What are you going to do after high school? What do you want to be? Everyone asks these questions to seniors. It is like no one even wants to talk about anything else. It makes me sick to even think about it anymore.

I guess I should have all of this already decided, and I guess I should know what college I want to go to, and I guess I should just already know what is going to make me happy for the rest of my life. Well why don't YOU guess what.... I don't know.

I thought for a while I wanted to be a journalist; that option isn't completely ruled out. It still interests me, but I am not sure if that is what I want to do with the rest of my life. Then I thought I wanted to be a real estate agent, then I thought maybe I will be a chef. I know they are all very different occupations, not much similarity between any of them.

Honestly, I just don't know what I want to do. I am way too scared to just jump into something and end up hating what I do. I want to be positive that I will be happy with what I do for the rest of my life. I am eighteen and everyone else knows what they want to do, so shouldn't I? It is just too hard for me to decide, so guess what, I'm not going to. Eventually I know I am going to have to choose but for right now I am not even going to worry about it.

I think my plan is going to be to work for a year, maybe take a couple basic college courses, and figure out what will make me happy. At this point it feels like way too big a decision. I guess I am just behind the curve in this aspect of life. There is no way I can sit down at this point, pick an occupation that will make me happy, pick the best college, and pick the best path.

So for now I am just going to let the good times roll, enjoy my senior year, and when I am ready to make such a big decision I will. I see no reason to rush into an unhappy life. I have a long time to make a decision and I am going to take advantage of it.

I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what I want to be. Questions answered, quit asking me. I do know that I want to be happy, so when I figure out what will make me happy then I will make my decision.

It's been quite an interesting week in my part of China. Since last Wednesday, I've experienced quite a few "firsts." The first package that I had put together while at home during the summer arrived, so I spent one afternoon happily unpacking teaching materials, Body Shop products, and cake mixes. I celebrated the first Western holiday of the school year with my first-year students. I taught about Halloween this week, so I was carving pumpkins (just finding the pumpkins was an adventure in itself), buying cheap chocolate, and running around in a skull mask to frighten individual students. I also had my first conversation in English with two students while squatting in public toilets. Thankfully, we couldn't see each other very well at that particular moment. My favorite experience this week, however, was the first regional conference of the year. Each semester, Amity requires the teachers in a region to have a conference with each other. Generally, the conference takes place in a town where there are Amity teachers already present so that we can gain some insights into our colleagues' schools. It's also a chance to exchange teaching ideas, cultural experiences, and to just check in with each other. My region in Amity is the largest one by far. I'm in the Gansu province, along with 15 other teachers. Gansu has almost the same land area as Germany, but it's not nearly as accessible as I recall Germany to be. Only eight teachers, myself included, have a railway line running through their town, and six of those teachers are in Lanzhou, the provincial capital. The rest of the teachers must travel by bus from two to eight hours to get anywhere near a rail line. Needless to say, that creates difficulties with getting to the different schools, but we managed to settle on having our conference in Tianshui, which is an eastern city in Gansu. There are no Amity teachers in Tianshui currently, but it was the most geographically accessible location we found. Once in Tianshui, the reminiscing commenced, and the new memories were created. I have been accused of being slightly insane for wanting to spend four years in China. Therefore, you can imagine how much havoc 15 nutty foreigners in China can cause when we all come together in one location. At past conferences, there has been a running joke about how many things we say that, when taken out of context, sound utterly ridiculous or even blasphemous. Some memorable lines that I can remember off the top of my head are "Well, if it looks like a brothel, then it probably is a brothel."; "I know! It's a cathedral. Or is it a frog?"; "The day you give up smoking is the day I change my underwear"; "This is worse than a hug, it's all hot and sticky!"; "I was quite annoyed that she'd thrown away the chicken's head"; "Teaching in China is strictly a non-contact sport"; "The day that beggars become choosers, they don't belong in China"; and "Oh, that's not a chopstick, that's a knitting needle!" Needless to say, if I'm insane to be here, I'm in good company. This conference my colleague David was complaining about how he'd once had a severe back problem and had to wear a back support garment similar to a corset, which made him rather embarrassed and even angry at the time. He then went on to say that had he been in England around that time, he might have been inclined to blow off a few firecrackers to vent his feelings of frustration. At which point another colleague named Mick piped up with "Aaaah, so that's the link between terrorism and corsets." Obviously, that quote has now been added to our lists of blackmail against one another. Later on, my colleagues Kate, Sarah, and Karin went with me to a massage parlor, and we were all offered facials, in addition to foot and body massages. I was the only one who declined, the rest had yellow paste on their faces at one point or another, which hardened to form a kind of mask. Looking around at Karin and Sarah's masks, Kate exclaimed, "Blimey, we're a bunch of jaundiced mummies!" Of course, our conferences wouldn't be our conferences without a seemingly endless supply of food at banquet tables (it's amazing the amount of food that 16 people can put away) and a chance to worship together. All of us here are Christians, and while we all come from different faith backgrounds, the one thing we all agree on is how nice it is to worship in a language that you can understand without much effort. Even the Swedish folks (and there are six of them) appreciate the chance to have a worship service in English. This time around the service was quite brief, but still wonderful. We had several Scripture readings, a responsive psalm, Celtic music, and a chance to offer prayers for our loved ones. In true accordance with Murphy's Law, however, we decided to set on fire the papers that had the names of those for whom we offered prayers. It didn't take long for the smoke to attract the notice of the hotel staff, and we got told off for lighting a fire (in spite of the fact that it was lit in a metal pan). However, we all left with wonderful memories and some amusing stories to share and use as blackmail, which was of course the entire point. All in all, it was a terrific week here in Lanzhou and Tianshui, and I could not have asked for a more amusing way to pass a week in Gansu.

As much as the "media" is a subject of conversation and indignation these days, I'm certain there are all kinds of studies on the state of modern journalism.

I have my own opinions, and I suppose I've hinted at them in the past, but for the most part, I don't feel qualified to comment.

Even though I make my living in small-time newspapering, I don't really consider myself a "journalist" because I haven't been trained nor educated in the field.

I was a marketing major in college, and even more than 20 years after earning my degree I couldn't really give you a good reason why. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess.

So what I offer here, or during conversation, should be viewed in that context. If we were in a courtroom, and you were granted permission to voir dire me, I'd fail. I don't have the bona fides, nor the historical perspective to have much credibility.

But that never stopped me from shooting off my mouth before.

I just want it to be understood that whatever my opinions, they're mostly based on intuitive factors, observations I've been able to make just by paying attention. That, and my penchant for overanalysis, which is sometimes paralyzing but more often just painful.

I suppose everyone has their own theories about what has contributed to the decline of journalistic integrity, or at least what's perceived as a decline. I don't know that I can say for sure whether the state of journalism is better or worse than it was decades ago, or centuries ago.

To be sure, there was plenty of muckraking that went on in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In a lot of cases it seems that newspapers or other "media" outlets were created as nothing more than bully pulpits for one political point of view or another.

I think it's generally true that being viewed as a "media" member provides a certain imprimatur of credibility, whether it's earned or unearned, and the problem with that is the same as the solution.

For example, there's a newspaper in Madison County that calls itself a "legal review." The paper was only established a few years ago, when Madison County was in the national spotlight as a "judicial hellhole" where tort litigants from all over were seeking a venue. The newspaper was funded by a Republican operative, and the primary purpose seemed to be exposing "frivolous" lawsuits. "Frivolous" meaning, one with the potential to hold corporations to account for their injurious behavior.

I have no reason to believe this newspaper published any stories that weren't factual, but I do know that it's possible, even likely, they have published stories including only those facts that were favorable to their point of view about tort litigation.

It is true everywhere, including here. We all have our own prejudices and opinions, and even when we manage to convince ourselves we're reporting a strictly objective set of facts, our biases will creep in. They'll infiltrate the story in the simple turn of a phrase, or the omission of exculpatory or mitigating information.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we published a submitted story that later turned out to be demonstrably false. We didn't know it was false at the time, and we trusted the source from which it came, and we had no reason to be suspicious, but it was wrong.

It's one reason that so many larger newspapers and magazines used to have a staff of "fact checkers" to verify statements in stories and "ombudsmen" to field reader complaints and questions and explain why the publication treated a particular story or photo the way it did.

I thought that was a fine practice, but very few newspapers employ such people anymore.

When the Post-Dispatch used to run a regular "ombudsman" column every Sunday, it was my favorite item to read. It gave readers an inside peek into the thought process that was involved in editorial decisions. I thought it was not only a valuable way to educate the public about the workings of media, but a great tool for newspapers to gauge what was important to readers.

Unfortunately, ombudsmen and fact-checkers have mostly fallen victim to the budget ax.

There are those in print media who will argue that the diminution of journalistic integrity can be traced to the advent of technology, first television and then internet journalists and on-line blogs and viral screeds that don't necessarily have to be true.

That's a hypocritical argument, because the big trend in newspapering now is toward the web. If you can't beat ‘em, join ‘em, I guess. The funniest part is that one of the big advantages of an increased web presence is the ability to provide video... JUST LIKE TV!

The way I see it, newspapers ought to concentrate on what they do best, or at least what they used to do best. It's hard to compete with the visual impact of television or provide the sort of minute-to-minute timeliness of the web, but the fact that newspapers work on a cycle--be it daily or weekly--allows them to offer accuracy and context and depth that isn't always available to those other mediums.

Even before the web began to assert its footprint on "media," newspapers were reformulating themselves to accommodate our shortened collective attention span. Short stories, spiffier typography and graphics, more pictures. They are principles you'll see at work in this newspaper along with others.

Again, it circles back to profits. "New" media consumers prefer to get their information quickly and concisely. The stockholders must be served.

So if I were pinned down, told to cite one reason why newspapers and journalism in general can't be trusted anymore, that would be it. The conglomeration of media doesn't begin and end with massive radio corporations or cable television news.

It filters down to the local level as well. Most community newspapers are also corporately owned these days. And the only reason super-small newspapers like the Sun are still in private hands is because newspaper chains aren't interested.

It's probably a dangerous thing to say, but I've always considered journalism a quasi-governmental occupation. We are given certain rights that are not enjoyed by the general public, access to emergency and crime scenes, even the discretion in certain circumstances to break the law if it serves our mission of informing the public.

To me, that special treatment also carries a weighty responsibility, at least part of which is to subjugate the profit motive to the public interest when necessary. In today's America, pursuit of the dollar is the most sanctified mission of all, more important than ethics or morals, and unconcerned with the very real consequences of being a slave to profits.

So you have 24-hour coverage of celebrity news stories that generate readers and viewers but have very little impact on the public welfare. You have fewer investigative stories in newspapers, and more opinion pieces and healthcare columns and puzzles. We are "giving the readers what they want," and that's okay. But it's also important to give the readers what they need.

Of course, media can't fulfill its very important mission of informing the public--not only factually, but truthfully, and contextually--without operating revenue. It requires a special sort of vigilance, applied to nearly every editorial decision we make, to make certain that acceptable profits and the public interest are in balance. We are a special case, and purely business principles don't always apply.

It's much easier to follow the paradigm established by big business, and make all decisions based on profit.

This is a long column (and frankly, I've left a lot of stuff out), and probably not all that interesting. I wish I could offer some sort of "magic bullet" answer or revelation that would make it worth your while to have suffered through it. I can't.

It's a funny thing. We want the world to be simple, but it isn't.