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~ photos courtesy of the proud parents, john & lyn ~
my family welcomed a little bundle of joy on the 17 Oct. 2006… and i became auntie to this little adorable person, whom her parents (my big brother and lynette) name RAEANNE.
sadly, it will take me a couple of weeks before i get to say hello to her … let’s hope she will take to my quirkiness with positive enthusiasm! =C) … and if all fails… erm… i have a fuzzy snoopy!
i read, watched, and listened in horror to some fragments of the terror that is being experienced in the middle-east… it is very distressing to watch a traumatized old man who’s just lost his wife, home and hopes when the rockets/bombs fell… or to see families being separated in their attempts to escape… or civilians being injured, maimed, shredded…
it’s just incomprehensible that everyone is relying on violence to get what they want… and they themselves are behaving like the terror they wish to curb.
all this madness… it will not end… it will not end… the pain… the pain…
PAIN
Manjack home from the wars walked down the street —
bent like a bow his body round its great scar —
and held his head upright. I saw his eyes
flaring and fixed, a tiger or a dark star.
Pain, what ist it? The sycthe turned under the ribs,
the soft explosion in the belly that means death,
the hornet where were berries, the snake in flowers,
the ice about the heart, the lung that leaks its breath —
that which drives out love, hunger, thirst or hate;
the trap that waits, the precipice past hope
upon whose edge we walk, how delicately —
the loaded whip no shoulders can escape.
Pain, what is it? That which keeps alive
amoebae doubling from the acid; pain
that forces flesh to wisdom: hedge of swords
beside the road from protoplasm to man.
Pain that fierce darkness thrusting at all life
that drives it up to light; pain the black No
that knifes us in blind alleys; pain that can only say
You have chosen wrong; this is no way to go.
Manjack home from the wars walked down the street,
and in his flesh a fire that ate him lean.
Vision of famine, death with blazing eyes,
what shall we do to save ourselves from Pain?~~~Judith Wright~~~
from Woman to Man, 1949, in Collected Poems
we mourn the poor bottle-nose whale that swam up the Thames, who didn’t survive the rescue mission…
here, in pictures from the BBC, the rescue attempts.
looks like i am in for another spiel of circumstances… hope it will be resolved by the time i arrive!
it is hard not to find it personal when the actor of the protagonist in “The Constant Gardener” has a name that is pronounced the same way as that of a dear friend who was killed in a most unneccesary way almost a year ago and his (Ralph Fiennes) and his co-protagonist’s (Rachel Weisz) roles in the film share some similarities with the kind of work R was involved in…
i never really understood how and what life is like working for aid agencies in Africa (and other parts of the world) despite hearing first-hand the kind of dangers, frustrations and incomprehensible bureaucracies that exist and are highlighted in the film… i could never really fully appreciate R’s experiences… it seemed and still does, utterly remote and horrifying… i could, but then again i guess i couldn’t, understand the passion that drives these aid-workers… and in comparison, my everyday struggles seem insignificant…
it’s hard to describe it all succinctly and adequately… but the film gives a vivid dichotomy of the beauty of the african land and the misery of the people; their helpless yet changeable situations; the pharmaceutical powers that rule their lives and are yet dependent on these lives they ‘sacrifice’ and also the ruthlessness that is present in both the locals and the foreigners… do try to catch the film when it comes to a theatre/cinema near you… the issues raised are real and concern us all.
my first ‘proper’ rock concert experience is probably best summed up as ‘ironic’… ?
coldplay performed at the Target Center’s Arena on Tuesday evening… and f who’s here to visit found tics for both of us last minute… i’ve not really got myself acquainted with their music but some of the tunes were familiar… and rather good… afterall, they seem to be the best-selling pop group at the moment…
yes, i came all the way to the USA to see a UK band perform here…!
the acoustics weren’t brilliant in the arena that houses the NBA games… and many other musical events… what seemed perhaps a technical/engineering glitch was actually pretty tolerable from our seats which were located pretty high up but still had a decent view of the stage…
i was looking forward to the start of the show until 3 rather unruly behaved guys (probably just entered uni) came along and sat behind us… one of them was pretty ‘high’ on something… and they started to smoke… all was pretty tolerable despite their smoking and somewhat ‘FRONTAL’ behaviour — (a neuropsychological term often used to refer to tendencies of disinhibition and inability to control ones tendencies for appropriate social contexts which are related to damage to the orbito-frontal lobes) — of this one guy… until sometime during the performance,
1) he, being too hyper and excited, decided to stand on the top of the chairs in front of him… lost his balance and hit the guy in front of him before landing on the ground and then pissed that bloke off further with his pathetic attitude… (FYI: he could have had a really bad/fatal fall from that height if he was more frontal than he was!)
and then a little later,
2) that same twat decided to PEE onto the seats or wall near the back seats to relieve himself… whatever he did or wherever he aimed at… it was loud enough to be offended…
i was truly appalled by the disgusting behaviour… and decided to drag f down to the lower part of the area we were seated before f could try to get him to realise how disgusting he IS to no avail (given his mental state) and before we finally headed out during the last encore…
YUCK!!!!!
unlike many other countries in the world where May Day is recognised as the International Worker’s Day, the people in the united states of america celebrate Labour Day today…
i spent the day at the Minnesota State Fair with daughters of a colleague from the lab (they were there as summer interns)… i was planning to go last Friday to catch the local The Writer’s Almanac‘s Garrison Keillor perform at the Fair but no one seemed able to join me… i heard the film is coming out soon, so i’ll have to check it out to see what it is all about! everyone said i had to go and i had no idea what to expect… my constant queries led me to imagine something like what it is in “Charlotte’s Web“… and i guess i wasn’t all that wrong!
i did find a few little Wilbur-like piglets and lambs and calves and we also saw some wacky looking chickens… i wish they would have a horse-show today but most of the animals were ready to head home.
there is more fast food there than anything else… and the options are endless… from fluffy candies to foot-long hot dogs, fries… and from porkchops and grilled fish to spaghetti and meatballs on a stick… the latter was, i must proclaim after much deliberation, utterly disgusting! all these junk food… and all the waste they create… it is incredible! there was also an area which resembled a pseudo “Oktoberfest” with the beer-drinkers and stalls selling Bratwurst mit Kraut not far away… fun-rides tower and spin behind the scene and screams filled the air-space above.
the fair seems to be a place to display and showcase a mixture of local farming excellence, agricultural and horticultural produce, merchandise and handmade crafts… the latter included many beautiful patch-work quilts, cakes, breads, cookies and herby-oil infusions… quite amazing…
i guess it isn’t anything quite like the Edinburgh Festival which is more cultural and artsy… but it was worth the experience…
and the ride down the Giant Slide was a good laugh!
the pictures from bbc show the devastation and destruction in Louisiana… not a pleasant sight… and i am feeling rather worried about potential tornados here in Minnesota… i’ve never seen nor experienced one before… but i have to watch out for strange looking clouds and green skies… apparently.
it’s apparently at my door step! i learnt about it this morning when i decided to take the bus to work today since i needed go into the bank to tell the people at Wells Fargo to get things right!!! anyways, it is then that i realised that the main road junction near my apartment is closed for the preparation of the festivities…
(click on image)
i’ll have to leave the lab early just to check it out… too bad i didn’t see anything about ceilidhs nor bagpipers merry-making… bah… that’s not a proper highland fest!
maybe i might pull myself out of bed to try the 5km walk/run on sunday… hmmm.
