When It Rains, It Pours

Well, I wouldn't say it poured here, but it did rain last night! As much as I love the desert, I do find it difficult to live without the rain. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, it is a part of me. I was even thinking of going up north some weekend when it is supposed to rain there, just to feel the cold, wet drops on my face. Luckily, I didn't have to go so far. Unfortunately, I did not get to enjoy it very much as we seemed to bring some sort of stomach bug home from the Rainbow. Yesterday was definitely the worst of it. I stood outside for a couple of minutes and then listened to the rain fall from my bed...

I'm feeling much better today and so is the air. The air seems much cleaner, and it almost feels like fall here, but there are no pumpkins or changing leaves. It really makes me miss it, even though I used to dread fall because it meant winter was just around the corner. We may be giving up jack-o-lanterns, but we've decided to celebrate Challoween (get it?) instead - costumes, candy, the works. There are also no shortage of pumpkin seeds here...it's a favorite in the Middle East.

Aside from the physical rain, we've also had a lot of reading dumped on us. And the material is pretty heavy. I'm pretty much hearing over and over again how we're screwed and well on our way to making the planet uninhabitable. Go us. The issues are so massive that it can become completely overwhelming and seem hopeless. I've been thinking a lot about how I dealt with my work last year - seeing poverty, severe illness, and injustice daily - and why, in some ways, I am having more trouble with learning about climate change and our current agricultural system than I did then. Not that I was really able to accept or reconcile what I saw last year, but I was able to separate myself in a way that I am having trouble with here. Perhaps it is the fact that I go to class and talk about climate change, and then I come home and read about climate change, and then I talk to everyone around me about it. It's just too much. Last year, when I went home, I made a conscious effort to leave things at work. Or maybe, as Sara said to me, maybe it's because it's "like...the EARTH." I think that sums it up pretty well.

On a more positive note, I get to vote! It should be a given, but I still haven't received my ballot, and I'm kind of starting to freak out. I decided to do some research and see if there were any other options. It turns out that I can mail in a write-in absentee ballot that will be counted if my actual absentee doesn't make it in time. Whew.

- M