Virginia Tech, a month later....

It’s been a month since the Virginia Tech shooting and I thought I’d write about it now, since I’ve noticed people haven’t talked about it as much, (although there is a nice memorial on Virginia Tech's web site) plus, I didn’t write about it when it happened! I’m so behind. I swear I really need to start bloglogging more. I need to figure out how to make a living writing bloglogs. At my job, I’m working with the blogger of the LeBron blog and he suggested I just keep writing and eventually something will happen. So who knows, maybe I should. BUT I just never find the time to blog. I hate it! I could totally make the time, I just don’t. But I’m going to. I need to.

Anyway, on that note, (this is a nice little segue to the VT shooting), Emil (LeBron’s blogger) asked me to look for an image of Nikki Giovanni for a piece he wrote about on the LeBron blog . She’s a teacher and poet at Virginia Tech and she happened to be a family friend of his. Anyway, I started reading articles about her and the shooting, while looking for an image and in one article, she mentioned that she was afraid of Cho and his writings. I don’t know if it was Ms. Giovanni or another teacher, but they went as far as to describe his writings as horrific. Some even called it grotesque. I read the excerpts of his writings, I couldn’t help but notice that it totally reminded me of horror flicks like “Hostel” or “Saw”. This just really made me think about American views.

I found it rather interesting that these students said this guy had mental problems because he wrote these horrific stories, yet, I bet a good amount of them saw “Hostel” and “Saw” and never thought, something was wrong with Eli Roth or James Wan or Leigh Whannell. That they were seriously disturbed.

I’m in no means, whatsoever, defending what Cho did or even giving him an excuse, but I do want to point out the irony in people’s thinking. If perhaps, Eli Roth came to this writing class and handed the students the script to Hostel 2, I can almost guarantee people would commend him on his writing, and his “imagination”. (As they did with Hostel). I mean at the time of the shooting, look at what the number 1 movie was; ”Grindhouse”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not preaching about the flicks per se or saying not to watch them. Because first of all, I wouldn’t tell anyone what or what not they should do and secondly, I own most of them on DVD! “Saw” did happen to be one of my favorite flicks back in 2004 (but we won’t get into Hostel). But I just find it ironic. Maybe ironic isn’t the right word. I just think it’s interesting what some people would consider “mind blowing” giving certain circumstances.

But my heart does go out to the people at Virginia Tech. They didn’t deserve it. They were at school, learning. They should’ve felt safe. Who wouldn’t feel safe? School’s supposed to be a safe environment. What Cho did was commit a senseless act. He was a hurt person, who just didn’t know how to deal with his emotions. Perhaps something happened to him, something indescribable that he could not talk about, or someone hurt him in the past, whatever the case may be, he was sad. The dude seriously needed help. He seriously needed God. But then again, it seemed like he blamed Christians for a lot. So who knows. Who knows what the answer is. Or how we can stop all these tragic events.

People really need to chill. And not just the Cho’s of the world, but the people who are bullying the Cho’s of the world. Because their actions sometime leave kids with thoughts of hopelessness and desperation and in most cases it’s always the innocent ones who end up becoming the victims of these desperate kids and their thoughtless crimes.

Anyway, I’m going to stop writing because I’m making myself sad.
The moral of this bloglog:
Stop the bullying, or I’ll kick your ass!

Photo © 2007 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University web site