October 7, 2003

Today is the California governor's recall election, and I must say that for some reason I'd really like to see Schwarzenegger win.

At first I thought that my feeling was simply due to the fact that as the Governor of California he'd be too busy to make his cheesy movies. But no, I think it goes beyond that…

I don't know much about Davis. In fact, I don't even know why he is going through this recall… All I know is that I like what I've heard from Schwarzenegger. I like how he's reacted to the accusations of him mistreating women, and I like his stances on the issues. He sounds like an ordinary guy, not like a politician and I think we need more of that in government.

October 17, 2003 Okay, so I haven't written in awhile. I've been busy planning a Vacation. (Click on the word ”Vacation” for details.

October 20, 2003 Today was supposed to be the day that we book our cruise. I got confirmation that my time off is approved, but Ed's still waiting on his. As luck would have it his boss is out sick, although he's expected back tomorrow.

Oh well, I'm taking it all in stride. This is the “No worries” vacation (yeah right). At least I'm trying…

I guess it's a bit early to be counting down since the cruise isn't actually booked yet, but we have 87 days left. It feels good to say that. Something to look forward to…

October 28, 2003

I found this essay on the internet. It's about what it's like raising a child who has Down Syndrom, although the publisher pointed out that it could be about raising a child with any disability. Here's the essay, the pertinence to my life will follow…

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WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared the unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this:

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. Michelangelo's “David.” The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?” you say. “What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there's been a change in the flight plans. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. You must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

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I've been noticing lately that the source of most of the depression and anger in my life is expectation. I set myself up for failure by expecting the driver in front of me to realize that I'm in a hurry, and let me pass. Or I expect other people to go out of their way to keep me on my diet. I even go to stores expecting them to sell the shirt that I have pictured in my head. It all adds up to a lot of frustration. By eliminating expectation, or at least recognizing that the expectations are unrealistic (not expecting my expectations to be fulfilled?) I can lead a happier, more relaxed life. Or at least that's the plan. We'll see how it works out…

October 31, 2003 I'm thinking about getting my hair cut like this: http://ericasworld.logic.net/pictures/me2.jpg

But that's not why this pic is here. I learned to ftp today. Lame, I know, but I'm a Window's admin. I'm not supposed to know how to use the command prompt thing…

October 31, 2003 (again)_ I just got back from going to see “Beyond Borders”, a new movie starring Angelina Jolie. I really don't know how this movie ever got made. The script was a mess. Everything was way overdramatic. It, unfortunately, destroyed the aim of the film.

It started off great. A bunch of rich sociallites (white) are gathered at the 20th annual Black and White Ball to raise money for charity. Behind the band is a banner with the faces of starving children (black) while all the guests are drinking champaigne and rocking along. Then, a man barges in. He's a doctor that donates his time on the front lines trying to save these victims of famine, drought, and rampent (preventable) disease. He carries with him a boy that he's “saved”. The boy is still malnourished and looks like the children you see on TV late at night -you can see every bone in the child's body. He tells everyone what hippocrites they are for living it up while his funding is cut so that the charity's director can buy himself another car. The guests are speechless, no one knows what to do about this man. Why, he's not even whering a suit! In the end, the silence is broken when someone throws a banana at the man's feet as he his speaking about how the boy (and the rest of the people in his village) are just bearly surviving on their donated food. He slowly picks up the banana, removes the peel gently, and hands it to the boy. Then, he looks back at the crowd (who are finally finished laughing) and asks says “Oh, I get it -a monkey joke. You wanna see him act like a monkey?” He speaks to the boy in his (african) language and the boy looks at the people and shyly does a monkey impression. Cut to Angelina Jolie -her eyes welling up with tears as everyone around her just looks uncomfortable. Then, the police break in and take the uninvited guests away.

The rest of the film was garbage. There were so many dramatic moments, each with overdramatic dialog and all taking away from the film's larger message -the hundreds of millions of people on this earth who don't have enough to eat, clean drinking water, or even proper shelter.

Don't believe it's that bad? Go see it. It wasn't money wasted in my opinion, it did make me think. But let me summarize the plot so you can see why I thought the point was lost in all the confusion. SPOILER Angelina Jolie's character, “Sarah” just got married when the film begins. She and her new husband attend this ball and the events that take place there emplore her to do more than send money to Africa. She's going to go there -bring the food to the people herself. So, (in a beautiful white outfit with matching floppy hat) she's off to Africa. There, amidst great horrors and atrocities she meets the doctor again. He treats her like dirt, but in the end she's facinated with him. Eventually she has to go back home. A few years later (and after she's had a son with her husband) she gets a call from the doctor's assistant who wants to get together. As she's about to leave to meet with him she catches her husband having an affair. She's not too thrown by this,however, and goes to meets her friend who asks for her help in getting food to Cambodia. “Sure” says she, and decides (not too suprisingly) to bring it to the camp herself. So, she gets to Cambodia, and there's in the midst of a lot of gunfire and a baby playing with a hand-granade she and the doctor profess their love for one another and seal it with a little more than a kiss. The next morning he orders her home because he's dedicated to his work and the places he visits are just too dangerous for her. So, off she goes back to her husband in London. Fast forward a few more years and her family has grown again (she has a daughter now) and she gets word from her sister that the doctor is in trouble in Chechnya. She kisses her kids goodbye and heads to go see him. When she gets there she finds out that he's been captured by rebels and she risks her life to find him (although he doesn't seem to want to escape with her until she reveals that she has a daughter -and its his!) Then, they flee the captors and head for safety. Before they get there, however, Sarah is killed. The credits roll after the doctor pulls up to Sarah's husband's house and sees his daughter in the window. So, you're pretty much left to imagine the uncomfortable conversation that would take place when he knocks on the door. “Hi, I'm the doctor that your wife's been cheating with. Yeah, sorry about your loss. Um, right before she died she told me that the little girl you have in there is actually mine.”

Ugh. I mourn for what this film could have been. It would do so much good to bring light to this subject, but I fear that this film won't be getting much attention at all…