This is the last week of classes.  In fact tonight I will be finished with one of my four classes.  Next Tuesday I have an important presentation, and then that class will be finished as well.  Then it’s a matter of completing and turning in the internship report (currently at 35 pages plus many appendixes!) and studying for the two final exams.  By the end of April I will be free!

It’s snowing again today.  I remember, years ago, as a kid living on a lake, that I used to swim in the middle of April, just to say I did.  I don’t know if the weather is colder now or I am older now.  Or both.  But the thought of swimming in a lake right now seems pretty crazy.  Maybe it was crazy then too, but when you’re 15 nothing is really too crazy.  When you’re 50, well…a lot of stuff seems a bit crazy!

How can this be the end of the semester already?  Wasn’t it just yesterday I was standing in below zero temps waiting for a bus and looking ahead at weeks and weeks of work still to come? 

How can this be that there are only two lectures of each class left?  Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was trying to figure out the difference between 502 and 503?  OK.  So I still haven’t quite got that one down, but still, wasn’t it just yesterday?

How can this be that there are only two weeks of class left, when it’s clear that I have at least four weeks of work left on several of my assignments?

 How can this be that this semester is almost over, that this YEAR is almost over?  Wasn’t it just yesterday that I decided I wanted to work in a library?  Wasn’t it?  Yesterday, right?  When I followed my heart?

How can this be?

We purchased a puppy yesterday morning.  The breeder named her Izzy, and we’re deciding if that’s the name she will keep.  She is a bundle of energy.  I am exhausted and tempted to sleep when she sleeps, but am trying to keep up with school work during those few moments when she sleeps.

She is 3.5 mos old, a sheltie, and already a beauty.  She is so happy!  She should be.  The last two shelties to live here were spoiled rotten!

She has fallen asleep, hopefully for the night so I think I’ll get some sleep too.  Tomorrow will be a busy day!

Driving into Ann Arbor this morning, merging onto US 23 South the radio began to play Luther Vandross’ “Dance With My Father Again” which always makes me cry. That got me thinking about whether or not, If I could, I’d bring Dad back for that one last dance.

I decided I wouldn’t, because having to say goodbye forever again would be too hard.

Which led me to thoughts about whether or not, if I could, I’d bring him back for good.

But I remembered how sad he was without Mom. And how lost. I think their relationship with each other superceded their relationship with us. It existed before us, it existed when we were growing up, it existed after we moved out. It still exists now, after us. They belong to each other, they belong together.

As I was coming to that conclusion, finding comfort that they are still together, the radio began to play Sarah McLachlan’s “In the Arms of the Angles”. And then two sandhill cranes flew across the freeway just ahead of me, flying close to each other, low across the road. Together. “In the arms of the angles, fly away from here… In the arms of the angles may you find some comfort here.”

I do.

We get to register for next semester this week.  It seems early to be figuring out what will be the next to last semester for me.  I still have three weeks of school left, then some final exams.  THREE WEEKS?  ONY THREE WEEKS?  I have way too much to do as usual for projects.  Specifically my evaluations project where we are still collecting data for analysis and haven’t even started analyzing it!!  And of course the internship.  Which I should be working on right now instead of writing this. 

But I am not working on any of it.  I think I will just let it flow however it is going to flow.  Of course it will flow down the tube if I just sit here every night! 🙂 

TIme for sleep.  It will all work out. 

Today on my way to a lecture I noticed two squirrels running around, one chasing the other. The first squirrel was using a classic strategy, running in a zig zag pattern, trying to illude the following squirrel, who was racing right on the tail of the first. As I walked toward these two frisky animals another student was approaching them from the other direction. Suddenly the leading squirrel dashed across the sidewalk, right into the path of the student who was walking along listening to his headset, oblivious to frolicking squirrels.

The first squirrel mannaged to avoid the feet of the student. The second squirrel ran head first into the student’s ankle, bounced off, landed in front of the student and just sat there staring. The startled student actually took his ear piece out, stopped, and stared back at the squirrel. For a moment we were all suspended in time. Then the student started laughing (a reaction I was pleased to see) and the squirrel wandered away to the edge of the sidewalk to contemplate his close brush with disaster. Squirrel number one sat triumphant in a tree, winner for the day.
Moral of the story. If you are the squirrel following your competitors tail too closely you are likely to get stomped.

Yesterday I learned that a professor of mine had lost a sister unexpectedly.  Her mothered died earlier this year.  I stopped by her office to extend my condolences and ended up crying all over her.  Though my heart truly does break for her I recognize that the extent of my reaction was an indication that my own grief is just below the surface, waiting to well up and overflow at any moment. 

In 502 this morning we were discussing game theory. Along the way Professor Chen mentioned that game theory is useful in real life as well as games. She said that in real life a strictly dominated strategy will never be the best reply. I wrote that down to think about later. It resonated with me after my weekend in Washington D.C., a weekend filled with frustration at the slow moving buracracy, at the realization that many more people will die as we wait for safety regulations to catch up with the reality of today’s highways. I think our meetings with Senators and House members were nice, but I think we were playing a dominated strategy. We are talking to people that don’t (can’t or won’t) make the decisions to make changes. I think we need to be talking to the people that can and will make those suggestions and can and will write the legislation that we need.

I think after two years of feeling like I’ve been dominated by the trucking industry it’s time for me to figure out a better reply…to figure out the BEST reply, so that I (and others working for the Truck Safety Coalition) have the best chance at getting a dominant equilibrium.

So I’m sitting here in a Shaperio Library window alcove on the third floor.  I’m watching the world go by on South University as I wait for my computer to boot up.  I casually scan the Clements Library next door, noticing the classical details, the arched window, the dental molding near the roof.  And I think to myself “that sculpture on the front corner isn’t in keeping with the clean lines of the building.”  And then I realize the sculpture is a male mallard duck standing on the very corner.  He is also watching the world go by on South University, though sometimes he seems particularly taken by something on the lawn.  Turns out there is a female mallard duck on the lawn,foraging for food among the shrubs (503 in real life!) being escorted by another male mallard.  Perhaps this is spurned love?  OR does he have a female of his own somewhere up there on the roof?

I’m back from Washington DC where I attended the Sorrow to Strength conference hosted by the Truck Safety Coalition.  The objective of the Coalition is to support the enforcement and strengthening of safety laws surrounding large trucks.  I do this because my Dad was killed by a tired trucker.  His death was sensless and what’s worse, more people are dying at the hands of tired truckers every day. Fourteen will die today.  In fact, more than 5200 people have died in each of the years since Dad’s 2004 death.  Over 10,000 people have died in similar crashes since we got that life changing call December 23, 2004.  The figures were similar each year prior to his death as well.  The trucking industry seems to think this is a cost of doing business.  I am beginning to believe it’s outright irresponsibility, valuing profit over safety.  Their motivation is profit.  My motiviation is safety.  Do we need to kill 5200 people a year in order to get cheaper goods on our store shelves?  Would we be willing to pay a few cents more for items to avoid the deaths of so many people?  I think everyone would agree that saving 10 cents on our next microwave is not worth the death of a single stranger.  Certainly not worth the death of people we know and love.

So the sorrow in the title of our conference revolves around remembering the people we loved who are lost.  We had a wonderful grief therapist speak.  We held a remberence ceremoney where we sat in a candlelit room and spoke about what we missed about our loved ones.  We cried.  We hugged.  We cried some more.  We got angry.   

We took that anger and channeled it into something strong, the strength of our conference, when we met with Senators and Representatives’ staff people on Monday, telling our stories and asking for help on multiple truck safety issues.  This year I didn’t feel the energy of capital hill, I didn’t feel the hope and promise I felt last year.  Maybe because I was talking to some of the same people about the same issues as last year.  Maybe I am becoming more realistic about change.  Maybe my feet just hurt and distracted me.  Regardless I am not going to let the feeling of hopelessness overtake me.  The mission remains the same;  get tired truckers off the road, enforce the laws that are already on the books, and change some laws to make the movement of goods in this country a safer industry.

I know that the trucking industry has a lot of money and a lot of influence on Capital Hill.  I know I’m just one voice, one face.  But my face had tears streaking down it, and my voice trembled in anger and pain when I spoke.  My eyes locked on Capital Hill staff’s eyes and dared them to ignore my pleas.  I won’t go away.  I’ll be back.  Again and again I’ll force them to listen to my heartbreaking story and the stories of all the families that I was with this weekend.  If staffers want to stop the pain of having to listen to horrible stories then they need to stop the pain the trucking industry is imposing on helpless people who just got in the way of commerce.