S is finally home.
it has been five days but i finally got word he was actually home, with his family. i heard from him briefly when he landed in nigeria, but as big as nigeria is that is the equivilant of calling when you are in new mexcio but headed for houston.
i’m so happy to hear from him, to know he is ok i don’t know what to do. i guess i’ll say a quiet thank you and move on.
Tags: me-ness
i really believe i am solar powered. there is something about the sun that just gets my body in motion and willing to cooperate with all the things in my head that demand attention. yesterday was filled with rain and gray and i sat on the couch the ENTIRE day. it was a waste of carbon and oxygen.
today, however, i woke up to clear blue sky and smiling sun and i got dressed and wandered into the world to eat and then settled on my front porch to read for one of my classes.
it is still cooler than i would like so my time outside was limited to an hour or two but now that i’m back inside i am nestled next to a window with my papers and (newly constructed) “to do” list scattered around.
i really should stay away from places that have to bargain for teh sun…it isn’t good for my disposition. good thing i live in the south.
Tags: me-ness
it never ceases to amaze me how africans can be backdrops even in africa. movies that are set in africa, are promoted as being about africa, but have so few africans in central roles. the last king of scotland was another such movie…not as well done as the constant gardener (which did the same thing) it simply used africans – in this case idi amin – as props for some other story being told.
on top of everything else, the story is not particularly plausible and has moments that are truly graphic. while i know amin was a brutal megalomaniac i was unprepared for the random insertion of blood and gore in a movie that otherwise skated past that reality.
overall i would say keep your $8…i wish i had.
Tags: movies
one of the things i adored about zed was the abundance of water. i could be almost anywhere in auckland and see the ocean. in all reality, zed is so narrow that you can be almost anywhere and be a reasonable distance from the ocean. something about seeing that green blue water sparkling, its color adopting nuances based on the weather…most beautiful under a clear sky.
today, while looking out of the 12 floor window of my class i caught a glimpse of water here…but it is different. i can’t quite see the lake from here, but i can see the river. it isn’t green or blue. it also isn’t studded with sailboats enjoying the breeze. it doesn’t offer me the same sense of peace that zed water did.
of course zed water never took over my street and left its mark throughout the city – muddy brown sludge to remember it by…water is water is water…but sometimes it isn’t.
Tags: me-ness, neworleans, newzealand
The “tipping point” is an interesting concept…the idea that things happen not solely or even mostly because of some genetic makeup but as the result of other things…like context.
The book references something called the “broken window theory”. Essentially, bad things happen in places where it looks like it won’t matter anyway. If the ground is already littered why not add your piece of trash, if the yards all look crappy why not yours, if the book is already written in and dog-eared one more pen – one more fold doesn’t matter.
He goes on to talk about the change in the crime rate in nyc in the ’90s and how the chief of police got his start as head of the metro police and he used this very theory…instead of focusing on the felonies taking place in outrageous numbers on the rail, he instead looked at petty crimes, fare jumpers and graffiti. The idea being that if you focus on those little things and improve the environment the bigger things are also affected. It worked. Trains were not allowed to leave with graffiti on them. Fare jumpers were arrested, searched for records, had their backgrounds checked for outstanding warrants. And over the course of a few years things began to change.
New Orleans – pre and post Katrina – comes to mind. Here is a city that even before being submerged in water for a month was, in many areas, falling apart at the seams. Rotting wood, peeling paint, gutted buildings, dirty streets…and ahhh…the smell of stale urine wafting through the quarter and from deserted lots and settling all over the city.
Crime was high.
And now people are concerned. Today the FBI made an announcement about their presence and how they are going to throw everything they have at the problem – the officers, the technology, everything.
But my mind raced back to the broken window…or in the case of New Orleans, the boarded up buildings, the gutted houses, the water soaked wood, and yes…the broken windows.
It seems such a small thing but I wonder what would happen if those things were tended to…both those from the storm and the decay of time and abandonment. Maybe what the city needs to make the leap from crime capital and depression is to look like it shouldn’t be the home of criminals…like happiness could live here.
Tags: books, neworleans, soapbox
Despite my distaste for “you’re beautiful” (although thanks to S and Liz I have a more nostalgic tolerance of it versus my original violent retching) I must admit that I like the james blunt album. Something about the different – bordering on annoying – quality of his voice…I think he uses it well. He merges it with a john maher sort of attention to music…back to the purity of the instruments to speak as much as his voice. And I dig it.
There is a ton of confounding to this but…I believe I work better when the sun is out. Yesterday I wasted an entire day. I don’t mean part of the day, I mean I woke up at a reasonable hour with the expectation of working and instead sat on the couch and watched bad television.
I can blame it in part to the reality that I hadn’t heard from S because he was somewhere over some body of water or land mass that I could not reach…but since this morning I still haven’t heard from him but the sun is shining and I am halfway finished with the paper for tomorrow’s class, I think I’ll deduce that the while S’s absence didn’t help, the dreary weather definitely hurt.
I do wonder how people do it…function in the cold and the wet. All it ever makes me want to do is curl up in bed with a good book, or o the couch with TV.
Ultimately I can make myself push on…I’ve done it before I’ll do it again, but oh how I love the glorious sun in a bright blue clear sky. It makes all the difference in the world to me.
Tags: me-ness
S likes to make reference to the bloody capitalist that is the west…he says mostly joking but with a sliver of true irritation for things like…thee $100 binding fee that was required for his two completed thesis documents. and i can relate…as i am currently enrolling in an online course that isn’t being offered this semester.
while i appreciate the ability to take this class…i must admit i’m irritated that i’m charged the exact same amount that i would be charged if i were taking up class space and a professor’s time. regardless of me having neither…tulane will get their money…and on the less whiney side, i will get my graduation.
yeah capitalists?
Tags: school
When I was an undergraduate there was no question…no way was I gonna go through four years of school and not walk across the stage for everyone to see. My whole family made the drive cross country to see it. Fifteen people, including three octogenarians, wedged themselves into three different vehicles to watch a bad speech and my 2 seconds of fame.
After that I vowed that school and I would never cross paths again but here I am after all…a semester away from graduation with the graduation application in hand and trying to decide…
Will I walk?
Before the hurricane I said I wasn’t going to go to graduation. But even as I said it was pretty sure I would – with a little prodding from my folks. But now, with an extra year of classes in Auckland and all my friends already graduated, I am seriously wondering if walking is worth it.
Should I go to my graduation? thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated
should i go to graduation?
- yes
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0
- no
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- only if… (add your own explanation)
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thrilled though i was that the weather in NO was so amazing upon my arrival (especially since i spent so much time in my car waiting for the key to arrive), i am not thrilled that it changed over night. last night the cold front that has been pounding oklahoma and texas has shifted itself to pound us too.
we went from shorts weather yesterday to 40 degrees today. and while i’m lucky this go round in the city – i have central heat) today is my first day of class and i’m so not looking forward to venturing outside. all the more so because i left my big coat in houston like a bloody idiot.
alas…today should be interesting!
Tags: me-ness, neworleans
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