How did I end up here?

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 26 December 2006 21:41:08

I guess it's because I'm a historian that I am very interest in why I act how I act, why I am interested in what I am interested in and why I am who I am.

Tonight, for the first time in 11 years I watched Challenge Anneka, it was in a conversation with my mother that I said that the show was partly responsible for my longing to go off to warzones, and do aid work. Now, doing the maths I realise that I was under 10 when I first wanted to do aid work, which to me seems quite young. I know that I have always wanted to go to a warzone, as I have grown up the place has changed, from Yogoslavia, to Kosovo, to Africa, to Palestine, to Afgahnistan, to Iraq, depending what was going on in the world, and what I was reading about at the time.

And I'm wondering how much television have to do with my desires.

I always used to watch newsround, I remember pictures of burning oil fields, remember being so upset and angry at the Dunblane shootings, remember trying to explain to my family why I so angry about the bombing of a refugee convoy in Kosovo. I can also remember watching Challenge Anneka and wanting to go out there and help people.

And now I'm doing a degree in Peace Studies, I'm actually going to do what I have wanted to do for all of my life.

And it's quite exciting really.