Today was the school’s orientation for freshmen & new transferees. It was divided into two batches [in the morning & in the afternoon] because the school did a hell of a good job in increasing the number of enrollees this school year, so it was pretty much a whole day event.
After I drop off my kid to school, I had breakfast at a fast food resto just a few meters away.
Read a few pages of my book while waiting in the car for 10AM, but got off after a short while because it was already getting hot. I resolved to carry on with my reading up in the library, but it was closed. The librarian was in the event mentioned above [sigh]. So I had to look some place else.
Our prof did not want to take part in the orientation but he had no choice because he was seen by the college dean & the school director & obliged him to attend. That could only mean we would not have a class. It partly made me relieve of anxiety, because our prof is a terror. The other part made me say “Oh great!”, because I would have to wait until 1:30PM to pick up my kid. “What in the world will I do just to while the hours away?”
I spotted a classmate & joined her instead. We stayed in one of the tables just outside the canteen along with a few common friends. We were in a great spot for making petty criticisms of people passing by. What a fun way to squander! Every once in a while, I would open my book, read a few sentences, then halt because my friend would tell me something about somebody she just saw.
Staying there for a great deal of time have broaden my circle of friends/acquaintances, which is wonderful for a more meaningful journey.
Let me just share an interesting story & an insight on death that I read in my book today.
A visitor arrives from Morocco & tells me a curious story about how certain desert tribes perceive original sin.
Eve was walking in the Garden of Eden when the serpent slithered over to her.
‘Eat this apple,’ said the serpent.
Eve, who had been properly instructed by God, refused.
‘Eat this apple,’ insisted the serpent. ‘You need to look more beautiful for your man.’
‘No, I don’t,’ replied Eve. ‘He has no other woman but me.’
The serpent laughed.
‘Of course he has.’
And when Eve did not believe him, he led her up to a well on the top of a hill.
‘She’s in that cave. Adam hid her in there.’
Eve leaned over &, reflected in the water of the well, she saw a lovely woman. She immediately ate the apple the serpent was holding out to her.
According to this same Moroccan tribe, a return to paradise is guaranteed to anyone who recognizes his or her reflection in the water & feels no fear.
Of death…
I know it’s a topic anyone likes to think about, but I have a duty to my readers – to make them think about the important things in life. And death is possibly the most important thing. We are all walking towards death, but we never know when death will touch us & it is our duty, therefore, to look around us, to be grateful for each minute. But we should also be grateful to death, because it makes us think about the importance of each decision we take, or fail to take; it makes us stop doing anything that keeps us stuck in the category of the ‘living dead’ &, instead, urges us to risk everything, to bet everything on those things we always dreamed of doing, because, whether we like it or not, the angel of death is waiting for us.
Who never, at any instance, causes me to be conscious nor to conceal my imperfections. Rather, causes me to accept, understand, & respect my whole being…
…to whom shall I bestow my tremendous admiration.
