and writing a full article on Evolution Weekend. It was actually a frustrating process because talking to some of the more "fundamentalist/conservative" thinkers, I was struck with how they tended to talk to me, a news reporter, the same way that they would talk to a member of their congregation or a colleague. As I listened to one prominent conservative thinker tell me why he opposed Evolution Weekend, I literally teared up because I realized how easy it would be to misconstrue everything he was saying and portray him as crazily extreme, like the media often does with conservative Christians. I was so sad. And it hurt to have him put all that in my hands, the hands of a journalist, not even knowing what I would do with it. My responsibility suddenly felt very heavy.

I'm really glad for a bit of a break now. Three full days in a row like this kill me! And I'm expected to do this five days a week for how many years??

But when I leave in a few minutes, I'm going shopping for 80s clothes ... 80s dancing tomorrow night! Yeeeaaaaaahhh! :)