Why do I find this so upsetting? I mean of course it should be upsetting, but I've become numb to most reports of violence in the U.S. and elsewhere, so why does this hurt more? Or... why do the others hurt less? I haven't been very productive for the past couple of days at work. I keep refreshing news stories as tears leak out of my eyes, and I can see from the screen of my coworker that she's doing the same. Is it because they're college students, or that it was an engineering building, or that it's geographically close to DC? I don't understand. I felt like I was going to throw up, so when I left work early today, instead of going to the after school program, I just came home and crawled into bed.
I didn't want to get up... ever... but at 6 I got dressed and went over to the middle school to be a "shadow mentor" in a program for 5th and 6th graders. I'm glad I did... this age group gives me hope. I got to teach a child how to use a protractor to measure angles, and she quickly finished her worksheet. Then she told me that she's going to be in an opera, so I asked her about that. Her music class went to see Madame Butterfly at the Kennedy Center, and now they're staging their own version. I've never seen it, so she explained the plot to me and then told me that she and her friend re-wrote it to be set in the present, and to have a happier ending. And then she flitted around the classroom, performing all of the parts, which she knew by heart. In the new version, instead of killing herself, Cio-Cio-San moves to America with her baby and Kate, who ditches Pinkerton.
But then I came home and watched the news, which maybe I shouldn't do, but I want to know. We got an email at work today telling us that the daughter of AED's Vice President of Billing was among those killed. She was 23, a senior in chemical engineering. I've never even met the man, so I don't know why it's important for me to write this, but I am anyway. That's why I watched the news, but her name was only released this afternoon, so she wasn't mentioned.
I didn't want to get up... ever... but at 6 I got dressed and went over to the middle school to be a "shadow mentor" in a program for 5th and 6th graders. I'm glad I did... this age group gives me hope. I got to teach a child how to use a protractor to measure angles, and she quickly finished her worksheet. Then she told me that she's going to be in an opera, so I asked her about that. Her music class went to see Madame Butterfly at the Kennedy Center, and now they're staging their own version. I've never seen it, so she explained the plot to me and then told me that she and her friend re-wrote it to be set in the present, and to have a happier ending. And then she flitted around the classroom, performing all of the parts, which she knew by heart. In the new version, instead of killing herself, Cio-Cio-San moves to America with her baby and Kate, who ditches Pinkerton.
But then I came home and watched the news, which maybe I shouldn't do, but I want to know. We got an email at work today telling us that the daughter of AED's Vice President of Billing was among those killed. She was 23, a senior in chemical engineering. I've never even met the man, so I don't know why it's important for me to write this, but I am anyway. That's why I watched the news, but her name was only released this afternoon, so she wasn't mentioned.
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