So this post is going to be of the personal kind. An update of my life as of late. It’s been an exciting week including environmental debates, revelations about family, old friends, employment and much more. I apologize now for the random organization of thoughts but I write em as I think em. So I’ll just jump right into it then.
This campus is already starting to grow on me. I am getting to the point where I am recognizing people on campus. This is nice considering that just a month ago I knew no one and no one knew me from Adam. Campus is calm and serene. This is just the kind of place I was searching for when considering schools. Squirrels are in abundance, I saw one carrying an animal cookie and it just struck me as an extremely innocent and beautiful scene. The campus has it’s fair share of drama for sure, but it’s these in between times when I am riding my bike through campus that that have stirred within me the kind if zen peacefulness I have been looking for.
Speaking of biking, I saw the aftermath of a brutal bike accident on campus today. Apparently two folks met in a head on collision while bicycling. I can understand the cause of the accident, the sun was hanging low and blinding anyone heading west. I myself could not make out any of the individuals involved in the accident because of the blinding sun. The two individuals were wheeled out on stretchers with police, a fire engine and ambulance all on scene. Neither of the folks involved in the accident could speak so the police were asking people nearby if they saw what happened. The reason I mention this is I seriously feel for these two people. They were just going about their regular routine and now they’re in the hospital. I am sure few people expect to be seriously injured while riding a bike. It seems like such a normal and inconsequential activity. I didn’t know them but I can only imagine how much this sucks for them. I wish them a speedy recovery.
Back on track. This will be the more educational portion of my post, feel free to skip ahead. I was approached early last week by a student requesting my signature for a petition. The petition was to the City Council of the City of Davis. It was requesting the city to pass a ban on the use of plastic grocery bags. The poor girl caught me at a bad time, I was in a very argumentative mood. I gave her the usual lazy arguments, “Paper bags rip and are inconvenient for me when I ride my bike, I won’t always remember to bring cloth bags nor do I want to pay for them and finally I reuse my plastic bags.” All of these are true but even I know that if you really care about the environment none of these excuses amount to much. So I told her I could not sine a petition until I was accurately informed on the subject. So I told her I would go home and do my research and then I would find her the next day and either we would continue this debate or I would sign the petition. So true to my word I did my research and found her the next day and had this to tell her. I would not sign the petition because not only did it inconvenience me as a shopper, it also did more harm than good. Research shows that 41% of people are like me and reuse their plastic grocery bags as garbage bags. In Ireland there was a 400% increase in sales for plastic garbage bags and bin liners after passing a law similar to the plastic bag ban proposed in Davis. It seems odd to me that it has been relatively not too long since the environmental movement taught us that paper grocery bags were evil. They cost a lot of energy to make, millions of trees are cut down to make them and they release methane into the air which is a greenhouse gas. Well it seems environmentalists have forgotten their own lesson, a plastic bag ban would dramatically increase the use of paper bags which are potentially even more harmful to the environment. I mean really what was the plastic bags real crime? Sitting in a landfill where animals can’t mistakenly eat it, where it doesn’t emit any harmful greenhouse gasses, where it takes up relatively little space(>.5%) and doesn’t release chemicals into the water supply? Well her response was there is some floating garbage island in the middle of the pacific so I kindly I asked, “How much of that floating island has Davis contributed being as we are a decent distance from the coast?” She didn’t have a response, she just smiled and I thanked her for her time. I promise that is the end of my rant.
So I have been watching a lot of my favorite show “The West Wing”. Well imagine my surprise when I heard a name that I recognize quite well, Lockwood. Now I know that most people would not be surprised to hear their last name on television, especially if their last name is Smith or Jones but Lockwood is a fairly uncommon last name. So upon hearing the name Belva Lockwood mentioned on my favorite show I looked her up. She was one of the first female lawyers in the U.S.. She was the first female to be allowed to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, and she was the first woman to appear on the official presidential ballot when she ran for President in 1884. After hearing about this I called my father to ask him about my family history and to see if I was indeed related to this amazing woman. He told me that there is a very good chance because almost all of the Lockwoods in the U.S. can trace their origins to the original three Lockwood Brothers that came here by boat early in our nation’s history. He also told me that I am likely to be related to the actor Gary Lockwood who starred in the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is very exciting to me, that I could be related to someone very important to this nation’s history. I really want to work on filling in my family tree on my father’s side. It may be an impossible task and I may never find out if I really am related to this amazing woman but until then my brother and I are hard at work making the Lockwood name one that will be rich with stories and history.
Actually I should mention the way my brother Cory is going about bringing honor to the Lockwood name. Cory and his band just released their second album called, “Conversation Piece”. I have been listening to it all week and it is amazing. The band really did an amazing job of blending together the incredible talents of all it’s members. You should give it a listen.
I was excited last week because I got to see many of my old friends from CRC. I went to my dear friend Christina Castro’s play, “Rocky Horror Picture Show” It was awesome. Super raunchy but a lot of fun. I got to see a lot of my friends including Albert Gomez, Christina Alvarado and Amanda Saelee. I can not wait to see the whole CRC crew next Wednesday.
OK finally to the most exciting news of the week, I GOT A JOB!!! It isn’t the most high paying job ever but it is doing what I love. I am the new Assistant to the Vice President of the Associated students of the University of California Davis. On top of helping organize the VP’s schedule I will be attending meetings, working on projects, helping with the interns and so much more. I wanted to get involved on campus and this is the perfect way to do it. It is a much needed foot in the door. As an added bonus a Senator recently told me that I need to run for Senate in the Winter Quarter. I will surely have much more to speak about on this subject in the future so stay tuned in.
Finally that leaves me with the last topic I wanted to speak about. The subject of love has been manifesting itself to me a lot lately. I’m not sure if the world is being particularly cruel to me or perhaps it’s just that I have been more sensitive to it recently but I’ve been seeing it everywhere, love. In fact in today’s issue of the California Aggie there were three separate articles which spoke about love. I have seen an abnormal amount of attractive couples holding hands and acting affectionately towards each other on campus. Maybe I am particularly sensitive to it lately but you can’t blame me, it’s been a long time since love handed me a victory. It has been over a year and a half since any girl has shown any interest in me and I found out recently that my ex of whom I was once a very close friend to is getting married. It isn’t that I still have feelings for her, we stopped talking a long time ago and I am very happy for her, but it’s just that I am going to an opera this Friday, alone, and I wish I had someone to go with. There a lot of very cool and exciting things going on in my life right now and I just wish I had someone special to share that with. But I have my friends and they have always been more than enough for me.
Maybe next time I will organize my post a bit better or I’ll cut it up into smaller posts and spread it some. anyway if you read all of this, thanks.
In closing I want to share a few links with you.
The inspiration for the title of this post, a song by this really cool Australian band.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zedudN3Ac8E
One of the websites I got most of my information about the plastic bag ban from. Sure they are probably a bit biased but they provide plenty of citations sources so you can’t argue with fact.
http://savetheplasticbag.com
A stream of the amazing music my brother has made.
http://www.purevolume.com/news/A-Lot-Like-Birds-Conversation-Piece-stream
Wikipedia pages about a bunch of really cool Lockwoods including Belva Lockwood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockwood
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