Farmer's market

Venice beach: Croissants, fresh strawberries, dates, ginger, and mango.

Buried alive

Anemones and barnacles

Weird towns in MA, continued, again

Hazardville. Let’s not go there.

Switcharooney

I’ve been switched to another flight because of delays in my layover. We’re about to depart.
I had the smoothest and quickest security check ever. There was a nifty machine that you step into that cuffs you with air, I suppose so they can see if you are carrying anything. It was very sci-fi; you enter, and it says “Air cuff on”, and blows air on you, and says “Wait for green light”. Then you wait, and a green light comes, and a door slides open, and you walk through the metal detector.
They did take a rather long time looking at my bag in the x-ray machine. I am not sure why; there was nothing terribly interesting in it.
So it goes.

Preparations

We are almost ready to leave. I finished packing last night, got everything together this morning, and took the recycling and trash to the transfer station. We will be leaving within the hour.

Pico Boulevard

Perhaps when one thousand of these merge, they form Nano Boulevard.

Connection

We’ve landed. I’m waiting to board my next flight.

Arrival

Our rental car is a convertible. Unfortunately, you have to be 21 to drive it.

And we're…

…off! To the airport and beyond!

Honor

I have just put up the final paper for my Sonnet of the Week honors project. The paper will remain available from the Sonnet of the Week project page. Today was also my last day of school. We are leaving tomorrow for L.A.

Gaza

Violence does not justify violence. But it often eliminates passivity as an option. This is the position that Israel is in now. I think the military response is incorrect, though. Hamas started this war, but Israel is to blame for putting Hamas in power. People turn to radicals when their current government’ can’t get done what they want to get done. So it was with Palestine. Fatah was ineffective at securing the Palestinians desired (and deserved) rights, so the people elected Hamas, who has certainly got Israel’s attention, to say the least.

This situation is beginning to make me question my core view of Israel’s existence. Do we, as modern human beings in the twenty-first century, have any right to create or sustain a religious state? I often feel as though most people who call themselves Zionists actually want to pretend that the last two thousand years didn’t ever happen. Yes, Jews were wronged. As were many people. Yes, Jews deserve a homeland. So does everyone. Everyone deserves the right to have a place where they can feel safe, a place to come home to.

But wake up and smell the coffee, guys. Times have changed. It’s no longer applicable for Jews to leave a secluded life, ruled by their own, and over their own. We shouldn’t have kings or judges like in biblical times. Like it or not, this is the post-diaspora world, and Jews don’t deserve special treatment. Period.

Jews do deserve the land of Israel. In both the sense of the concept (Zion), and the physical area. There is absolutely no reason at all that Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and atheists, can’t all share the same land, all have access to its holy sites, and all feel safe and respected there. Jews don’t have the right to take other people’s land because it once belonged to their ancestors. We might as well waltz back into Poland and demand all of the houses and silverware back. Sure, it was “ours” once. But it’s not anymore. Other people have built their lives around where ours used to be. We must respect their work and progress.

So in an intrinsic sense I disagree with Israel. On another level, it symbolizes Jews’ desire to have a homeland. Ultimately, to me, it signifies the potential for coexistence. This war makes that potential harder and harder to achieve. It is not gone, but we must keep our eyes on it. Politics and military objectives must take a back seat to deliberately progressing towards reconciliation. In purely practical terms, it is impossible for Israel to sustain itself like this forever. No one can survive in the midst of such animosity.

Late night

I have just returned home. My various meetings went very well, and a couple of us went to see Milk after we had dinner. I had already seen it, and was happy to do so again. It did not disappoint.

And now, to bed. I have to wake up early for school, and I need to pack tomorrow evening. I was supposed to do it tonight when I got home, but I had not originally planned on going to the movie. Sleep is more important.

Early night

Tonight is going to be an early night. I am packing for the trip to L.A., and will finish once my laundry’s done. I have not been getting enough sleep recently, and I mean to catch up tonight.

Is it still a snow day if it's on Sunday?

My boss just called to say that work is closed today. Will and I will probably do some more work on the website before I leave for a Mock Trial meeting. Will might stick around at my house for the afternoon, since our old calc class has a reunion this evening. Coincedentally, it is at the same place as my Mock Trial meeting, so I’ll be spending the whole day at home and there.

I'm finished…

I turned in my last assignment of the semester yesterday. It’s not due until Monday, but I’m missing the last two days of school (Thursday and Friday), so I figured I’d get it in early in case it requires revision. It’s great to have a weekend without piles of homework to do; I am SO glad to be finished.

Speaking of leaving early, I suppose I should explain. I’m going to my aunt’s wedding in LA on Thursday, so Wednesday will be my last day of school. My family will be staying in LA until the following Thursday, but I’ll be flying back early (Monday morning) into DC to meet some friends at the inauguration.

Normally, I try to keep this blog non-partisan. That is, if I write about current events or politics, I try to do it from an unbiased perspective. This isn’t a political blog, so I feel that it’s important that I don’t alienate people who disagree with me.

That being said, I will be blogging avidly while I’m in DC. I think everyone should appreciate this occasion, whether or not they voted for Obama. John McCain has been extremely honorable since his defeat, more than once reprimanding conservatives who would smear the incoming administration, and as Americans, I think we all owe it to each other and ourselves to come together. Obama’s message of reconciliation and bipartisanship isn’t trumpeting a new era, it’s a product of existing sentiments. People, Democrat and Republican alike, are tired of this internal fighting. We are turning the page on a new era of brotherhood and cooperation. Obama is not the herald of a new way, he exists because of the desire for it.

I am very excited to be going to the inauguration, and I hope that others share my excitement in this historic time. We are faced with challenges of epic proportions, and we have the potential to do epic good.

When the vegan's away…

My sister is out of the house for the evening! Bring on the turkey kielbasa!

Sonnet paper

My Sonnet of the Week project continues independently beyond my current semester, which is almost done. However, I’ve just handed in the final paper on the project yesterday. It discusses what I learned from the project, and compares the evolution of my sonnets to that of Shakespeare’s. Once I get it back from my teacher, and make any revisions necessary, I will post a copy on the Sonnet of the Week page in PDF form.

Dow snay

Toe nool schooday. Hi om ame, hand ave la ot wof womehork do to. Wi ill ge boing oo ta riblary goo tet bum sooks or pa faper oo don Dunmay, cand atching op un Nanspish.

Drained

I have returned from the blood drive. It went very well. I observed some extremely interesting technology there; the same nifty one-way valve devices that allow them to take multiple tubes (and the actual blood sample) with a single needle. There was also a small finger-sized device that used a tiny spring-loaded needle to quickly shallowly puncture the tip of a finger to test iron levels and such. The technician doing this was fast; he swabbed my finger, and took a sample within twenty seconds. There was also a complex network setup involving laptops, some sort of Palm Pilot-based device for keeping track of blood samples, and I would imagine some sort of server or gateway. It was pretty awesome.

I got a bunch of stickers too.

Unfortunately, one of my friends couldn’t give blood because her temperature was too high. It was very disappointing, but it was good that we went.

I ended up not being able to meet my family for dinner; by the time I was done they were home. Just as well, because I heard that the food was not too good. So it goes.