One of the many things I sacrifice in the name of academic success!
My time as a lady of leisure is reaching its end. Soon I'll be toiling away at a desk in a classroom or elsewhere during many of my waking hours. Toiling away is a bit of an exaggeration. I'll be trying hard not to smirk as others toil away. My hard work was mostly completed weeks ago. I'll have the bittersweet privilege of watching my classmates struggle to complete assignments and studying that should have been addressed weeks ago. The most difficult part is trying hard not to look too all-knowing as I observe this. To do such, though, would be socially suicidal, and I'm far from the greatest social success on the west coast even as it stands. Instead, I'll nod sympathetically as though I'm going through the very same thing, which I'm not. Adding to the difficulty, apparently, is that the very best parties always happen during Hell week, forcing these would-be students to make the choice between having the university experiences of their lives or actually being university students and earning degrees. Such is life -- a series of choices. They'll get through it like so many before them have done. Striking a balance between drunken revelry and higher education is a difficult proposition but one that can be achieved.
The woman of whom I wrote yesterday, who was killed by an African male tiger at Cat Haven, sometimes known as Cat Hell, suffered her death as a result of a broken neckl the county coroner believes death was near instantaneous which is certainly a blessing if it happened in such a manner. it has been hypothesized that the deceased, M. Hanson, was providing food for the animal in another enclosure when it broke through to where she was. This make more sense than an apparently lucid adult entering an enclosure holding a fully-grown make lion.
Actress Tippi Hedron, herself the founder of a cat haven of sorts, had a less-than sympathetic take on the situation, at least toward the perspective of the woman who lost her life. "It wasn't the lion's fault. It's the human's. fault always." However much truth her statement may contain, and while I'm certainly far from suggesting that human error did not contribute to this tragedy, I found Ms. Hedron's comments callous at the very least. I, too, am sorry that a lion had to be killed, but I can at least mourn the loss of human life as well. Furthermore, while I know nothing of Ms. Hedron's cat reserve, Shambala, but with the manner of reality, karmic forces, human error, and everything else that is usually at work, Ms. Hedron's reserve could be one tiny oversight away from a similar occurrence at her own preserve. She would do well to reserve judgment in such a public manner.
And speaking of the vulnerable, my professor from last year is still supposedly holding a mountain lion, which I personally saw in its holding area on her property last year (you already gave me my grade, lady, and I'm not taking another of your classes, so do your very best to seek revenge if you happen to beat the million-to-one odds and come across this blog) on a converted tennis court on property in rural Santa Barbara County. If I were one of her neighbors, I would be very concerned.
