Shat On

For the first time in my life I got shit on by a bird. This is not a metaphor, I am not Stephen Colbert or Sean Penn competing in the Meta-Free-Phor-All. I literally got shit on by a bird, albeit the size of about 1/10 the area of a dime, I still got shit on.

The novel experience of having this little white dot appear on my hand made me reflect on the fact, and yes it is a fact (at least in my book) that something new does happen everyday. Today amongst the many new things that will come my way the most significant will be the small relic from some tiny bird.

Cool Fact: The book the pigeon is reading is the A-Z guide for London. You can tell by the tube map and Underground symbol located on the back cover of the book.

Inner Confusion

Still in great remorse about the VT killings, I can't help but think about the value of a human's life. Whenever this question pops into my head, I think about Stalin's infamous quote (don't hold me to the wording), "One lost life is a tragedy. A million lost lives is a statistic." Mulling over the insensitivity of these words, how come I can actually agree with this and it feels disgusting. In addition to the number of deaths that occur, the proximity in which they happen also have a great affect on how personal one feels about it.

This morning I came across this story, "Six Bombs kill 160 in Baghdad". Seeing this headline on any other day I would simply just think, how terrible but due to where it happened and the size of the killings it is impossible to fully understand the significance of the event. But with VT and the recency of the event I automatically compared the two.

The Tech shootings are a tragedy which I can easily feel my self connected to in which the event really hit me. Seeing 160 dead in Baghdad, it is hard feeling the same sadness for those in Iraq with the students and teachers in Blacksburg.

It would be impossible and a depressing life for one to feel the same sadness about all deaths and killing like those at Tech, but having these occasional, rare thoughts makes you think more about the world and all of us in it. It always brings up bitter emotion in myself when thoughts of comparisons of lives comes across my head. I try to invalidate those thoughts and try to imagine the neurons and synapses causing these ideas to stop and hopefully focus their attention on something else but thats just a distraction.

I don't feel the value of a human's life changes whether they are American, Iraqi, Chinese and most will agree with this. But having such strong emotions about a particular incident and then seeing a massacre across the world happen and just treat it like another news story puts things in an unenjoyable perspective.

My Brother is OK

"My brother is ok. I appreciate everyone's concern and will update you on any information I get." This is an e-mail I received yesterday around 12:50pm.

12:15 pm: I had just come back from my gen ed science class and was determined to start right away working on a Marketing research paper. I watched a little bit on CNBC while eating lunch before I started to write but they did not have any news on VT. As I am collecting and studying research for my paper I read the e-mail. Having no idea what my friend was speaking about I go to cnn.com, turn back on the TV, and see the horror unfold.

I could not believe what I saw. A massacre has taken place at Virginia Tech. First it was 21 dead, then 22 dead, 23 dead, and the number kept rising like watching mercury in a thermometer, you never knew at what point it was going to stop. I was stunned. The first glimpse of seeing that video and hearing the loud crack whip sound of gun shots echoing in Norris Hall had me held back in my seat barely able to comprehend what had happened. I never felt so connected to such a tragedy.

JMU while very different to Tech (as noted in an earlier post) also is very similar because of where the schools are. For Virginians, Tech and JMU are interchangeable schools where many high school students know that either one is a realistic future. The campuses of both schools are filled with Virginians because they are public state universities. Knowing how similar the places are made me feel as if this happened to JMU's brother not just another university. This hit me even closer having traveled down to Tech in early February for fraternity conclave. Seeing the buildings on tv, had me shaken in my seat.

It is hard to recall a moment that I can vividly remember where I felt sick, compassion, sad, scared, mortified, and shocked at the same time. That is the power of this event. 32 people murdered by the act of one person. Students and Professors who were going about bettering themselves, learning, had their lives taken away.

As the profiles as the victims pass on CNN, it is still hard to believe. They identified the shooter but that does not bring back those who were killed. Seeing the guy's picture and learning about him doesn't phase me at all. I don't care who he was. I don't want to know him. He doesn't deserve my time.

I'm not one to pray but may everyone's prayers go to those at Virginia Tech and their families and friends.

Bamgoogled

Long time no post. More than a month. Tisk, tisk to me but these past few weeks have been quite a spin. I finished another book or two/three, traveled to New Orleans for spring break, and have had interviews for summer internships.

My summer goal was to land an internship with one of the most exciting and fun companies, Google. The company is amazing. The world is familiar with their search engine but that is just a brush stroke in the painting that is Google. There is much more to Google than a good search engine. They are constantly creating new products and programs and improving on past creations. This blog is on a Google owned service. Just today I came across a new feature on Google Maps where they now have My Maps section where you can see an interactive geographical time line of an event. It's really cool, check it out.

Back to the interviews. I applied all over for internships but my wish was to be at Google. I knew Google was extremely selective in its hiring approach recruiting heavily from Ivy Leagues but my fingers were crossed. Incredibly (this cannot be stressed enough), I heard back from Google! Jumping up and down in my room an adrenaline rush overtook my body from the happiness derived from that email. To get a response for an internship position was thrilling. They say luck comes from hard work, this is an attestation to that. While I knew Google did not know how much of my time was involved with their products I had a feeling the more effort put into learning about the company the luckier I may be. After an e-mail screen and several phone interviews it was time to wait and see if I made the next cut. For several weeks my life was completely wrapped around my Gmail notifier waiting to see it turn blue and watch a pop up from Google appear. Unfortunately this never happened. After many days and nights filled with Google dreams, my anticipation of what may be was ended.

While it is disappointing not being able to live in Mountain View this summer I am still ecstatic that I made it that far. The experience is full of positives. At first I was devastated but looking back that was a irrational feeling where my emotions took control. Through my experiences, writing, and work I was able to accomplish something most people can ever say they thought about doing. I was able to learn first hand about several Google products from employees and getter a deeper understanding of the company. What more could I ask for? To borrow a Taoist saying, A 1000 mile journey starts with a first step. While I did not have much control on whether I would be able to take the first step it has happened and I will make the best of it. That first step is the hardest and it has brought me closer to the goal of working at Google.