I need to take a French class to get my ass stationed in Paris….I know it’s a competitve world, but I have to try.
I need to take an Arabic class to get my ass stationed in the Middle East. I’m reading Anne Garrels’Naked in Baghdad. Garrels is an NPR correspondent and she kicks ass. We also spoke to NBC’s Martin Fletcher in Tel Aviv and CBS’ Barry Petersen in Baghdad. (it was a phone conference meeting). They also kick ass. I want to follow in their footsteps.
I know I’m getting married and I know Mark’s a little worried about this travelust. But I want to do this now before I get knocked up and have kids.
He understands.
I promised I would be careful. I want to cover the war zones to understand what’s going on and to tell other people’s stories. I appreciate the efforts of our armed forces, but what about the Iraqi civilians? Anne Garrels and Barry Petersen acknowledge it’s difficult to reach these personal stories.
I think I can.
I had another bad dream last night.
Dinosaurs attacked our school in a French province. Chaos ensued. I convinced a handful of journalism students to lure the dinos back to the classroom. Then I allowed a few students to escape and locked the rest in.
It bought us some time. It disturbs me to imagine myself capable of mass murder. In the dream – bodies and body limbs were tossed up in a frenzy of dino eating.
Underneath the school, there’s a mall. I run inside with another students. We wanted to set the building on fire as the dinos feasted on the students. We ran into some Gap workers. Their arms were loaded with Gap clothing. They stared at us. We said nothing. Then we hit a fork in the road. We both had matches. We ran in separate directions. I found an electric closed with brick walls. I started lighting the matches and tossing them at the transformer. It caught fire…but the blaze kept running out of steam. I could hear a raptor heading my way.
I felt trapped. I woke up gasping.