Done

Well, today was my last day of work at the bakery, and it was kind of bittersweet. As much as I look forward to going back to school and getting into that, I felt like I really poured out a lot of time and energy into something that seems so nameless. All of the cooks at these restaurants and guys who clean and take out the trash. They are just nameless bodies working tirelessly, and easily replaceable. It is very humbling to know that within a week, most people won't remember my name. It seems that we aspire to such grand achievements and legacies that when our work is measured in delivery efficiency that is recquisite merely by a driver's license and baseline competence, we, I am certainly brought down to Earth. But even then, I do have confidence that my five weeks at the bakery was helpful to the others around me. I found myself comparing my summer to other possibilities of mission work or foreign trips and I found that I believe so much emphasis, especially within the Christian culture, is based on changing lives forever. Perhaps I am just going through that overly cynical period of questioning but I do feel so much stronger that my hard work and respect for the Honduran immigrants with me had an impact. Let me not even say that...no impact. Because not everything we do has to "impact" others for our own personal success. The help of others has become more self-glorification than ever before. I enjoyed being sincere with them. Being a co-worker who didn't call them spics or call them gay. I could care less whether they go to church tomorrow morning or not. That is not the point, and the more that it becomes the point, the more ridiculous this entire walk is. I don't know...that certainly was a tangent. But, in the end, I definitely feel blessed to have done what I did. I wish that more people would have that experience.

Birthday

Yay! It's my birthday! Thank you to all the people who called or wrote. It meant a lot to me. When I came into the bakery today, I was met with the news that we had a power outage and so only ran enough power through extension cords to run the ovens. So work went on as usual except with only one light and no A/C. And today was the hottest recorded day of the year with heat indexes topping 110. Whew! What a birthday. You know it's sad when everyone is calling you to talk and you can't get out of bed because you are so exhausted and dehydrated. Well I am back at it tomorrow, no rest for the weary. So I'm signing off. Thanks again everyone.

Crazy fans

Watching the Tour de France this morning, I still remain perplexed regarding the lack of security afforded to riders from fans. On the first ascent of the day, there was a 3 km stretch where the crowd extended several feet on both sides into the middle of the two lane road. One lady barely backed up in time as a rider made a move to pass on the left. Each year there are incidents where fans cause wrecks, like 2 years ago when Lance's handlebar got caught on a lady's camera strap and flipped his bicycle. Now I certainly understand a desire to create an intimate experience for fans and riders alike, but there are times when security needs to be stronger. Certainly you can't have police and barricades covering every inch of a 100 km stretch, but even at the ends of races where there are hundreds of people, you routinely see crazy guys running up alongside the bikes. These bike riders train certainly as hard or harder than most professional athletes in the US, and yet receive little recognition and little security. You can say that's just the nature of the event, that fans factor into the contest, but I don't think that is a very good nature. Crazy people should not be able to determine the outcome of an athletic contest where so much time and money has been spent.

Bridge

Sorry for the lapse in posting. Today was the first day that people could walk on the new Cooper River Bridge...I have posted some pictures on my Webshots for anyone that might be interested. Go check them out!