Bringing Art to Inner City Kids

March 4th - My birthday. Dinner out with friends. So now I'm older and stuff. Then I went home to work on a paper that I could have finished at any time in the last two weeks but didn't. I went to bed at about 02:00, with the paper partly done.

March 5th - Got up at 04:00. I went to A.&R.'s to make breakfast. Eggs with salsa and cheese. Playing with hot things on two hours of sleep; cool. Then home to make breakfast for my roomie and myself. I worked on the paper some more, and turned it in electronically around 10:30. Nap time.

Today - up at 4:30. Over to A.&R.'s to make breakfast for many people. Burned a huge pot of rice; threw it out. Started more rice. Made eggs again. Made fried rice towards the end. Then home for a nap.

My observations during these days:

1) Sleep is better when you really need it. I know they say you are supposed to get 8 hours a day, but when you get only two hours or so, the next time you get to sleep is heavenly. It's not unlike a drug addiction; it's all you can think of, and so wonderful when you finally get your fix.

2) At 05:30, hot food is miraculous. ANY hot food. The Baha'i kids are so thankful to not have to cook themselves, that even hastily fried rice is like manna to them. A. likened it to bringing art to inner city kids; any art is better than no art.

3) Community is more important than ideology. I'm not Baha'i, but they have been kind to me from the very beginning. I have some strongly-held, angrily-defended positions on theology, and yet they are kind and accepting of me. They are vaguely aware that my personal history is a littany of sins that would curl their hair, and yet they are kind to me. Perhaps it's because I will get up at 04:00 to scramble eggs for them, but I have come to believe that they are just genuinely kind and accepting people.

Tomorrow we are bringing breakfast burritos to the inner city kids...