One Love

On Saturday, my friends and I went to Reggaefest, a yearly outdoor concert series that takes place at a beautiful park on James Island. Every year I look forward to it, and this year was no exception. It was a hot sticky night, but nobody minded. As soon as we got there we were enveloped by great music, all sorts of people, and the most serene and welcoming vibe I had been a part of in a long time. Charleston is generally a divided city -- rich and poor, black and white, young and old -- they seldom come together for the same reasons. Yet here we all were -- all shapes, colors and sizes, jamming to the same beat, sweating in the night, high on life (some probably on more than life) -- overwhelmingly accepting one another as we were. It was just a beautiful, beautiful night.

Medusa Rising

Sometimes you are forced to deal with the darkest side of yourself.

Last night, I got into an argument with my roommate about God and the meaning of existence. He's a Christian; I consider myself agnostic. He was rude, ignorant, and insulting. Accused me of blaspheming and called me soul-less. I got flustered because I was just trying to explain, without judging, how one could believe in something else or nothing at all and still be a decent human being. And instead of taking his insults in, letting myself breathe and stopping to think, I blew up. I was rude, insulting, and ignorant in return. I felt justified at the time because I was hurt. I slammed the door, and the anger seethed inside me for many sleepless hours.

Today, I'm ashamed of how I reacted, and I'm upset at the inability I displayed at controlling my own emotions. Not only that, but the entire episode was ineffectual. He apologized in a lengthy letter for being "unchristian" (note the irony), but I know I didn't make him respect my or anybody else's views any more than before the conversation. And what could I have learned from him? Still, I am perturbed by the rapid and complete transformation that took place in the shortest amount of time. When the nastiest part of my character reared its ugly head, it overpowered my consciousness and acted on its own. I could regret it later, but what's said is said and done is done. Just makes me think about how I would react in different settings --place me in Sierra Leone or Sudan now, Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia 80 years ago. It's quite the scary thought. Would the part of my character that believes in love and acceptance prevail? Or would I become the righteous monster of last night?

You know you went to an international school when...

Someone else wrote this, but here are some of my favorites...

1) You can't answer the question: "Where are you from?"
2) You speak two (or more) languages but can't spell in any of them.
3) You flew before you could walk.
4) You run into someone you know at every airport
5) You have a time zone map next to your telephone.
6) Your life story uses the phrase "Then we went to..." five times (or six, or seven times...).
7) You speak with authority on the quality of airline travel.
8) National Geographic (OR THE TRAVEL CHANNEL) makes you homesick.
9) You read the international section before the comics.
10) You don't know where home is.
11) You sort your friends by continent.
12) You feel that multiple passports would be appropriate.
13) You watch a movie set in a 'foreign country', and you know what the nationals are really saying into the camera.
14) Rain on a tile patio - or a corrugated metal roof - is one of the most wonderful sounds in the world.
15) Your wardrobe can only handle two seasons: wet and dry.
16) Your high school memories include those days that school was canceled due to tear gas, riots, demonstrations, or bomb threats.
17) Your dorm room/apartment/living room looks a little like a museum with all the "exotic" things you have around.
18) Half of your phone calls are unintelligible to those around you.
19) You have best friends in 5 different countries.
20) It takes 24 hours to reach home in a plane
21) When a friend talks about their dreams of traveling to across the world to a secluded country and you can give them all the best restaurants and places to visit. You're like the traveler guidebook.
22) You hate subtitles because you know there is someone that can make an accurate translation.. you!
23) You have little or no contact with the locals but are best friends with people across the globe
24) When something unusual happens and it just doesn't seem to phase you as being something unordinary
25) When you speak many broken languages at once when you are drunk

Excerpt

"'Tis frightening to me sometimes, that all our reasoning and works are so provisional, so damned fragile, and someday we pass away like the strain of breath on a mirror and sink back into that from whence we've come."
From Middle Passage, by Charles Johnson.

Going Further

So I think I've decided something quite unexpected. I'm going to run a half-marathon this year. Honestly, I don't even like long-distance running that much. I'm much more of a sprint, wind-in-your-face kind of runner. BUT. Things being as they are, I really enjoyed the 10K race, especially running so much faster than I thought I was able to. Now I want to take it a step further, and complete 13.1 miles. I know it will be tough, and challenging, but I also hope it will be doable. I imagine it will be. I haven't decided which one yet, but it will probably be within driving distance of Charleston... maybe Virginia or something. Woohoo!!

Shane Bernier

Here's an article by an Ottawa Newspaper that caught my attention. I'm mailing him a card tomorrow and if you read this blog, please consider doing it as well. I did some online research, and it's not a hoax.

For most of us, birthday cards are a nice gesture. But for Shane Bernier, every card will mean the world -- as in world record.
Shane, a cancer patient at CHEO, will turn eight on May 30 and all he wants is a card from as many people as possible so he can set a Guinness world record.
There is no actual record for most birthday cards received in a single year, but another child who had cancer holds a greeting card record of sorts. Between his eighth and 22nd birthdays, he received 350 million get well cards.

Shane Bernier has received 10,000 cards so far. Another 1,000 come daily.
Guinness is considering whether Shane's idea could be considered a different category.
The quest started when Shane told his mother how he loved receiving cards in the hospital. He later told her he'd love to get lots and lots of birthday cards in May.
His grandfather and his mother let all their friends and acquaintances know and that's when the world record quest began. Now, between the Internet, radio and television coverage, his mother, Nathalie, figures they've collected 10,000 and the cards keep coming. Every day, they receive about 1,000 more.
"Everywhere he looks, there are cards," Ms. Bernier said yesterday when she and Shane returned to their Lancaster home from CHEO. "They're in the living room, dining room. There are boxes of them everywhere, all over the place."
They can't display them all, but Shane opens every envelope and reads the cards that are written in French. His mother and grandparents read the English ones to him. He displays his favourites, including Spider-Man cards and ones with pop-up features.
Ms. Bernier admits it takes a lot of time to get through them, "but it makes him happy, so we don't care."
Shane was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia three years ago and had early remission, but then relapsed in July 2006, just 22 weeks short of his treatment protocol, which was supposed to have finished at Christmas.
Now he's receiving stronger chemotherapy until the end of June and then he'll be in a maintenance program with weaker chemo into 2008.
If the chemo doesn't work, he might have to have a bone marrow transplant at some point. His six-year-old brother, Jacob, is a match.
Shane's weekly treatment doesn't make him throw up, but it often gives him a fever, which means he ends up in hospital so that he's not exposed to infections that could make him sicker.
After this round of treatment, he has an 80-per cent chance of being OK for the rest of his life, Ms. Bernier said.
When he's well, Shane loves to play road hockey and baseball and listen to "the oldies" music from the 1950s and '60s. "He doesn't like the new stuff," said Ms. Bernier, who is a single parent.

Dreams, Money, and Opportunity

I have been thinking a lot about what to do when I'm not in school over the summer and when I graduate in December. Ideally, I would like to work for an international non-profit and gain some experience in the field which I could use later in studying international law. Ideally. But it's turning out to be very difficult to turn my idea into practice.
All the non-profits I have looked into have plenty of volunteer opportunities and internships available. The problem is -- they are all unpaid. I am trying to pay my way through my last semester in graduate school, and there is no way I can afford to live in Washington or New York, or to travel overseas without a source of income. How are people interested in working for non-profits going to get the requisite experience to get a paying job if they don't have the money saved?
I have a lot of friends who are doing exactly what they want to do with their lives. I am jealous of them, not because they accomplishing their goals, but because they are doing it without having to worry about who's paying for them to accomplish their dreams. These friends are out traveling the world, applying to the most expensive schools, volunteering and interning for free in many countries, and they don't have to worry about where their money is coming from or what will happen to them if they don't succeed. They know they have a financial safety net -- either through their families or inheritances. They can pursue their dreams because they are not constrained by their finances.
How can those people who are not as lucky get their lives on the path to success? Do you try to make enough money and push your dreams to the backburner with the idea of coming back to them when you are financially stable; or do you throw caution to the wind and pursue your dreams even though there will be noone to catch you if you fall? Why isn't there a simple, paid internship alternative that eliminates the problem altogether? The way it works now just reinforces the concept that money, in too many situations, defines opportunity.