SubhanAllah, Allah (swt- subhanahu wa ta'ala/ may He be glorified and exalted) is the best of planners...
I often get made fun of by my friends and cousins who don't live in San Diego. "You live in a postcard!" one of my friends repeatedly tells me when I express my feelings of wanting to explore areas outside my hometown. "What do you have to worry about???" my cousin says. "All you have to be afraid of is the beaches being too cold, some windy days, and like three days of rain!"
I still think San Diego is one of the safest places to be. Nothing major happens here. The other side of the country is hit with hurricanes and tornadoes. The east coast was just ravaged by hurricane Irene. The aftermath is devastating.
Lately, the heat in San Diego has been unbearable. I needed a different place to study. I wanted to try out a coffee shop near UCSD, roughly a 40 minute drive north from my house. After leaving my house, sure I realized that my temperature gage read 103 degrees F, the radio suddenly wasn't working and all the stoplights were blinking madly so they were all now stop signs; yet, I just thought some power lines had gone down in our area. I hit the freeway and became stuck in the crazy 12 hour blackout that followed. Two hours later, I finally made it to a friend's apartment at UCSD. I thought it was San Diego wide since my brother called up from SDSU telling us cars weren't moving on the freeways going southbound and eastbound. I couldn't get in contact with my family but a couple texts later, we were notified that the blackout was caused by lines in Arizona that effected northern New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California. 1.4 million homes were effected. SubhanAllah, how everything is closely connected.
Spoiled San Diego was in chaos. Basically I was stuck far from home, in hot and humid weather, insane traffic, no food (I had stupidly walked out with no breakfast- just a Mamoul cookie and water- and figured I would get coffee and lunch while studying), low amount of gas in a college area where students ran out to stock up on beer and brought out their meat for blackout BBQ parties. There was only one store open in the entire area, Bristol Farms, and getting in was insane. Seriously made me think of how blessed I am to not have to experience true disasters. I didn't get any studying done yet my friends and I had a mini-adventure, worthy of some story material. In the end, it was just my friend Anna and I alone in the candlelight sharing old college stories and memories. It will be a nice last memory of UCSD next week when she moves on to grad school at UCLA.
Some pictures and report of the blackout:
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/morning-report/article_f26d1798-dab5-11e0-aacd-001cc4c002e0.html
Who knew San Diego could get more exciting than wildfires and earthquakes...
Peace,
Hanoon
