Writer's Block

The USA is the place I was born. Canada is the place I was raised. Taiwan is the place in my heart.

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

The unrelenting whistling winds at this insane hour...

The wind is churning about outside as the windows protecting us whistle; I feel as though I'm in a kettle of boiling water. Actually the weather here lately has most definitely been as fierce as water that's reached its boliing point. Last Saturday a much needed rainstorm started with force and lingered into the night and since then the weather has been extremely variable, in the last 36 hours there have been spits of rain, overcast skies, an earthquake, sunny skies, lightening, a power outage and raging winds.

Yesterday, we had quite an unsettling earthquake, or so it seemed, by my east coast city girl standards. Just before 5 pm I was leisurely grading final exams when I felt it- a shifty feeling, as if all the world's a ship at sea. I definitely did not imagine it- it lasted for 15 minutes. Once you've experienced this type of earthquake, you'll be prone to second guessing yourself . The next time you're feeling a little unstable or woosy you might wonder- is it me or are we having another earthquake? It was the strongest earthquake I've ever felt in my life, but that's not saying much because my ex-roommates in Taipei will attest that during a particular week in 2002 , several earthquakes hit Taipei and each time I had NO idea that any of the earthquakes had happened- even though I was sitting at my computer in the apartment, running in a park and sleeping during those times. LOL. What's wrong with me? So this was the _first_ earthquake that I've fully been aware of experiencing in Taiwan. Perhaps, being on the 29th floor, the effects were magnified. It was a little unnerving. Fortunately nothing broke or was in danger of breaking.


Going Against Nature

I have a sinking feeling that nature is turning on humans for our abuses and assault on our fellow living creatures... certainly we must question the way that we are breeding animals with all of the outbreaks of "chicken flu", foot and mouth disease, mad cow... SARS which has been postulated to have come from pigs or racoons and now monkey pox, which is said to have come from prairie dogs that have been adopted as domestic pets. Just what kinds of conditions are livestock animals being kept in? How can their health be safeguarded, or maybe we should be questioning how or why we even raise livestock... It's enough to make me consider becoming vegetarian.

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