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Mercy - by KT Chen

11/26/2018

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This past Monday, my wife was at work in Mercy Hospital in Chicago when a gunman shot and killed three people.

The gunman opened fire in the parking lot at 3:20 pm, and then ran into the hospital.

At the time of the shooting, I was on a bus, and, halfway home, the bus started getting passed by police cars and ambulances, sirens screaming.  I remember thinking that whatever it was looked big and I hoped everyone was okay.  My bus went right by Mercy at 3:30 that afternoon.  My wife texted me, literally as my bus drove by the hospital, that there was an active shooter and she was locked up safe with a group of other people.  They had barricaded the door.

I got off a block later, where we live, and watched it all unfold on TV.  My wife and I continued to exchange texts for the next few hours.  I was glad about this.  It helped me know she was safe, even as I was watching what was happening on TV. 

I am so proud of Chicago PD for their fast response.  They had a swarm of people there within minutes of the first call for help.

Likewise, I proud of Chicago Fire for their fast response.  Not knowing how many people would need to be evacuated, they sent a fleet of ambulances to help get people out.

I am grateful of the response of Mercy Hospital.  They had the hospital locked down within minutes of the gunfire.  I very appreciate their efforts to keep their patients and employees safe.

During the lockdown, a call for help went out across the hospital.  I am in awe of the handful of Nurses, Residents, and Attendings that left the safety of where they were to answer the call for help for the people who were shot.  They kept the victims alive long enough to get them out of the hospital and to UC Medical.  Though Dr. O’Neal, Officer Jimenez, and Pharmacist Less all died, the team that responded are the heroes that ran into potential danger to try to save their lives.  I wish I had better words to express how deeply and profoundly touched I am by the bravery and selflessness of their actions.

In the days after the shooting, my wife took shifts to help cover the Emergency Department.  Dr. O’Neal was an Attending in that department.  The people she worked with were given some time to work through their loss.  Employees in the hospital, including my wife, were also given some time to sort out their feelings about what happened.  My wife has told me that the hardest part for her was not leaving her safe, barricaded room to answer the call for help.  She told me that the most direct route from where she was to where she would have had to go to help was in the direct path of the gunman.  In fact, Dayna Less was shot coming off of the elevator my wife would have used to answer the call.

And that’s how close I came to losing the person who means most to me in the world a mere week ago.

This is a crazy world and safety is not guaranteed.  Accidents happen.  People die every day.  I understand that.  However, the Constitution promises us that we should be able to go about our day-to-day activities without fear of being killed.  (It’s in the preamble, the part about “insure domestic tranquility.”)  And let me tell you, getting shot at in a hospital, or anywhere else, isn’t tranquil.

I get that guns are a touchy topic in America, so I’ll just say this:  the laws we have aren’t working.  If they were working, we wouldn’t keep having mass shootings. 

It’s time to start making some nationwide changes to gun laws, and I hope gun owners can be a part of those conversations.  The goal of gun reform shouldn’t be to get rid of the guns, but to regulate them better.  Other countries have systems that work.  We should steal ideas from what is working.  It’s time.
​
Gun reform.  Now.

 
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15,000 Words - by KT Chen

11/19/2018

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My NaNoWriMo isn’t going as expected.

I took a few days to get caught up on grad school work, which was necessary.  Then I got sidelined by a series of migraines that wouldn’t quit.  A week of migraines and their headache aftershocks later, I’m only 15,000 words into this novel I was trying to write.

Only.

15,000.

Yet, I can’t be too discouraged.  Not really.  That’s 15,000 more words than I had on October 31st.  And I still have 12 more days to get some more written.

While other people are enjoying food and family this Thanksgiving, I’ll be pounding my little writer’s heart out on the keyboard.

Go forth and write!

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Pause - by KT Chen

11/12/2018

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I hit pause on a lot of things this week.

My Facebook and Twitter feeds were a war zone among different people in different periods of my life celebrating or lamenting the Midterms.  After being inundated with vicious politics on both sides, I needed to just walk away for a bit.

My NaNoWriMo got pushed to the side for five days while I got caught up on grad school work.  I had articles to read and papers to write.  My next workshop chunk is due 17 days from now, and I feel like I’ve barely moved the needle.  Priorities, though.  As good as I am with time management, there are still only so many hours in the day.

I also want to be outraged at Trump’s response to the wildfires in California and the shooting at Thousand Oaks, as well as his unwillingness to be uncomfortable in the rain on Veteran’s day.  My outrage, though, just needed a pause.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been tired like this.  This mental and physical weariness that seems to not end.  It’s definitely a “weight of the world” kind of feeling.

So, I took some time to pause.  To not watch the news.  To not get sucked down the rabbit hole of Facebook and Twitter.  To go for more long walks with my dog in the chilling Chicago fall-almost-winter.  To get caught up on my grad school work.  To spend some time spaced out on Netflix.  To have some meaningful conversations with friends I haven't seen in a while.  To live a mundane life, just for a moment.

I’ll be back to outrage soon enough.  But for now, this moment, I need this pause.

Go forth and write!

 
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NaNoWriMo - by KT Chen

11/5/2018

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For the past few years, I have heard about NaNoWriMo.  The National Novel Writing Month, which falls in November, each year.  And, I’ll admit:  I was skeptical about the value of attempting it.

After all, I had written a novel already, plus another book.  In my mind, any month was a good time to be writing.  Okay, I was a little arrogant about it too.

This year is different though.  January through August, I didn’t have anything to do – no job, no school, no real responsibility - and could (should) have written a ton of stuff.  Except, I didn’t.  Like most writers who have a lot of free time, I wasn’t productive in any sense of the word.  I did just about everything possible to avoid writing.

Let’s face it:  writers need goals, deadlines, and accountability. 

Oh, I’m sure there’s some out there who can get by without any of it.  But I’m going to guess that about 95% of us can’t.

Looking back, my most productive writing times were when I had a ton of other things I absolutely had to get done for work and school and home. 

So, I’m in.  For NaNoWriMo.  I’m all in.

The official NaNoWriMo goal is 50,000 words by midnight, November 31 (that's December 1st, for those that didn't catch that).  That breaks down to about 1,600 words a day.  This is day 5, and I’ve gotten just a hair over 9,000 words written, which puts me just barely ahead of the game.  And I haven’t sat down to do my writing for today yet, so I may extend my lead.

I also have some intense motivation … my writer’s workshop wants a minimum of 45 pages, extensively revised and polished, for the “final.” 

As weird / stupid as it may sound, I’m really excited about NaNoWriMo.  I check in on it on Twitter (#NaNoWriMo or #NaNoWriMo18), just for inspiration and commiseration.  There's an official website for it also:  www.nanowrimo.org.  I’m *very* happy to see so many people taking up the challenge.

Go forth and write!
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    I write about writing, working out, my dog, being deaf, and anything else I find of interest.

    I post on Mondays, before 9 AM.

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