I just saw the movie "The Pianist". I am so freaked out. Afterwards, I went to a mall to try to ground myself back into the current time period. I even looked at shoes, at my beloved Dansko Jade shoes, but I was too emotional to try them on.

I think I'm even more disturbed than when I saw "Schindler's List", because I saw Schindler's back to back with the movie "The Piano". I went from one emotional state with "The Piano", and into a completely different emotional state with Schindler's. Most of the time during Schindler's you could hear people crying. Someone was crying the whole time during "The Pianist".

I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. I think I was too horrified. Adrien Brody gave such subtle performance and Roman Polanski is a genius. I didn't know "The Pianist" was based on a true story. The real pianist lived in Warsaw till his death in 2000. He was eighty eight years old, and had written the story of his life.

Polanski does not paint his characters with black and white strokes. There was so much ambiguity in the movie. There were good jews, bad jews, good germans, bad germans, good poles and bad poles. I mean, he could have. He the director after all, but he didn't.

I am amazed by the will of the human spirit to live on, despite such hardships. I am amazed by how evil people can be, how cruel and how utterly horrifying their actions are sometimes. And what's truly amazing is that people can live on after expreriecing such terrible things, almost as if nothing has happened. The human will to survive to go is so strong, despite all our attempts to kill it.

The tears come now, after I've written all of this. Maybe writing helps me release the emotions that built up as I watched "The Pianist". I feel a need to read this man's story, although it will be a very heart wrenching thing to do. Did music keep him alive? How did he survive into another century, and not go insane?

My own concerns seem so petty to me now. My need for material things seem so blasphemous even, after having watched people scrounge for food and their very survival for 2.5 hours.

Will this movie win "Best Picture" on Oscar night? I don't know. It's such a subtle movie. Roman Polanski's set and depiction of the events in Warsaw during World War 2 was meticulous. I believ Polanski survived the Warsaw Ghetto as a child, and I'm sure this added to the authenticity of the movie.

"The Pianist" won the best picture prize at the Cannes Film Festival, but I think this movie may be too subtle for Hollywood. And Polanski's misdeeds with 13 year old girls doesn't endear him to many people. "The Pianist" is an incredible piece of filmmaking, but perhaps a friend is right. She said that the country is in such an emotional mood right now, that "The Pianist might be too much". She thinks that "Chicago will win best picture because people want escapist movies right now.

She says our current reality of an upcoming war, terrorists scares and our 9/11 post traumatic stress disorder is just too much to deal with, and that "Chicago" is the only light hearted film that lets the moviegoer escape from the real world. She may be right. Too bad. I think in any other year, "The Pianist" and any of the other movies nominated might have won.

I think I'm going to be freaked out all weekend. But it's okay. A great movie does that you sometimes.

This is so not good. They are laying off teachers everywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was listening to the radio yesterday afternoon, and teachers were calling in and saying that layoffs were happening in Oakland, San Jose and Gilroy. There was an article on SFGATE.com today, which said that teachers in San Francisco will also be laid off.

I hate those California Teachers Association radio commercials. I don't hate the message, I just hate the speaker's voice beacuse he sounds whiny and militant. The commercials say "there's an education recession", but what they don't say is everyone is suffering with this bad economy. The union makes it sound like teachers are being singled out, and that's just not true. Everyone is financially hurting.

I'm torn because I know the state has to make budget cuts. The money has to come from somewhere, and I think I would rather have it come from education rathen than from social services. Children at least have parents, one hopes, to take care of them. But what about the people who can't take care of themselves like the mentally challenged (mentally ill) and the physically challenged (disabled)? They have to taken care of by the state. Part of me still blames San Francisco's homeless isssues on the closure of social service facilities in the 1980's. I wasn't living in the area back then, but I know the history. The people affected by the closures had no where to live, but the streets.

But I do feel sorry for the teachers getting laid off. Things in this world are so stressful right now, and I think I'm being stressed out by all of it. On the one hand, the news says that things aren't that bad, and the other hand they keep reporting about layoffs, new homes standing empty, and people being out of work for a very long time. It's so bipoloar. The facts that the news people are reporting just don't add up to the their stories about the economy being not that bad.

It's so confusing!

I had my Wednesday night bible class tonight, and of course there was some discussion about the war for Iraq. The pastor of my church, as is right I think, is definitely anti-war. One man in class who is a war veteran is for the war, as is this lawyer whom I totally respect and admire. The lawyer guys argued very persuasively that the war on Iraq is "just war", and like a lawyer he had several bible verses to back his argument up.

The pastor of my church admitted that Iraq may very well have weapons of mass destruction and that Hussein is a bad man, but he is against all forms of war because he said "violence begets violence". He agreed that Hussein needs to be disarmed, but that the US was going about in the wrong way.

After class I just had to ask him if he was against all wars, and would he be protesting against the war to free the slaves and end slavery. The pastor said he would be. He then told me that what we all needed to think about was, would we be willing to die for our ideas like Jesus. His question made me wonder if I would be willing to die for my country. I think I would, but I think my background has much to do with decision.

First, I have family members who have died as war veterans, and military service to country is a strong tradition in my family. Secondly, I was born and grew up in Hawaii, a state whose identity is so tied into the bombing of Pearl Harbour, that I was taught from Day 1 that patriotism is everything. Veteran's Day is a big deal in Hawaii, and all the islands have a visible military presence. In high school, we studied World War 2 zealously, and we had presentations in school by people who had experienced World War 2. The internment of Japanese people in camps was a big subject, and former camp members came to class to talk about their experience.

The pastor said something interesting at the end. He told me that he hoped he'd be willing to die for what he believed, but that you never know what you're going to do until you're faced with the decision. I think he's right.

I recently bought a new pair of glasses, which cost me over $300 including a custom built sun clip and coatings, and they don't fit. In fact, they hurt. It's so frustrating because I've had to go to the optometrists office three times now, and they still can't get it adjusted. I hate this! $300 is alot of money to pay for a pair of glasses that hurts my right ears.

And one of the adjusters there was so rude to me. She's young and doesn't seem to know what she's doing, and every time she's worked on my glasses, she sighs and acts like I'm the biggest pain in the butt. And I feel like telling her, "look, it's not my fault you don't know what the hell you're doing, but I just spent over $300 on a pair of glasses and I expect to be treated at least civily".

I've been trying to adjust the glasses myself, and I'm totally wrecking my glasses, but they really hurt my right ear. After I've been wearing them for an hour, my right ear starts to burn and hurt. I didn't want to go back to the optometrist's office to get my glasses adjusted again for the fourth time, but I'm going to have to. And I should do, just to make the stupid young chick mad. I'm going to keep on going back there, even though I can only get there on Saturday because the office is in downtown San Francisco, until they fix it.

And if they can't fix it, I'm going to ask for a refund or a new pair of glasses. I've never done that before, but I'm so frustrated right now. I'm sure the eyeglass adjuster is going to make a comment about how I've wrecked my glasses, but I don't care. I'm just going to say that I tried to fix it myself, since after three adjustments your office couldn't do it.

Wow! I just hate paying what is alot of money for me, $300+ , for something that makes my ear hurt and rude treatment from hired help. This is the first time I've ever had this kind of rotten experience from my optometrist, and this is the third pair of glasses in 6 years that I've bought from them.

I think it's just the glasses. I told the woman who sold them to me that I had concerns about the glasses fitting my wide head. She told me, "don't worry, we can adjust it." I'm like "yeah right".

What a pain! I have to rearrange my whole Saturday around getting my eyeglasses adjusted, with the possibility that the rude young girl who works will have to wait on me. I hate this! I so hate this!

Sometimes, I feel like this is the story of my life. I know it's not, but it sure feels like it right now.