Operation October Panic

At the penultimate mass media class lecture today, I felt so stupid watching the film Central Control. The film features the Al-Jazeera news channel that has gained some kind of a notoriety for being the first in the world to screen Osama bin Laden's threats.

I felt so stupid because I could not have been any farther from the truth.

Al-Jazeera was set up by the Qatar government in 1996 to present the voice of the Arab world. The practitioners employed were of a unique Arab-Western duality since they were Arabs who were educated and trained as journalists in the West for most of their lives.

Yet they are universally scorned by not only the Americans for being apparently "Osama bin Laden's mouthpiece", but also by the very Arab community that they seeked to serve because they expose the inefficiencies of these authoritarian regimes. The video basically featured the station's coverage of the events that led up to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

I was shell shocked by how I have been so greatly influenced by the words of Donald Rumsfeld about the news channel. I felt that I have wronged the channel and for what it represents. All of a sudden, I felt that the place I should be aspiring to work is Al-Jazeera and not BBC.

But just now, it also struck me that although Dr. L is being lazy, this IS the last lecture for his class, which means examinations are looming. In fact, it starts on Nov 18 for me, and ends Dec 1.

And this semester has so far been lacking in intensity that characterised last semester. Speaking of which, it may or may not consequently spell disaster, because if my CAP score were to dip past the second-upper honours mark, I need a near A-minus grade average.

A random rush of panic gripped my heart at the mere thought of what needs to be done. I distinctly felt breathless for a while.

Because so far, I do not have a good feeling for my 30% term papers for cultural anthrology and mass media. I got entangled in a conceptual mess for the latter and it really lacked the operationalisation required for an A-grade. The former was not only conceptually weak, my topic turned out to be mega if-fy I was struggling to churn out 10 pages for it.

I did below average on the biodiversity mid-term and I barely started on my term paper for social research methods class - do not get me started on how it only dawned upon me halfway through my literature review that I have not ascertained the causality between my independent and dependent variables.

I need to get started on researching for a biodiversity presentation. I have got a press release assignment and an analysis article rewrite due Friday. And my readings have been stagnant since before the mid semester break. It has been a mad rush of essay after essay.

ARGH!

And I need to get everything sorted out first, before I can actually think about studying for the examinations. All these in slightly more than three weeks and I have to ace everything.

Sometimes I wonder if I was ever meant to get second-upper honours. I need that to do post-graduate at a good university. The way my life is turning out so far, I think all my dreams are doom to immateriality. It is either I have too high expectations of myself or that I just talk more than I care to do.

I really wish that doing well is God's plan for me, but sometimes I think I am just hoping for God to approve my plan for my life. Make that, most times.

Do I really need those A grades, or do I just want to hit second-upper honours-dom too much?

Why am I not there yet?