by Sheelasheena Damian, Malaysia, ELP 2015 Written on August 17, 2015.   I would like to begin my story by telling you about a beautiful flower I picked from our farm visit yesterday. I thought it was a “Forget Me Not”, but I am not too confident with the name of this flower. It is indeed my favorite flower. It is purple, it is a steady flower, and it will take a very long time to die. It has been two weeks since I arrived in Berkeley for the ELP. Every day is a learning day. Not only about the substance of Environmental Issues, but about people. Every story will touch your heart in many different ways. That is just how amazing people can be. Deep down, I prayed my selfish prayer, that these people will never forget me, because if I ever have the opportunity in life to see them again, I want to have that very privilege to hear their story. We came from many backgrounds, with different kinds of fights and battles at home, but we all are connected, this connection that we have with the nature that created this bond in ELP. Like this flower, I hope our bond will take a very (very) long time to die- or never! I never once noticed any of ELP staff giving an exhausted or annoyed face, they are always smiling. It takes a steady heart to handle 35 people, who are not kids obviously, and have a lot of demands and expectations. You guys have been our real motivators to go up and down hill everyday- walking more than we do at home. I learned that it doesn’t hurt to smile all the time. I assume that’s the kindness of strangers. Actually, I am having a hard time to find focus to write a proper blog entry. To be intellectual in this melancholic weather in Berkeley is really impossible. Therefore, I settle with this for now. I settled with this flower that I took from the farm we visited at Salinas. Before you go on wondering what the whole point of this story is, I would like to remember some words I read from a book. I forgot the title, but it goes something like this:

“You’ll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things. But that other person shouldn’t be just ordinary people. That other person must be able to motivate you, inspire you to be better, bring out the best of you, and most importantly that other person will be there when you need a coffee shops, sunsets and road trips.”

I found that “other person” in each and every one of you. Until next time.