Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
"Listen, Jake," he leaned forward on the bar. "Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?"
"Yes, every once in a while."
"Do you know that in about thirty-five years more we'll be dead?"
"What the hell, Robert," I said. "What the hell."
"I'm serious."
"It's one thing I don't worry about," I said.
"You ought to."
"I've had plenty to worry about one time or other. I'm through worrying."
"Well, I want to go to South America."
"Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn't make any difference. I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that."
"But you've never been to South America."
"South America hell! If you went there the way you feel now it would be exactly the same. This is a good town. Why don't you start living your life in Paris?"
25.9.08
24.9.08
16.9.08
finally
a look and leave policy has been put into action.
tomorrow my parents and aunt and uncle are going to go down tomorrow.
a $2000 fine will be given to anyone who stays after curfew at 6 PM.
tomorrow my parents and aunt and uncle are going to go down tomorrow.
a $2000 fine will be given to anyone who stays after curfew at 6 PM.
hurricane ike.
Items i took with me during the evacuation:
computer, some t-shirts, three pairs of blue jeans, a pair of dress shoes, a pair of vans, two pairs of flip-flops, one dress, two pairs of shorts, a number of books (Anna Karenina, Perrine Book of Literature, scriptures, Discourses of President Hinckley, Not my Will But Thine, The Turn of the Screw, +more), a few dvds (Stranger than Fiction, Dead Poets Society, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Testaments), ipod, and the few journals i still have here. I'm lucky. I have most of my things in storage in Utah.
My friend, Summer, stayed on the island during the hurricane because she's INSANE. Thankfully she's safe and I've been able to talk to her rather regularly since Sunday evening. She's been by my house and seen the water level. It's about halfway up our front door so I'm pretty sure most of our things have been either damaged or destroyed. She also said there's a small dumpster on our front porch.
My family is all safe here in Forney, a small suburb outside of Dallas. There are 14 people staying in a small 3 bedroom home. The family of four that lives here has taken in my whole family (6 people) and my aunt and uncle's family (4 people). It's a bit crowded but I am incredibly grateful to have people so willing to take us in at a moment's notice. They've been feeding us like crazy and treating us like royalty. We went to church here on Sunday and Stef has started going to seminary. She might start going to classes up here too. My parents and aunt and uncle are considering finding a house we can rent together for a month. We are just trying to decide whether we want to do this in Dallas or Houston which is a lot closer to Galveston. All TAMUG classes are being moved to College Station. We can't afford Chris to go up there so he's most likely withdrawing from all of his classes this semester.
I just read on the Galveston Daily News website that the mayor of Galveston has ordered all city employees not to talk to news media. (The editorial also on the Daily New website was interesting.) It's been obvious that the media hasn't been focusing on Galveston at all. Now there's this from the mayor. Only the mayor and city manager are allowed to speak to the media. The last press conference they held was less than half an hour and they only answered five questions. I noticed something that might be a discrepancy in what news was available yesterday. They said that 90% of Galveston has been searched and that 1500 people were accounted for. If they estimated that 20,000 people stayed, with only 10% of the island left to search are they expecting to find all the other 18,500 people there? I mean, seriously. How are they planning finally to tell us everything they've been keeping from us? You can't change a Texas death toll from 5 people to 5000 overnight without there being questions and many many angry people.
I am so angry. I've probably lost most of my possessions from since I was born. I am sad, distraught, confused and frustrated and now the city officials are only exacerbating the situation by giving us so little information about my hometown. I understand that they really cannot know when things will be back up and running in Galveston but not knowing ANYTHING about what's going on is really freaking frustrating. Every evacuee has his/her life on pause and there is no telling when we can press play again. There are people out of work. My parents are lucky enough to work for UTMB who is giving them paid leave but there are so many others that do not even have buildings they can return to work in. There are children out of school and we don't know when they could go back.
I don't know what to do. I'm so annoyed. I am so frustrated. I am so angry. I can't think of any other adjectives to use; that is in itself an example of how crazy I am going.
Even the President has nothing to say: "Bush, who later took an aerial tour of the area, declined to issue a statement to the press or answer any questions while in Galveston." (Galveston Daily News)
computer, some t-shirts, three pairs of blue jeans, a pair of dress shoes, a pair of vans, two pairs of flip-flops, one dress, two pairs of shorts, a number of books (Anna Karenina, Perrine Book of Literature, scriptures, Discourses of President Hinckley, Not my Will But Thine, The Turn of the Screw, +more), a few dvds (Stranger than Fiction, Dead Poets Society, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Testaments), ipod, and the few journals i still have here. I'm lucky. I have most of my things in storage in Utah.
My friend, Summer, stayed on the island during the hurricane because she's INSANE. Thankfully she's safe and I've been able to talk to her rather regularly since Sunday evening. She's been by my house and seen the water level. It's about halfway up our front door so I'm pretty sure most of our things have been either damaged or destroyed. She also said there's a small dumpster on our front porch.
My family is all safe here in Forney, a small suburb outside of Dallas. There are 14 people staying in a small 3 bedroom home. The family of four that lives here has taken in my whole family (6 people) and my aunt and uncle's family (4 people). It's a bit crowded but I am incredibly grateful to have people so willing to take us in at a moment's notice. They've been feeding us like crazy and treating us like royalty. We went to church here on Sunday and Stef has started going to seminary. She might start going to classes up here too. My parents and aunt and uncle are considering finding a house we can rent together for a month. We are just trying to decide whether we want to do this in Dallas or Houston which is a lot closer to Galveston. All TAMUG classes are being moved to College Station. We can't afford Chris to go up there so he's most likely withdrawing from all of his classes this semester.
I just read on the Galveston Daily News website that the mayor of Galveston has ordered all city employees not to talk to news media. (The editorial also on the Daily New website was interesting.) It's been obvious that the media hasn't been focusing on Galveston at all. Now there's this from the mayor. Only the mayor and city manager are allowed to speak to the media. The last press conference they held was less than half an hour and they only answered five questions. I noticed something that might be a discrepancy in what news was available yesterday. They said that 90% of Galveston has been searched and that 1500 people were accounted for. If they estimated that 20,000 people stayed, with only 10% of the island left to search are they expecting to find all the other 18,500 people there? I mean, seriously. How are they planning finally to tell us everything they've been keeping from us? You can't change a Texas death toll from 5 people to 5000 overnight without there being questions and many many angry people.
I am so angry. I've probably lost most of my possessions from since I was born. I am sad, distraught, confused and frustrated and now the city officials are only exacerbating the situation by giving us so little information about my hometown. I understand that they really cannot know when things will be back up and running in Galveston but not knowing ANYTHING about what's going on is really freaking frustrating. Every evacuee has his/her life on pause and there is no telling when we can press play again. There are people out of work. My parents are lucky enough to work for UTMB who is giving them paid leave but there are so many others that do not even have buildings they can return to work in. There are children out of school and we don't know when they could go back.
I don't know what to do. I'm so annoyed. I am so frustrated. I am so angry. I can't think of any other adjectives to use; that is in itself an example of how crazy I am going.
Even the President has nothing to say: "Bush, who later took an aerial tour of the area, declined to issue a statement to the press or answer any questions while in Galveston." (Galveston Daily News)
2.9.08
an update an update!
Someone told me when I graduated that college would be the time during which I would grow the most and become my own person. I think they were right to an extent; I don't think you necessarily have to be at college to take advantage of this period of growth in your life. Late teens and early twenties tend to be when people really start distinguishing themselves from the messy indistinguishable blob that consists of their parents and younger siblings. You don't have to be at school to do that, although much of that learning experience happened while I was at BYU. Now that I'm home I'm still learning a lot. It's weird and unfortunate to think that I'll be twenty soon and I'm still living at my parents' house. The only thing that makes me not start wailing and attacking doors to get out is that I know these last few months will probably be the last months I'll ever spend actually living here. If I don't learn to appreciate my family now, I'll never have a better opportunity. I've realized my family isn't perfect and that all of my siblings have things about them I don't like and then I fantasize about my future family and how perfect they'll be, when in all honesty, there will disagreements and imperfections there too. If I don't gain the skills to just deal with people that aren't like me or appreciate them, then I'm going to have a pretty rough time in life.
Fun Story time:
My family, Summer and her mother, and Brenden watched Shanghai Noon last night. I decided I wanted to try one of the stunts they did on there. Unfortunately, I didn't even consider that even when they did the stunt in the movie, the character ended up on the ground in pain, I just thought it looked cool. So I had Reuben hold my left leg up as I tried to swing my right leg out from underneath me and kick him in the face. Apparently when none of your limbs are touching the ground, you end up falling pretty fast. And hard. I may have finally accepted that just because I'm asian doesn't mean I'm automatically a ninja.
Fun Story time:
My family, Summer and her mother, and Brenden watched Shanghai Noon last night. I decided I wanted to try one of the stunts they did on there. Unfortunately, I didn't even consider that even when they did the stunt in the movie, the character ended up on the ground in pain, I just thought it looked cool. So I had Reuben hold my left leg up as I tried to swing my right leg out from underneath me and kick him in the face. Apparently when none of your limbs are touching the ground, you end up falling pretty fast. And hard. I may have finally accepted that just because I'm asian doesn't mean I'm automatically a ninja.
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