From Bad to Worse...
I am completely depressed right now, though I've been worse earlier today. As I keep getting all hearing all these news reports about unbreakable levees breaking and state-of-the-art pumps failing miserably, I almost feel bad for living in the 20% of New Orleans that isn't flooded. I've been watching CNN all day trying to stay up-to-date, but even CNN isn't up-to-date.
I keep hearing about friends and family whose houses are completely submerged and rumors of people standing on top of my high school to keep dry. While I'm happy my friends and family are safe, my house is intact, my belongings are okay, I feel absolutely awful for having that luck. And then I go online and read comments like this:
"2005-08-30 09:02:27 PM rutager
New Orleans always has been a cesspool of humanity. Hopefully it will just sink the ground and disappear."
This comment has made me upset all day. I want to send this person an email asking him why he would say this about a place where people live, but I'm too afraid I'll get angry, and just prove his point. This post was made on fark.com, a well-known, frequently visited site, and yet no one else retaliated on this thread. It made me wonder what would happen if he had said that about New York or D.C. about 9/11 or about South Asia when the tsunami hit last year. This made me more upset, like people looked over and thought, "yeah, it is a bit of a cesspool, and it IS sinking." (and I'm not even go over the grammatical errors in that message.)
I'm not exactly saying that this is like the tsunami or 9/11, but this is really the first time where my city is in some sort of dangerous limbo. It's way too personal. Residents are told they can't come back to New Orleans for a month or two. Schools don't resume for another two months.
And I'm leaving to go on a plane in a few hours, and I got in a huge fight with my brother Ben this afternoon, and my brother Sam just walked outside by himself at 9:30 at night to go buy Oreos at the 7-11, without telling anyone. He came back, thank God. I can't handle this anymore. I need sanity quickly!!!! I just can't stop crying today...
(P.S.: I'm not suicidal, so don't worry about that)
I keep hearing about friends and family whose houses are completely submerged and rumors of people standing on top of my high school to keep dry. While I'm happy my friends and family are safe, my house is intact, my belongings are okay, I feel absolutely awful for having that luck. And then I go online and read comments like this:
"2005-08-30 09:02:27 PM rutager
New Orleans always has been a cesspool of humanity. Hopefully it will just sink the ground and disappear."
This comment has made me upset all day. I want to send this person an email asking him why he would say this about a place where people live, but I'm too afraid I'll get angry, and just prove his point. This post was made on fark.com, a well-known, frequently visited site, and yet no one else retaliated on this thread. It made me wonder what would happen if he had said that about New York or D.C. about 9/11 or about South Asia when the tsunami hit last year. This made me more upset, like people looked over and thought, "yeah, it is a bit of a cesspool, and it IS sinking." (and I'm not even go over the grammatical errors in that message.)
I'm not exactly saying that this is like the tsunami or 9/11, but this is really the first time where my city is in some sort of dangerous limbo. It's way too personal. Residents are told they can't come back to New Orleans for a month or two. Schools don't resume for another two months.
And I'm leaving to go on a plane in a few hours, and I got in a huge fight with my brother Ben this afternoon, and my brother Sam just walked outside by himself at 9:30 at night to go buy Oreos at the 7-11, without telling anyone. He came back, thank God. I can't handle this anymore. I need sanity quickly!!!! I just can't stop crying today...
(P.S.: I'm not suicidal, so don't worry about that)