December 15, 2012

After tossing and turning most of the night, I jumped out of bed before 3:00 am. Wish I hadn’t though for after making myself a pot of coffee and sitting down at my computer, I was confronted with the horrific news of another mass shooting event in the United States. I felt sick to my stomach to read that most of the victims had been school children at an elementary school. Our society is definitely is a sick one, and we’re heading into a downward spiral for sure.

I tuned in to the CNN and watched Piers Morgan interview members of a panel that included a moron who has written a book advocating that more guns in the society correlate with a lower crime rate. The idiot even had a smile on his face as he advocated his line that if teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School had been armed, the shooter would have been stopped before so many innocent lives were taken. I wanted to break through the TV screen and punch him in the face.  

I texted my Russian teacher and cancel the morning class as I had hardly slept and was in no mood to try and concentrate on learning anything new. Instead, I furiously read every article and post on Facebook regarding the tragedy as my friend Ann, in Jacksonville, FL, and others kept uploading new material on the web. What was disconcerting to me was the fact that a couple of posts seemed to hint at the fact that more than one shooter was present at the scene just as they had hinted when the Aurora Cinema massacre happened. I was too heartbroken already to even contemplate the notion that police or army trained soldiers could have been responsible for the killings instead of a lone shooter.

Google weather indicated the temperature was a bone-chilling -13 Fahrenheit when I woke up, and I could not even phantom what that might feel like. I had no choice but to bundle up and head to Lingua for the conversation club even though I was wondering if anyone would show up for it. It was a gray day and few people could be seen dashing around so the minibus had room for me. I guess that once the temperature goes below zero, it doesn’t really makes much of a difference. I still have to be thankful for the fact that there’s no wind here to take into account and that except for covering my nose and mouth with my scarf while waiting for the marshrutka, I was relatively comfortable.

There were only seven students for the conversation club and we played a couple of card games and talked about growing up. I reminded them that the school was preparing a Christmas program for the following Saturday and to tell their friends about it.

Something was going on next door at the bookshop sponsored by McMillan for as I was wrapping up my class, Gulnara, Zarina and other teachers came out of that room. I greeted them and left right away eager to return to the comfort of my own flat. Once home, I tuned in to CNN only to find out that they were still covering the event non-stop as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist because a tragedy had taken place in the United States. I turned it off and went back to the news online instead.

“Midnight in Paris” has now become my favorite Woody Allen movie. It’s got everything: great acting, a gorgeous setting, fabulous costumes and witty dialogue. What more could any cinephile ask for? I could watch this movie several times just to make sure I got every possible nuance from it. More important yet: it helped me forget today’s tragic event for a couple of hours.