So far, no reports on the damages this has caused.

No reports from our CNN teams of any major damage from the latest 6.1 aftershock in Haiti but very scary for the people of Port-au-Princeabout 2 hours ago via web

Most NGO and news staff has reported to be ok:

(CNN) — Wednesday, January 20

7:30 a.m. — Wednesday morning’s aftershock sent patients at a hospital near Haiti’s airport in Port-au-Prince into loud prayers for forgiveness and protection, a nurse said.

6:03 a.m. — A strong magnitude 6.1 aftershock struck Haiti. Its epicenter was 36 miles west-southwest of Port-au-Prince, the United States Geological Survey said.

conneally Aftershock of 6.1 being report in Haiti ¦ must admit it didn’t feel so strong but did last a few seconds longer than is comfortable …

CA_global Sarah: latest aftershock big - felt earth move - but doesn’t seem to have caused serious extra damage in area of city where we are #haitiabout 46 minutes ago via web

CARE RT @rickperera Just survived a 6.1. aftershock. We’re all OK and throwing ourselves back into our work.

Louisoxfam Ppl quite edgy after aftershock, especially Haitian staff. Still, we are starting distribution in 5 sites today in Haitiabout 13 minutes ago via web

theIRC From our emergency dir Gillian Dunn in #Haiti: I’m fine. Was emailing colleague when quake hit. Whole building shook and swayed.about 23 minutes ago via web

—-

Right now, I’m submitting reports from @InternetHaiti to http://haiti.ushahidi.com/reports/submit

( - RT @danroy1002 #Haiti #rescuehaiti Trying 2 locate Pstr Jean Enock JOSEPH of #CONOCS in Cité Soleil. Any1 have news abt his situation Pls RT 18 minutes ago from Tweetie

- RT @SpyDrMedia george st. delmas 32 between marcdieu street and delmas    40 b URGENT NEED dying of hunger and thirst )

I’d appreciate the help!

:::: lulzy side note

Oh god we need a good case of the lulz.

I came across the facebook group that sold this and got a much needed laugh. No, really, this happens.

Oh and  50% of their proceeds go to Yele Haiti

$18.00

"What in the world is a Haitian suppose to look like. Rock this Tee and see the kind of looks you'll get."
 

Well, back to work with me.

The earthquake has left me feeling like Pompeii diaspora. If I had time for I statements, I'd just admit that I feel exactly like Régine Chassagne and that every day I want to "let out a cry, as if I had just heard that everybody I love had died. The reality, unfortunately, is much worse. Although everything around me is peaceful, I have been in an internal state of emergency for days."

I'll have to post-pone that for late February or March even. Maybe I'll scream in the shower a little.

The search and rescue deadline has passed, but people are dying from other, preventable reasons that I will not accept.

The Unionhaiti members and I are doing everything we can but there's not that many of us in total.


From my other blog:
The 4636 SMS Shortcode for Reporting in Haiti – The Ushahidi Blog →

We need to move faster than ever now. People are dying of other causes. Ridiculously preventable causes like dehydration. I know we’re all doing what we can but I can’t accept that. So I urge you, continue to forward any information you recieve as far as wide as you possibly can.

Some of us understand/speak creole and/or french. (Or even just know someone who can) We are an invaluable resource to the ushahidi team right now. Please help them translate the help messages they receive. This is the closest thing the Haitians have to dialing 911 right now.

Some people have been posting the locations of persons in need of help right now with the #haiti tag. Help me email their crucial, time-sensitive information to haiti@ushahidi.com. Their team has stated that this method is also used to report incidents on the ground.
 

Those of you in Haiti reading the UNION HAITI twitter, Carel Pedre’s and mine, please text their needs, names and locations to 4636 if you have a Digicel phone, or email them to haiti@ushahidi.com, the ones on the ground might be too panicked to do it. Thanks for all your help

I want to take a minute to thank all of you who've emailed me concerning my safety as of this tuesday. Like I hope I responded to all of you, I left Haiti on January 6th for silly coordinating reasons that I can't even believe today. I should have posted here sooner but I've been incredibly busy trying to relay all the vital information regarding Haiti that I have. Please allow me to repost my call to action. I don't mean to preach, but time really is of the essence.

Time is of the essence in Haiti right now. — 0 Comments
#anderson cooper #call #carel pedre #cnn #haiti #help #help #missing persons #relief #search and rescue #signal fm #union haiti #yele #unionhaiti.org #rescuemehaiti #vonage free call to haiti #phone haiti #help haiti #aider haiti #ayudar haiti 


Thanks so much for reading me. I'm sorry for my inactivity here. I hope to catch up with you all at a better time. Much love,
Sarah

OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD.
this post was impossibly delayed as i was watching it all go down at a bar by school with friends, and celebrating all night with said friends. but.
OH MY GOD.
NO WORDS!
hell YES!

oh man, i almost wish i was american just so i could vote. all the roomates sent in their absentee ballots thank god. i'm sitting here being late for class reading danah boyd's choices and nodding vehementy in their favour.

State Propositions:

• Prop 1A, Safe Trains: YES!
  
• Prop 2, Confining Animals: yes
  
• Prop 3, Children's Hospitals: no (yes if you're in favor of bond measures)
  
• Prop 4, Waiting Period: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!
  
• Prop 5, Nonviolent Drug Offenses: still not sure...
  
• Prop 6, Police and Law Enforcement: no
  
• Prop 7, Renewable Energy: no
  
• Prop 8, Definition of Marriage: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!
  
• Prop 9, Criminal Justice System: no
  
• Prop 10, Alternative Fuel Vehicles: no
  
• Prop 11, Redistricting: torn...
  
• Prop 12, Veteran's Bond Act: YES

i have to go... more later.

1. i was whitney houston on crack for halloween (youtube her + diane sawyer)
2. i think i have laryngitis ... probably karma :/
3. i owe my aunt a thousand dollars for my first year's tuition. i haven't paid this years because
4. student loans are refusing to come in. i am so screwed. so so screwed.
5. i freaking hate dan and living with dan
6. because of this, i'm never ever home anymore and have been living in coffee shops and the library. it's expensive.
7. i have reached a level of self-awareness that makes it hard to be as low as i was last year. no matter how shitty i feel. it's good and bad, especially because i cannot bring myself to kill myself. again, that's good and bad.
8. i have gained a shit ton of weight. it's bad. it's just all bad.
sup with you?

i might have written about the show i was playing on saturday the 18th before, if only in terms of the graphic design i was doing for it. (Haiti Parle: Le Retour) it was about haiti, a music/theatre thing in the context of montreal's annual "mois du créole: (Creole Month)
i didn't want to write about it until i had a video to share, and then i heard there wouldn't be any vids and so i abandonned the idea of sharing this at all.


amazingly, today i came home to about 42 new emails in my inbox, and what happened was that some good samaritan from the audience had recorded the part where i was singing and uploaded it on facebook! so many nice comments, it made my day more than anything could ever have!
and so without further ado, here's the thing i've been meaning to share, the song i wrote (in creole) for haiti, and sang for haiti parle.
It's entitled Zamni... I wrote it when I hadn't seen my country in a damn good while. Maybe I'll translate it next post.


Sarah Bernard - Zamni (Live)

now if you'll excuse me, i have to go cry. people are actually clapping! wtf! for me! (too late already sobbing. again!) after the show was amazing. people just hugged me and hugged me and hugged me... dude! too many compliments for one person i tell you! it made me so emotional, i was crying and getting mascara all over my face, and thanking people over and over again...
christ. i loved it. i friggin. loved the audience. and the after-show. chriiiist. people can be great.

how many of us out there are really only living for the sake of those whom they might be survived by?

i think i'm okay again. i guess i'll be "rollercoastering" from time to time. yes, i'm eating.

concerning happiness, confidence, and all the things we strive for.
i've set a new policy for myself.


it's been a while, i know,
there has been (and still is) a new me in the making.
i feel like the ending of that raymond carver story , i'm echoing his narrator's last words, "my life is going to change, i can feel it."
except that i won't contend myself with just feeling it. i'm currently doing it, to the best of my abilities.
wish me luck?

i will be going back to school in the fall,
i have a meeting with an adviser today to settle my schedule and explain the roller coaster in my grade transcript.
it was rather disturbing to be photocopying my suicide attempt report from the paramedics.

answer me this-
how does one person go through this much
and expect to keep going? ( if i knew )

but seriously, what the FUCK is going on with CI? i feel like there was a massive move-out on the part of all the wonderful (reasonable!) people i met there, followed by the settling in of the prepubescent sad-face crowd. i wanted to be able to still read even though i'd left, but goddddd. it hurts my eyes. X_X

iz my first day at the new job today. ohh man i'm so nervousss.

oh come the fuck on.
pascal's cousin just called me out of the blue, trying to "keep in touch" or whatever.
i don't even fucking know. i don't know, they should all leave me alone, disappear, let me forget.
fuck. i'm fine. i'm fine, i'm fine. i was doing just fine, am i right? fuck, fuck, i'm perfectly fine and okay.

on a happier note, it's mother's day in haiti and france. i called my moms. yay.

this is what i wore to my job interview today.


and you know what?



front desk administrative assistant. that's right love, sarah b's an office bitch. and just in time, too. i had no idea where rent was going to come from. god i'm so fucking relieved.

i may... or may not have been awake since my last post. i just finished this huge research paper... but i didn't get a chance to finish my take-home exam. i might just stay up all night again and finish it, and slide it under the prof's door at 6 am or whevever they open the religious studies building. i'm exhausted though... i've been stress-dry-heaving, it's the most annoying thing since non-sliced bread after the invention of sliced-bread. i think it's some form of slow hiccup. or a confused burp. i don't know. i need sleep. tomorrow. tomorrow i'll sleep.

i should really stop posting altogether. it's ironic that i'm writing a post saying that i should stop posting instead of just stopping, but i want to be upfront about this, i guess. i feel like i'm just too many upsetting news/entries coming from the same repetive, annoying, whiney user on your friendslist. and i'm trying so hard not to be but god help me this is really my only outlet, and i think the only way not to be is to just stop completely, because bad things just keep happening, and the preventable ones just hit me that much harder, and all i can do is run here and type. it's unfair to you. it's unfair to everyone. i don't even know if this is good bye, but its paving the way for it i suppose.i don't know what i'm doing. i've been crying for hours.
i don't know.

you could say it's been settled with absolutely no effort towards reaching an agreement. i've learned that i'm a master of resignation, that i only speak when spoken to and that i never heed warning signs or good intentions. if this is going to hurt me, then let it. my conscience is clear, my intentions are pure and i'm forgiving enough that no one ever knows whether i bled when they have pricked me.

til my heart heart heart clogs the drain drain drain

now that i'm back in my apartment i'm the person who's there for me, i've learned. it's like i've doubled myself. had a panic attack and there was this second me talking me through it. "you're ok. you're ok. can you breathe? breathe. can you breathe? you have to breathe. come on, you're ok you're ok you're ok shhhh."
she's good to me but only when we're alone.

.Post the first sentence from the first post of each month of 2007:

January:
here i go again, hoping to get shot.

February:

this entry in two parts, was too tired to finish yesterday afternoon.

March :

tylenol p.m.

April:

i'm gonna, i'm gonna los^te my baby
so i always keep a bottle near

June :

i'm gonna need a few days before i can talk about anything right now...but i've come to realize that i do need to talk, to communicate in someway.

July:

i had to leave the country for the funeral, went back to haiti for a week.

August:

so my father is really dead...

September:

it's not that i can't, but the only time i can sleep without nightmaresis when i pass out drunk and i'm fresh out of bailey's.

October:

i had three cigarettes for breakfast this morning.

November:

when you're as shy as i am, it's better to get wasted before you get on stage.

December:

Walking down streets I imagine myself
pinned to trees and finally free


----------

i forgot some specifics of my plan. was it after my birthday, or before it? and how do i get away with saying goodbye? fuck.

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i don't think they know that i don't think they love me

i am mourning an e string. cry with me, kids.

to be honest with you, i'm keeping quiet because i'm afraid of what you'll think of me, back from vacation and whining again. how dare she, after going home, going to haiti, being warm for the holidays?
so i'm shutting up and hope my 4 years of theatre school will kick in any day now.

part of me is glad to see 2007 come to a close. it comes in a tie in the worst year my life race. to recap, it started with losing my job, then initially breaking it off with pascal in march upon realizing he wasn't good for me, which screwed me up on account of the 3 years we'd spent together. then being rejected from graphic design at school for the second time in a row, which i took as a real blow considering it's what i left haiti for in the first place. i started losing friends one by one after that, then came my father's death, which not only left me more confused than i've ever been, it also gave pascal the means and opportunity to, shall we say, get his revenge on me for leaving him and subsequently harrassing me.
i guess that's why i can't really be expected to have wishes, resolutions or dreams. i know that the fact that it's time to change the calendar doesn't mean it's all over. but it's still a new year.
here's hoping.


happy new year.

christmas isn't exactly a good time of the year for me, but i wanted to wish those of you who celebrate it / expect and/or give presents for it a happy one, i really hope it was good.
i threw a small get together and actually had fun, more to come but you know, i'm in haiti, the internet isn't on my side, haha. it's all good though. i had fun. christmas in haiti is usually celebrated on december 24rth and you call everyone at midnight and wish them merry christmas, exchange presents then and so on. it went really well. i'm still doing ok!
i love you all!
happy holidays

from the taxi ride out to gate 57, things went without a hitch. i usually detest airports, the way they pass through humans like dirty specimens, as if no one should have been allowed inside. the questions are always cold : "where do you live? where are you going? why?" but surprisingly the holiday season put a smile on airport security.
i wanted to sleep through the plane ride but the person next to me (who took my window seat, no less) kept attempting conversation. 30 minutes before landing, the captain announced the weather in haiti: "Il fait 28 degrés celcius à Port-au-Prince" and the woman two seats back sounded as though she was about to burst into sobs telling everyone within earshot how it'd been so long, how we'd left a snowstorm for 28 degree weather and how god is good and god is great.
when the plane door opened i was tempted to agree: this sun outshines the one i woke up to the day before and burns my tired eyes, as it should.
outside the airport a live band greets incoming passengers. despite the hassle of baggage-claim, i have to smile- at the jokes between the strangers near me, at the snow that managed to find its way into the luggage chute, at myself in a light sweatshirt that i want to take off but can't, as i neglected to wear something underneath it.
i've seen old friends, teachers and my old school, gone to eat the best pizza i'll likely ever taste. i laugh a little louder here.

he writes "love you forever" and if i could argue back i would explain, this isn't love, only a chokehold thrusted onto a lifeless form, my eyes are rolling to the back of my head and if i found the breath and will, i would admit that i have learned that
i
do not
belong
to him

i am still learning that the differences between what i did and don't deserve, what i could have not seen coming and it's only morning still.

i want to close my eyes.

that day, to get me to see things differently, the psychiatrist asked me to put dan in my shoes. what if he were to give me this great christmas present and next i heard, he'd killed himself? how would that make me feel?

"it'd be beyond horrible. i'd just die, no question
- well wouldn't he feel the same if that's what you did?
- i mean... logically, yes, i suppose so, but i am having trouble placing myself at the same level.. of importance... as him.
- i know you are."

i don't even know if it is possible to ever get me to a point where i understand that i might matter. i grasp the concept but it fails to apply to me. this i've wanted to tell some people to their faces (and hope that i haven't already in some drunken stupor) "i'm not that important. if i go, it'll be hard for the first few days and i'm so sorry about that, but i promise you'll be fine and you won't miss me because i cannot be missed."
i feel as though my father dying only makes him more alive to me. he's in my 3½ apartment, he's in my room, he is in my head deducting all the reasons why i'm shit. and he's doing a damn good job. this, of course, i didn't tell her.

"don't you think it's time for you to deal with all these awful things you've been through, sarah?" she asks.
"but i DID deal with it, i was FINE, i didn't talk about it, i didn't cry about it, and yes, they might have been somewhere in the back of my mind but the same goes for everyone. i was FINE. i just had a rough summer, okay?
- not talking about it doesn't mean you dealt with it, and you're smart enough to know that.
- but i was fine!!"

i wanted to throw a tantrum. i wanted to scream at her just how fine i was. just how good my grades were. just how many jobs i held at the same time. just how happy i was seemed.
i suppose i know she is right. but to be honest i feel i might just want to be good at faking happiness again, so i don't alieanate my friends. i want to know how i don't seem fine so that i may fix it. no one will tell me.

Last night, 8pm, he leaves me a voicemail. I decide to go to bed, not be self-destructive about this. 12 hours later, I wake up, first thing I see is that he's left me an email. I can't even forward it to anyone who cares because it's in creole. But I can't bring myself to open it. The phone company says cellphones can't block phone numbers.

pascal has been calling me every single day at least two times a day now. i'm sure everyone thinks it's silly that i'm so terrified considering he lives in boston, but i am. he calls every single day. finds new phones to call from. always says the same thing. "hi honey, how are you? how's your mother?" sometimes i'll hang up and he'll call again. "hi honey, how are you, how's your mother?" i tell him not to call. i tell him to leave me alone. it doesn't matter what i do, what i say or how i say it. every day. "hi honey, how are you, how's your mother?"
i. am. terrified.

i got something i didn't deserve in the mail!



i'm so effin happy



vanessa <333333 thank you sou much

Walking down streets I imagine myself
pinned to trees and finally free
‘tis the season you see
when I can finally hide myself without stares or
question marks
“tis the season for nicotine
but this isn’t what I’m doing
I breathe this in
for lack of something to exhale
for the illusion of letting go
and the hope that all of my unsaids
have been spoken in smoke.

i'm sorry....
i'm so sorry i keep whining like this and and writing so many damn entries and drinking so much and doing this whole slow suicide thing with the pills and not eating and i'm just really sorry. and i'm sorry i made you care about me in whatever way because now that you care it'll matter if i die, or i'm sorry if i've done nothing but annoy you and i really won't be offended if you take me off your flist or block me from wherever, i really truly understand.

i have figured it out.
maybe it will always be a cycle. every year around the time that junior died i will comtemplate offing myself. on some years i will actually attempt it and wake up feeling horrible and stupid and even more of a failure, on some others i will fall back into not talking, and on this one... i don't even know what i'm doing.

so this friend i used to have in high school who lives in france now, (she went to haiti for the summer so we talked after the funeral) told me she understands me because since her hamster died.
i mean i'm really sorry about the hamster, it's just... ... ._.

i didn't go "friends only", i was just sick of being so whiny.
i cannot stress enough how much baileys is the shit.

because i haven't been talking out loud much anymore, my brain started cope by imagining me in situations that would "fix" things, in it's twisted little view. like i'll be watching tv and suddenly have a flash in my mind of myself breaking down crying trying to run off while someone holds me back, at which point i fall to my knees still sobbing. which, i mean, i would never do. it has it's own little scenario too sometimes like it starts with this party where i get too drunk and someone says something which ticks me off and it escalates til i leave quietly and someone confronts me at the door or something. the whole soap-opera "are you ok/ yeah i'm fine/ no you're not" dialogue ensues and cut to the next scene.

i'm sure it's coming from watching too much A&E intervention. it's put me in a mindset where i believe that when people care they push things. i don't know why i'm focused on this anymore, but my brain is.
maybe it's because the last time i was with caitlin (girl i've known since i've moved to montreal but who avoids me when things happen like my moves, my father dying, me being in the hospital etc. idk she just goes MIA for months at a time and facebooks me when i show signs of being ok again, like uploading pictures and whatnot. then she demands we constantly hang out. it's a weird relationship) she was pushing me to drink despite being on the antibiotics, and it clicked in my mind that someone who cared about me obviously wouldn't.
but why do i care, i haven't been in montreal long enough to establish the kind of ties that make people want to take action based on off hand comments or noticing my drinking or anything like that really. i think i'm really confused, i ate a pack of baileys schocolate but it shouldn't count. then again this post is making no sense to me.
there's also that i helped dan cook the other day and in washing the dishes absentmindedly rolled up my sleeves. not too high but still. it took me a good 15 minutes before i realized my mistake and then i wondered what would come of it, if i was screwed now or something. luckily he hasn't said anything and he's still my friend. that's good. and then i watch intervention and am not sure what to think. i think my brain is damaged. i have no idea what i want.
i know i don't talk but i attempt to smile more now. but it makes me sick because i'll spend the day pretending and come home to ebay for double edged razor blades and things, or have this whole will-i-or-won't-i internal debate over a bottle of sleeping pills. it's amazing how many pills come in a bottle.
because i'm really sick & disgusting as a person. because i want it to be over already.

why couldn't it have been some stranger.
that's all i'm saying. if it had to happen the way it did, trapped in a fucking parking lot, why couldn't it have been some random person off the street. maybe i would have understood it as rape. maybe i would feel justified for this fucking me up and at least would have realized how wrong it was. maybe i wouldn't feel like it was my fault for not seeing it coming.

they don't make anesthetics like they used to eh.

fucking...


surgery


AGAIN.

and i specifically went to the clsc so as to avoid any major medical drama (ie, hospitals, i.v drips, etc) big woop. they're alllll the same.

nice doctors this time though. one held my hand and went poor thing as she was cutting me X_X the irony just killllls haha. then she whispered to the other one, you'll have to cut her deeper eh?
moar irony.

so it's lucky i went in my crap t-shirt cause yeah since its not a hospital i didnt have to change into yucky robes but bloodz all over my shirt. i have to admit it was scary that part. bled like a motherfucker. i dont like admitting that the blood freaked me out. maybe it was more because it was coming from too damn close to my spinal cord you know? is that even how you call it in english? spinal cord? whatever, not cool. buuut i feel better now with this massive bandage on my back. i've also learned that tylenol < advil !
now i'm going to sleep for a bit and hopefully when i wake up i remember to buy my prescriptions

the past three nights have been nothing but intense physical and i guess emotional pain. at first i confused the two as to which was worse, but then the physical just took over from last night on. according to dan one more tylenol and i would have od'ed so i'm not allowed to have any more. i think he's mad at me still. which is fine because the tylenol doesnt help anyway, hence my taking more and more and more.
this is something entirely different from what had me hospitalized the other night when my mom was still here. [ :( mom left yesterday morning ] this is actually a cyst right on my spinal cord, right on the damn nerve. oh yes! the cyst i had REMOVED in the summer. SURGICALLY. and poof it reappears! HOW GRAND. how fucking lovely!
i basically spent about 12 hours straight tossing and turning and crying and screaming last night. then came the tylenol, then came the sleeping pills none of which worked. today it's a little easier to handle. notice how i can type sometimes now. i only took about 13ish tylenol and im gonna stop that now because it doesn't help anyway. .

i can't go back to the hospital, i'm too scared but its been hurting so much for so long. i dont know anymore. tomorrow maybe? hospital or clsc? ugh or i can tough it out in bed some more.. i dont know anymore please please make it stop hurting

spent the whole night in a hospital. woke up 20 minutes ago from the sedative/steroids whichever worked, and wanted to go home right then and since i was about to rip off the IV...here i am.
excessively scary.
don't want to talk about it.