what are you living for?

self-explanatory

all the clichés were true. having a dream does give you a certain - power. having a purpose in life does make your life that much more worth living.

i will admit that i had no concrete goals in life prior to this. all i was doing was drifting from short-term goal to short-term goal. and all my short-term goals were jokes themselves. get a film camera. get film. bring camera around. photoshop these 50 pics today.

having an ultimate dream gives you that push, that urgency and that fire that will nudge you towards what you want. you work hard and you strive - because you want to. no, because you need to.

what makes this different from all the times i've claimed to be 'inspired'? in the past, i was inspired to be a good doctor. i have realised that that is a very... vague goal and it wasn't enough for me to actually have anything to work with.

now, i have kinda resolved ('kinda' because i am shit scared about what is going to happen should i really decide to take this one step further, and i am also scared that i will fail) on something more specific and i find that that has made all the difference.

i would blog more (i don't know why i always end up being so long-winded on this blog -_-) but i am currently horribly worried about my luggage being overweight and not having enough space for things in my backpack. dammit why'd i have to get so much stuff?! (in all fairness, i barely shopped)

ok ttyl. i will be back. :)

more than just a doctor

the power to make or break

this is the bottom part of my supervisor evaluation form for my electives at johns hopkins. the top part lists out some curriculum outcomes that we are expected to have achieved during the entire electives (frankly i think that these outcomes are given too much attention and are ridiculous).

not only did my supervisor write in "Excellent" in ALL the boxes meant for the grades awarded to each outcome ("safe pass unless otherwise stated" *eyeroll, it doesn't even tell the supervisor what kinds of grades to fill in), he also gave me the most glowing comments i have ever received in the four years of my medical school life. sure, i've had compliments from consultants occasionally, but this is a whole new thing all together. to receive these affirmations from a doctor, researcher and educator i deeply respect means so much to me.

the way things go in the UK, if i were to do my elective there, all i would probably have gotten was a handwritten comment of two lines saying something along the lines of "enthusiastic, a pleasure to have around for the elective". if i had done this in malaysia, all the boxes would have been ticked (as opposed to being "graded"), and i wouldn't even have any comments, handwritten or not - the more caring consultants might even out of the extreme mercy of their hearts throw me a bone which takes the form of a single word - "good" in the comments box.

i am very touched that dr grossman actually took the time to write something this nice and to actually have it printed out and stuck on the form. i am touched that he actually took this whole "inconsequential" thing (in the perspective of professionals who are high above this level) and take it as seriously as i have and am and actually have given me all this praise which i still kind of do not believe that i deserve.

my closest friends would know that i am now having one of the toughest struggles of my life.

(actually they wouldn't know, they probably think that i'm being all dramatic as usual, haha)

i lost all faith in my abilities to function satisfactorily as a medical student. i did not believe that i had what it took to make it as a doctor. i thought that being in medical school was a waste of everybody's time, resources and money. i believed that i did not deserve to be here doing this elective.

i didn't believe that i deserved to be in medical school.

11 days ago, i was still splashing around in a puddle of denial (HAHAHAH i should've said i was splashing in Denial River wtf). i sounded like i liked neuro-oncology, but i was waffling around. it was all superficial talk, and i very pointedly did not commit to anything. it was spoken with the freedom and lack of contemplation and seriousness that comes with non-committance and dismissiveness.

i don't know what produced the change in me now that i do not recognise in that post 11 days ago - perhaps it was reading all those medical student blog entries and actually stopping to think about whether i was happy being like this - being ignorant of all current issues, not having a stand when it comes to my life, letting my life be controlled by other people because i just couldn't be bothered... perhaps it was writing the long entry before this which stripped everything down (you know you've done something right when you feel better after blogging). perhaps it was the (sub)conscious decision to stop hating myself and to stop being so hard on myself and the people around me, and to stop being wound up over all the minutiae of life. things started being put into perspective...

... perhaps it was that residency chat i had with mh earlier this afternoon that told me that yes, all this isn't but a dream that only happened to other people. this isn't just one of those things that would never happen to me. this could all be mine, but only if i wanted it badly enough, only if i got my shit together for real this time and worked hard towards it. these things happen to real people, and the real people these things happen to are as real as me, so why not me?

i was always afraid of taking that first step - this has always been my downfall. the safest choice has always been my default choice - i was free to express myself and excel, as long as i expressed myself within these neat borders. i was free to colour this picture in however i wanted - as long as i used a 'reasonable' colour scheme and stayed within the lines.

in many ways, this brick wall needed to be erected. i needed a rude, harsh and greatly unwelcome wake up call which would've stopped me dead in my tracks and knocked the wind out of my sails. i would have to fall, the things that would actually hurt - spirit, confidence and self-belief - would have to be broken. i would have to learn to pick myself up from all this shit and be comfortable enough to move along so that i could appreciate the magnitude of the opportunities that are still available to me. it's not the end of the world, it's just the beginning of a new path.

i would also like to attribute part of this resolve to stop being an emo pessimist to reading tar's blog. :)

i have also recently realised (again) that happiness IS a choice, and like tar did, that i did have the ability to affect how i felt and how i perceived things. i did not have to bother getting mad with people who did not have the time to want to bother with me or to listen to me, i did not have to get all frustrated with people not initiating contact with me, and i did not have to get all annoyed because somebody didn't want to tell me a secret.

are all these things significant? maybe - if i did not have anything better to focus on other than how i am not the focus of these people who obviously have their own lives to live. so why am i living my life based on how 'important' i am perceived to be by these people when i should be worrying about my own life?

i was also very inspired by one of tar's posts which mentioned the possibility of losing everything and everyone i knew when i decided to follow my heart and to do what i really want. not only was i rather excited at this notion, i found it a relief. i'm sick of having all this emotional baggage for no reason, i am sick of being pessimistic and resigned, and i am sick of naysayers making me feel like crap. more so, i am sick of being a backseat driver, no, passenger/observer of my own life.

it's my life and i don't want anybody interfering with it, i wouldn't want a cardiologist messing with my brain! i am so happy that i am still (relatively) young and haven't mucked up too much of my life yet. i have also realised that my past attitude will not get me anywhere, and that i can never have fun with an outlook like that. i think the biggest reason that i enjoyed my time so much here is because i had fun (what other way is there of genuinely having a good time?)! and why did i have fun? the people here are mostly upbeat, hopeful, optimistic and they all have a sense of humour. (prof's slightly questionable HAHAHAHAH <3)

i want to be like that.

i also recognise that being around pessimists suck the energy out of you. but i am also willing to take a chance on optimism being contagious and be optimistic when these energy suckers work their (dark) magic! and i shouldn't need to worry about dropping friends... as long as i put in effort on my part, the right ones will always stick around. :) <3

anyway i have yet digressed again -_- haha i don't know what it is with all these long entries, perhaps this is a phase of transition and i wholeheartedly agree that a long optimistic post is worth more than a 3 line self-pitying post. :)

the actual point of this entry can be summarised into a single sentence: being a doctor not only gives you the power to treat, it also gives you the immense honour of being able to educate, and most importantly inspire.

i would like to thank all the doctors who have inspired me thus far - especially prof and mh - they appeared in my life when i needed them the most, and that made all the difference.

as an epilogue, here is the full version of what was written in the comments box, so that i shall never, ever forget:

It has been a genuine pleasure to have Michelle Lim for a 6 week elective in Neuro-Oncology at Johns Hopkins. She is a bright, well-informed, enthusiastic, and conscientious student with excellent interpersonal skills and clinical instincts. She will make an excellent physician. It is my sincere hope that she elects to pursue studies in neuro-oncology and that we have a chance to interact again in the near future. She has done an outstanding job in this elective.

self-belief is one of the most important things you can help anybody regain.

PS. this might not seem like a big thing, but i have decided that i will try my best to stop using :( and :/ from now on! only plenty of :)s and :Ds! :)

this is my brick wall

photo sourced from google

this is randy pauch of the last lecture fame.

i was spending my evening as per usual, wasting my time on facebook (playing bejeweled blitz) and reading medical student blog entries on medscape.

i've probably had this internal monologue a few times before, and i'm pretty sure that i've come up with the same conclusions time and time again. i was spending my time resenting myself and all the mistakes i've made. (or perceived myself to have made. as i've said on my previous blog, i was stuck in a rut and i (told myself that i) didn't know, and now that i've finished my six weeks at hopkins the blinders have been lifted and i now see that it is not to late to live my life the way i really want to.

all my life, i have been... guided (with only the best intentions) by my family and they have always told me what i (should) want and what i could have, if only i applied myself and stopped being so lazy and actually started being proactive. of course i appreciate that they cared so much for me and that they had really high expectations for me. they instilled the need to constantly be the best and the principle to not settle for anything less than the best.

all this could only go so far.

i grew up knowing that i want to be on top of the pile, and that i could be the one standing on top of the pile, and that every time i didn't get to the top of the pile it was just because i did not try hard enough, there was no other excuse.

i also grew up being uber competitive. in my younger years, i was ruthless. i didn't want to let anybody get in my way, i was ferociously selfish with my knowledge and i would do just about anything to make sure that i was ahead of everybody.

and then as i grew up i started to realise that this wasn't the right way because i didn't like it. i didn't like the constant fear of being overtaken, i didn't like the anxiety that came whenever i thought i felt somebody else gaining on me, i didn't like the sinking feeling of seeing somebody in front of me. i had had enough. i did not have any friends, and i don't think anybody liked me.

so i gave up. i just stopped competing and i just backed out of the competition. sure, i became more likeable, and i seemed to cruise along just fine. but it wasn't long before time got the best of me and i sank back into mediocrity again. and i have been wallowing in this pool of mediocrity ever since. and blogging about the experience.

i have been inspired a few times and i don't know why but these things never seem to stick. i don't know if it's because my passion does not really lie in medicine, or i have yet to discover what i really want to do with the rest of my life, or i subconsciously want to do something else with the finite time i have left, e.g. photography. i don't know if it's because i don't actually find medicine interesting anymore, or because i don't think that this is my life's purpose.

i was surprised when i caught myself thinking that it would be a good idea to go do some voluntary work in developed countries sole of the reason of it being to look good on CV. and then i read another blog entry by another medical student who talked about how his peers constantly help each other and forward each other emails to help understand difficult concepts and how he was honoured to be studying and possibly working with these individuals who were determined to help make each other the best doctors they can be...

... which is exactly what the purpose of studying medicine is. to learn as much as possible about the human body so that we can help cure disease and help to alleviate the pain and suffering of people in need. it takes a special kind of person to be a 'true' doctor. there are so many medical students and doctors who have lost sight of the immensity of the privilege of being able to make a difference in other people's lives. we have the 'power' to 'decide' whether another human lives or dies. no human should be given such power.

i feel humbled and undeserving when i see patients who dress up in their best clothes and who speak so respectfully to doctors and who hang on to their every word, patients who trust their doctors with their lives without a single shadow of doubt, patients who would do literally anything their doctors ask them to do, because 'well, you know best, doctor!' i don't think most of us medical personnel deserve this amount of reverence and respect anymore. i feel like telling them that we are only human too, and you are not below us, nor us above you, we don't deserve to be worshipped like this.

i will also ashamedly admit that i am still very stereotypically 'asian' in the sense that i don't feel comfortable sharing what i know with other people, and sometimes i will go to rather great lengths to keep certain valuable information to myself (i am only saying this because i want to be as honest as i can be on this blog, and because i am fairly sure that nobody reads this). this comes from an inherent fear of 'what if other people know how to dissect this information and gain much more than i did from it?' this also comes from insecurity, and an unwillingness to admit that yes, there will always be many people who will be better at this than me. while i'm at it, i will also admit that i like the fake sense of superiority i 'enjoy' when i am partial to information that is not readily available to anybody else.

this is going to sound like i am putting the blame on something else and like i am not taking responsibility for my own thoughts and actions, but - i think the notion of being in medical school and graduating as a competent and compassionate doctor has been misinterpreted and skewed beyond rescue. the race starts when you start fighting your peers for a spot in the most prestigious medical school within your means, and it continues as you battle it out over your finals, and then rages on as you sit for even more exams to get an internship post in the best hospital in the world, and then residency training in the most competitive specialty, and then finally attendance. and you're not done, after that you start fighting over discovering the cure for cancer, you fight to get the most papers published, you fight to get the most citations. you fight for everything.

so how is this culture which emphasises the mentality of 'every man for himself' a nurturing and supportive one? i do agree that a certain amount of competition is necessary because some amounts of stress bring out the best in everybody and we really do not want bumbling idiots who do not know the heart from the lungs to be operating on your brain, but...

... seriously?

anyway i have digressed.

(you will be happy to know that i have not even breached the subject that i set out originally to talk about, HAHA. you will also find that my point is rather irrelevant to the above, lol)

my point is that i grew up disliking who i was. i was never happy with myself, i was never good enough for myself, whatever i did, i could definitely and without question do better. there was always a prettier poster i could have designed instead of the crap i submitted. there was always a more interesting and funky t-shirt that i could have produced instead of duping people into buying those poorly thought out designs. the convo mag could have looked so much more professional if only i didn't suck so much at photoshop and was more creative and could actually draw for real instead of scamming the world. i could've scored a bleeping A instead of that measly B+. i could have published at least 2 papers by now if only i didn't waste my time being all lazy and passive and enjoying my life more than i am supposed to. i should have never spent my time reading that stupid storybook when i have so many other medical textbooks to read and memorise. this would have been a waaaaaaaaaaay better picture if only i were actually artistic and had some skillz to work with.

i was never satisfied. and it was gnawing away at my soul.

people say i'm emo. i have never really taken that seriously (i mean yeah, i admit that i tend to be 'my glass if half empty and everybody has a full glass and i bet mine's going to leak from a hole in the bottom because i'm sure that i got a defective glass dammit the world hates me' kind of person but)... but i just kinda realised that everything i write has that energy-sucking tinge of grey over it. every word i write is laced with melancholy. every sentence ends with a fullstop that resonates with the whine of my broken heart. every comma a representation of a phrase punctuated with a tear...

i don't like being this way. contrary to popular belief, not every 'emo' person is an attention-seeker. not every 'emo' person writes or thinks the way they do because they like the drama, or because they have nothing better to do with their lives, or because they like sounding all 'melancholy' and 'profound'.

no - surprised as you might be to find - not everybody fits into your neat little labeled boxes of stereotypes.

i feel so... sick and tired and bored when i come across entries like these of my own. i feel like slapping myself silly and asking myself what the fuck possessed me to produce emoshit crap like this and what the fuck was i doing because i sure as hell do not deserve to be given a lot in cyberspace to spew all this bullshit.

that also explains why all my readers have left me.

(ok, that might also partially be because i have moved my blog several times. HAHA.)

see not really the point again.

so the point was that one sentence in randy pausch's last lecture really hit a raw nerve with me and i was truly touched by it because it gave me hope and it told me that i could still get what i want, but only if i wanted it badly enough:

brick walls aren't there to keep us out, they're there to show us how badly we want it.

i won't elaborate why this quote is 'affecting' me so badly because i do not want to talk about my 'brick wall', it's one of those things that has changed my life forever and challenged a lot of my previous perceptions - to put it very harshly and bluntly, let's just say that the master has now become the slave - and this is a piece of humble pie that will forever be sitting at the bottom of my stomach.

trust me when i say that i will literally never be the same again, and i don't know if i can ever truly forgive myself for letting this happen.

but i do believe that it had to happen, and i deserve it - because i believe that this is playing a very big part in shaping the rest of my life and my perspectives on it.

so - as of now. i think that i have decided that i am going to give this a shot. i am going to scale this brick wall because i know that forgiveness and redemption is waiting for me on the other side.

i have to do this. :)

(and i will have fun doing it! 'never underestimate the power and importance of fun' - i can attest to this because i don't want to be the doctor who dreads going to work and who dreads being on call. i want to live and breathe this with all the passion i can muster on a daily basis. if i am going to spend the rest of my life doing this, i want to make it worth my while!)

que sera sera

mh telling me who to call for neuro theatre

how does anybody ever really know what they want to do with the rest of their lives?

actually, let me rephrase.

i find that the notion of having to choose what i want to do for the rest of my life in less than 5 years a rather scary one.

a year ago, i (somehow) wanted to do neurology. 3 months ago, i wanted to do paediatrics (was it only 3 months ago?! it seems so much longer than that!)

and now, i want to do either neuro-oncology or paediatric oncology.

i don't know whether this is me being fickle, or this is me discovering what i really like because i've finally been exposed to it. i announced to pretty much everybody that i wouldn't consider oncology at all and it was safely out of my life and i was happy that that one week in fourth year was all the oncology i was ever going to come into contact with...

... and look where i am now.

i don't really even know what i like so much about neuro-oncology. is it the challenge of having to deal with patients whose lives are going to be changed forever with the diagnosis that i am yet to give them? is it because even though it seems like a very broad specialty there are actually only a few main cancers and hence i won't be "overwhelmed"? (oligodendrogliomas, anaplastic oligodendrogliomas and astrocytomas and glioblastoma multiformes - the rest are rather minor: ependymomas, meningiomas, schwannomas  etc)

(both points seem rather contradictory - it is challenging, yet it is not. hahaha.)

is it the possibility of research, the possibility of discovering so many things that other people are not just privy to yet? maybe it's the thrill of being able to work in johns hopkins and knowing about all these fantastic things that people here dedicate their lives to on a daily basis, and yet having the 'exclusivity' of knowing things the rest of the world doesn't know?

is it because i like working with mh and the current brain cancer team, who are the most fabulous and wonderful people ever?

would i have felt the same way if i were to have done 6 weeks of, say, rheumatology, or anaesthetics, or public health, or general surgery?

but in order to have the opportunity to feel that way about other specialties, wouldn't i have already chosen to do my elective in them?

"that being said" (this has been said so many times in mh's clinic i now hear it being said in his voice and accent HAHA), why did i do a six week elective in neuro-oncology, of all things? is it mainly because it was easier to get compared to other specialties?

or was it all...

meant to be?

"that being said" (mh's voice and accent), "again" (sg's voice and hand gesture HAHAHA), let's talk about paediatric (neuro)oncology.

as i was walking to the neurology operating theatre today, the nurse who was bringing me there told me about her now 8 year old niece who was diagnosed with retinoblastoma when she was 2 and who had to undergo an enucleation, and how when she looks at her 19 month old her daughter every day she feels so thankful that she is so healthy... and how she thinks it takes a special kind of person to be able to do paediatric oncology. this was after she gave me this weird look when i said i was interested in neuro-oncology - a look which said "wtf is wrong with you, why would ANYBODY want to do something so depressing?!".

and i ALMOST said "well, somebody has to do it"

which was inappropriate of me because honestly, i am not as "affected" as everybody (and i) thought i would be.

maybe it's because i'm not dealing with patients of my own yet. the only sliver of emotion i felt was when this patient with short term memory loss kept saying over and over again how he was planning to commit suicide. he wasn't saying it repeatedly because he was being depressed or dramatic, he was doing it because he forgot that he said it 10 minutes ago. he also forgot that the promised the doctor that he would call his pastor to talk about his life in the past 10 minutes. and each time he brought up his intention to end his own life, it was genuine and it didn't have the glazed effect of something which has been repeated just for the sake of it. each time was just as raw and desperate as the time before.

that being said (i'm just being annoying on purpose lol), i didn't even flinch when one of the nurse practioners broke down with the mother of a 20+ year old outside the consultation room. i don't know if i've lost the ability to feel compassion and empathy.

all those years of the medical school teaching us how and when to say things like "i understand that it must be hard for you" and "i'm sorry that you have to go through this" has probably worked its "magic". how can you ever, ever teach empathy? now my mind switches into autopilot mode and i say those words when i think (keyword being "think" and not "feel") that they are the appropriate things to say, even without processing what the patient is really saying and listening to what is between the lines.

the first step to rectifying a problem is to admit that you have one, huh? well i guess i've got that covered, at least.

anyway i don't know how this all morphed into a discussion of my communication skills.

at least i'm now distracted from the more pressing question that is WHAT DO I WANT TO DO WHEN I BECOME A DOCTOR?!

we'll leave that for now.

PS. i witnessed a stereotactic needle biopsy today! it was supposed to start at 12.30 pm but it actually started at 4.30 pm wtf. and then i was thinking, so is it true that that particular neurosurgeon only had 2 cases the entire day -_- and it wasn't like he was in the theatre for the whole procedure (make no mistake, i think he is a wonderful and great surgeon and person in general!)... and there was this part where the people had to lock the MRI guides into position at a 0.0 +/- 0.2 degrees angle, it was ocd heaven. HAHAHAHA.

he plays the cello

(and  he told me that he knows that i will be good if i choose to do neuro-oncology - or anything that i choose to do)

(for that, and for many other things, i thank him)

:)

o say can you see...

Greensboro lunch counter, 1960. The National Museum of American History, Washington DC.

i spent 6 hours in the national museum of american history today. i'd never have thought that i'd have spent so much time learning about history and have fun while doing it.

i learned many things today; i learnt more about the civil war, i learnt about the 20 year presidential jinx (started with harrison, broken by reagan), i learnt about hu1s and audie murphy and the vietnam war. i saw burnt pieces of steel from the world trade center, and i got to know the abraham lincoln better. the events leading up to his death were morbidly interesting, and by the time i learnt about how he truly impacted american history and how truly a great man he was, i felt that nagging sorrow and regret that he left before his time. i saw the star spangled banner which was flown from fort mchenry and read about how francis scott key came to compose the national anthem of the united states of america. i learnt about the declaration of emancipation and the declaration of independence, and came to appreciate how all these were not just paragraphs in history textbooks that i would be tested on, but how these things actually existed and how the people who were involved in such major historical events were... real. i saw the chairs on which general lee surrendered to general grant, and i saw the gunboat philadelphia. i saw the john bull locomotive and the winton car - the first car ever to successfully cross the united states of america. i saw b.b. king's guitar, louis armstrong's trumpet, miles davis' flugelhorn, ella fitzgerald's dress and sammy davis jr's childhood tap shoes.

i appreciate the american national anthem so much more now that i know the majorly inspiring story behind it. i'm just sad that i can't say the same about the malaysian one. sigh.

i learnt how the african americans had to struggle to earn equal rights and how true americans did all they could to help them get those rights. i learnt how strong the african american community was (and still is) and i am inspired by how they never let anything get in their way to achieving freedom. they got beaten, but they brushed themselves off and stood up, more determined than ever to fight for what they so rightly deserved.

the exhibit which touched me the most is the one on the greensboro sit-in. the photograph above shows part of a lunch counter from a woolworth's store in greensboro, north carolina. although racial segregation was deemed illegal six years ago in 1954, the company which owned woolworth's allowed store managers in the south to decide who to serve and who not to serve in accordance with local custom. many woolworth's stores chose to segregate against the blacks and had separate counters for coloured people and white people. on the 1st of february of 1960, four freshmen college students walked into the woolworth's at greensboro, sat on the white-only stools, and asked politely to be served. they were refused service. the students then continued sitting in those seats, asking repeatedly and politely to be served but they were denied service time and time again. they then came back to woolworth's every single day and sat in those seats from when lunch was available, and would not leave until the store closed, and yet they would still not be served. this movement gained popularity and soon 75,000 people were joining this movement all over the country.

these sit-ins were non-violent and on the 26th of july of 1960 the woolworth's in greensboro relented and desegregated its lunch counters.

i attended a mini "restaging" of the whole event led by a 'college student' from 1960. i am still feeling the dull glow from embers of the fire of injustice which were kindled somewhere deep inside me, inside a place i never knew existed. she showed us menus from the time the event happened and told us how those four students set foot in woolworth's, fearing for their lives and how they sat at the counter and wanted to order a sandwich from the menu. she described how initiators of revolutions risked everything, even their lives to fight for something which might not be achieved in their lifetimes, and how these people were just young kids and how they were so very genuinely afraid of what might happen, and yet still held their ground and stood up for what they believed in.

she then got four volunteers to sit in four seats she placed just behind the exhibit's seats, and told them that all they could do was sit there and try to keep their emotions under control. they could not have any form of contact with each other, they couldn't even look at each other. she then got the rest of us to go up to them in a mob, and we could go as close to them as we wanted, we could even stand between them. all we were allowed to do was to stare at them, we weren't allowed to touch them. and then, she asked them to imagine how they would feel if everybody was staring at them while thinking things like "what the hell are they doing here?" and how it felt to be surrounded by everybody who hated them, and how it felt to be subject to all sorts of abuse and violence like having milkshakes poured over their heads, and being beated up, and being called all sorts of the worst names, and not being able to retaliate.

there were easily almost a hundred of us, and only four of them. and this was nothing compared to what really happened.

she then "taught" us (she was our "trainer") that it was okay for us to shield ourselves if we were to be beaten up and that it was okay for us to try to protect our heads with our hands. she also told us that before going for a nonviolent protest that we should empty all our pockets and remove all traces of things that could be used as weapons, even a pocketful of change. she also told us that if things got too bad, we could curl ourselves up into a ball against a wall. we were also taught to try to rescue our fellow protestors from bodily harm by putting ourselves between them and the attackers and to form a barrier in hopes that the violence would be distributed and not be concentrated only on one person so that less injury would result.

listening to all this made it even more real for me because these are really practical 'tips' which have been used, time and time again.

it is striking me hard now how sometimes people can be so cruel to one another. these innocent people have been wronged so badly and my admiration for how graciously they have forgiven the very people who have walked all over them and who violated their basic human rights is beyond words.

do you know what john wilkes booth said during one of lincoln's speeches? this:

"That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make."

(random sidenote: i have come a cross two books called 'the real lincoln' and 'lincoln unmasked'. shall consider reading them.)

anyway i am sorry because i have digressed.

i think i should end this entry now because i think i have written too much. i am going to end this entry with this statement from the reenactment of the greensboro sit-in:

"what do you think when you hear the words 'non-violent protest'? peace? passivity? well, i think of strength, action and aggression."

and i don't think i've heard many things much truer than that.

languidness

i thought that "languidity" would be the noun for "languid".

this picture was taken on a hot but breezy afternoon in the hirshhorn museum sculpture garden. it reminds me of the beautiful south's 'dream a little dream'.

there have been several instances in the past week where my flightiness and exaggerated sense of proportion have gotten the better of me, and that made me nothing short of miserable. but then i turn around and tell myself that people are too busy living their own lives to be judging every single thing i do, and i find some guilty pleasure in having this hypothesis being proved true.

(am not complaining about the 'adrenaline rush' that comes along with me pushing the boundaries of this revelation too :P)

haha this also reminds me of the time when i realised that i can literally do anything i want with my life and how empowered i felt after that - time to get some of that energy back.

going to dc again tomorrow, i hate taking photos through glass windows, but hopefully there won't be many of those!

:)