The Way I See It # 540

I fell down tonight and really fucked up my legs. I spent a good deal of time washing out my cuts with hydrogen peroxide. That stuff is vile, and reallllly burns. but I think they're clean. To be honest, I'm really paranoid about getting scars now. I'll have to hit up CVS and get some Maderma.

But for a good while my legs will be looking like shit.

and I was just about to get my tan on!

Hopefully with liberal amounts of hydrogen peroxide I can speed up the healing process.

When I got home I was approached by an elderly African American woman. She told me that she had finished her night shift cleaning one of the VCU offices and her car broke down. She didn't have AAA, and she had no money to get home. So I called the cab company and asked how much cab fare would be for her to get home. 12-15 bucks? That seems like a lot! But I didn't want to leave this woman hanging. Although she could have been jiving me, she seemed incredibly sincere, and I believe that she really couldn't get home. So I gave her the money, and she said she would pay me back since she worked right across the street.

I thought about weighing my perspective of human goodness on whether or not this woman keeps to her word. If she returns the money I gave her, then obviously at least there is one good person out there, and if not then I guess I lost $15. In the big scheme of things $15 isn't a big deal. I'll earn multiples of $15 within my lifetime, so the value isn't really the issue. I guess what matters is that I felt compelled enough to help out this woman who didn't have a way to get home. And I guess I'm glad I did that. I don't want to be that cynical person who believes everyone is naturally bad, and that this poor woman was spinning me a story.

End of story, this old woman gave me a kiss on the cheek and called a cab on my phone.
I wonder if I'll ever see her again.

The Way I See It # 534

My Anthropology professor is an awesome guy. He's an "absent minded professor" but his experiences doing ethnography are inspiring, motivating, and at times, frightening. His studies focused on Shamanism in South America with the Mazatec peoples. Prof. Abse doesn't like talking about his experiences, but since we're studying shamanism in his class, he has been willing to open up.

However, last class he became jumbled, which isn't uncommon, and couldn't continue the lecture properly. He told us that he is skeptical of Shamanic healing, and a student asked him if a bad experience was the cause of this. He said yes, in the village he was studying at a bout of cholera had broken out and several people died. This young man was brought to the hut he was staying in with the Shaman, and it was clear that he was going to die if they didn't get him to a hospital. However, the young man's frightened sister took him to another Shaman, who advised he shouldn't accept western medicine. The young man was dead by morning.

It was clear that Prof. Abse was hung up on probably many more disturbing things he had experienced during his ethnography, and couldn't continue the lecture because of it.

The ethical implication connected with ethnographic field study I'm sure are hard to bear, and knowing exactly what someone needs to do in order to survive and illness and not be able to help him because of cultural differences is something I never considered.

The Way I See It # 404

Barack Obama is our 44th President.

This is great. Not only because my party is now in the White House once again, but because I think that either McCain or Obama would have brought about significant Change, and that's what we need.

I'm excited by the cheering in the streets, and the honking of horns that I can hear through my glassy windows, and I feel enlivened. This is the start of something new.

And I contributed to it. I did something for my country, and it feels good.

It feels so good.

And this is good for breaking the mold..... We finally have a Minority President Elect!