trip

i'm leaving for taiwan in less than 12 hours!

my plan is to take notes on where i went, how i got there, what was fun, what i ate. also documented with pictures. it will be a series of posts when i get back.

...unless i get lazy.

we the living

this is why i want to be a doctor:

"Comrade Commissar, you see, I love him. And he is sick. You know what sickness is? It's something strange that happens in your body and then you can't stop it. And then he dies. And now his life--it depends on some words and a piece of paper--and it's so simple when you just look at it as it is--it's only something made by us, ourselves, and perhaps we're right, and perhaps we're wrong, but the chance we're taking on it is frightful, isn't it? They won't send him to a sanatorium because they didn't write his name on a piece of paper with many other names and call it a membership in a Trade Union. It's only ink, you know, and paper, and something we think. You can write it and tear it up, and write it again. But the other--that which happens in one's body--you can't stop that. You don't ask questions about that. Comrade Commissar, I know they are important, those things, money, and the Unions, and those papers, and all. And if one has to sacrifice and suffer for them, I don't mind. I don't mind if I have to work every hour of the day. I don't mind if my dress is old--like this--don't look at my dress, Comrade Commissar, I know it's ugly, but I don't mind. Perhaps, I haven't always understood you, and all those things, but I can be obedient and learn. Only--only when it comes to life itself, Comrade Commissar, then we have to be serious, don't we? We can't let those things take life. One signature of your hand--and he can go to a sanatorium, and he doesn't have to die. Comrade Commissar, if we just think of things, calmly and simply--as they are--do you know what death is? Do you know that death is--nothing at all, not at all, never again, never, no matter what we do? Don't you see why he can't die? I love him. We all have to suffer. We all have things we want, which are taken away from us. It's all right. But--because we are living beings--there's something in each of us, something like the very heart of life condensed--and that should not be touched. You understand, don't you? Well, he is that to me, and you can't take him from me, because you can't let me stand here, and look at you, and talk, and breathe, and move, and then tell me you'll take him--we're not insane, both of us, are we, Comrade Commissar?"

Ayn Rand, We the Living, Part ONE, Chapter XVI

facebook

i'm thinking about deactivating my facebook (can that be done?).