Reminder

The Virginia Tech shootings happened over a week ago, and I've been thinking about the event and its effects on the students and faculty of Virginia Tech, other college or college bound students, and the rest of the U.S. I think the first thing that I thought of after hearing about the shootings was the Columbine school shootings. The whole mass student and teacher murders followed by suicide by the shooter. It felt very eerie and I couldn't completely accept that such a terrible thing had happened...again. The Columbine shootings happened when I was much younger and did not take the time to process how that could affect me and the possibility that one of the dead students could have been me. Now, so close to the edge of the nest ready to take off to college hearing about the Virginia Tech shooting affected me a lot more. The are surrounding Virginia Tech was described as being "suburban and safe." Definitely not the place that one would except such a tragedy to occur. My college is in the industrial part of a city, but when I think of Nebraska, I think safety and "Midwest Nice" so nothing could happen to me, right? I would be less hesitant to go to college if the VT shootings had not happened. I would be less aware of those around me. I think the VT shootings were a reminder to students and parents that college, supposedly the best years of life, is not a sanctuary. The good and the bad are mixed together to prepare us for the different types of people we will meet as we explore the world, and unfortunately, there are terribly messed up folks out there that you just have to avoid. The problem is knowing who the "avoidables" are and there is know way to know until it's too late.

So I'm on my walk

around my neighborhood and decide to stop on the sidewalk next to my mailbox (which is supposed to be black but is rather faded on the top in expanding circular-like entities, kind of like wood rings) to look at my house. Everyone else already went to do the whole in-versus-out perspective of where they hang out so I thought it would be cool to look at my house since it's kind of a hang out place since I live in it. It looks small. Not tiny, but small. One of my friends described it as small and cute, like me. That makes sense since there is a row of small orbular (I don't know if that's a word) bushes with pink flowers that line the edge of the lawn. (I guess it adds to the cuteness). And my house is one story with pretty ordinary coloring--off white and tan with a dark brown-red roof. There are also palm-frond plants arranged in an Asian sorta of way in front of one part of the house so it keeps a portion from being exposed and I guess Asian-ness is kind of cute, all those pisu signs, tiny eyes, and squishy gel grip mechanical pencils. When I'm inside of my house I think it feels different in that it doesn't seem that small. I mean, it's not huge or anything, but we have high beam ceilings in the main portions of the house like the dining, living, and family room so it's spacious and doesn't give a claustrophobic feeling. It still has a cutesy feeling to it. My Mom buys materials from craft fairs here and there so we have some craft baskets with doilee like hemming, which hold note pads, calculators, and post-its. Our refrierator also has a lot of cute magnets like Precious Moments characters, Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck, and Minnie Mouse clip magnets, tupperware, tigers, photos of my family, a girl and boy in kimonos, and a little blue bowl with a cat hiding in the somen. Most of the lights aren'ts very white, more yellowy so there really isn't any harshness except in the kitchen where there are fluorescent lights. My home is a homey home. At least it feels that way to me. Although we have a glass dining table which might look fancy to a guest I think my home is pretty welcoming and doesn't feel too stuffy.

Continuing on my walk I realize that I am taking the path that I used to take when my dad, my sister, and I used to go walking together after dinner. That was, of course, a while ago, maybe in 7th grade and part of 8th grade, back when there wasn't as much homework. Now I go home and take a nap either before dinner, or after doing some homework. None of this "take a walk" business. But I do miss it. It was fun to walk around my neighborhood for 30 to 40 minutes because I got to walk by houses that I'd never seen before and experience the feeling of being out at night with the cool air, the chirps of the bugs, and the on-toes feeling of walking around in the dark. Now I've passed the little park and am by the houses across from the empty-ish lot that attaches to the parking lot for the convenient stores and Thai restaurant. The weeds are high and the crickets, or whatever bugs they are, are making high chirping screechy noises--just like they used to before. Before, they irritated me so much. The consistency and volume would seem to fill the night with screechy-scratchy pitches for the two long blocks. They are still irritating, but not as much as before. I guess the nostalgia of going for a walk again makes it seem like strolling through memories.

On the second of the two blocks was a corner where we used to find a lot of slugs. My Dad, my sister, and I always carried a little flash light so we could see where we were walking in case there was any roadkill, toads, bugs or other unknown things which would be unpleasant to step on. After walking by that corner for a couple nights, we decided to bring a ziploc bag with Morton's salt to kill the slugs. I remember walking around with a hill of salt in hand sprinkling the pointy crystals over the black smudges on the sidewalk like Peter Pan sprinkling pixie dust on the Darling children, except the black speckled squishies would squirm (as much as a slug can squirm) and leak their goop. The next night they'd be dry husks on the sidewalk and my sister and I would be sad that there weren't anymore slugs to kill. I don't see any slugs now. Just some ants walking around. Maybe it's too early for them to be out, but I don't have any salt with me so it's not like I could really do anything.

After twenty more minutes of walking I can see my house in the distance. The little bushes and the mail box seem to blend in, nothing extraordinary when looking at everyone else's mailbox and front yard. As I continue to approach, I think the house a couple blocks before my house is more interesting since it has lumpy grass. Seriously. The lawn is comprised of many mini-mini fuzzy green parabolas. Kind of like putting ostritch eggs under a furry green carpet. It looks like anyone would sink in, walking on ground like that. From here my house looks ordinary and easily overlooked. It's the houses with weird lawns, colors, or Christmas lights still up that garner attention. But I think I'm OK with my house not sticking out.

Always Room for Wine

A philosophy professor stood before his class and had some items in front of him. When class began, wordlessly he picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks right to the top, rocks about 2” diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them in to the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The students laughed. He asked his students again if the jar was full. They agreed that yes, it was.

The professor then picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. He proceeded to pour a cup of wine into the jar and shook it as the wine slipped between all the sand.

“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this is your life. The rocks are the important things – your family, your partner, your health, your children – anything that is so important to you that if it were lost, you would be nearly destroyed.

The pebbles are the other things in life that matter, but on a smaller scale. The pebbles represent things like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else, the small stuff. If you put the sand or the pebbles into the jar first, there is no room for the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your energy and time on the small stuff, material things, you will never have room for the things that are truly most important. Pay attention to the things that are critical in your life. Play with your children. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party, and fix the disposal.”

Take care of the rocks first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities.
The rest is just pebbles and sand. And remember, there is always room for wine.

My friend posted this on his blog about a year ago. I don’t know how he came upon it or who wrote it, but out of the number of forgettable ‘how-to-live-your-life’ anecdotes that I’ve read, I haven’t forgotten this one. Maybe because it was not a chain email, not something forcibly received, but something stumbled upon which makes the memory of reading it pleasing. Maybe because it does not list phrases of how to live (those may begin with good quotes, but ultimately degrade into phrases which don’t help a person to live fully) which I’ve heard too many times that they’ve become too cliché for me to really appreciate anymore. I think I am captivated when reading it is because this is what my parents have always told me, that success is not how much money you make, how luxurious a house and how many cars you own, but the relationships between you and the people you love.

At times it is difficult to decipher what my parents are trying to tell me since here they are paying thousands of dollars each year for me and my sister’s education and constantly remind us how important it is to get a good job. Seems a bit hypocritical, doesn’t it? I finally told my Dad when we were out to dinner that he and my Mom were confusing me. He explained that it’s not the money that is the end, but the means. He said that it’s difficult to live a happy life without being able to provide for basic needs or to live worrying that the next paycheck may not be enough. So my parents sacrifice because they believe education is so important to helping my sister and me be able to do whatever we want when we are older. They believe that if we get good paying jobs then we will be able to provide for our children and be able to have the time to play with them. But ultimately, the most important thing to living happy is to take care of the people you love. So the job and the money to live comfortably, despite the tremendous effort spent in school, are just pebbles.

“And remember, there is always room for wine.” This is the last reason why I remembered this story. I can’t explain why and I’m not going to try and analyze it. I like it too much.

What's done is done

During the past week an earthquake radically changed the geography of Ranongga, one of the Solomon islands. The result of the earthquake was reef that surrounded the island, had been pushed out of the water. According to a Yahoo news article, "up to 70 metres" had been pushed above sea level. (You can read the entire article at the link at the end of this post). The coral and other marine life have been rendered helpless. The coral is dying and any of the fish or other marine organisms that were in the reef are already dead, dryed out by the sun. The people who live on the island used the sea as their main pantry. Their protein mainly came from fish caught around their island. The reefs provided the haven which attracted the fish and other animals, so now that a significant amount of the reefs are above water it is unclear as to whether the animals will come back. For now and in the near future, the people of Ranongga will have much more difficulty in gathering the food they need.

After I read about the disaster my first thought was an illogical one and now I feel retarded for thinking it: I wonder if they can push the coral back under the water. I took AP Biology last year so I should know that attempting to find a way to get the coral back under the water is altering of an ecosystem and could produce far worse results than letting time handle it. Besides, the earthquake was a natural disaster and, well, things happen. If it means that the fragile reef environment is destroyed, then it has to be accepted as such. Even though the people and other animals that relied on the reef are going to suffer, nature shouldn’t be tampered with. Right? But now I think of all that human kind has done to pollute, hack, blow-up, and toss Earth down to its knees so that she cannot stand again. Humans have tampered with the environment over and over again. It almost seems to be the homo sapien nature to change what is around it. So, what’s trying to save a reef, right? I mean when you line it up with the oil drilling, deforestation, and over-use of resources attempting to protect something doesn’t seem so bad. But then, maybe that’s just my programmed natural response as a human to believe that humans can do anything to preserve what we see fit.


Quake lifts Solomons island metres from the sea