This week is Two Towers week, and here is a line that I liked:

It's from Tree Beard:

When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past;
I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:
Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!
Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
and far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.

23-32-5

so i called you
and you tried to care
but i just cried in the mixed media room
and it's been 5 hours now
since a productive moment
the wasted time means the most
and i can't make my i-movie
because people are dying
the wood work tables walked over
and told me they cared

So I was questioning Seva this evening, and wondering why I am doing what I am doing with the student organization--is it really helping people, is screening The Greatest Silence really helping the Women in congo right now? And of course they were stupid questions, because the obvious answer is yes, and being cynical will not get you any where in life. I guess it is nice to hear it. Glen got to play with Dr. Smith tonight at Sugar Browns. My mom came up and listened to him. We talked, drank Chai, and listened to some great music. We talked about Seva, and she said, yes it was helping. Everyone has to start somewhere, and awareness IS the first step. The more I think about Seva, the more I like it. The more I like the idea of Seva being a route from our lives at Texas tech to the world around us. I like it being a means to open people's eyes and help them to see the world for what it is. Not just the suffering, not just the injustice. But the beauty. The hope.
The hope is these women in Darfur with their brightly colored head scarves waking up every morning and carrying for their families...despite their lives in the refugee camps.
The hope of the Congolese women speaking up against their attackers and wanting to press charges against the men who have raped them
the hope of 20 people taking the time out of their days to come and watch a video about a region in the world they haven't even really heard of.
the hope of children.
The hope of you waking up each morning and going on with life.
the hope of the earth.

I suppose we all live for hope in a way.

Mostly though I have spent this entire week stressing about two exams that were over today, and in the end, will back on this week as having screened a documentary of the Greatest Silence, not having done well on two exams.

thoughts... probably in the wrong direction...

I don't even know where to start...

I guess I want to say that this is more of a thought process than any kind of definite thought. I'm emotionally spent and here is a product...

We screened "The Greatest Silence" tonight and had Jane Nagy speak. It was really cool and about 20 people came. Success. A few stayed after to write letters and some took templates and said they would write at home.

This documentary was about just one of the terrible horrors that go on everyday, rape. This wasn't just rape, it was rape as a weapon of war. These women live in hell manifested in the DRC. I don't want to try and explain it, just think about the different ways of life.

It is amazing to me that a teenager who was raped and impregnated responded to the question, "What is your greatest hope?" with "To be a nurse." She added something else but I forgot. Anyways, I think it's amazing that she had hope and wanted something so badly that we take for granted, an education.

I dread going to certain classes and waking up and doing my homework but this is the life. Not to say there aren't hardships, but I will never know what it's like to have to go into a forest to get food for my family and risk being violently raped and possibly killed. I'll don't know what it's like to be homeless or to not eat.

It seems so easy to just look the other way, to not think about these things, to not care.

Laura and I went to see Fill in A Memory a Rant and a Monologue and there was this monologue about this girl who would go to parties and talk about these kinds of issues. She would scream and cause a scene and demand to know why they didn't care and why they just kept partying. And she would get thrown out.

I feel like this girl sometimes... I just want to scream at people that talk about clothes and bands and parties and movies and all of this entertainment that we value so much. People are dying and you are rejoicing the Blink 182 got back together.

I can't wrap my head around the idea that there are so many people in the world that are starving, homeless, murdered, tortured, raped, living in poverty, etc. and we don't want to talk about it. We don't want to hear it for obvious reasons and that's fine. That's fine.

What isn't fine is that it is happening and it is absolutely disgusting to me that we can so easily look the other way and pretend that we can't help or that these problems will always exist.

I think there are a lot of people that want to help and there are a lot of people who are helping.

I don't understand why helping people is not more importantly culturally. I want to help these people.

I watch these documentaries and I get sucked into a tiny tiny impression of how they live and when the movie is over, and I look around it's hard to care about anything but these people. It's so hard to see the way I live, the way we all live, the things we worry about, our complaints, our issues, when the issues of these people are just eating, drinking, having a home, and taking care of and protecting their families. They just want the basics to survive.

How did we become so distanced? Why such a huge gap? Why is it ok that people are suffering? It's not ok I know, but why don't we do more? I guess it's a question of what to do. I don't know what to do.

Knowing how I live and knowing how the most unfortunate live is a terribly disturbing feeling for me. It feels wrong.

"In what state of mind was he that he did not feel the pain?"

I don't feel their pain, and I can't, but I know it's there... and I know I can't just save the world, but I think I can feel something.

I want more people that are privileged to care. I want people to come together in mass crowds for human dignity, not for a football game. Well I mean they can still go to the game but why not both? When did entertainment become more important the human life? I know everything has it's place... I just wish human life was higher.

My heart goes out to the suffering and so do my endless prayers.

BUNS!

Yesterday was truly the "best" valentine's day (best...hmm maybe most enjoyable? Most peaceful?" I have had. I think this was because I was around all of the people I loved, and not just the person I loved in a romantic sense. Though it is nice to be just around Glen (and we did, we went for a bike ride), eating brunch with Terri, Ty, Tony, Brittany, and Kristin was awesome, spending the afternoon with Ty and Terri, going to the Vagina Monologues, then afterward for Banana's foster with Tyri & Co. at my parent's house, seeing BARBARA, going back to Glen's and falling asleep on his house while Tyri and Glaura watched MST3K...the best.
I'm learning that living life in isolation, or just with your significant other, isn't always the best. It has it's moments, and there are times when it's needed, but as always in life, it is about balance. I am very glad that Ty is here this weekend, and am looking forward to next year.

Also, I have become rather addicted to NPR's All Things Considered. This past week I began physical therapy, and it was in the later afternoons, so I found myself driving at around 4 & then 5 o'clock. The stories are so interesting!
I'm posting a link to one I particularly liked, called "Darwin Finds Some Followers In The Pulpits". It grabbed my attention, mainly because one of the supporters of the theory of evolution was a baptist pastor.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100597574


Also, in lieu of Darwin's birthday, the Biology department had a party, and one of the advisor's made a miny musuem display on his desk of all the works he had of Darwin and also Lincoln's (Babe Lincoln!). There are so many cool things going on at Tech!

maybe i could meet you in the morning?

Yes Buns, I'm back. Shocking I know. Well I'm not really back but I'm on my way.

So... lately all I can say is overwhelmed. So much going on, so many possibilities, and I feel bad for choosing one over the other, but I must. I want to be and do so many things... but, one at a time. How do I choose? How do you choose? I'm bad at choosing. I gotta gotta be down, because I want it all! Oh Mr. Killers! You had it right?

"Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change."

I'm obsessed with this quote and it really has influenced me lately. Shared it has been!

Miss crazy Meso-American class and really last semester in general. My education classes are sucking the life out of me but I must not let them! It's had to resist... I've gotten lazy.

Ty's my boyfriend, and I like finally dating him very much. He's coming to visit next weekend and I am very excited. We started writing letters and not talking on the phone or over email/internet. Sometimes I really want to call him, but I never do. I like the idea of letter writing and it's kind of an effort to slow down the world. Everything goes so fast... I just want things to stop for a little while. Letters slow it down, and I know Ty will still be there.

I think there is something going on. Something big. All over the world. We all know it's happening, we all feel it sometimes, but no one is talking about it because we don't know what to call it. So my question.....

what's happening?

Terri might update the blog in exchange for us both writing 25 things about ourselves.
I'm not going to fill it all out now, but here are the first three that came to mind
1.I love Africa. I know this is weird because I am white and have no connection to Africa whatsoever, other than it is where we all descended from, so maybe we all have a connection to Africa.
2. When I used to first look at a picture or something, I would notice people, but now I am noticing light, and the pavilion area by Holden hall has some of the best lighting.
3. I love reading XKCD, though I don't understand it sometimes.
4. I like sitting somewhere quiet on a friday night and doing nothing but blogging, writing, and reading.
5. I want to garden. I like the idea of nurturing plants.
6. It makes me really happy to water my indoor plants
7. my physical therapist and I talked about Russian literature during my session. I don't care for it, but he really does.
8. I feel like I have the opportunity to accomplish great things with my life, and I am beginning to understand what those things may be.
9. I really like the traditions and mass of the Catholic Church. I don't agree with some of their stands or interpretations of the bible, but I like that every mass is the same. It is very meditative.
10. Earl Gray is my favorite tea followed by a red tea called "Good Hope Africa". I think tea makes some of the best gifts
11. Seva is one of the best things that has happened to me here at college
12. My mac's name is Banyan.
13. I don't believe anyone goes to hell or any other type of eternal punishment.
14. My favorite author is J.M Coetzee, and he has had a huge influence on my writing.
15.I went to Big Bend in may with my father and some of his grad students, and for one night we didn't have air conditioning. I have never been so hot at night.
16. I don't handle criticism very well, and often take it as a personal attack.
17. Terri and I did a half marathon in November.
18. Every summer my family goes to Wisconsin, and while there, my sister, Kristin, and I "moo" at the moo-cows.
19. I like the idea of there being cycles. Especially time.
20. I recently re-read the Hobbit, and now understand that Tolkien was a genius.
21. I'm running Ubuntu on my triple eee. His name is Mu. I would have never known what Ubuntu was if it weren't for Glen.
22. I used to think technology was the problem not the user.
23. I love listening to the LOTR fellowship of the ring soundtrack. Especially "Concering Hobbits"
24. I have a walking stick my father bought for me in big bend hanging on my living room wall.
25. I am learning Spanish, and feel there is a reason for it, but do not understand what that reason is.

Here was January!

Terri and I spent over an hour looking for this place, and we finally found it!
I was wandering around the open area in Holden (Holden is my favorite building on campus, I love it so much!), and once again, the LIGHTING WAS SO PRETTY OUTSIDE!
This article made me really mad. Stephen, if you are reading this, sorry to post your article on a blog, but your article convinced me to start writing for the DT.
I took these the day the pretty ice melted. It was like 8:30 and I was running around spazzing, because it was so pretty.
People watching Obama being inaugurated at the SUB. For some reason I expected no one to really care, so it took me by surprise when I walked in and saw all these people gathered around.
On 1/16 Glen and I got re-ended, and his mustang didn't survive. I was most startled by the back windshield being shattered and picking pieces of glass out of my clothes.
MLK day, Glen and I went on a sporadic trip to Carlsbad. These are mainly going to be pictures of light, and the light leading up to the cave was SO PRETTY. Behind us is the caverns, and there was NO light in there. There was artificial lighting so you wouldn't trip, but there were times when it was still dark. It amazed me that all of the beauty in the cave was created in darkness.