Tuesday, after you take a shower. Can't wait. ;)
Monday, December 04, 2006
Monday, May 01, 2006
Musing from May 2006
It doesn't matter if you fall, as long as you get back up.
'Fall' sounds like 'fail', and getting back up conveys a sense of starting over, so the entire metaphor is easily applicable to the world we find around us. It's so easy, that it makes the entire process of failing and starting over seem much too simple.
Let me tell you something. When you fall/fail and fail hard, so hard that the blow disorients you more than 21 shots of tequila ever could, it is damn hard to get back up. In fact, you might stumble and crawl and refall a number of times before you ever raise your head high enough to see more than ten feet in front of your face. And then, when you're finally up, your limbs are still very weak, and even the smallest ruts in the road have the potential to knock you right back down on your knees.
My fall from grace happenned this time last year when the immense load of work and responsiblility and ambition I was carrying collapsed and trapped me. Every day since I have had to carefully navigate every small rut in the cement sidewalk of my life. I say sidewalk, because I still have not been able to merge onto Main Street me. And at times, like right now before exam time, I feel as if I am about to fall face first right back in the same hole that tripped me up the first time. But of course this hole is much different. This hole is a product of what I haven't been able to do/strong enough to do since my last fall.
When you are struggling to walk, to be normal again, it is very hard to concentrate on anything else. It seems as if the past year has been a pattern of blunders, ranging from the minor to the inconceivable, both in my personal life and in my pre-professional school career. I don't ever remember struggling like this, being this lazy, this impartial to everything going on around me. The good things that do happen are simply products of my instincts - that little advantage I still have over others due to my intelligence that lets me get away with things I otherwise couldn't. It can be likened to a lazy football player, who is so athletic that he can still cover all of his routes even though he doesn't care enough to apply good technique. And, at the end of the day, you just feel as if you're squandering your talent.
I know that the only times I feel at peace is when I am working. Sadly, I waste so much time worrying about other things, that I never work.
Maybe I should get back to work now.
'Fall' sounds like 'fail', and getting back up conveys a sense of starting over, so the entire metaphor is easily applicable to the world we find around us. It's so easy, that it makes the entire process of failing and starting over seem much too simple.
Let me tell you something. When you fall/fail and fail hard, so hard that the blow disorients you more than 21 shots of tequila ever could, it is damn hard to get back up. In fact, you might stumble and crawl and refall a number of times before you ever raise your head high enough to see more than ten feet in front of your face. And then, when you're finally up, your limbs are still very weak, and even the smallest ruts in the road have the potential to knock you right back down on your knees.
My fall from grace happenned this time last year when the immense load of work and responsiblility and ambition I was carrying collapsed and trapped me. Every day since I have had to carefully navigate every small rut in the cement sidewalk of my life. I say sidewalk, because I still have not been able to merge onto Main Street me. And at times, like right now before exam time, I feel as if I am about to fall face first right back in the same hole that tripped me up the first time. But of course this hole is much different. This hole is a product of what I haven't been able to do/strong enough to do since my last fall.
When you are struggling to walk, to be normal again, it is very hard to concentrate on anything else. It seems as if the past year has been a pattern of blunders, ranging from the minor to the inconceivable, both in my personal life and in my pre-professional school career. I don't ever remember struggling like this, being this lazy, this impartial to everything going on around me. The good things that do happen are simply products of my instincts - that little advantage I still have over others due to my intelligence that lets me get away with things I otherwise couldn't. It can be likened to a lazy football player, who is so athletic that he can still cover all of his routes even though he doesn't care enough to apply good technique. And, at the end of the day, you just feel as if you're squandering your talent.
I know that the only times I feel at peace is when I am working. Sadly, I waste so much time worrying about other things, that I never work.
Maybe I should get back to work now.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Message From New Orleans' Student Heroes
Thank you all for supporting this important cause. The victims in New Orleans still need our help. Although when we arrived the Superdome and the Convention Center were evacuated, the city was still full of our country's poorest and most down-trodden people. Spread the message that they WERE NOT trapped by Katrina in the Convention Center. They were trapped by bureaucratic ineptitude and red tape. Our evacuees said "we felt like strangers in our own city." They were abandoned, but NOT by the volunteers like you all with open wallets, hands, and hearts. Volunteers like you and me could have saved so many people, but we WERE NOT ALLOWED to. This is wrong. 20 - 25,ooo people lived without food, water, assistance, law for 4 or 5 days in a building that was hell on earth. There were murders, rapes, beatings. The heat was unbearable. Feces and urine coated all carpeting. The second and third floors of the convention center had stacks of bodies (which we did NOT see, the military officers gave us this information). The blame must now be placed with higher levels for this inhumane and unamerican. The lower levels (volunteers, the mayor of New Orleans) have been amazing, although their assistance is severely limited by seemingly senseless rules passed down from on high. Please continue this campaign in support of those who are stranded inside of New Orleans. There are still many in the city. Thanks again. Sonny Byrd, Hans Buder, David Hankla
Monday, September 05, 2005
3 Duke Student Activists Sneak Into New Orleans and Save Lives
Spark Kindle Ignite has been in the planning for several months now. The title refers to a philosophy of student activism developed at Duke University by a group of students in the fall of 2004.
Any cause that one wishes to support and become active in/for requires the interest of the public. Indeed, at Duke we have come to believe that a good student activist has to be able to sell a cause much like businesses have to sell products. To that end we were able to break down the 3 essential steps of any student activist initiative
Step 1 is Sparking interest
Step 2 is Kindling interest with involvement
Step 3 is Igniting Involvement with ownership
This philosophy of student activism will be a constant theme of this blog, and though I planned to spend more time on it in the first entry, Hurricane Katrina is the real reason the blog opens today.
Each week you can anticipate a feature example of outstanding student activism from around the world (some weeks there may be several). This week's story was inspiring enough to warrant not only an early blog premiere, but what are sure to be a litany of news articles across the country.
Duke University Sophomores Hans Buder, Sonny Byrd and David Hankla loaded up their 2 wheel drive Hyundai with bottled water last Sunday afternoon and kicked the Korean motor into high gear, straight towards the epicenter of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy. The trip was precipitated by the ghastly images of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath eminating from the television and newspapers. According to them, they acted on the gut feelings those images produced - the same feelings a lot of us Americans had, if only for a split second - a feeling of immediacy to get down to the devastation and help in any way possible.
During what amounted to a 3 day oddysey the trio forged AP press documents, snuck into New Orleans, made it all the way to the convention center....oh, and manage to save 7 stranded people from near death. (I dont mean to be melodramatic, but if the above tone cannot be used in describing this story, then we might as well throw melodrama out of the English language entirely.)
The link to the story is below, I suggest you check it out and, when you can, send a word of congratulations to Hans, David, and Sonny. Their labor and sacrifice have highlighted one of the main principles of student activism, and activism in general for that matter - Activism is a labor of the heart, and the randomest of us have the power to act on the direction that our heart's instincts provide us.
http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-643298.html.
Sonny Bird, congrats man. Ill keep looking for you in the papers. -WR
Any cause that one wishes to support and become active in/for requires the interest of the public. Indeed, at Duke we have come to believe that a good student activist has to be able to sell a cause much like businesses have to sell products. To that end we were able to break down the 3 essential steps of any student activist initiative
Step 1 is Sparking interest
Step 2 is Kindling interest with involvement
Step 3 is Igniting Involvement with ownership
This philosophy of student activism will be a constant theme of this blog, and though I planned to spend more time on it in the first entry, Hurricane Katrina is the real reason the blog opens today.
Each week you can anticipate a feature example of outstanding student activism from around the world (some weeks there may be several). This week's story was inspiring enough to warrant not only an early blog premiere, but what are sure to be a litany of news articles across the country.
Duke University Sophomores Hans Buder, Sonny Byrd and David Hankla loaded up their 2 wheel drive Hyundai with bottled water last Sunday afternoon and kicked the Korean motor into high gear, straight towards the epicenter of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy. The trip was precipitated by the ghastly images of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath eminating from the television and newspapers. According to them, they acted on the gut feelings those images produced - the same feelings a lot of us Americans had, if only for a split second - a feeling of immediacy to get down to the devastation and help in any way possible.
During what amounted to a 3 day oddysey the trio forged AP press documents, snuck into New Orleans, made it all the way to the convention center....oh, and manage to save 7 stranded people from near death. (I dont mean to be melodramatic, but if the above tone cannot be used in describing this story, then we might as well throw melodrama out of the English language entirely.)
The link to the story is below, I suggest you check it out and, when you can, send a word of congratulations to Hans, David, and Sonny. Their labor and sacrifice have highlighted one of the main principles of student activism, and activism in general for that matter - Activism is a labor of the heart, and the randomest of us have the power to act on the direction that our heart's instincts provide us.
http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-643298.html.
Sonny Bird, congrats man. Ill keep looking for you in the papers. -WR
