Computer Error

An interesting thing happened on Facebook today; I was looking at a post on the death of Cory Monteith (Glee star) that explained how it's possible to feel sadness for the loss of a life even if you didn't know the person who died. As I scrolled through the comments, I came across one that simply said “<3”. Beneath it, as Facebook often does with text it does not understand or with comments it believes to be in a foreign language, it had a blue hyperlink stating “translation.” I knew whatever it said would be wrong, but out of curiosity, I clicked it anyway and it said “no content available.” Obviously Facebook didn't understand the symbols in the comment drew a picture as it was viewing them as strictly characters, but to me it left an impression and I saw a coincidence...

Death affects us all, even if it's a stranger.

Hearts are complicated.

And feelings cannot be translated properly by any words we possess nor explained by any machine that we own.

There are a lot of coincidences in life. It’s not proof that there’s a driving, spiritual force behind it. However, the fact that I am able to see them and recognize them for their inspiration is to me, a small miracle. I don’t know that this conclusion I drew was really all that monumental, but it think we need little pick-ups like this to keep ourselves afloat. Perhaps the fact that our brains do this for us is what the real miracle is. Wherever it comes from, I’m grateful for it.

An Electric Heart

Seeing someone you care for greatly is online makes your heart leap because it's a reminder that they're there- that someone so wonderful exists. That you are there together, existing in the same space. At least for this tiny moment in time, you're both just two of the same little dots, searching for a connection. It's a reminder that we are more than just our bodies, the sum of our parts, that our minds and souls are not limited to the strict interactions of our physical bodies and presence. A reminder that the person you so care for is limited and liberated in the same ways and is in fact, a human being, just like you. Nothing can replace the interactions of the personal, but this interaction gives me the courage to face other people more confidently because it reminds me that after all...they are people.

All people possess the ability and sympathy to love. It seems to transcend all boundaries, it certainly seems to go beyond that of our bodies. Love itself seems to have no body, yet it is alive and fighting. Unlike other life forms, it seems to be able to live anywhere, or at least travel anyplace (like through the internet). Our human similarities and the seemingly limitless capabilities of love is just one more thing that keeps me believing that I am a part of something bigger and stronger than myself. Maybe it's bigger than all of us together because somehow it just keeps bringing us together despite our efforts to be selfish. So yes, even something as seemingly shallow as social media gives me hope and makes me believe.

Half-Marathon and Disney

A year ago, I was horribly out of shape. It wasn't pretty. It was embarrassing and probably the worst time I've ever had playing rugby. I would watch the amazing athletes on my team breeze by and I would barely finish the drills. I wanted to quit so many times because I felt so worthless that it just wasn't fun to play anymore. This was horribly sad for me and it affected all areas of my life.

I was most fortunate when early in the summer, my Aunt told me she was planning on running the Tinkerbell Half-Marathon at Disneyland. I was amazed that she'd be interested in doing something so difficult because she had always told me that she didn't think of herself as an athlete. She's a gifted musician, wonderful mother, and very bright, but hated P.E. as a child. Yet she had decided she was going to run 13 miles! That's not a little thing. She asked if I wanted to do it too. I was afraid. I was so out of shape and my self-esteem was sooo low. But if my aunt was going to do it, maybe I could do it too? I signed up for the very expensive Disneyland race.

It's true Disney is expensive, but it occurred to me that if there is any half-marathon (or full marathon) you want to do for the first time, Disney is the way to go. They go all out and you're running through the parks, which is beautiful and uplifting. Music plays everywhere, lights and colors shine through the darkness, and Disney characters cheer you on. The best part is that most of the runners are in colorful costumes that reflect their happy and excited nature. I wish every time I worked out it was like that!

Somewhere around mile 4, I thought about all the things Disney taught me while I was growing up. Feminists and Critical Gender Studies taught me that Disney teaches children a lot of damaging things, that a girl's only ambition is to get married to a guy and stand by him no matter what. I can't deny that Disney might have given me some of the wrong ideas as a little girl, but the things that I actually remember are uplifting. Ariel taught me that I could love whomever I wanted, Mulan taught me that I (or any GIRL) could do anything even if everyone else disagreed, and Cinderella and Hercules taught me to never stop having faith and if I just believe in myself that I could "Go the Distance." Even Simba taught something, to stop punishing myself for what is and what is past because even though it hurts, "you can either run from it, or learn from it." The most important thing all the Disney movies taught me was that love conquers all, but I had forgotten that this includes how you treat yourself...I had forgotten to love myself. So I tried to stop concentrating so much on my self-image as it was, and just to do my best. Even thinking of what I wanted to be seemed too hard, but I just concentrated on what I could do, and every week I found I could do a little more. I think the lessons I learned from Disney were like that too, they didn't mean nearly as much just knowing them, I had to realize them for myself.

I was still afraid the day before the race that I wouldn't be able to run the whole thing, that I'd have to stop and walk some of it. I had only run 10 miles total at one time, which is pretty typical, but I still wasn't sure I could do it. It wasn't until I started the race and inside the park, the happiest place on Earth, when a song popped into my head, "No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true." I know it's sappy and baby-ish, but I teared up. It's a cliche, but it's true. I knew then that I would finish and had they played that song when I cross the finish line, I would have balled my eyes out like a 6 year-old. Disney champions the underdog (they might not have been underdogs if they lived in our reality but they were in that world) and I certainly felt like an underdog the last 2-3 years of my life.

I realize more fully now, that people are not so cleanly divided into the categories "Winners" and "Losers." Most people are in fact, just people who decide what they want to do. There's people who have obvious advantages but the rest of us are not doomed to fail. Stand up for yourself, just decide that you can do it, and crawl if you have to! You may feel embarrassed to start out doing something that looks so pitiful, but if you don't, you'll spend the rest of your life in misery. It takes a long time to train to the point where you can run 13.10 miles, but if you just do a little more every day, you can do it! The greatest thing I did for myself was to stop looking around so much at what I looked like in comparison to other people. I still have this problem, but every time that I am able to stop and just say "Stop that, just pay attention to what you're doing and ignore the other people," I am happier and usually perform better.

I finished the Tinkerbell Half-Marathon in 2 hours and 24 minutes which was about a half hour faster then I predicted. I was placed 178 out of 810 in my division and was number 2157 out of some 11,000 runners total. It made me glad that I chose the Ms. Incredible costume. I had to believe I could do it and the outfit helped. I didn't just finish, I surpassed my expectations, I was (at least in my own mind) incredible!

Now when I go to rugby practice, I still don't think of myself as a natural athlete. I am not gifted nor am I a leader. I will never be the one who saves the game or get carried off the field, but I don't feel inferior anymore. I am capable and hard-working and I deserve to be a part of the team. I deserve to be happy and I know that if I run into a problem anywhere in life, on or off the field, on or off the race course, I can do it if I just keep going. Just don't stop! Just keep moving and advancing. Like Dory says, "Just keep swimming!" And she's right, it takes baby steps.

I think that the human mind is an amazing thing. Running is very much a mental sport because you have to ignore all the messages your body sends begging you to stop. Yet if you can do this, the results are great. There are little other activities you can do that are as good for you. It made a huge difference. I don't think that our creator wanted things to be easily for us. The fates, whatever it or they is, want us to work and work hard to better our lives because that's the best way to learn and truly experience life. I know those 13.10 miles wouldn't have meant nearly as much to me if I hadn't been so out of shape to begin with. If it hadn't been so hard, why would finishing have meant so much? I also don't think I could have kept going without a greater power on my side. My knees might have collapsed, my sore throat would have made breathing too hard, or my mind would have proven too weak to continue - which would have been the worst thing possible for me to find out. I still believe there's something out there looking out for us. How else could I have done this impossible thing with my body? How could so many have forced themselves to keep going? Our bodies should not be able to endure that kind of pain and actually weren't built to do so, yet somehow it's still possible. It's another small miracle I found exists in a difficult life.

"No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dreams that you wish, will come true."

After Surgery

Two weeks ago, I started to feel excruciating pain after being sick for 4 days straight. What I thought was the flu, turned into terrible, unbearable lower abdominal pain. I went to the doctor in the morning, who told me they weren't sure what was wrong, gave me a shot for the pain and sent me home. The pain came back even worse than it had been that morning and I found myself in the E.R. at Kaiser. What scared me the most is the fact that I had been to the E.R. some two years before for terrible abdominal pain and the E.R. had shrugged it off as "a stomach ache." Last time, I waited 4 hours in the waiting room before being admitted. This time, I was taken right away (probably because I was having trouble standing at that point). I won't lie, I was in the most pain I've ever been in - in all of my short 23 years of living. While the doctor still didn't know what was wrong with me this time, he did offer to do a CAT scan. It's not something they like to do unnecessarily, especially on young people, but after the morphine wore off and the pain came back as strong as ever, they decided to give it a shot. What they found was fluid and irritation around my gallbladder and other evidence that my liver too was suffering. They sent me for an ultrasound and discovered that I had gallstones. One (according to the doctor) was at least half an inch in size (apparently that's a pretty good-sized gallstone). The doctor said that he recommended removing the gallbladder entirely, or risk being in pain longer and the gallstones either not passing or simply coming back. I opted to have it removed. My grandfather left me at the E.R. to pick up my mother, who flew down to stay with me while I had my surgery and stayed in the hospital. The surgery was about an hour and a half (if I remember correctly) and went fine. It's not a risky procedure but it is pretty unusual for someone my age to have gallstones or gallbladder removal. The whole producer was fairly uncomfortable, but I will say that I was on drugs for most of it so I can only say it could have been far worse. Morphine is my friend (my friend who makes me nauseous). 

I'm extremely grateful to the doctors AND nurses who were so kind to me. While it was not a difficult surgery it was still scary for me and I'm glad that I had so many people around me to help me get through it as painlessly as possible. It's a humbling experience that not only makes me realize how fragile my life is, but how lucky I am. I got health insurance just a month ago. I never would have been able to afford these expenses otherwise. I don't think it's a coincidence. I have a loving family who did everything they could to be there for me. My Father, Sister, Grandmother, and even Godmother all called me to say that they loved me and everything was going to be ok. My Mom flew down from Placerville and stayed with me for several days even when I got out of the hospital. Many of my friends from rugby and band and everywhere posted on my Facebook to show their support. My friends from work at the Symphony had flowers and a card delivered to my apartment. I am so privileged to know the people I know. I feel blessed by my God. I wasn't alone. 

I also noticed how much I've grown in just the past couple of years. If this had happened to me just a few years ago, I would have flipped out. It's true that I was scared and nervous, but when I found out I had to have surgery I was far less afraid then 20 year old Alana would have been. I believe God really does give us the ability to evolve. I have grown and become stronger. Sometimes I'm not always sure people change for the better but for this event in my life, it was definitely for the better. I was able to handle myself pretty well and act like an adult (and I maintain that I acted like an adult even though I cried after my Mom went home - adults cry too ok!). 

I thank the higher being today that I was not only so taken care of, but that I was able to see how much I've grown in this life. 

"House M.D."

Today I finished watching the last episode of "House M.D." I know the rest of you are probably thinking, "Uh where have you been?! 'House' has been over for months!" but I've been MIA. The show reminded me too much of someone that I used to know and it got too painful after a while to watch, but I'm glad that I came back to it.

Now, another question some of you might be asking is "Why in the world would you decide to talk about 'House' on a blog about believing in God?" It's true, the character of House is a strong atheist. He believes God is a made-up character designed to either justify the power of the church or to make people feel better about living in a harsh world (or what he considers to be a harsh world). For some people, either or both of these scenarios could be true, but the reason I picked this show is because for all House's religion bashing and seemingly infinite wisdom, there are still things he finds himself unable to explain and he still cannot hide his humanity.

A majority of the time, House is a very selfish character. While most people become doctors to help other be well (or for the money), House does it simply because it makes him feel powerful to solve complicated health issues. God knows that Greg House tries very hard to maintain this image too. He often makes fun of or pull pranks on people for no reason whatsoever, simply to keep his image as a hard, shrewd, but necessary doctor at Princeton Plansboro Hospital. I would argue however, that a good amount of the time his actions are also in favor of others. He has a very strange way of doing it, but the actions do help others. They are often motivated by his own selfish needs- he wants his doctors to be the best they can be, but only because then they are of greatest use to him. But he also knows that all the doctors will eventually leave him to move onto better things, and he can't argue that this is good for him because it means finding replacements and he abhors this task. Every time he's forced to find a new person, he is frustrated and puts it off until the last minute. He does care about his doctors and he often makes connections with his patients, despite his best effort not to. It shows that while he is not an easy man to find the goodness in, he simply cannot help it. Despite his efforts to put others down, he winds up helping them. His relationship with others always results in more goodness than wrong.

 I believe this is simply the way we as a people are engineered. People are selfish to survive, but they are also good. No matter what terrible thing they do to someone else, some good always does come of it. Even war, one of the most terrible of events in human history, teaches us how precious peace is, and how fragile and important all human life is. This lesson is especially apparent in House's New Jersey Hospital, where death is everywhere, frequent, and threatening. House didn't just save lives. He saved souls and changed lives for the better, even when some of his patients died. You couldn't meet House without being significantly changed. And I also believe that you couldn't meet House without in some ways meeting Hugh Laurie and David Shore who are real people. The character of House is fictional, but remember that the ideas come from reality and from the minds of people who are real. Therefore, House in a way, is a real person.

"Everybody lies" House tells us, but I don't thing that the idea that there could be a God is a lie. House helped me to grow up and far from forcing me to doubt my belief in God, he strengthened it, because I was forced to question more then ever what is true and logical. The end result is that I still see a God. I still see a life worth living. For all House's misery, what a fascinating life he had, that we all have to live. Life isn't about happiness or avoiding pain. It's about solving lots of little mysteries over a long period of time. It's about experience and learning, and House really captures this for me. Best of luck to Hugh Laurie, David Shore, and all the actors and crew members of "House M.D." You made a difference in my life, and you make me believe.

"So Dear to My Heart"

This is a much less-known Disney movie and often overlooked in terms of importance. I understand that a lot of the older Disney movies, especially the ones that were not cartoons like "the Swiss Family Robinson" have been forgotten. Yet, this movie really speaks to me personally.

Those of you that have read my blog post on "Pets" know how very special my dog, Charm was to me. He was my absolute, best friend in high school, which may have been one of the most difficult times in my life. Charm however, was not a favorite of everyone he met. While he loved me, he was not always great with strangers and he definitely didn't play well with other dogs. I can't tell you how many times people told me to get rid of him. Years after my dog had gotten into a small scrap with another friend of the family's dog, the lady said casually to me, "So you did finally get rid of the dog, right?" When I replied, no- that we had found other ways of taking care of the problem, she said, "Well you should have, that dog was a nuisance!" There are few times I have been angrier and had to be quiet at the same time, in my entire life. I loved that dog, maybe more than any person in the world at that point. Taking that dog away would have been terrible for me, but some people only care about their stupid, quiet, clean, boring lives to deal with anything that's different or requires an open mind.

"So Dear to My Heart" is about a boy named Jeremiah Kincaid who dreams of owning a champion race horse until one day when the lambs are born in his grandmother's barn. He meets Danny, a small and unfortunately, black lamb. Danny's mother rejects him because of his color and Jeremiah's heart swells with pity and compassion for the little sheep. Although his grandmother immediately tells him that black sheep are a nuisance and useless because black wool is undesirable, Jeremiah takes the lamb in as a pet. Trading in his dream to own a championship horse, Jeremiah decides to prove to everyone who laughed at Danny that his lamb is worth something by planning to take the lamb to the county fair. If the lamb can win a blue ribbon and cash prize, he'll be the talk of the town! But Danny proves to be a difficult pet to have. He is strong and bull-headed, constantly causes damage to everything he comes across and is an escape artist to boot. Jeremiah never gives up on the lamb. He fixes everything the lamb breaks, searches through the dangerous swamps for wild honey to fund his county fair trip, and stays out in the woods for hours after the lamb runs away one night while its pouring rain. His grandmother tries time and time again to get rid of the lamb but she just can't do it. Jeremiah loves the lamb so much, that one night after a particularly bad incident, she finds him asleep in the barn with his arm around the lamb. 

The lamb means everything to the boy. In the end, Jeremiah takes the lamb to the fair and although the lamb does not win the blue ribbon, he wins a special award for merit and as the judge calls it, "real spirit." Jeremiah believes this event changed him for the rest of his life and I believe Charm changed mine too. 

This movie is one of the first I've seen that shows that animals, as well as people can have a good deal of unfair prejudice against them, but it does NOT mean that they do not have worth. Charm would never hurt an innocent person. He was great with babies and incredibly patient, yet people avoided him on the sidewalk because he was a pitbull. People told Jeremiah over and over that his lamb was an ugly, obnoxious, nuisance, and a waste of time, but Jeremiah saw the beauty in the small, unfortunate little sheep and loved him for who he was. In return, I imagine that this experience with Danny helped Jeremiah to grow up to become a very kind and determined young man. This story teaches us to never give up on the ones we love and to follow our dreams no matter how bad things seem. "True love is good for the soul" Granny tells Jeremiah and it doesn't matter that the thing he loved was a sheep. This movie makes me believe in a higher power because it touches my soul and reminds me that I am not alone in my belief that simply because a creature is less intelligent then a person, does not mean that it does not have worth. And this makes me feel stronger.

The movie may not be popular, but just as Danny was unpopular and loved never the less by Jeremiah, this movie will always be special to me. It will always be, "So Dear to My Heart."

Bikers Baby!

And no, I don't mean the guys with leather that have a motor under the hood, although I'm sure those motorcyclers are nice too. Here are some pictures for clarification:

Cool Bike

"Cool" Bike

I mean the people who wear the dorky, hardcore spandex and the plastic buckle helmets.

Like these Guys...note the packages...

 As someone who has been an athlete most of her life, I don't know how these people do it. Just watching the bicyclists on the Olympics or even just the students on the UCSD bike club makes me uncomfortable. First of all, I have a latex sensitivity so I would itch like mad, plus my body type doesn't really lend itself to a one-piece tight suit. But seriously, these guys have to be on their bikes ALL DAMN DAY to really get good at it. I could barely make it to school from just a couple of blocks away (damn you VA Hospital Hill)! I've never had the endurance to be a biker and the few times that I tried to make it a routine failed badly. I simply couldn't get better fast enough to stick with it. Yet these Olympic athletes will bike ALL DAY (yes, I said it again because it's ridiculous). It's probably one of the few Olympic sports were the athlete's event literally takes HOURS. You have to leave and come back later to find out the results!

My Mother and Stepfather trained all last year and then did an across-the-country bike trip from Spring-Summer this year. It took an amazing amount of planning and training. I can't believe they could really do something like that, but they made it! Biked the whole way! The sore muscles! My God, I can only image! It's no wonder that bikers have the lean muscle and trim bodies that they do! Hats or rather, helmets off to my Mom and Step-Dad! (To read more about their adventure, click here: http://wolfesride.blogspot.com/)

It's no small feat that human possess the mental fortitude to keep going and the muscle power to keep pedaling that far! I image that while we can do so much on our own, we must get some help from an outside power. A power to push through the pain and transform our bodies into serious machines. Bad-ass bikers make me believe in a greater, stronger power!