Contrary to popular belief...

I am actually here for school, and it has taken up a whole lot of my time lately. So I thought I'd give you a glimpse into some of the stories I'm working on while I'm not working on this blog!

For my feature writing class, my final project will be on Lebanese migrants in Australia. It's a pretty sad story actually because almost everyone I've interviewed would really just rather be back in Lebanon. Of course, it's simply too dangerous right now, but it's their home. It just makes you realize how lucky you are to live somewhere where you don't have to be afraid every single day for your and your family's safety.

For my online and research journalism class, I'm building a Web site featuring three stories about campus violence in the U.S. and Australia. (When I say campus violence, I'm referring to school shootings.) I'll be comparing campus violence in the U.S. (which, though still relatively rare, happens far to often) to Australian reports of campus violence (of which there are about two accounts total). Basically, my stories will focus on these topics:
1. What makes a student kill? An American and Australian psychological perspective.
2. The role of gun control in campus violence.
3. Campus security: A comparison between U.S. and Australian methods of prevention and procedure.

Finally, my project for my ethics, law and standards class will focus on the Drew and Stacy Peterson situation back in the States. This story, already rich in the human element, demands a legal and ethical analysis of the case with an inevitable focus on privacy and defamation. For context, I'll compare this to Australian standards of privacy and defamation (the laws are quite different than in the States).

So that's basically it. Believe it or not, I'm pretty excited to see how everything turns out at the end of the semester. Hopefully they'll be (somewhat) interesting stories!