the South Pole
the Lemaire Channel on the Antarctic Peninsula
Today it’s exactly 100 years ago that Roald Amundsen arrived, as the first human on the South Pole. Together with his 4 companions Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel and Oscar Wisting and 16 dogs. He started on October 19th, a few weeks before, and a bit further south as Robert Falcon Scott did.
The Symbol of Moving On.
Keys unlock things. These keys unlock the door to my new apartment.
What new phase will they unlock?
What’s in store on the other side?
Let’s turn the key…
Steve was with me.
When I was in fourth grade and my imagination grew with a cowboy and a space ranger,
Steve was with me.
When I was a sixth grader learning to type,
Steve was with me.
When I was a high schooler and created my first web page,
Steve was with me.
When I grappled with my college applications,
Steve was with me.
When I was in college and stayed up all night to finish a paper,
Steve was with me.
When I wanted to express myself through music or video,
Steve was with me.
When I received my first full-time job with Apple,
Steve was definitely with me.
When I decided to become a teacher and educate the future,
Steve was with me.
When I received that important phone call for my first teaching gig,
Steve was with me.
When I stayed up all hours into the night lesson planning,
Steve was with me.
When I heard of his passing,
Even then, Steve was with me.
As I’m typing these words,
Steve is still with me.
And I can’t help but think that he’ll still be with me, and with all of us, for many generations to come.
After all, he is our Einstein; our Newton; our Disney; our rebel who knew what we wanted,
Long before we, ourselves, knew it.
Goodbye, Mr. Jobs.
Goodbye, Steve. You are an inspiration, a wonderful man, and a true innovator of our time. You are our Einstein.
Happy Birthday, Jim Henson.
Happy birthday, Jim Henson.
You died way too young.
Only 75.
Here is a wonderful photo of you and Kermit.
Winnipeg Jets Unveil New Logo
The new Winnipeg Jets released their official logo today. I’m glad that there’s a new Canadian hockey team, and I like the new logo. The merging of the jet and the maple leaf leaves me with a “classic” feeling.
What do you think?
A Tourist In My Own Backyard.
I found myself a tourist in New York today. That’s weird for me to write because I’ve lived in the tristate area my whole life. I’ve been to city more times than I can remember, but today I found myself riding a double decker bus through the uptown streets of Manhattan.
The two-level, red bus came with a very quirky and forgetful host, who narrated the day for us. I wasn’t paying much attention to what she was saying, but as we passed by Central Park, she said something that was quite interesting.
“All throughout the city you can see soldiers on horses,” she exclaimed into her microphone.
I agreed with her. I’ve seen many statues of soldiers riding a horse throughout the city, so I turned my head and focused on the scurrying cabs below.
“But what many people don’t know is what the position of the horses’ legs mean,” she said.
I turned my head; I was intrigued.
She continued, “If you see a statue of a horse with two legs in the air, then that means the rider was killed in battle. If you see a horse with one leg up in the air, then that rider was wounded during battle. And if you see a statue of a horse with all four legs on the ground, then the rider survived and died outside of battle.”
“Very cool,” I thought to myself.
In a very simple interaction, this quirky tour guide taught me two important lessons:
One: History truly sleeps all around us.
Two: You can truly learn something anywhere; you just have to be willing to look for it.
10 Years Ago.
10 years ago, I was a completely different person. I was sixteen. I was in high school. I was, for lack of a better word, an asshole. I didn’t care about politics, world views, different perspectives, the environment, humanity, and so much more.
On the morning of September 11th, 2001, I was finding my seat in 11th grade chemistry. Due to overcrowded classrooms, I was put in a room full of advanced 10th graders. I can remember opening my text book to an arbitrary page and completing that morning’s opening activity.
My chemistry teacher, Mr. Mignela, waited until the clock struck 9:05AM before taking the final sip of his coffee and beginning his lesson.
“Okay. Let’s go over the first three questions,” Mr. Mignela said.
Those were the last words I would hear before the world changed.
Just as he was about to continue, the loudspeaker turned on. All fifty-eight eyes looked up as the crackling and huffs of the principal’s breath were broadcast throughout the whole school.
“Ladies and gentleman. May I have your attention please,” Dr. Lando commanded. I was use to hearing his voice each and everyday, but there was a particular tone in his voice this morning. It made even the most problematic students, like myself, pay attention.
“As of this morning, two planes have crashed into the World Trade Center,” he said. Dr. Lando’s words hung over the class for a few moments. I, along with the rest of the school, didn’t understand the full extent of his words. He went on to further explain, but it didn’t seem, at the time, like a big deal.
A period later, I was in Spanish class. Between periods there was murmuring in the hallway about what happened, but it still didn’t seem like a big deal. I dismissed it as just a sad accident that happened.
I was wrong.
My Spanish teacher, Ms. Zuniga, was already knee deep into a lesson on action verbs when it happened. Dr. Lando came back on the loud speaker.
“As of this moment, both World Trade Center buildings have fallen.”
I looked around the room. Some people looked worried; some people looked scared; some people were laughing; some people had an indifferent expression; but all were in some way reacting to these words.
I looked down at the blank page in my notebook. That is how I reacted. On that blank page I pictured the Twin Towers falling down to the Earth. As a resident of New York, I’ve seen those buildings many times on TV and in person.
Then I looked up. I looked towards my teacher because she was the only adult in the room. Surely she could make a sense of what happened. Surely she could make everything alright.
But she looked right back out at us and tears were forming in her eyes. She tried to stifle them, to keep that veil up in front of her students. She uttered one phrase that I will never forget.
“My god. All those people,” she said.
That was when I knew. Seeing my teacher break down and cry in front of her students, I knew things would be different. That this was not just a little blip on the radar. I knew that this would change the world.
I didn’t know it would inevitably change me too.
In the years since, I’ve become more concerned with the world. I’ve become more interested in politics. I care more about the environment. I even pick up other people’s trash. I consider other perspectives, and I try to be good to the members of both my species and others. I, in a sense, stopped being an asshole.
Over the last ten years, I haven’t really given any consideration to the catalyst of my own development as a person. I didn’t think that 9/11 was the genesis of it. But as I write this, I now know the effect that 9/11 has had on me.
It’s taken me ten years to realize it.
gotoffs
