Inspiration
Thu May 26, 2011 10:19 pm » by 99socks
Woman overcomes total memory loss to graduate from college
On her first day of community college, 45-year-old Su Meck threw up two times out of sheer terror.
Going back to school as an adult is scary for anyone. But Meck, a homemaker and former aerobics instructor from Gaithersburg, Maryland, had a very special reason to be apprehensive. She suffered total memory loss at the age of 22 when a ceiling fan fell on her head as she was cooking, leaving her in a coma with a brain full of cracks. When she came to, she remembered nothing about her past, and had the mental capacity of a young child. Meck woke up to a life she didn't remember having, that of a young mother and wife living in Fort Worth, Texas. Family members remember her looking at them with a chilling lack of recognition after the accident.
"It was literally like she had died," her husband Jim told the Washington Post. "Her personality was gone.
"It was Su 2.0. She had rebooted."
So even though she had studied at Ohio Wesleyan University, where she met and married her husband, Meck did not remember a single day of her education. As far as she was concerned, she had never set foot inside a classroom. But Meck triumphed--she graduated with her associate's degree in music with a 3.9 grade point average last Friday from Montgomery College.
"I didn't know what to expect," she told The Lookout in an interview of going back to school. "I didn't know how to act or what to do. How I basically got through this whole ordeal is watching other people and mimicking what they do. I wasn't sure if I was going to really be able to do that in a classroom."
She asked her three children--two of them college-aged at the time--how to take notes and how students are supposed to act.
"I didn't understand the whole concept, like do you write down everything the teacher says? How do you know what to write down? It was really, really scary," she remembers.
Her youngest child, Kassidy, was just starting high school and helped her mom with her remedial math course. Meck couldn't even multiply numbers--she relied on addition, which she had learned from examining her children's homework when they were younger. "My daughter was fabulous," Meck says. "She was a huge help, especially with the math."
Meck initially kept her condition a secret from her classmates and professors, who she says were very kind and helpful. But she was haunted by the feeling that at any time, she could be "sitting there and not knowing if I was doing it right." She was baffled when her professors told her to buy blue books for her exams. Scantrons also escaped her: She remembers circling the letters instead of filling them in.
Meck finally told some of her peers and instructors about her condition in her last year at the college. She had never told anyone outside of a small circle of close friends and family before.
There was also a more insidious fear: That she wouldn't live up to the person she used to be.
"I was an excellent student before ... and that was kind of rough because it was like, 'Is everyone expecting me to be this before person? Because I can't be that person. I'm not that person.'"
Meck plans to enroll in Smith College in Massachusetts next fall as a transfer student, and eventually get a masters degree in library science. She hopes to work in a music division of a library. She was a talented musician before her accident, and once shortly after the total memory loss she sat down at a piano and played Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer," her mom told her. She has never been able to do that since, and struggled to re-learn piano in college.
One downside of her condition being out in the open now is people are very curious about what she was like before the accident, which frustrates Meck.
"You can ask Jim that, you can ask my family that, but you can't ask me that. Because I don't know," she says.
Her children, however, grew up only remembering the post-accident Meck. (Two of her children were very young when the fan fell on her, one was born after the accident.) She learned to be a mother again through "trial and error," she says, and her children also adapted. Her son became very adept at remembering their parking space, since Meck's short-term memory was also impaired at first.
"They didn't know that mom was any different," she says. "I guess Benjamin [the oldest child] talked about, 'You're different from other moms, but not in a bad way.' All the other moms would sit and drink coffee, but I would sit on the floor and do the puzzles, because I had never done puzzles before ... I was just a different mom I think."
Her husband, however, did remember what she was like before she lost her memory, and Meck says that was hard. "I am definitely not the same person he married," she says of Jim. "It's been rough. It couldn't have not been. It's not all Disney endings--It's life, it's not always perfect."
Today is their 26th wedding anniversary, but Meck doesn't remember her wedding day. She says they're thinking of picking a new day to celebrate, one that she remembers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110525/ts_yblog_thelookout/after-total-memory-loss-woman-starts-over-graduates-from-college
On her first day of community college, 45-year-old Su Meck threw up two times out of sheer terror.
Going back to school as an adult is scary for anyone. But Meck, a homemaker and former aerobics instructor from Gaithersburg, Maryland, had a very special reason to be apprehensive. She suffered total memory loss at the age of 22 when a ceiling fan fell on her head as she was cooking, leaving her in a coma with a brain full of cracks. When she came to, she remembered nothing about her past, and had the mental capacity of a young child. Meck woke up to a life she didn't remember having, that of a young mother and wife living in Fort Worth, Texas. Family members remember her looking at them with a chilling lack of recognition after the accident.
"It was literally like she had died," her husband Jim told the Washington Post. "Her personality was gone.
"It was Su 2.0. She had rebooted."
So even though she had studied at Ohio Wesleyan University, where she met and married her husband, Meck did not remember a single day of her education. As far as she was concerned, she had never set foot inside a classroom. But Meck triumphed--she graduated with her associate's degree in music with a 3.9 grade point average last Friday from Montgomery College.
"I didn't know what to expect," she told The Lookout in an interview of going back to school. "I didn't know how to act or what to do. How I basically got through this whole ordeal is watching other people and mimicking what they do. I wasn't sure if I was going to really be able to do that in a classroom."
She asked her three children--two of them college-aged at the time--how to take notes and how students are supposed to act.
"I didn't understand the whole concept, like do you write down everything the teacher says? How do you know what to write down? It was really, really scary," she remembers.
Her youngest child, Kassidy, was just starting high school and helped her mom with her remedial math course. Meck couldn't even multiply numbers--she relied on addition, which she had learned from examining her children's homework when they were younger. "My daughter was fabulous," Meck says. "She was a huge help, especially with the math."
Meck initially kept her condition a secret from her classmates and professors, who she says were very kind and helpful. But she was haunted by the feeling that at any time, she could be "sitting there and not knowing if I was doing it right." She was baffled when her professors told her to buy blue books for her exams. Scantrons also escaped her: She remembers circling the letters instead of filling them in.
Meck finally told some of her peers and instructors about her condition in her last year at the college. She had never told anyone outside of a small circle of close friends and family before.
There was also a more insidious fear: That she wouldn't live up to the person she used to be.
"I was an excellent student before ... and that was kind of rough because it was like, 'Is everyone expecting me to be this before person? Because I can't be that person. I'm not that person.'"
Meck plans to enroll in Smith College in Massachusetts next fall as a transfer student, and eventually get a masters degree in library science. She hopes to work in a music division of a library. She was a talented musician before her accident, and once shortly after the total memory loss she sat down at a piano and played Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer," her mom told her. She has never been able to do that since, and struggled to re-learn piano in college.
One downside of her condition being out in the open now is people are very curious about what she was like before the accident, which frustrates Meck.
"You can ask Jim that, you can ask my family that, but you can't ask me that. Because I don't know," she says.
Her children, however, grew up only remembering the post-accident Meck. (Two of her children were very young when the fan fell on her, one was born after the accident.) She learned to be a mother again through "trial and error," she says, and her children also adapted. Her son became very adept at remembering their parking space, since Meck's short-term memory was also impaired at first.
"They didn't know that mom was any different," she says. "I guess Benjamin [the oldest child] talked about, 'You're different from other moms, but not in a bad way.' All the other moms would sit and drink coffee, but I would sit on the floor and do the puzzles, because I had never done puzzles before ... I was just a different mom I think."
Her husband, however, did remember what she was like before she lost her memory, and Meck says that was hard. "I am definitely not the same person he married," she says of Jim. "It's been rough. It couldn't have not been. It's not all Disney endings--It's life, it's not always perfect."
Today is their 26th wedding anniversary, but Meck doesn't remember her wedding day. She says they're thinking of picking a new day to celebrate, one that she remembers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110525/ts_yblog_thelookout/after-total-memory-loss-woman-starts-over-graduates-from-college
Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:56 pm » by 99socks
Pilot Saves Passengers, Then Dies in Blimp Crash
Michael Nerandzic steered blimp low enough for his passengers to jump to safety.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749 ... h-25602220
Michael Nerandzic steered blimp low enough for his passengers to jump to safety.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749 ... h-25602220
Thu Jul 07, 2011 2:53 pm » by Donovan
Student splits 40K in winnings with runners-up The event - a foul-shooting contest for top academic students at Compton High School in Los Angeles - was created with a simple premise: Organizers wanted to show the kids at Compton how to create community spirit with college scholarship money as the incentive. Following a tear-jerking gesture from the winner - it appears the true lessons learned were by the adults.
The kids in Compton are more than alright.
Three months after winning the $40,000 top prize, Allan Guei donated all of his winnings to the seven other finalists.
Guei, a star player on the basketball team who is headed to Cal-State Northridge on a full scholarship, said he felt the others could use the college cash more than he could. He wanted to give his classmates a chance to make their academic dreams come true, too.
"I've already been blessed so much and I know we're living with a bad economy, so I know this money can really help my classmates," he said in a release from the school. "It was the right decision."
One that stunned Court Crandall, the man behind the event.
"What he has done is exceptional, just like Allan," he said. "Like any young people, whether it's my kids or someone else's, you hope they are given opportunities to show what they can do. These Compton High grads have a lot of talent. They have a lot of drive, and I wish them all the best."
Crandall, a partner at the Southern California advertising firm WDCW and a hollywood screenwriter whose credits include "Old School," came up with the idea after watching his 16-year-old son play on a basketball team with some Compton students.
Crandall felt foul shooting was something that could unite a community regardless of racial divide. He felt doing it in Compton - a community battling an image problem - could help change those attitudes, too.
"I thought the free throw is a good metaphor in a world where there's a bunch of lines that are kind of dividing us," Crandall said afterward. "The focus became, how do we show the world another side of Compton, that's more positive, beyond the stereotypical guns and crime stuff."
The only requirement for the contest is that the students must have a GPA of 3.0 and above. After receiving nearly 100 applicants, eight contestants were chosen at random. The contest was held in March.
"My hope was that what started as a competition would become a collaboration with the kids supporting each other," Crandall told the L.A. Times. "They did, but in the end they did that to a much greater extent than I ever could have anticipated."
The students were filmed throughout the ordeal as part of a documentary that is scheduled to be released this fall.
One of the final scenes figures to be Compton principal Jesse Jones making the surprise announcement at the school's graduation in June.
"Allan is a great basketball player, but he is a better citizen than a basketball player," Jones said. "It's truly a blessing."
Even though Guei was a basketball star, Crandall allowed him to enter the contest to reward him for his academic efforts.
Guei would have been allowed to keep the money under NCAA rules. The other finalists, who will receive roughly $5,500, are thankful that he will not.
Donald Dotson, who also plans to attend Cal-State Northridge, said Guei is "a very deep, intelligent, and warm person."
Dotson figures his gesture will pay forward.
"He's going to go really far in life," he said. "Because of what he's done for us, God will bless him. That's what life is all about; stepping forward to help other people."
The irony in this story: Compton's boys basketball team advanced to the Southern Section Division 2AA title game last winter before losing . The team was done in by poor foul shooting.http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1237085
The kids in Compton are more than alright.
Three months after winning the $40,000 top prize, Allan Guei donated all of his winnings to the seven other finalists.
Guei, a star player on the basketball team who is headed to Cal-State Northridge on a full scholarship, said he felt the others could use the college cash more than he could. He wanted to give his classmates a chance to make their academic dreams come true, too.
"I've already been blessed so much and I know we're living with a bad economy, so I know this money can really help my classmates," he said in a release from the school. "It was the right decision."
One that stunned Court Crandall, the man behind the event.
"What he has done is exceptional, just like Allan," he said. "Like any young people, whether it's my kids or someone else's, you hope they are given opportunities to show what they can do. These Compton High grads have a lot of talent. They have a lot of drive, and I wish them all the best."
Crandall, a partner at the Southern California advertising firm WDCW and a hollywood screenwriter whose credits include "Old School," came up with the idea after watching his 16-year-old son play on a basketball team with some Compton students.
Crandall felt foul shooting was something that could unite a community regardless of racial divide. He felt doing it in Compton - a community battling an image problem - could help change those attitudes, too.
"I thought the free throw is a good metaphor in a world where there's a bunch of lines that are kind of dividing us," Crandall said afterward. "The focus became, how do we show the world another side of Compton, that's more positive, beyond the stereotypical guns and crime stuff."
The only requirement for the contest is that the students must have a GPA of 3.0 and above. After receiving nearly 100 applicants, eight contestants were chosen at random. The contest was held in March.
"My hope was that what started as a competition would become a collaboration with the kids supporting each other," Crandall told the L.A. Times. "They did, but in the end they did that to a much greater extent than I ever could have anticipated."
The students were filmed throughout the ordeal as part of a documentary that is scheduled to be released this fall.
One of the final scenes figures to be Compton principal Jesse Jones making the surprise announcement at the school's graduation in June.
"Allan is a great basketball player, but he is a better citizen than a basketball player," Jones said. "It's truly a blessing."
Even though Guei was a basketball star, Crandall allowed him to enter the contest to reward him for his academic efforts.
Guei would have been allowed to keep the money under NCAA rules. The other finalists, who will receive roughly $5,500, are thankful that he will not.
Donald Dotson, who also plans to attend Cal-State Northridge, said Guei is "a very deep, intelligent, and warm person."
Dotson figures his gesture will pay forward.
"He's going to go really far in life," he said. "Because of what he's done for us, God will bless him. That's what life is all about; stepping forward to help other people."
The irony in this story: Compton's boys basketball team advanced to the Southern Section Division 2AA title game last winter before losing . The team was done in by poor foul shooting.http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1237085
"Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will rule over all."[and after they have reigned they will rest]
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