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• Rough Week?

  Friday, May 23, 2008 2:50PM / Standard Entry / Members only
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  I was a little down this week because so many things piled up on me... I had finals in school, and needed more time to study but work was a person short and really really busy, so I was there till 1:30 am quite a bit (I'm a waiter at a trendy, late-night tapas restaurant in Albany). On tope of that, I have to be at school every morning at 9am, which means being up at 7:20 to get the train to school on time, I I often got only a few hours sleep. There's a wushu tournament and demo this weekend to fundraise for the Sichaun quake victims, so I have to train three rusty forms to compete- jiujiebian, changquan and baji- none of them are that good right now... and we have to get ready for the demo. To top it off, my car broke down and I had to leave it in front of my dry cleaners for two days- and run to work from the dry cleaners (where  I was dropping a couple coats off) 2 miles away. I had to walk to the train (2.5 miles) early in the morning and home after sschool and everything was a hassle. I was feeling pretty bad for myself- I'm not big on self pity (and loathe it in other people), but felt like there was so much going on and I didn't want to deal with it...

  Then I got on the BART train Tuesday morning to come home from school, and there was a woman with her whole face burned off. Literally- I don't know if she was in a home fire, or assaulted and burned by someone, but she was the most disfugured person I've ever seen. Her head had no hair at all, and was a pink spiderweb of cracked skin and freshly healing scars. Her pupils peered out from and eybrowless face and melted skin. She had no lips so her teeth were not hidden even at rest. The worst was her nose- there was none- just a pink hole that showed right into her head- smooth- totally gone... It was terrifying and heartbreaking. She used a walker and didn't look anyone in the eye. She was probably a pretty girl once, who liked to dress up and recieve compliments and phone calls and requests for dinner dates. I don't know what her like is like now, but who she was is gone, in a sense. I was proud of her for being there on public transit with her mutilated face uncovered- maybe she is ashamed of her looks now, maybe not, but she is facing the world with her scars and little eyes and no nose and walker and not hiding.

  I could go into detail of all the things I thought and am still thinking- I've been thinking about her every day... suffice to say... it's not that bad, whatever we think it is. This poor woman's life is now worse than mine by far- whatever she endured didn't break her. I have to learn not to pity myself. I doubt she knows she taught me a lesson and shamed me in my own eyes, and I don't know if I could bring myself to tell her if I had the chance, but I'm glad she was on that train the other day, though I'm sad she had to be what she is now  to teach me a lesson.

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