With the holiday season fast approaching, there are two announcements I'd like to make.
First, Holiday Wishes, the LiveJournal community/meme that served as a large part of the inspiration behind this blog, is active for the 2012 holiday season. It's a wonderful community where human kindness abounds, and where some amazing individuals from all around the world really renew my faith in humanity each year. If you believe in the power of dreaming, enjoy doing what you can for others, or even just need some cheering up during this time of year, you should check it out. It's incredibly inspiring, and after over six years, I still love participating.
Secondly, I've decided that while I'm actively soliciting mail for the WPP, keeping with the goal of broadening horizons, I'm going to post about MY environment and its culture. Sometimes, I'll only be posting about suburban Long Island, New York in the USA, and sometimes I'll be posting about my state of New York or the country (United States of America) in general. If there's anything specific aspect about my region, state, or country that you'd like me to post about, let me know. I plan to post at least once a week, and hopefully, soon there will be some mail coming in that I'll be able to post. Either way, I'll see you all soon!
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Long Island, New York: Post-Sandy
On Monday, October 29th, 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit New York. It made landfall in the neighboring state of New Jersey, and its massive size caused it to deal a severe life-long home region, Long Island, New York.
The two things I've always loved about living on Long Island are that it generally lacks extreme weather and isn't prone to natural disasters. Summer and winter temperatures are milder than they are elsewhere in the States, since we're an island on the coast. We aren't prone to earthquakes, wildfires, dust storms, tornadoes, severe droughts, tsunamis, or avalanches. We sometimes get blizzards that dump some snow on us in the winter, but in bad storms, we'll get two and a half feet of snow instead of eight to ten. We get tropical storms - hurricanes that have been downgraded by the time they hit - on occasion, but usually all we get from them is some rain, maybe very isolated and small power outages.
Due to the fact that we almost never have to deal with natural disasters, we were totally unprepared for Hurricane Sandy. We were even less prepared for the Nor'easter (northeastern snow storm) that hit us the week after it, compounding the damage.
Since this blog was founded on the idea of broadening horizons, here are 7 facts about what happened during and after Hurricane Sandy and what's occurring on Long Island right now.
Life is resuming for most Long Islanders, but the gravity of the situation still hasn't sunk in yet. None of us can believe that this happened here, somewhere we've always believed we were safe. We're still in a fog, wondering if it was all a dream. Of course, it wasn't, but... New Yorkers are the type that plow on, for better or worse.
The two things I've always loved about living on Long Island are that it generally lacks extreme weather and isn't prone to natural disasters. Summer and winter temperatures are milder than they are elsewhere in the States, since we're an island on the coast. We aren't prone to earthquakes, wildfires, dust storms, tornadoes, severe droughts, tsunamis, or avalanches. We sometimes get blizzards that dump some snow on us in the winter, but in bad storms, we'll get two and a half feet of snow instead of eight to ten. We get tropical storms - hurricanes that have been downgraded by the time they hit - on occasion, but usually all we get from them is some rain, maybe very isolated and small power outages.
Due to the fact that we almost never have to deal with natural disasters, we were totally unprepared for Hurricane Sandy. We were even less prepared for the Nor'easter (northeastern snow storm) that hit us the week after it, compounding the damage.
Since this blog was founded on the idea of broadening horizons, here are 7 facts about what happened during and after Hurricane Sandy and what's occurring on Long Island right now.
- Mandatory evacuation orders. The areas closest to the coast, a.k.a. storm surge zones, were issued mandatory evacuation orders before the storm hit. Thousands of people had to find shelter elsewhere, either in the homes of family and friends that lived further inland or in shelters set up for the government for that purpose.
- Property devastation. Thankfully, most people in mandatory evacuation zones did evacuate - allowing them to survive the storm. Sandy BLASTED the coast, causing flooding like residents had never seen and in some cases, literally sweeping their homes out to sea. People who didn't evacuate before the storm hit had to be evacuated by boat in some instances.
- Widespread power outages. In recent history, the worst power outages Long Island had seen before this storm was in August of last year, when Hurricane Irene knocked out power to over 800,000 Long Islanders. After that storm, power took over a week to restore. Hurricane Sandy, however, beat that record - over 1,000,000 homes and businesses lost power. Transformers blew up and caused fires, setting places ablaze during the worst parts of the storm. Trees took powerlines down all over the place. Poles snapped in half. I stayed at my mother's home for twelve days, because my home did not have power restored until then.
- Public shutdown. All public transportation was shut down before the storm, and it's taken a long time to restore. The commuter rail system, which conveys many Long Island residents to work in Manhattan each day, wasn't operational for days. Service was limited or modified until November 12th, when most service was restored. However, some service is STILL out. Numerous schools had no power for days on end, having to cancel over a week of classes. When my sister's college classes resumed, she was going to all different buildings for them, since part of her campus was being used to shelter people who were still without power or had homes that were destroyed or uninhabitable.
- No heat or hot water. Power outages meant that people didn't have electricity to heat their homes or water. Temperatures dropped below freezing after the Nor'easter came through. People were miserable. My father, who was working on the front lines to restore power because of his company's contract, got harassed by angry customers by day (even though he had no control over his orders or who gets power when) and then went home to sleep in his old cold bed at night - until he had to stay with his crew. Then he slept in his car, without a sleeping bag.
- Gas shortages and rationing. Rationing is still in place. Ships delivering gasoline couldn't come into port during or directly after the storm, causing massive gas shortages on the Island. Between people trying to get enough gas in their cars to get to work (many companies had employees report to work if the company had power, regardless of whether or not the employee was displaced or rendered homeless, dealing with insurance companies, had no heat/hot water, etc.) and others trying to find gas to run their generators so they could do basic things like charging their cell phones, prices shot up and the supply went dry. Conditions have improved greatly, but in the aftermath of the storm, gas lines were literally hours long.
- Displacement. Between the initial evacuations, flood damage, fire damage, downed trees and power lines, problems with public transportation, and the gas shortage, so many people were temporarily or permanently displaced by the storm. My sister's friend lost half of her home; her family is trying to figure out what to do. She's staying with her boyfriend forty minutes away, her parents went to a relative's home a few hours away, and her younger sibling is staying with friends. She and her sibling couldn't go to the relative's home because they both go to school around here, and they couldn't possibly commute from so far away.
Life is resuming for most Long Islanders, but the gravity of the situation still hasn't sunk in yet. None of us can believe that this happened here, somewhere we've always believed we were safe. We're still in a fog, wondering if it was all a dream. Of course, it wasn't, but... New Yorkers are the type that plow on, for better or worse.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
11 Years Later - A New Yorker on September 11th
As this blog's purpose is broadening horizons and September 11th is an important date not only for my country but for my state, New York, I've decided to post about a day that has deeply affected my life: the day the Twin Towers went down.
On September 11, 2001, I was eleven years old. I had just started the seventh grade, and I was looking forward to turning twelve, playing soccer all fall, hanging out with my friends, and the very first Harry Potter movie coming out. The word "terrorism" wasn't part of my vocabulary.
That day started normally enough, but shortly after I got to school, strange things started happening. I can't remember if an announcement was made over the loudspeaker or if some of the school aides were going around telling people, but all of the teachers were told to turn off their classroom televisions and/or to keep them off until further notice. Teachers stepped outside their classrooms to talk to other teachers, and at first they all seemed confused, but then a tension slowly spread between them. Students' parents started arriving at the school, signing them out early. I wondered what on earth could have happened that was so bad. I had no idea that two planes had flown into the World Trade Center Towers and that both buildings had collapsed. I had no idea of the chaos and confusion taking place less than thirty miles away.
Come lunchtime my classmates and I that were enrolled in our school's Gifted and Talented program headed towards our Russian classroom for lunch instead of to the cafeteria with the other students. Everyone started discussing the weird things that had been happening, wondering what was going on. After we badgered our Russian teacher enough, she told us what had happened: in New York City, two planes had flown into the Twin Towers. The towers collapsed. As a bunch of eleven and twelve year olds, we couldn't understand this. How could someone accidentally fly a plane into a building? How could a plane make such a big building collapse? What about the people inside?
In the days, weeks, and months that followed, as they replayed the video of what happened over and over again on TV, we would learn the horrifying answers to those questions. What happened on 9/11 wasn't an accident, it was intentional. There were people out there that wanted to harm us. The force of the plane hitting the building and the damage it caused, the fires and explosions it started, made the building unable to stand. The people inside the planes and who didn't manage to make it out of the buildings died. Some died instantly, some jumped to escape being burned alive, and others... we'll never know.
When you live on Long Island in New York, as I do, your life is entwined with New York City. Your parents, relatives, and/or friends live and/or work in "the City." Someone you know ends up in there almost every weekend for one thing or another. Chances are, you end up in the City frequently yourself, and as a child, I did. My aunt, who had no children of her own, took my younger sister and I into the City frequently. We'd go to Broadway shows, museums like the American Museum of Natural History, landmarks like the top of the Empire State Building - she even managed a couple of times, through her employer, to get us she got us box seats for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden. We loved it.
Of course, after September 11th, all of that stopped. Instead, we heard constantly about the chaos that followed the Towers' fall. We heard the stories of people we knew who were there - or who were supposed to be there. My aunt who had taken us into the City so many times had worked in the 7 World Trade Center building, which collapsed when debris from the Towers fell on it and started fires that couldn't be extinguished due to low water pressure. She was supposed to be in the building that day, but eye surgery she'd had a couple of days before kept her out of work - she was safe at home. My other aunt saw both planes hit. She walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to get home, since public transportation was mostly shut down, and she didn't arrive there until late evening, even though she left before 10am. When she arrived home, she was covered in ash.
In the United States today, it's common for people to say, "Never forget," in regards to September 11, 2001. And though it's incredibly selfish of me, as a New Yorker, I honestly wish I could forget. I wish a chill didn't run down my spine every single time I see 9:11 on a digital clock. I wish I didn't wonder, every single time I hear an airplane pass overhead, if it isn't flying too low. I wish I didn't always think about how my friend's father-in-law never got to see his son get married or his grandchild being born, because he died as a First Responder trying to save other lives. I wish I wasn't terrified to travel on the anniversary of 9/11 each other, afraid of cruel and unhinged people that may use the date for smaller attacks, just to remind us that we'll never be able to feel safe again.
I wish, more than anything, that such hate, the kind that drives people to perpetrate such horrid crimes, didn't exist. I know it does, and I know it's going to, but I wish it didn't.
On September 11, 2001, I was eleven years old. I had just started the seventh grade, and I was looking forward to turning twelve, playing soccer all fall, hanging out with my friends, and the very first Harry Potter movie coming out. The word "terrorism" wasn't part of my vocabulary.
That day started normally enough, but shortly after I got to school, strange things started happening. I can't remember if an announcement was made over the loudspeaker or if some of the school aides were going around telling people, but all of the teachers were told to turn off their classroom televisions and/or to keep them off until further notice. Teachers stepped outside their classrooms to talk to other teachers, and at first they all seemed confused, but then a tension slowly spread between them. Students' parents started arriving at the school, signing them out early. I wondered what on earth could have happened that was so bad. I had no idea that two planes had flown into the World Trade Center Towers and that both buildings had collapsed. I had no idea of the chaos and confusion taking place less than thirty miles away.
Come lunchtime my classmates and I that were enrolled in our school's Gifted and Talented program headed towards our Russian classroom for lunch instead of to the cafeteria with the other students. Everyone started discussing the weird things that had been happening, wondering what was going on. After we badgered our Russian teacher enough, she told us what had happened: in New York City, two planes had flown into the Twin Towers. The towers collapsed. As a bunch of eleven and twelve year olds, we couldn't understand this. How could someone accidentally fly a plane into a building? How could a plane make such a big building collapse? What about the people inside?
In the days, weeks, and months that followed, as they replayed the video of what happened over and over again on TV, we would learn the horrifying answers to those questions. What happened on 9/11 wasn't an accident, it was intentional. There were people out there that wanted to harm us. The force of the plane hitting the building and the damage it caused, the fires and explosions it started, made the building unable to stand. The people inside the planes and who didn't manage to make it out of the buildings died. Some died instantly, some jumped to escape being burned alive, and others... we'll never know.
When you live on Long Island in New York, as I do, your life is entwined with New York City. Your parents, relatives, and/or friends live and/or work in "the City." Someone you know ends up in there almost every weekend for one thing or another. Chances are, you end up in the City frequently yourself, and as a child, I did. My aunt, who had no children of her own, took my younger sister and I into the City frequently. We'd go to Broadway shows, museums like the American Museum of Natural History, landmarks like the top of the Empire State Building - she even managed a couple of times, through her employer, to get us she got us box seats for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden. We loved it.
Of course, after September 11th, all of that stopped. Instead, we heard constantly about the chaos that followed the Towers' fall. We heard the stories of people we knew who were there - or who were supposed to be there. My aunt who had taken us into the City so many times had worked in the 7 World Trade Center building, which collapsed when debris from the Towers fell on it and started fires that couldn't be extinguished due to low water pressure. She was supposed to be in the building that day, but eye surgery she'd had a couple of days before kept her out of work - she was safe at home. My other aunt saw both planes hit. She walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to get home, since public transportation was mostly shut down, and she didn't arrive there until late evening, even though she left before 10am. When she arrived home, she was covered in ash.
In the United States today, it's common for people to say, "Never forget," in regards to September 11, 2001. And though it's incredibly selfish of me, as a New Yorker, I honestly wish I could forget. I wish a chill didn't run down my spine every single time I see 9:11 on a digital clock. I wish I didn't wonder, every single time I hear an airplane pass overhead, if it isn't flying too low. I wish I didn't always think about how my friend's father-in-law never got to see his son get married or his grandchild being born, because he died as a First Responder trying to save other lives. I wish I wasn't terrified to travel on the anniversary of 9/11 each other, afraid of cruel and unhinged people that may use the date for smaller attacks, just to remind us that we'll never be able to feel safe again.
I wish, more than anything, that such hate, the kind that drives people to perpetrate such horrid crimes, didn't exist. I know it does, and I know it's going to, but I wish it didn't.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Fallon
Although I wasn't expecting the need to post something like this when I opened this website officially, I've become aware of suffering that I can't ignore, and in keeping with the World Post Project's theme of broadening horizons, I want to tell you all a bit about Fallon, a 30 year old woman who resides in New York. You can find her blog here, and her donation pages here and here.
I've only been in contact with Fallon for a very short time, but in that time, I've come to know these 5 things about her.
- Fallon is currently fighting for her life. She is in immediate need of a total GI transplant due to severe gastroparesis, among other problems, including a brain tumor and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. Hence the donation pages, as her medical bills and the expenses she and her family have had to incur in order to save her life are astronomical.
- Fallon and her family are desperately trying to gather the funds to get her out to California, one of the only places where she can receive the transplant surgery she needs and where there is a team of doctors already in place waiting for her.
- Fallon is incredibly, incredibly brave. She knows that she is fighting an uphill battle, but she's still trying SO hard to fight it. She has a very strong will to live.
- Fallon is determined. Despite weighing ~70 pounds and being in constant, unrelenting pain, she managed to complete her Bachelor's degree in Psychology and graduate summa cum laude.
- Fallon is extremely compassionate. With everything that's happened to her, she's still very concerned about her parents. She's written them a letter in case the worst should happen, so that they know how to take care of things, and more importantly, know how much she loves and appreciates them and all they've done for her - so that they know she wants them to live.
I sincerely hope that someday, Fallon won't have to focus so much on her medical state and can concentrate on living her life. Please do what you can to help her have that chance by donating to her at either of the URLs below if you are able and posting a link to any or all of her pages on your Facebook, Twitter, or other social media accounts.
Fallon's Blog - fallonmirsky.wordpress.com
Fallon's GoFundMe Donation Page - gofundme.com/FallonMirsky
Fallon's GiveForward Donation Page - giveforward.com/fallonmirsky
Friday, August 3, 2012
Welcome to the World Post Project!
Hello, world! Welcome to the World Post Project, which is finally live!
The World Post Project is Lauren's crazy idea: to broaden people's horizons through gathering and posting here at least 150 postcards and 150 letters from at least 150 different people who live in 150 places around the globe. (150 is just a base number that was chosen; we'll take whatever we can get!) If you can help us with any of our individual goals, we encourage your participation; therefore, we don't care if you're from the United States and can only write about the United States, you can still help us reach our 150 people goal, even if you can't help us reach our 150 places goal.
So take a look around, read our Rules, and sign up to participate! Whether or not you do, help us reach our goal by sharing/liking our website on your social media networks (buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are provided on the side bar) and checking out our Facebook and Twitter pages.
If you've got any questions, comments, feedback, or suggestions for us, head on over to our Contact page or leave a comment here, and we'll get back to you ASAP.
The World Post Project is Lauren's crazy idea: to broaden people's horizons through gathering and posting here at least 150 postcards and 150 letters from at least 150 different people who live in 150 places around the globe. (150 is just a base number that was chosen; we'll take whatever we can get!) If you can help us with any of our individual goals, we encourage your participation; therefore, we don't care if you're from the United States and can only write about the United States, you can still help us reach our 150 people goal, even if you can't help us reach our 150 places goal.
So take a look around, read our Rules, and sign up to participate! Whether or not you do, help us reach our goal by sharing/liking our website on your social media networks (buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are provided on the side bar) and checking out our Facebook and Twitter pages.
If you've got any questions, comments, feedback, or suggestions for us, head on over to our Contact page or leave a comment here, and we'll get back to you ASAP.
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