Dear New Zealand

Dear New Zealand,
          I don't want to go into details. (What are the details anyway? Why do they matter? Whats the difference between one person missing or fifty people missing? or dead?) I'd still feel the sorrow and grief for those suffering. All that matters is that some part of our global community is hurting and so the rest of the world should feel something. Certainly I do. And I think details are too close to home right now. Personally, if I could afford the trip, I would go to help myself. But I believe you can come back from this. Keep up the efforts and don't give up. Express the emotions that need to be expressed. There should be no one judging you. New Zealand, I hope this will get better. But there is not much more to say but that I send encouragement, love and hope to you and those who have been touched by this natural disaster.


For those looking for more information...
Scenes of the New Zealand Earthquake 2011

Lyrics for the Soul

Mumford & Sons

Winter Winds

“In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life”

“In these bodies we will live”.

 In this lyric, I think there lies something deeper than just the subject of living. Perhaps it’s the fact that they do not say “we will live”, but rather “in these bodies we will live.” "In these bodies". What does it mean, "In these bodies"? Sure our bodies live. How else am I here typing and talking like every other living person? I think it’s because the point is we are not our bodies. Rather vague I know, but what I mean is that there is more to a person than just their flesh and bone. There's another part: the soul. It’s an inhabitant of this suit of biodegradable matter. The thing that is actually us is INSIDE our bodies, no the body itself.

“In these bodies we will die”.

No matter what, dying is a part of life. It’s only a name for the end chapter. Just like the beginning is called birth. It makes sense that when you live your like in a body that you will die in a body. This lyric conveys a sense of ending. It will happen. It could be later today, or tomorrow, or in a couple of weeks, in a few months or even in ten years. It’s a fact that will come to be and there’s no way to avoid it. Someday, the bodies that hold our souls will no longer be able to contain them.

“Where you invest you love, you invest your life”.

It’s true. Love is life. It is the euphoria that makes us want to move on even through the hard times in life. It’ would be no wonder that you want to have what you love and makes you feel good around you. Your love directs where you want to be or what you want to do. A love for a specific subject like history will lead you into a job surrounded by history if you really work towards it. You wouldn’t go into a math field. Love is truly the force that drives us through life. Investing it into something means you dedicate your life to it.

Stupid Sidewalk Snowplows

It’s like any winter morning. There’s snow. It just so happened that there was quite a few more inches of snow that had yet to be attended. Still the buses were on. I could almost hear the groans of thousands of students who had expected a snow day. I’m a walker and so are the two friends that I walk with everyday to school. Being a walker, I have to go into the cold weather anyway. A few more inches surely wouldn’t bother me more than snow usually does. So I set out at my usual time, 7:55am.

            There was a problem though. When we crossed to road to walk on the sidewalk, we discovered that the sidewalk plow hadn’t done its job yet. So now, there was easily three or four inches of snow layering the sidewalk and a foot and a half border created by the road plows. It wasn’t going to be easy to walk on the sidewalk today. The road however, had already been plowed earlier that morning. We then decided that we would walk on the road.

A stupid idea really, since we were walking on the only available side; the wrong side. And it didn’t help that we had to walk up a hill. On the wrong side. Any car that came over that hill fast would most likely hit us or cause a horrific accident. Luckily, we made it over the hill without any fatalities.

There was another delay when we hit the corner gate that leads you through the field. No one has walked it yet and there is a little bit of the path that was there before. It was either face the snow or walk around. If the sidewalks were plowed, we could have easily just gone around and still be on time. Walking on the road had caused us to lose time. Walking around would most likely make me late and keep me out in the cold longer. Walking through would get me there faster, but there is no knowing where the path is exactly and there was a risk of hitting deep snow. Being on time won in the end.

I lead the trudge through the snow. We mostly were able to follow the old path of packed snow that hid under the new stuff. We didn’t always manage to stick to it. A few times we ended up in knee deep snow. But we made it. Or, at least almost did. When it came the gate that lead into the school, it happened. I placed my foot in the wrong spot and I went down. The fast and flurriest. I fell into a heap of snow that had looked like it was waiting for this moment. It seemed to throw confetti of snow into the air to celebrate my tumble.

I stood up and continue into the school. My hands were bright red and achy from being exposed to cold and my cheeks flushed. Now my legs were frozen too. I couldn’t help but feel eyes on me and my new white pants through out the walk to first class. My pants never thawed and dried off until easily third period. I can’t help but think that if the sidewalk plow had been doing its job, I could have avoided the discomfort. Stupid sidewalk snowplows.

White Ivory

They were following from the top of the canyon, an easy spot to view the entire herd without getting to close to frighten them off, or to have them attack. The crunch of their steel-toed boots was barely audible, even to the sensitive ears of the elephants, which was a another plus to being up so high. These people had been following for the past three days across the sizzling hot savannah of Africa. They had observed their actions, keeping close tabs on them, and the traveling patterns for future references, in case all didn’t go well.

The elephants were following a path that went into a deep canyon, most likely it was a path that was etched into the matriarchs mind, a possible a path to some elephant euphoria. They humans minds rejoiced at that thought. More to chose from.

The matriarch was probably one of the biggest females the owner of the boots had ever seen, and she was an older elephant and had some battle scars, lines of a lighter grey scratched across her face, and more noticeable, she had broken tusks. They were booth broken, one almost completely gone, and the other only half remained. Looking at them, you had to wonder what had caused such a violent fight so that tusks would snap off. Had it been an opposing herd that meant harm? A male elephant that was unwelcome? Or had it been that she just decided to tear down a tree? The stalkers crossed her off their mental list as a candidate.

 They needed an elephant in its prime. One who was healthy, with large tusks. They continued scanning along the line of elephants, evaluating each, deciding if they were healthy looking enough. They saw about six and maybe even seven good candidates out of the group of ten. Some were young ones, about maybe five to fifteen years of age, which was indicated by the size of their tusks, which were small or non-existent. The other four were either reaching their prime or like the matriarch, just leaving. That included one other female, who appeared to have grown no tusks at all.

 The eyes kept following along the herd, evaluating every elephant along the way, when sudden action and noise caught their attention. It sounded like an alarm. They quickly looked to the end of the marching line, hopping they hadn’t been spotted by the herd.

There was a calf, maybe not even a month old, stumbling over rocks that had fallen off the canyons walls. The baby was very small, its skin was still the new and dark grey of that of a newborn. The eyes watched at the baby struggled to get up and follow. It let out a high distress call again, calling for its mother. One of the elephants who was last in line stopped and started turning around to the baby. It was the mother. And she was exactly what they were looking for.

She was young, and healthy. As she turned, her long white tusks glinted in the sun, almost blinding the humans who were following. The mother continued to walk toward her young, and reached out with her trunk to assist the baby in getting up. It was a tear-jerking sight, the sight of a mother and baby bond. They entwined trunks and the mother lifted the baby up. The rest of the herd continued to move on, picking their way through the debris filled canyon, expecting the mother and baby to catch up. The baby quickly ran to the mothers side, giving off inaudible sounds, and the mother gave comforting ones back.

There was about twenty feet between the herd and the mother and calf, this was the moment they had waited for. The one human signaled to the others. One human lifted the hefty weapon they had brought along. He pulled the trigger, pushing out the bullet in return. It soared though the air hitting its target with a thud. The gunshot was followed by the slow fall and heavy thud of an elephant body.

The baby trumpeted, nudging the mother, curious to why she fell down. The herd raced back to the aid of the mother. They stroked and poked with their trunks, looking for signs of life. Some nudged with their tusks, trying to roll her and help her up to her feet. The baby was now trumpeting wildly. It sounded more like screeches instead of the regular elephant call. The herd joined in, and a chorus of grieving screeches echoed through the canyon for days. The stalkers smiled and congratulated themselves. They hit the jackpot, white ivory.