Friday Night at UCSD

Postcards from Hell

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/20/postcards_from_hell_2011?page=0,0

I'm back to brooding about the world, humanitarian crises, what can actually be done about it.

I sit in my classes and am distracted by the fact that what we're studying is not abstract theory; the examples are not hypothetical. The suffering is real.

I wade through the stack of books and articles assigned each day and tear up at the heartbreaking accounts found within their pages. These details aren't fictional. The unending hardships aren't conjectured. The pain is real.

I flip through dozens of newspapers and history books for my final research paper and am continually surprised and appalled by my findings. I knew there were horrors in the world; just not the terrible extent of them.

Postcards from Hell is a collection of photographs from the world's most failed states. Read it. It's real. I know people from many of those countries. I love people from some of these countries. This isn't something to read about and apathetically sympathize. The suffering, the pain, the turmoil, the people, the blood...it's all so real.

Can anything be done? What? How?

Calories

I enrolled in an intense pe class this quarter and as part of my homework I'm supposed to record what I eat each day.

So for today's record:

Breakfast:

Cold cereal

Water

Brownie

Lunch:

Salad (lettuce, eggs, cheese, tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, ham and beans)

Snack:

Brownie

Cottage cheese and banana

Peanut butter

Bowl of ice-cream

Another brownie

Bowl of pop-corn

I think I'm gonna fail this class.

Chocolate and friends

I desperately needed chocolate today. It was beyond mere cravings; no, it became an all-consuming obsession that would not be stemmed.

So I made gooey ghirardelli brownies.

I needed a pan though, so I headed down the hall to Brian's dorm to borrow one (seriously, I love men who cook).

Later, when our kitchen was filled with the aroma of fresh-baked brownies, Manny from building 8 poked his head in and cut himself a corner. We burned our fingers on the molten chocolate.

As I helped myself to a piece, Matt next door texted with an invitation to share his freshly-brewed coffee. I scooped up another block of chocolatey decadence for him and headed over. He nibbled away on his brownie and I curled up on his couch sipping my steaming coffee and we talked about neuro-science and sociopsychology.

I love the constant flow of friends and casual conversation we engage in. Our door is always propped open, and I never know who's grinning face will appear in the doorframe. We have all perfected the art of gliding; someone will come in, sit down, share in a card game or guitar song or laugh or whatever's on the stove, we'll talk about something amusing or frustrating, and then they'll head out. And I do the same with their dorms. It's like a huge family.

I love us.

"Suffering is never just pure suffering..."

"In the dim reaches of misery, insomnia is a constant companion, especially when twenty-first-century people die of nineteenth-century-afflictions..." -Paul Farmer, Haiti; After the Earthquake

When I was in Jamaica I held children dying of preventable diseases. I watched the elderly struggle to breathe when, had they been in the US, their symptoms could have been relieved in minutes. The level of poverty, neglect, and medical inadequacy was heartbreaking and I was overwhelmed by my inability to make a difference. How can you fight against a longstanding lack of investment in medical infrastructure and training? How can you fight to save lives when proper supplies are simply non-existant?

As desperate as the need is in Jamaica, I know communities around the world suffer far worse. Even my finite knowledge of the social, economic and medical devastation Haitians still suffer since the horrific earthquake in 2010 is staggering. Right now, over 200,000 Pakistanis are in urgent need of shelter and attention as massive floods ravage their homes and lands. As we speak, Somalia is enduring one of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today; twenty years of conflict and drought have uprooted over a quarter of the country's 7.5 million people.

Millions of people are suffering worldwide, and yet, as Paul Farmer recounts in his book Haiti: After the Earthquake, "Everyone wanted to help, but no-one knew exactly what to do. We wanted to be rescued by expertise, but we never were....[We were surrounded] by arguments and competition between different dispensers of "disaster relief" over the privilege of looking after people who had long been neglected."

It is difficult to accept the awful reality that 1) there is very little coordination between NGOs and humanitarian organizations and 2) life-saving aid is often prevented by tangles of bureaucratic red tape, governments paranoid about protecting their sovereignty, or leaders resisting any semblance of Western imperialism. Governments refuse international aid to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people within their borders or allow millions to starve as they look the other way.

The question can not be "why?", but rather "what can be done?" Maybe I'm naive and idealistic, but there has to be a way to prevent the unnecessary loss of lives...especially on such massive scales as we are currently seeing. What will it take? What needs to be done? How can this be tackled? I don't have the answers. I don't know how any potential solution could possibly work. It feels hopeless. But we were born here and not there for a reason. We are not Somalian or Pakistani or Haitian or Sudanese for a reason. We might not know the answer yet, but that doesn't lessen the significance of the search. We live privileged lives; a blessing that comes with much responsibility.

We can't forget that.

College

It's 2am and I feel like I'm going to bed early.

The Adventures of the Girls in 5202

The dorm is momentarily quiet and I'm snuggled up in our huge, blue, swivel-chair snatching a moment to write. The last couple days have been an exciting whirlwind of activities and I'm so madly in love with university life it's almost obsessive. I still can hardly believe I'm here, but instead of feeling like a tiny microbe in the vast UCSD ocean....I feel like I'm at home. Like I belong. I've made some amazing friends in the past couple days and suddenly I feel like I'm surrounded by people I've known for forever. It's a beautiful scenario of "friendship-at-first-sight".

So much has happened, I've got to post in bullets:

* In an outburst of boredom and friendliness, my roommate Lizzy and I decided to throw a beach bonfire party for our building. We went door to door introducing ourselves and inviting our neighbors to our bonfire which got us some strange glances, but mostly excited "yes!!"es. Through a series of unforeseen events, we ended up building our own fire-ring on the nearby nude beach (no lifeguards or police patrol nude beaches), watched a gorgeous sunset, and roasted s'mores under the dazzling La Jolla stars. There were probably 10 or 11 of us, and we laughed, shared stories, encouraged each other, and had an *amazing* time getting to know each other and becoming fast friends.

* Getting back from the beach and flopping at our dorm (5202!!) where we pulled out guitars and serenaded each other. American Pie, Hey There Delilah, country songs and Katy Perry....we're quite talented guitar players we discovered and might even try open-mic night at the campus pub. We'll see.

* Stealing a huge stuffed fish from our fellow non-frat friend during a crazy houseparty, and then crashing at 5203's room for scotch and philosophical conversation late into the night.

* Yesterday my longtime friend Kayla took me to a Padres game and Switchfoot concert at PETCO park. The Padres lost to the Diamondbacks (5 to 1), but the concert was incredible and we actually got to highfive Jon Foreman!! Front row seats at PETCO park are insane. :D

* Returned from the game/concert in time to get all dolled up for the all-campus UCSD dance under Sun God. We took roommate glamour shots, then 15 or so of our neighbors from 5203, 5206, 5101, and 8201 piled into our kitchen before heading down to Sun God to dance under the chilly stars. Firas and I were "dates" and had an awesome time laughing at the freshmen....they're such babies. We came back to the room to play speed and laugh 'till 2am.

* Tonight we're heading down to Homeplate Cafe for free food, then down to Price Center for a free movie, then back to our dorms for a magic show, then another free movie, and THEN and ice-cream social at 11pm.

* We girls made a bucket-list of things we have to do by the end of the year as 5202ers. It's brilliant...but I'll save it for a post of it's own.

* I'm officially "PB" and you have to say it with the low-voice shoutout at the end. P-BAY! I can thank a very drunk creeper at the campus pub for coining it, but now it's everyone's term of gangster endearment.

* Looking out my window every morning at the ocean. I'm awestruck every time I wake up.