Stuff That's Been On My Mind Lately

Value- Last week, we had an Alumni Book Club led by Jim Angresano where he talked about the slow food movement in Italy. He showed some great pictures, told some wonderful stories as only Jim can, but the thing that stuck with me was one of the ideas of slow food is that you pay more but buy less. Usually we look for the best prices but in some cases, the food goes to waste because you end up buying so much. I started to think about that idea of value and how that relates to other things in my life. Yes, gas is expensive and it takes 30 minutes to get in and out of Boise but can you really put a price on the memories that you have with friends? Memories that could include doing a house sweep for wasps nexts with Abbey or cocktails on the patio at Bardenay or getting coffee with Lucas before a meeting or hanging out at Goldy’s Corner with some of my closest friends. In the long run, am I going to remember that I had to buy gas a few days earlier or that I had an incredible time with some fantastically wonderful friends?

I also thought about it yesterday when I went to a campus discussion yesterday led by Don Burwell, Ellen Batt, Wally Lonergan, and Don Miller, four members of the faculty who are retiring this year but also have been at the college for over 100 year cumulatively. They each talked about their experiences at the college, their memories from the last 20-25 years, told some fun stories, reminisced, made us laugh and at one point, a little teary. I didn’t give myself enough time before the event to drop off my Netflix and so was hoping I’d be able to drop it off afterwards so that I’d stay on schedule. Then again, I got to thinking…. So what if I don’t get the Netflix on Monday like I usually do. It’ll come a day later and it’s not a big deal because what’s important is that these people who have set the stage for what I hope to be a long career for me at C of I are sharing their experiences and that’s important to listen to. Again, it’s this idea of value and what’s important and how money isn’t as important as memories and experiences.

Boston- I could go on and on about Boston and what happened there- from the marathon explosions to the lockdown to the gunfight. I don’t even know where to begin and instead of repeating what others have been saying, I’m going to share what my experiences were. This is the first major event (tragedy? Experience? I don’t even know what word is appropriate to use….) that I’ve followed without having television. I would sometimes listen to the radio but this was the first time I learned everything that I learned through social media and the internet. On that first day, as well as pretty much all day Friday, through Saturday morning, I was checking twitter every few minutes, I was following Boston PD, the Boston Globe (I already follow NY Times, NPR, Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, etc.), I think at one point I was following Boston’s FBI twitter page. I was getting email alerts from the NY Times onto my phone, facebook was giving me a little bit less but still covering what was going on. I was on various news websites (and let’s be real, Buzzfeed, because they kept a pretty good record of what was going on), but never any television. It was a completely different experience. It keeps me wondering how social media is changing the face of law enforcement. I was wondering what 9/11 would have been like if we all had facebook and twitter and wifi on planes. Did social media get in the way of the investigations or did putting the faces of the perpetrators out onto the Internet and on news networks help? We’ll probably never know and everyone has their own opinion, but it certainly keeps me thinking. That being said, ultimately, I’m incredibly thankful for the tremendous efforts of every single person involved from beginning to end, be it the first responders running towards the explosions or the FBI, marshals, officers and National Guard members who were part of that final shoot out. Things could have been a thousand times worse but thank God that things went the way that they did.