Thursday, July 21, 2005
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hmm things aren't so well in Stephen-ville.

First off, I'm in such a woeful financial situation that I think the sale of my car, which has just broken the 1000 mile mark, is probably looming. Goddam. School>Car. I suppose it has to be. Poor car of my dreams. Some guy with his grubby hands is now going to defile that nice sneeze of a blow off valve. I just hope some punk kid doesn't drive it and kill himself. On the other hand, I'm pretty much a punk kid and I'm alive ain't I? Well technically I am.

I don't write this because I want people to read it. But rather, it feels nice to have some ideas of mine put on this mysterious Internet. I don't really know what I'm expecting. There's always things which I want to write about but I don't want to anger people that I know. It's like the inevitable wall I reach when I write on this thing-this empty blog of mine.

So aside from my financial and automotive woes, some people from the past have apparently come back innocently to NOT screw with my already harrassed mind. I hope so. I really do love the people I do, and hate those that I do. I don't have much grey area, or many aquaintances. My girlfriend said she wanted me to be a nice guy. Nice guys aren't so fun to be.

Sometimes, I think there is a Heaven and there is a Hell, just, it's really mixed up at times. One week on the streets of SF trying to save children taught me that. I thought I was doing great humanitarian work to save lives. Certainly, that was the core, but it ended up dehumanizing these children. I worked for a profit based company which helps promote the ideas of non-profit companies. Children became numbers and quotas and commission. There are people just hell bent to make that 1000/wk. I mean, the kids are still being helped, but the people who are helping them aren't really trying to do that. It seems more of a side effect than a cause. I guess that is why I quit.

However, during that job I did meet some great people. I met an old couple from Urkraine. They were dressed up all spiffy but one can tell that they weren't in the finest linens. They acted the part though. The man told me he's seen the poor children in the world and that I was doing a great thing. The wife looked on in pure awe as if the man she married was of saintly blood. Good people. Didn't donate jack though.

I also met a woman from France who was quite stunning. Not only was she full of life, but she understood life. Out of the thousand people I try to stop in that day, she was the only one who really stopped and listened. She told me about her childhood as a little girl in France. She saw her father give refuge to Romanian children and give them food. The food that was worth it's weight in iPods. She showed what true compassion sounded life, with a foreign flair. It's quite odd that the two people who I actually had a stimulating conversation about poverty in the world children were both from foreign countries.

I stood next to my partner Siobhan (pronounced Che-von) throughout those 9 hour days and watched busy San Franciscan people rush by in their everlasting hurry. We mocked them with their pompus attitudes and expensive suits. However, every once in a while we talked to someone or saw something that would make me say:

"Wow, there's good people after all."

And then she would say:

"This is true."

So we went on trying to stop those robots of men dressed in Armani. What a job.

I then met this old woman who was peddling homemade necklaces so her son could attend Berkeley. I talked to her for a while, because I was sick of the women who depended on their rich boyfriends while shopping during the weekdays at Banana Republic. She didn't mind us being there like the other street peddlers who stood their territory like hungry wolves. She told me she would silently cheer for me and Siobhan whenever we successfully saved a kid. She told me she lived in a 2 room apartment with her husband and try to work for her son so he can live a better life. I'm a spoiled kid, only having to sell a car. Siobhan said she would buy one of that old ladies' necklaces before she went back to Ireland. I hope she does.

One day we went to UC Berkeley. The students tend to yield more saved children. I had one grad student sign up out of pity for the child and one korean student sign up out of pity for her ever sinning soul. Wonderful how these people come. I talked to some construction workers while camped out in my square of the sidewalk. So many students would stop, but once I whispered "sponsorship" they would go buggy-eyed and suddenly remembered they were late to twelve classes. Sad.

"I totally support what you do, but I can't help."

"60 cents a day?"



Quite awkward that silence. Is it when the human mind's sense of greed fights with the human heart's compassion? Is it when someone goes oh, 60 cents, that is definately worth a life, then the brain kicks in and says: "FOOL! You need the money to buy coffee and flip-flops which state your liberal lifestyle."? I really wonder sometimes. Yeah, go Cal...not. I quite wished I chose the Bruin path in those situations.

It was quite the experience, to gently poke the face of American Humanitarianism.

Stephen at 11:32 PM