Hurry, get the kleenex box...or a monkey wrench

No, it's not becasue I'm going to watch Cool Runnings or Horton Hears a Who. I'm sick, and tissue needs to be in hand nearly 100% of the time or snot will be all over my face. It's like a leaky faucet that I just can't contain. Before you know it, I'll flood the apartment, or campus, or Provo. Seriously, I had no idea that this much snot existed within me. Once I think it's done, it starts up again and just keeps on coming; sort of like the Barry Bonds steroids issue on ESPN.

What I really think I need is one of these:

Yep, that'll do it. I think I can get it from Harriet Carter.

Shooting an Elephant

I recently read George Orwell's "Shooting and Elephat" for my British Government class. I advise everyone to do the same (http://orwell.ru/library/articles/elephant/english/e_eleph )It's a small short story about a policeman (possibly Orwell) in the Imperial Indian Police during British occupancy of India. It's about an elephant who goes into its must period and tramples many straw huts, killing one man. The main idea is the struggle the policeman has with whether or not he ought to kill the elephant or not. He does not want to, but when he asked someone to fetch him an elephant gun (to protect him) a crowd started to follow him, for they were sure he would shoot the elephant.

THE policeman has come, through his service in Burma, to disagree with the imperialistic reasons he’s there. In his mind’s battle of whether or not to shoot the elephant, he discovers himself in the position of a colonizing tyranny. He did not want to shoot the elephant, but the natives expect him to kill it. This predicament is similar to that of any colonizing country. As an imperial ruling entity, the natives expect certain actions in these situations, and the ruling entity will likely never disappoint, for it is important that they always deliver an impressive performance to the natives. What is expected by the natives isn’t always what is in the nature of the ruling entity to do, but they will do it in order to keep up the appearance of a tyrannical imperial force. Orwell explains that in this way the tyrant destroys his own freedom because he can only choose to do what the natives expect. For this reason Orwell defies his own will and kills the elephant.
THE extent of my exposure to information regarding the British occupation of India is limited to sources in entertainment media. In every movie I’ve seen, however, there is very little sympathy for the Indians. The British are depicted as arrogant and condescending towards the savage natives. The policeman’s character, after observing the brutal oppression of the natives, became overwhelmed with guilt and came to disapprove of imperialism, and despised the work he did in support of such a cause. His opposition to his work was not vocalized, as he “had to think out (his) problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East.” Because of this imposed silence the policeman describes, it could be understood that the there are many others in the same situation that feel the same way, but fail to express themselves. After all, even the policeman succumbed to shooting the elephant in order to save himself from humiliation. To be in a position of authority requires one to assume the tyrannical nature of the post and act as the tyranny would in order to meet the expectations of the ruled.
AFTER just three years in Burma Orwell resigned his post and took up a pen name and a pen to begin his career as a writer. This was one of his first works, which begs me to wonder if Orwell had sold his birthright (his successful career in the Indian Imperial Police) for a pot of message. In addition to the short narrative on the comparison to the British imperial cause that the policeman found, I found an innuendo of this clash of wills (the policeman’s vs. the natives) in his own actions. He could not, for instance, test the elephant’s behavior to determine if it was still mad. Even though he did not fear the elephant (“a white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened”), he could not approach the elephant because if something did go wrong he would be made a laughing-stock. “That,” he says, “would never do.”

I picked up more symbolism of imperialism in the story than the comparison Orwell explains himself. The policeman had never shot an elephant before, and did not know the most effective way to take one down, but out of fear of humiliation he made a guess at where the brain might be and pulled the trigger. The policeman fired three more shots to where he thought the brain was and his last two to where he thought the hear was. The elephant would not die, but laid on its side breathing deeply--even after emptying his Winchester into it, too. Bells went off in my head about the American occupation in Iraq: an imperialist venture set off without a clear indication of how long it might take to subdue the opponent. It has taken much longer than expected with no foreseeable end in sight. The policeman gave up and left the dying elephant in misery while the village people sat like vultures ready to pick the elephant dry. If our new president keeps his promises, we’ll be out of Iraq, leaving their young secular democracy to the wiles of whatever extremist factions that lay in wait to destroy.
BRITAIN had a similar situation with an elephant in India known as Mahatma Gandhi. Through his leadership, India became as an elephant in its must period, but through civil disobedience and non-violent protest. As much as the British shot at it, it would not die, and ended up leaving before his death. Orwell had no idea this would be the case, as it all came to pass much later in history, but I believe that because it has proven analogous of the United States’ invasion and reconstruction in Iraq and the outcome of the British in India countries ought to consider the repercussions of imperialism from the point of view of both the gunman and the elephant as Orwell did.

Born to Run

In August 2003 I arrived at Campus Plaza. One week passed and I hadn't run, then I was bored one morning and just did it. As I returned from my 30 minute jog and hopped in a cold shower. As I stood in the shower feeling the chilled water pelt my whole body I heard an imagined voice whisper into my ear, "Welcome back to the fold." It had been a long time since I had last run. I ran the two mile in league finals, but never trained for it, and after Sections I was done with everything. It got hot in California and I didn't run, because I had nothing to run for. Standing in the shower that day, feeling my body's tire and satisfaction with my run, I knew who I really was. I was a runner.

So I began a training program called '5k at 5:00', and ran every evening. After I started getting my groove back I started running 5 miles at 5:00. I was back in the swing of things, even when it got colder than my running shoes had ever experienced. A column in the Salt Lake Tribune caught my attention when the columnist was training for a marathon and would report a weekly training log. I saw his first week's schedule and decided I could start out like that, and from that time on my marathon training began.

I registered for the Santa Cruz Marathon to be held on June 5th and trained well. School ended and I went home. After being home for two days I ran a scheduled 30 miler on a hot late April day in central California. Running had just become something that I did. Distance did not phase me--especially shorter distances. Two days later I was offered a job at Prima Frutta Packing. I would be working seven days a week, 16 hour days when they started picking Bings locally for the last few weeks. The projected final day of the season was June 5th. I knew that I would not have time to run, and therefore would not be ready for my race. But I also knew that I needed this money to pay for a greater part of my mission and also have some for tuition when I got home. So I took the job and laid my marathon aspirations to rest.

I don't remember running the rest of my time at home preceding my mission. I didn't get to run that much on my mission. When I came home to Idaho I ran. It was cold and windy, but I stuck it out. In Provo I tried, but failed miserably to keep up a consistant running schedule. Until today.

Today I ran five miles , ending a 15 mile week. I decided to take a jogging class this semester. The class requires that I run 140 miles throughout the semester. I needed a running schedule, so I looked online and found a good half-marathon schedule. I decided a couple of years ago that training for the marathon may not have made my body very happy with me at times, and that I didn't really want to do that. Besides, I ran 26.2 miles on my own a couple of times, and there's nothing that exciting about it. Running a half marathon is just as legit a race to train for. So I called up Scott E and asked if he was in, too. He's as fast as (if not faster than) I was when I was his age, and he's in. So late in the summer we'll face off.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm intimidated by his speed. Especially when I started my easy runs coming in with 8-minute miles. But I'm not pushing it at all-I don't want to risk injury. Once I'm accustomed to running greater distances and for longer periods of time (like my 40-minute job today) then I'll switch training schedules to work on my speed. Will I be as fast as Scott? Well, probably not, seeing that he still has track training in his sights. But that'll be shorter distance. When he's running two mile races, I'll be running twelve mile LSD (long slow distance) on Saturdays. Come May I'll have the endurance and he'll have the speed. Possibly by August we'll be on the same track.