WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

Picture taken from www.weeklynews.com

The weird thing about Hurricane Sandy is that I have both love and hate for her. I hate her because of the devastation she caused and the countless lives she ruined. People fail to realize that Sandy was also in the Caribbean and affected people In the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. I had a friend who was in Jamaica for business and she was stuck out there in her hotel room the hotel time and didn’t get to conduct any business. Sandy has really done a number on the world as we know it, and to think I did not really believe the forecasters when they said there would be a storm. Hurricane Sandy shut down numerous businesses and cost billions of dollars in property damage not to mention closing local schools. Now many of you are like “what’s the big deal with school being closed” but I want to remind you that if schools are closed those missed days have to be made up and more than likely the semester will have to be extended. A friend of mine whose children are in elementary school told me that the public school systems plan on canceling winter recess so the days can be made up. The only problem is that my friend has already paid for hotel and flight accommodations to take her family to Disney Land. See, there goes Sandy messing things up. I also found out today that in order to make up for the 2 classes I missed that I have to come to class on Sunday, what kind of crap is that?

Even though I have hate for Sandy, she does get a little love from me because she brought families and friends closer together. As a matter of fact she brought strangers together and made them friends. People in this world spend so much time avoiding their neighbors, their friends and families and this storm made us realize that you need these people in your life. Many strangers saved people from burning and flooded buildings, many family members made room in their homes for relatives they hadn’t heard from in months or even years. Hurricane Sandy made people think about something other than material possessions, they thought about their lives. Some people may have even made resolutions to do things different if they survived the storm and I hope that they stick to them.

As far as with me, Hurricane Sandy actually gave me a lot of one on one time with my girlfriend, we had the chance to talk more and enjoy each other’s company. We even built a shelf for our bathroom which was cool. I can’t remember the last time I put something together and everything went well. I even carved a pencil into a wooden piece that was missing from the pieces needed to put the shelf together. I can’t believe I even did that and I will always remember that memory. We also watched movies and played scrabble which is something I haven’t done since the early 90’s. It felt good going back to a simpler time when there wasn’t many distractions and you had to rely on one another for entertainment. I really was challenged by putting that shelf together and playing scrabble made my brain hurt but it was fun. I felt a sense of accomplishment. I’m curious how many families had conversations in one room for the first time in years. How many actually ate dinner together and watched TV together for the first time in years. That describes my love/hate relationship with Hurricane Sandy.