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ldhensonCNN.com has a list of international organizations accepting donations for relief in the wake of the tsunamis. The page provides no details, just the list of links, and is of course not complete, but it is a useful collection. My wallet is ready; I just need to decide where its contents go.
The personal recap: I'm back from vacation, and yes, I was vacationing on the coast in Asia; but the waves moved mostly westward, not east, and there but for the grace of God.
It's amazing, and quite awful, how insulated one can become during a vacation, how self-absorbed one can get. Despite the fact that I was in Asia, I still had no inkling of the magnitude or even the details of the disaster except for a glimpse of televised floodwaters while walking past an electronics storefront; it wasn't until I got on the plane and read the terrible newspaper headlines over the shoulder of the passenger a few rows ahead of me that I started to catch on. I can't blame lack of fluency in my not watching the news; channels abounded in languages that I understood, but I was more interested in tuning in for the latest football (soccer) scores than I was in keeping up with the state of the world. I fall into that mindset quite often at cons, and still do; my main concession after 9/11 was in making sure I knew not just the one fire exit I habitually looked for, but also a second; and perhaps I kept an eye on the news at cons the year after, but gradually forgot to do even that.
I won't be doing so again.
The personal recap: I'm back from vacation, and yes, I was vacationing on the coast in Asia; but the waves moved mostly westward, not east, and there but for the grace of God.
It's amazing, and quite awful, how insulated one can become during a vacation, how self-absorbed one can get. Despite the fact that I was in Asia, I still had no inkling of the magnitude or even the details of the disaster except for a glimpse of televised floodwaters while walking past an electronics storefront; it wasn't until I got on the plane and read the terrible newspaper headlines over the shoulder of the passenger a few rows ahead of me that I started to catch on. I can't blame lack of fluency in my not watching the news; channels abounded in languages that I understood, but I was more interested in tuning in for the latest football (soccer) scores than I was in keeping up with the state of the world. I fall into that mindset quite often at cons, and still do; my main concession after 9/11 was in making sure I knew not just the one fire exit I habitually looked for, but also a second; and perhaps I kept an eye on the news at cons the year after, but gradually forgot to do even that.
I won't be doing so again.
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welcome back!!
Date: 2004-12-30 12:00 am (UTC)As a general thing, I think the lack of outside knowledge during vacations is a good thing -- if we were continually trying to keep up with 'life' during vacation, we'd never get any rest and would worry ourselves to death and not enjoy what we have. There's time to catch up with things when we can afterwards, and the happy memories of the vacation remain intact to look back on. It's a bit scary to think of how things pass us by unknowing... but that happens all the time even when we are at home and checking news. o.o
Though I do know what you mean.
During all this, I've been quietly frustrated because I don't have a tv hooked up to the outside (just dvd and vcr), and I've been getting my news mostly off the internet -- which is generally more reliable, but it doesn't have the same impact and variety. So I went to my dad's house yesterday and spent about six hours just cycling through all the news channels to see all the footage and their information. And Discovery channel was replaying a documentary it had done a few years ago on tsunamis. Going back to the house tonight and will do some more of that. I'm now seriously considering paying the $35/month and getting basic cable just so I can have my news. -.-
Re: welcome back!!
Date: 2005-01-02 07:01 pm (UTC)I know what you mean about vacations being a time to get away from it all...I guess I just have to find the right balance between keeping in touch and keeping my mind unburdened. I guess I should have glanced at the news once in a while. A weekend or so with no news, okay; but two weeks was probably overdoing it.
I can't do without cable myself...just basic cable, but it's a decent variety. Aside from various news channels, I really like Discovery, History, Bravo, etc. I could do without the gazillion sports channels though :-) At work, I usually check CNN.com several times a day. I really like having the major headlines at a glance.