The oil spill in the Gulf sounds downright frightening and horrifying. I don’t even know what to say about it, and if I take the time to figure out what to say about it, I probably won’t manage to finish my grades tonight as I am fairly well committed to do.
The past couple of weeks have been surreal. I’ve been yammering away on the blog about my own stress levels over work while the world is basically falling apart around me as I do my best to block it out so that I can keep worrying about work and deadlines.
During a time of normal work loads, I’m sure I would have had plenty to say about the explosion in the Gulf that killed 11 people and caused the current environmental disaster. When I hear there’s been a horrific tragedy in, for example, a coal mine in West Virginia, I feel sad. I feel sympathy and concern. I feel awful for the people involved. When I hear there’s been a tragic explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf, I feel fear. I don’t just feel sad concern. I feel shattered.
I’ve never known a single person who worked in a coal mine, but I could spend the rest of the day naming people I know who’ve worked on an oil rig in the Gulf. I know people who are working there now. An explosion like that could have killed anyone’s brother, husband, dad, cousin, or boyfriend. Anyone at all that I know. It could have killed my own nephew. When I heard about it, I was afraid. I’m afraid still.
I’m certainly afraid of what’s going to happen because of that big blob of oil floating around out there, what the longer term consequences will be.
But I can’t blog about that right now, just as I haven’t been able to blog about it so far. I have to grade.
