Thoughts

One week ago today, I sat poised in open air, close to 224 feet above the ground, amid expectant silence overlooking Santa Clara, California. I watched as a moving shadow that measured our ascent slowed and then stopped, telling me it would happen soon. Then, suddenly, I fell. I fell sixty-two miles an hour to a waiting hydraulic braking system (or what seemed that way) that cushioned me and the others into the beckoning safety of terra firma . This was Drop Tower (formerly known as Drop Zone) at Great America, and I had conquered my fear of heights, again. It wasn't the first time I'd ridden this stupid ride, and given the fact that our eighth-grade students attend Great America at the end of each school year, I'm sure it won't be the last. I had to ride it. I had to show myself that I could still look Heights squarely in the eye. The transition from the school year to summertime is like this ride, in a way. As the year progresses, students and teachers "ascen...

Robert Frost's most famous poem: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know His house is in the village though He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. These woods are lovely, dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep. People thought (and think) the poem is about suicide. The owner of the woods, they say, is a reference to God. The horse is his conscience telling him that this idea (stopping "without a farmhouse near," or committing the act) is unwise (he "must think it queer"). His peering into these woods is like peering into the unknown, and his hi...

A young man in Haiti watches as a pregnant woman suffering from malaria begins to have serious respiratory problems where she lies. The doctor tells her sister that the woman needs a blood transfusion, and that she will need money to get it in Port-au-Price. The young man, desperate to help, runs around the hospital and eventually gathers fifteen dollars to send with the sister. It wasn't enough. The sister returned to say that she didn't have enough money for both the blood and for transportation. Despondent, the young man thereafter committed to raising money to buy blood-storage equipment, later to find that the hospital would charge for its use. "I'm going to build my own f_ing hospital," the young man remembers thinking. This he did, building a large complex in the midst of one of the poorest towns in all Haiti, Cange.* Life work like this takes sacrifice, very personal sacrifice. Influenced by men like Rudolf Virchow and Latin American "liberation t...

Leadership is a learned trait. I found this out through the course of this school year. Each event my class organized taught me something different about it. I used the following for my speech at our end-of-the-year leadership banquet, like a progressive journal that highlighted the year's events. On the floor of the gym were nine "X"'s. For each new event, I walked to the next "X," all while "Dare You to Move," by Switchfoot, played. Here were the events. Monday, August 23rd, 2010 I met with my leadership class for the first time today. To be honest, I felt kind of alone being up there in front of the students. I have some really big shoes to fill. The students loved Mrs. Porta, and I know it won’t be an easy transition for them. Leadership, to me, means fear. Friday, September 24th, 2010 The class held its first rally today. Without a doubt, it was stressful. I had the students meet for a rehearsal, and things didn’t go well at all. I felt ...

Ask experts in literature to tell you what makes a story so compelling, and they will inevitably tell you that all fiction is founded on and driven by a single, all-important central conflict. This conflict can take one of two forms. The first, the external conflict, occurs when the main character struggles against some outside force, whether this is another character, nature, society, etc. In Ice Age , the external conflict is between Manny and Sid on the one hand, and nature on the other. They have to get the baby back to the humans before snow blocks Glacier Pass. The second type, the internal conflict, occurs within a character, who must make some important choice that will determine the outcome of the story. In the first Spiderman , Peter must choose whether to continue to be Spiderman and risk hurting those he loves, or go back to his life as Peter Parker and ignore his responsibility to the city. I used to ask myself why anyone would read fiction. Since it didn't concern r...

Harold Reese's grandfather pointed to a tree in Brandenburg, Kentucky, telling his son that this was where black people were once lynched. That made an impression on the boy, who then relayed the story later to his children. One of these children was Harold Reese. It was Reese who, after Jackie Robinson was signed to play for the Dodgers, refused to sign a petition stating the Dodgers would not play ball with a black man. It was Reese who first introduced himself to Robinson on the field, who played cards with Robinson, and Reese who walked over to Robinson in 1947 and put his arm around him while Robinson was being booed from the stands. Robinson recounted that he had felt a "hopeless, dead feeling" while being ridiculed by his own fans, and that it was Reese who had probably saved his career that day. Reese himself described the last event as sort of an impulse: "Something in my gut reacted to the moment." He didn't exactly know what it was, but his ...

I started a book today called Mountains Beyond Mountains . It details the life of Paul Farmer, a doctor who spends much of his life and energy treating the sick in central Haiti. His complex, called Zanmi Lasante-- "Partners in Health"-- rests in a desolate, remote village called Cange, its seven doctors serving about 100,000 people from the surrounding area. One way that Haitians have explained sickness has been through the idea of maji , or sorcery. While not all Haitians practice Voodoo, even many Catholics and Protestants believe in maji, which many believe is used by enemies to cause illnesses. I suppose this means that there are pidgin religions, just as much as there are pidgin languages. Cultures meet and mix, and you get blended ideas. Geographers call it "acculturation." I don't know yet why the book is called Mountains Beyond Mountains . Maybe it has to do with the challenges that Farmer faced as a doctor here. Anyway, this man lived a unique life...