Taking things for granted - Matthew

If I take a big step back, it becomes quite obvious that I take a bit too many things for granted. If I start at the start of the day, my bed, my parents, my family, food, clothes. Everything really. The sort of society that we live in relies on a lot of things. Almost every day there are bombings, murders or deaths on the news, and that just got me thinking how most of us take peace for granted. We're lucky we don't have to rush into our garages to escape the risk of bombs. The recent earthquakes in Christchurch demonstrate this point. The people have experienced destruction, grief, death. A lot of us in the classroom really havn't been in a similar situation. They've lost their houses, their lives have fallen apart. A lot of the citizens probably took their houses for granted, but I think it's really important to think that anything can happen. Your life can be pulverised in a matter of minutes.

Recently I saw a man in the Hutt walking along. He had a strange ambling step to him. It was a bit scary really. A crippled man hunched over and precariously wobbling on his feet. I couldn't quite picture what he looked like from the distance but he was approaching and I thought I better be careful. It was not until I was about to cross the road that I realized he was blind. He looked terribly unhealthy and I felt really sorry. It reminded me of an exercise I did in Year 6 with Mrs. Hook-the blind man's walk. After reading "The Cay" about a blind boy lost on an island with an African man after a war, Mrs. Hook wanted us to feel how the boy coped. She set up a course for us to pass blindfolded, using the sun as time and warmth we were blind for the whole of 20 minutes-that's a long time for someone who takes vision for granted.
(true story approaching) It also reminded me of the time when I was only eight and attempted to walk the whole of a pier to a boat, blind, approximately 100m with a margin of 1 and a 1/2  meters of error. You can probably guess what happened, I fell in and soaked myself. I think we all take our health for granted and with all the medicine we have now, it just makes the situation worse.