As I tuned in to C-Span2 30 minutes early to catch Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech, I was amazed at the power and weight that New Media now holds in our society. I know that every major media publication and news station has a website and I also know that the world of blogging has really expanded, but I guess I never really focused my attention directly on the possibility of "blogging" being considered real "journalism".

Rewind to last year, as I realized that soon I would be a college grad, who still had no real idea of what career path I would be heading down. I left high school with journalism in my heart, but over the last 5 years, that fiery passion has dwindled. With the demands of life, motherhood and academia there isn't much time left over for personal creativity. However, thinking back to the love that I had as a child for writing, and of the particular roles that writing has played in my life, I also realized that I have always been and probably always will be a journalist at heart. In the sixth grade, I wrote for a monthly newsletter that my elementary school created, called What's Up Peres, attended the Bay Area Black Media Conference more than once, and wrote a book with two friends called The Golden Egg. Once I got to high school the passion for journalism was made that much stronger by the introduction of the Multimedia Academy that was set up. There I tried to get a newsletter started, but due to lack of resources (printing press, failed promises by adults who were in positions to help us, etc) it never happened, so my interest shifted from just being print to a broader sense of everything that multimedia encompasses. We were able to have our very own daily radio show that we shared with other high schools in our district, I created a couple of personal movies and even got the opportunity to interview and work with some political figures at the state capitol in efforts to get the state to forgive debt that our school district was currently in.

Looking back at how much writing has contributed to my life, you would think that getting a Masters in Journalism and going off and getting a job in media would be the next step. I did too when I was a college freshman, but then life happened, and now I am wondering what the hell I'm going to do with the rest of my life. I revisited the idea of applying to UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism under the assumption that I would be interest in pursuing a career in Magazine writing. When I was a teen I use to love to read Seventeen Magazine, but would get frustrated when I was unable to connect to certain sections, such as hairstyles and things like that. I wanted to start a teen mag geared toward black girls so that I and others could feel more included. But as I said, that was a loooong time ago, when the zest of creativity was fresh and I knew EXACTLY what my future held for me. These days, I figured maybe I'd get a Masters in Magazine writing and then try to get on the Essence staff or something like that... until I took a look at the Graduate School of Journalism website and discovered New Media as a new journalistic possibility.

Now, fast forward back to Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention and me tuning in to C-Span2 30 minutes early to catch Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech. C-span was interviewing a blogger who was onsite at the convention's Blogger Headquarters, which was a tent set up by Google for state and national bloggers. There were over 100 bloggers coming and going through out the tent, sharing stations and bandwidth, free sodas and beers, covering the DNC on their blogs. I found this to be super cool. To be able to be right in the middle of the action like that, and not with a tv camera and a microphone, but with an ordinary laptop and an extraordinary network, lets me know that New Media definitely rules right now. Although I am not in a hurry to complete any grad school applications right now and probably wont for another year, the fear of truly rekindling my passion for writing and taking it on as a career is slowly starting to lift.