I finally started on the current selection (Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver) for my book club in an attempt to finish it before we get together next week. One of my fellow members finished it weeks ago and has been itching terribly to discuss it, but the rest of us were so busy with the end of the semester we couldn't even THINK about starting it until now (incidentally, I managed by the grace of the gods to pull an A in my history class). I just finished the first essay in the book, but it took me a while because I kept having to stop and just breathe before I could continue. Kingsolver began this collection of essays on 12 September 2001, I imagine as a way to help herself come to terms with the tragedy. The scary part is that she cautioned against so many thought patterns that have come to pass since she published the book in late 2002. I wish I could articulate my feelings about the essay as well as she articulates her feelings in the essay.

One major theme running through the piece is a sense of helpless fury at the way the world is behaving. It seems we can only sit by and watch the world crumble to bits. Sure, we can join a war protest, but does anyone really listen? The news is full of polls, and one of their most popular for a while stated a MAJORITY OF AMERICANS SUPPORT THE WAR IN IRAQ, but they seldom, if ever, mention that it is a small majority. The destruction of lives and environment depresses me so much that I can't even watch TV channels that show news without feeling my heart rate and blood pressure skyrocket. In fact, whenever possible, I don't watch the news just so anxiety doesn't keep me awake at night. I am well aware that these feelings aren't new, that people facing the Vietnam War and the Korean War and World Wars Two and One and even the Civil War and the Revolutionary War experienced a sense of anxiety, but what I have to ask myself is why no one seems to be learning anything. They say that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, so what is the point of our elders making us study American and world history, and us making our children study American and world history, if no one is going to pay a damned bit of attention to any of it and try to find a better way? I worry at this conundrum and worry at it to the point that I can empathize with Kingsolver's daughter's reply to learning that the war in Afghanistan was still occurring when she came home from kindergarten one day -- "If people are just going to keep doing that, I wish I'd never been born." I don't agree with her, but I understand that poor little girl's frustration. We're taught from the time we can remember that fighting is no solution to a problem, that we should try to talk about and reason out our troubles, not bully others into doing what we want. I guess those rules fly out the window when we hit adulthood or gain a political office. No wonder our children are confused and don't know how to behave.

Believe me, I'm as surprised as the next guy at the "pacifist" I seem to have become. I always got angry when growing up when I still heard, even in the mid to late 1980s, Vietnam vets called baby killers. I didn't think twice about America's reasoning when Bush I went to war with Iraq in the early 1990s; I just hoped it didn't last long enough for the draft to be instated because my "brother" was of age to go if that happened. I'm still trying to determine why this war bothers me so much when those others didn't. Maybe it's because I'm older and take more notice of what happens in the world. Maybe at almost 32 years old I don't take everything I see and hear at face value like I did when I was 20 or 21. As an eternal student, I've met a lot of people from many different countries, and I've begun to see more similarities than differrences among us all. I saw the Middle Eastern students on my campus mourning 9/11 next to the American students, holding up Old Glory and trying to make this small part of the world understand that the people who committed that atrocity were no more representative of their religion than the KKK is representative of Christianity.

There are only a handful of people I can discuss this with because my entire family are Bush II supporters. I feel some days as though I am drowning. I feel some days as though I'm floating in a sea of blind hatred, and I just want to scream at the sky, "Why can't we all just get along?"

Like Kingsolver, I find a bit of solace in the nature around me. The male cardinal sitting on top of the wind tunnel building has the ability to make me smile a little with his song. I can actually laugh out loud at the squirrel who cusses me out for walking my dog Reba under his tree, interrupting his evening supper. I couldn't ignore even if I wanted to the positive energy that sang along my every nerve ending this morning as I walked Reba after a rain shower. I breathed deeply the clean, renewed air, and I could almost convince myself that a world that felt that good at 7:45 a.m. couldn't possibly be resounding with hatred and bullets somewhere else. I could feel my tension being taken out of my neck and shoulders by the light breeze, bless her for her gift. With that renewed sense of vision, with some of the anguish taken away, I can read with clearer eyes the words of Kingsolver when she says that sometimes I can only worry about my immediate world. That is often the only place I can truly make a difference, but it can be enough.

Well, it's been three and a half days since I finished the semester, and I'm still not entirely sure what to do with myself. I spent most of yesterday holed up in my room because I had a bad case of crabiness (being a woman is pretty fun most of the time, but I could really do without PMS). I watched a couple of episodes of Roar I had on tape from two and three weeks ago, and I remembered why I was so upset that it only made 13 eps in 1997. This was Heath Ledger before he became HEATH LEDGER. This historical (loosely historical, to be sure) show was the very first thing I ever saw him in, so to me he will always be Conor, the reluctant Celtic prince trying to unite the tribes of Ireland against the Romans to preserve the roar of the land.

After Roar, I started Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I avoided reading the Potter series for a long time because, as a general rule, I avoid anything that is popular or a fad (it's the nonconformist in me). After my favorite aunt told me how fun the books were, I borrowed her daughter's set to read. I made it through two before I caved and bought my own set. I'm even woman enough to admit I reserved my copy of Book Five three weeks ago. Yeah, I'm a convert. I've seen the first movie about a dozen times. I've only seen the second one once or twice, but that'll change now that I have free time.

I also finally had time to sit down and watch the video of VH1's special on the Pakistani group Junoon which I downloaded from myJunoon.com. If you've ever read my musings on my homepage, you'll know I've gone on and on about how great I think this group is musically and socially, and the five minutes I saw of the VH1 documentary back in November or December 2001 was what turned me on to them. I really wish I could get to Dallas the end of next week to see them in concert -- I think it would be an incredible experience. Check out the video (viewed with Windows Media Player) and let me know what you think. Kudos to Pakidude83, the owner of myJunoon.com, for his always awesome site and to the regulars in the forum for accepting the goofy American chick from the Midwest.

Last Thursday evening, 8 May, I attended my mother's pinning ceremony for the Practical Nursing Program at Hutchinson Community College, followed by graduation on Friday evening. As I sat in the chilly auditorium at McPherson College, I was so proud of her. She's worked so hard over the years to get to this point -- CNA when I was in high school, CMA when I too attended HCC, now to LPN. She already has a job lined up (had even before graduation), which is pretty amazing in and of itself considering the lousy economy in the US right now. What I thought was the most adorable and amusing was how proud she was of herself. I don't think the smile left her face from the time she picked up my brother Paul and me Thursday afternoon until sometime after graduation Friday night. She's totally justified. The program is an accelerated ten months that she began in the Fall of 2001. A setback in the Spring semester meant she had to wait until this Spring to complete the program. I know that setback really affected her confidence, though she tried not to let on to Paul and me.

During the pinning, the coordinator of the program put up a picture of the pin they would receive, going through each aspect of its appearance and what it represented. I don't remember everything she said, but I do remember the words "courage" and "heart." These characteristics were reemphasized by the keynote speaker, a local McPherson doctor who had been one of the class's rotations. He talked about how LPNs are indispensible in the medical field, but how they also have the hardest job of all. They're the ones who spend the most time with the patients and have the most influence in their care. I've watched my mom interact with the patients in the nursing homes in which she's worked over the years, and I know that she affects everyone she touches. When most CNAs just want to get in and get the resident to the lunchroom or the shower or the activity period, Mom never fails to hold a hand or ask about family or just chat with the resident. She treats them as though they are human beings, and that's a lot in my opinion.

Congratulations, Mom! I love you, and I'm insanely proud of you!

On another note, I took my one and only "final" exam yesterday. I shouldn't have procrastinated as much as I did where studying was concerned, but it's water under the bridge and there's nothing I can do about it now. I don't think I failed it by ANY stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't up to my usual high standard of excellence. Now I have more time than I know what to do with, and it always takes me a week or two to figure it out. I get up in the morning and think, "What homework or reading do I have to do today," and it honestly takes me a couple of minutes to realize I can read anything on my bookshelves I damn well please. Today, weather permitting, I'm having lunch with a friend, and then I think I'll come home and either start on the book for my book club or watch some shows I have on tape and haven't had the time to watch. I'm already in a TV-watching mode (just finished watching The Sentinel on the SciFi Channel), so I may continue in that vein. Hell, I may even watch the two episodes of Stargate SG-1 that are on tonight, even though the chances are good I've seen them already. Who knows? Doesn't really matter, because I'M DONE WITH FINALS!