Life

2004? 2005?

WSA

 

My former boss from Yale has started putting up old photos of the Yale Recycling Crew up on Facebook. It’s pretttttty wonderful.

Here I am on a rainy New Haven day with my coworker Madeleine performing a waste stream analysis of the refuse from Old Campus. We were trying to track the effectiveness of our new on campus recycling campaign. Later that day while we were rummaging through some trash from another college, we came across four water bottles full of urine. And that was when I learned about how men keep pee bottles. Nowadays, I could have learned that from Tina Fey’s Bossypants, but you really don’t believe it until you see it. Even though it was absolutely disgusting, we “analyzed” it anyways in the “bio” pile. What the heck was wrong with us?

Anyways, I miss the recycling crew. Best job ever!

 

Life

Ramblings, Meditations

Whenever I get distracted or sad lately, I’ve found myself drifting back automatically to one of these three memories. I’m not sure why, but I guess they were times when I really felt alive. For the most part focusing on these memories and images makes me feel grounded, strong and hopeful.

1. Sweating a brick and running along the winding Mekong River in Luang Prabang, waving to teenage monks who shyly practiced their Mandarin on me from behind monastery walls. Ni hao! Life is magical.

2. Pulling my jeans up and gasping at the damage to my knee after my pathetic bike accident last year. I saw tendon then, but my knee is fine now. Isn’t the body amazing?

3. Due to cancer complications my dad’s heart stops at the hospital. After some consideration, the doctors revive him.  Shaken after the incident, my mom and dad stop by the McDonald’s drive-through for a Filet O’Fish before heading home. What a day.

  • I’ve been thinking about this one a lot lately, especially since my dad’s birthday is coming up. I started to say “He would have been 52,” but what I will say is “He was 46.” I am trying to practice acceptance these days.
  • I love this story because in my mind it’s a tender and humbling moment between my parents. If I were still trying to make it into a comic, this would be a scene.
  • I used to have a dog whose heart stopped during her spaying. She was revived, thankfully.  Is this a common thing, the heart stopping?
  • The heart seems so fragile, but it keeps bouncing back. It wants to, it has to.