what would I do?

I dreamt last night that I was driving on this curvy road, and drove off the road into the ocean. As the truck went into the ocean, I was all plan - "roll down the window! grab the wallet! grab the phone! can you take your backpack? no, let it go! no get out and float up!" [Amy has a phobia of electric windows as I do of bridges - that if you get into the water they won't roll down and you'll be trapped because the water pressure on the door won't allow you to open it.] I get out, swim up, and grab onto a piling which ends a good bit before the edge of the dock [why is it a dock? I thought I was driving?] so I can't reach around and pull myself up. But I'm there and somebody will come help. Then I start chatting with people all around, none of whom thinks to help me get up out of the water or do anything much meaningful except watch whatever it was we all came there to watch.

Hm, wonder what it means? I'm drowning? In over my head? No matter what the danger I'll think quickly and respond apppropriately and I'll be fine? That I need to work on my upper body strength?

I keep thinking about the Virginia Tech killings - as a former teacher, I keep wondering about Cho. We take those duties seriously, or at least I do - if I have a whacko student in my class I want to do something about it - help him/her somehow. And, as a former teacher, I too would of course risk my life to save my students [one time my students asked what I would do if la migra came - and we actually worked out a plan]. But now as a student, how would I respond to somebody coming in shooting up the place? Our windows don't open - and breaking through them would be impossible (they survived a hurricane - they're THICK), and our desks are long tables firmly attached to the floor (can't be turned down as cover). Would I figure out a way to keep our doors shut? To immediately get 911 called (my phone doesn't often work at school) and all the emergency dealt with? Could I stop a gunman (because really, people - they seem to ALWAYS be men) somehow? What if somebody were trained to do that and could have immediately, saving so many lives? (Yeah, I watch too much of The Unit, which JUST had a show of holding students hostage ...)

It's just so tragic and touches my life on so many levels. Mostly I wonder about the kid (he was 23, that's a kid to me) and why he was so unhappy and so messed up.

And I'm effing pissed off when I google his name, all these hacks trying to link him to Islam somehow. Timothy McVeigh - the first terrorist in the U.S. - was Christian, people. NOt the brand of Christianity my friends ascribe to - but so many people in the world see it differently - there's a freakin Christian jihad in the U.S., people - what else explains the hate thrown at gays/lesbians and Muslims? Just Monday - before I knew about the Virginia Tech killings, a Korean friend and I were talking about Christianity in Korea and why and how it spread so quickly.

My point is just that the kid was probably Christian, and that religion has probably absolutely nothing to do with anything - he was unhappy and sick. That we should instead examine our gun control laws and ways of handling people who commit arson and stalk (and no, I do NOT mean my brand of benevolent "stalking"). I had a roommate who was nuts, and when I saw her cutting herself and doing some weird shit, I called her parents - who denied it and got angry at me, but who showed up and that seemed to snap her out of it. But that was my first year of college and I don't even know what authorities I would have contacted. And I'm ... well, I'm an intervenor clear and simple. Noise in my neighborhood? I'm out the door checking it out. I wouldn't say I'm nosy - I'd say I'm involved.

So if I heard gunshots in my law school, what would I do? And could whatever I do save lives? I know, I'm not exactly smitten with my classmates right now, but I don't want ANY of them to die! And I do worry a little about the stress level that people are under right now, and the nastiness that brings out. Let's just hope it doesn't bring out the firearms.

And it makes me think of Kennymanjaro again - he's a very unhappy man. Sigh.