As we are only a few houses down from one end of our street, there’s a traffic signal bringing vehicles to a halt before giving their occupants the green light to go on about their day. Every once in a while, there will be quite a few car horns unleashed that can be easily heard through our open widows: some of the blaring is in a staccato-like (short and detached) fashion; others are more long and drawn out, which makes me wonder if it’s even going to work the next time the driver wants to use it. Now, I’m obviously not setting up shop at the end of our block to take notes in some unscientific attempt to psychologically analyze human beings in their respective vehicles as to what all the fuss is about.
Last week, I noticed this rather immense collection of cars in the parking lots around the Methodist church just down the road from our home. It wasn’t on a weekend though. So, something was obviously amiss. All I saw was this little sign at one of the entrances: “Celebrating Methodist Missions in Ohio, Korea, and Beyond.” That seemed like an…interesting connection to be made with a country nearly 7,000 miles away. So, of course, that led to some internet researching:
I have the utmost respect for many in career paths that I could not even begin to imagine making them part of the 9-5, Monday-Friday routine. But for some, the work cannot possibly be contained to those 8 hours each day. Teachers must be all-in attentive to their students during the day, but must ensure they grade papers and tend to whatever preparations for the days ahead, especially the ones who want to go beyond the bare minimum curriculum adherence. Then, there are the social workers, who must be in constant contact with such students who may be facing their fair share of struggles on the home front, all the while facing constant criticism at the possibility of even slightly altering that home front in hopes of nourishing the child’s life for the better. No pressure at all with such dedicated-beyond-belief impacters on some of the most vulnerable lives in this world.
Every once in a while, I get sidetracked with the image that pops up on my laptop after pressing the power button. For a while, there would be this option to click on the top-right corner of the screen if you liked that image or not, most likely as a way to continue catering to whatever kind of pictures you prefer seeing as you dive into the technological world. But now, if you affirm the choice, the pre-selected search engine will then pop up with a list of sites to provide more information about that particular place.
The social media algorithms are evidently catching on that I must be spending a little more time and mental effort into reading up on historic buildings and streets or other past points of interest. So, these random black-and-white images keep popping up, because it knows I’ll click “See more” for curiosity’s sake, even if it isn’t quite as mind-numbing and as complete a waste of time as other internet content. I guess there’s this interest of wondering if those walls could talk, the story they would tell: stories of hardship of laughter and pain and joy and fear and thrills and plenty more along the way. All such stories from people whose voices have been seemingly silenced.
