It's a amazing how something exploding so far away can leave me, here, so shell shocked. Besides having loved ones in England (they don't live in London but travel in occasionally) I've travelled there lots times starting when I was 14 and wanted to see where I was born.

But my reaction right now has much more to do with the reminder of 9/11. I remember the panic because my sister lived there. The confusion created by knowing that a place I'd lived for years and where I had loved ones was falling down and that I had to get children off school buses and go on with the school day. The nightmare of seeing the video coverage. I can see it even as I write this. It was aired so many times that I'm sure that I will never forget them and that every time something like this happens I will be thrown back to the visceral experience of that shock and fear. I think that we were (and continue to be) re-traumatized in part due to the video coverage we saw.

I don't agree with (e:Joshua) though. I'm not completely on the other end of the spectrum; I don't agree with the people who say that we (or anyone else) deserve terror because of our world involvement. But, I do appreciate the connection between the policies and actions of the US and our allies and the terrorist attacks that have happened. Frankly, I think there should be some sort of feedback to the big powers from the rest of the world. But, I don't think that killing more people is a good way to try to get other people to stop killing. But then again, we've all gotten really angry and done something to lash out and hurt people when we were hurting. People do that. Organizations and governments are made up of people and they do that, too. It's a fine line between allowing our future actions and current policies to be impacted by the people our actions and policies are impacting and succumbing to our own fear of future attacks. The real problem, I think, is that in order to justify and find the courage to continue on a particular path in the face of violent opposition, one must be very confident in the rightness of one's actions and policies. In our case, we must be sure that US policies are just, fair, and that they actually reflect US national interests. I just don't trust George Bush that much.

Hey Y'All-

I know at least one person for sure and I think a couple others who are looking for roommates. The one I'm sure about is Cheektowaga right next to the highway. I've seen the house and it's beautiful. A one of my classmates lives there so you'd have lots of time and space to yourself as we rarely have time to do anything except study during the school year. Jen is really friendly and I think she'd be a relaxed roommie.

Let me know if you want more info and I'll forward it on to her.

Keep smiling.

My zen thought for tonight isn't very zen: Shut the damn car alarm off after the first two minutes. No one is doing anything about it anyway.

I added my indebtedness to the loan calculator. It's artificially low though because it represents only the first year of medical education being offered in sunny Buffalo. It will be at least 100,000 by the time I'm done (some of my financial aid is going down). It's crazy that I don't have loans from undergrad but I had SO much financial aide and worked enough to do it without borrowing. Partly that was because the loan system intimidated me and I didn't figure it out, but who's counting?

I haven't decided which direction to go in my venture to meet new people but I have been thinking a lot about how I approach other people. It seems rediculous to have gotten to this point in life and still be so surprised by some of the realizations I have. Sometimes I feel like I figure things out. That by thinking or not actively thinking but processing subconsciously I can follow an idea and explore my motivations or actions or feelings etc. Other times it feels like I just wake up knowing something that I'd never seen before even though it has been there all along.

I have never thought of myself as a person with pride. That sounds silly because obviously (or maybe not so) I am proud of my accomplishments and of my work blahblahblah... It's not that kind of pride. It's more like an aura of sense of self. Anyhow, I discovered this aura trying to discern the motivation for a couple of dumb-ass moves I've made in the last few weeks. What I came up with is that I was angry because my pride had been injured and that aided me making decisions in a somewhat less than rational way.

So, my Zen Thought For The Day is this: Pride is a deadly sin because it can inspire you do idiotic things.