I started my day yesterday in a bit of a funk. I had woken up early and was unable to go back to sleep, for the second night in a row.
The first thing I did was check Twitter, where I read more grim news from Japan: it looked like a meltdown of one or more reactors was imminent. The Japanese people are trying to deal with this on top of the devastation from the earthquake and tsunami.
Meanwhile the battles in Libya are being forgotten by the media and international community, the media barely takes note of the continuing protests of workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and the right wing in this country has begun making inroads in its all-out assault on everything we care about -- everything that matters in the lives of working Americans.
I wasn't in the best state of mind to deal the challenging and hectic day ahead--we were running a big organizing/training event, one we'd been working on for the past few weeks. But on my way to the event, I reminded myself of something I've learned over the past few years:
Getting out and getting to work with other volunteers can completely change your mood.
And that's exactly what happened.
In the photos that follow, I think you'll get a sense of how this works. It's just not possible to spend the day with so many dedicated, interesting, enthusastic people and not come away feeling better.
