Aiya no notes for me, but oh well, I shall write anyhow. I like reading long chatty entries but I kinda realised I haven't been avidly updating long chatty entries. I like writing in long rambly sentences too, though it's quite a bad habit and media writing last sem has done a fair share of stamping that out somewhat for me, but I think I'm allowed to indulge once in a while, because it kickstarts my train of thought and keeps it going for a while, which is good for writing =D

Speaking of media writing, I'm in for the follow-up NM module again, (still under the lovely Dr P.,) after I've told myself no, Charm, please don't try to kill yourself with assignment heavy modules, but since I've hopped into it already let's have faith that it is all for the best, yes? Have begun to think that hard-news writing is really not quite in my character, because I've always been so much a micro- rather than a macro- person, and I'm comfortable in my little social spheres... Needing to go "out there" to collect information, establish contacts, know people, obtain far-ranging information... is... blah--unsettling.

But if I should stay in my pretty little comfort zone for too long I'll begin to seal myself off from the world and become some frog-in-the-well *croaks miserably* And I believe it is apparent in the self-absorbed little ignoramus I am sometimes, sigh. And here I am, seated, typing about myself when there are big! important! things happening in the world that I need to know, about nuclear weapons in US and policies in Singapore and coups and taxes and things like that. The stuff daily news are made of, that teach people to make intelligent decisions about their lives.

And speaking of news... *hesitates* It's... not always easy to confront.

A professor passed away yesterday from a heart attack while in conference with one of his students. "That is breaking news," one would say, an event fulfils 15% grade point for our media writing news assignment should we cover it, but I cannot do it, cannot see it as a newsworthy subject, even if in cold hard reality it is =( I could hardly get round to imagining how heartbreaking it is, to lose a person so suddenly, (halfway through a discussion with his student... how traumatic it would have been for the poor student!) and how sad, how sad, for his family, for his colleagues who knew him, for his students who have had his lessons before, for... for... for that finality, for so nice and so brilliant a person who is just but in his 50s. Would I have felt the loss if I had not once known him briefly, when he'd co-lectured one of my previous modules before? Would I have thought any more if I had no knowledge of how he looks like, but dismiss it as "one of those sad things that happen in life lar, what to do"?

Either ways I don't think I would take it up as... news. Although everyone else found out about it through the newspapers, which is responsible for giving people the necessary information, for letting people know what happened, in all its accuracy and clarity, yet... *hesitates* Aie. I don't think I know what I'm talking about, and perhaps I oughtn't mix two seperate topics like that. It was just a thought that struck me during media lecture today, when it was brought up very briefly as an example of an on-campus breaking news, undoubtedly a tragic one... *shudder* but I know, feelings and news should remain strictly seperate.

Death... has a kind of finality that makes it hard to negotiate in words for the people who are living still. He was a very nice prof, funny, brilliant, likeable, and he teaches well. That is about as far as I know... superficial, but... but for those who knew him well it'll strike so much harder a blow. How cruel, the suddenness.

Yahoo News covered this too.

Sigh. I think I should probably end off here. Bit of an unexpected train of thought that had veered itself towards so sober a subject that I don't quite know how to continue.