Hmmmm... weekend update?

I feel so grateful that my parents live about 100 miles away. This weekend was great getting to see them again. Even though I have seen them about every other weekend, it still makes me happy every time. My brother even came up from Miami of Ohio! We kept it a secret from our parents until he walked in the door of my dorm room. I kept having to leave the room to talk to him on the phone! I told my parents they were going to meet my new boyfriend...I'm pretty sure they knew I was joking about that since right now, Mike and I are practically perfect. We all walked over to the golf course where we were tailgating with Mike's family and some of their friends. It was a lot of fun, and I think Timmy finally realized why I like spending so much time with Mike and his family. I guess on his way back to Farmhouse with Mike, he said something about how everyone else's families except for ours is outgoing, funny, and energetic. As I've said before, my family is very reserved. Then, when my brother tried to start his car, I guess it died so my parents had to go help him fix it before they left. I took a nap at that time! It was pretty great... When I woke up, I got ready to go out with Mike. It was one of our friends' 21st birthdays so we had to venture over to see his first shot. He dedicated it to his aunt who passed away over the summer. After saying our happy birthdays, we left. Today, all I've done is sit around and try to do homework! I finished about half of my engineering lab bonus even though it's not due till Friday, and I haven't started the stuff that's due on Wednesday. I have trouble with my priorities once in a while :) Well I think I'm off to do more homework and sleep. Hope you all had a great weekend!

"A Journey to Discover Yourself " ( Ishmael Beah)

I have definitely been impacted by Blood Diamond, A Long Way Gone, and hearing Ishmael Beah speak. Before these three things, I never really understood the issue with child soldiers and never even thought about the fact that they fought for the government also. I always had pictured in my mind groups of children fighting against trained professional troops. I never imagined it to be child to child combat. Ishmael Beah was quite honestly one of the most interesting speakers that I have heard. Usually, I can't sit through a long talk, but I think the fact that I already read the book for class helped a lot! While everyone else was squeaking in their chairs and rustling around, I was just listening intently to every word that rolled off his tongue. He spoke about many interesting things, some of which you could gather from the book and others you couldn't. One of the first things he talked about was how he gets upset when the panels he speaks on do not give him enough time to delve into the topic of child soldiers.
To me, the most troubling issue that Ishmael spoke about was the women in the army. I completely understand why he left their story to them. They could not have done justice to his story, and he couldn't have done justice to theirs. When he talked about this, it became mind boggling because he had never spoken of women and girls in the army. Throughout the book, I never once pictured Ishmael fighting next to a woman. He never spoke of any girls in the rehabilitation center. What happened to their children? Who took care of them if Mom had to fight? The thing that really disgusted me was how the girls would have children by the commanders and have to raise them in the midst of war. That is completely unfair to both mother and child. In reality, I understand why they didn’t leave. It was either be shot by the government or by the rebels, neither of which is a very pleasant scenario. I would love to hear about the war and fighting from a womanly point of view. As Ishmael said, some of them just aren’t ready yet. Some of them had to make it out alive, but right now they are scared of what society will think of them and their children. Before I leave you, one other thing I found interesting is that Ishmael has only been back to Sierra Leone once and it was this past year. After all he has done for the cause of child soldiers, I was surprised it took him that long to go back.

For the Love of the Community!

Wow, other than the awful CFU in Engineering Lab today, my day was pretty damn awesome! Tonight was so exciting. I went with one of my team members over to the Habitat for Humanity meeting. He has done it before, and I've always wanted to. We were like 40 minutes early so we just sat and talked for a while. When we went in and sat down, I suddenly got really happy. I'm one of those people who loves community service projects in every way, shape, and form. Pizza was offered, and everyone got up to get some. It was then that I saw one of the girls that I went to Girls State with before my senior year! We were so excited to see each other. Even though Girls State was by chance the worst week of my life, I still love all the girls who were in my city. Most of us got really close and had a lot of fun. As long as we weren't doing the required activities, we were smiling, laughing, and having a great time. I remember staying up until like 2 almost every night even though we had to be at breakfast by like 7. We would just stay up and eat and chat. Back to the present, when we started walking back to the dorms, we saw a squirrel. At the same time, we said, "I love squirrels." It was so random but funny because we hadn't seen each other in over a year and could still laugh like we did that week. I love seeing people that I met through activities like HOBY and Girls State because I usually know that they are nice and down to earth. But yeah, community service almost gives me a high it makes me so happy. I don't know exactly why, but I'm sure some of it has to do with the fact that every community service experience that I've had has been loads of fun!

Blood Ruins the Luster...

Diamonds are the norm… Every girl wants diamonds and roses. What could any girl want more? Growing up, I always liked to have things that were different. Of course, I though diamonds were pretty, but they were never really what I wanted. I loved coming up with my dream wedding and picturing the massive rock on my ring. Although I have received a few small diamonds from my boyfriend, he knows that I don’t really like diamonds, so he always buys me things that are different. My feeling on diamonds is affected by information about “conflict diamonds.” It makes me very cautious of where I would get diamonds. I’m pretty sure that texts, movies, and songs do make a difference. When I was working on my engineering project, one of my group members started talking about West’s song when I mentioned my blog. This means that people are obviously watching and listening. When people hear counter-storytelling, it causes shock. It makes people think about what it really happening in the world. Diamonds represent glamour and class, so of course there is always joy in giving or receiving a diamond. There is no way that I would buy a diamond without knowing if it were a conflict diamond or not. Seeing Blood Diamond helped me see the problems that arise when resources of value are desired and are killed for.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

So much for that football game today... Not that I was going anyways. I went to the beginning of Mike's rugby game and left once it started pouring. His sister had started to walk over to the field from the football game. It started raining on her about halfway through the walk over so she was soaked by the time she got there. It was pretty hilarious. I took Mike's truck, and we came back to Farmhouse to dry off. We went down and threw her stuff in the dryer. Then we sat in the kitchen and drank lemonade until the stuff was done drying. I think this is quite possibly the worst blog I've written yet...sorry about that. Mike's sister, Lisa, is a junior in high school this year. We became a lot closer over the summer. I took her to HOBY with me in June. Before that time, we always kind of got annoyed with each other. HOBY, in my mind, is the greatest experience I've ever had. It is a leadership conference that scares the hell out of you the first 3 hours and by the end of the day, it's your favorite thing. She didn't like it the first day, which I kind of expected. After that, she loved it. That's what I was hoping for because she had heard my stories from the conference for the previous 2 years. We drove all the way home from Indy when it ended and never faltered in conversation. I was so glad that I had her come with me and have that experience. I think it meant a lot to her, and it brought us a lot closer. I guess I'm going to go now though...I still need to write the diamonds blog and make some comments. Expect to hear more from me tomorrow!

Stupid Thinking Habits...

So it's one of those times. The times where counting sheep or backwards from 100 just won't cut it. Like the nights Ishmael would stay up not able to sleep. My reasons are much different from his. I haven't seen death. Every time I close my eyes, they open right back up due to some subconcscious thought or nagging feeling that I have forgotten something. I consider myself a thinking person. Just like my brother, I would like nothing more than to keep to myself and let other people do the talking. This is a great part of the reason I tend not to participate in class discussions very much. Another reason is because I hate speaking in front of groups of people. Frankly, it scares the bejeezus out of me and makes me cry almost every time. You'd probably laugh hysterically if you saw the video of my Valedictory Address...it was awful. Of course, one of the reasons it was so bad was because my uncle made a surprise appearance. Since his accident, I haven't been able to go a single visit without crying or at least tearing up. I'm just so grateful that God decided not to take him away from us. Even sitting here right now writing this I have tears in my eyes. I just remember waking up that Saturday morning in March of my junior year by my mom telling me that Uncle Bear had been in an accident and was in the ICU at Loyola in Chicago. I had to go to work that day so my parents wouldn't let me come with. They said it was probably for the best. The doctors didn't know if he would make it through the night, and my parents later said I wouldn't have wanted to see him like that. It was another month before I finally got to visit him. Through those weeks, I spent many days in school with tears in my eyes. I couldn't talk to anyone about it, or else I'd break down. So anyways, I finally went with my parents to see my uncle, the baby of his family. As soon as I walked in and saw the machines and feeding tube, tears started running down my face. My uncle just looked at me and said, "It's ok, He decided it wasn't my time. He sent me my guardian angels to take care of me." Needless to say, that day alone was hard. Then the next 4 months came along. He was moved to a nursing home. My 48 turning 49 year old uncle was in a nursing home. Those months were filled with biweekly visits and lots of Good 'n Plenty candy. The last visit we made to the nursing home before his 49th birthday and my senior year, he said he had a surprise for us. He maneuvered himself to his wheelchair and rolled to the bathroom where there were supports to help him stand. He hoisted himself up and said, "Look, I can stand up to pee now." My mom and I just started laughing while we were crying. This was the first time we got to see him stand since the accident. Now, over a year and a half since his accident, he still uses a cane for balance but walks half a mile every day. He has the mental capacity of a ten year old and takes everything to heart. He gets so scared that he's not the son my Nana and Papa want him to be that he can't sleep for a week. Just this past Father's Day, he started making jokes again. Keep in mind, he's always been the funny one in our family. Although he's slowly progressing to the old Barry, we know he'll never be that Barry again. We love him all the same. Just this past week, I called to wish him a happy 50th birthday. I don't think I've ever been so glad to be able to wish someone happy birthday. So maybe since I finally let all that out, I will be able to go to sleep. For those of you that actually read this, feel special. I've never shared all of that with anyone...Goodnight all! BTW, this is my uncle Bear :)

Home is where you don't have to wear flip-flops in the shower!

I practically ran home from class Friday afternoon. The excitement was as great as Ishmael’s was when he was close to seeing his family. Now I only had to endure an extensive hour and a half drive home! We hopped in the car as soon as I got back to go pick Leslie up at Shreve. Then, we hit the road and tried to make a speedy trip home to our families without getting pulled over for speeding. I just wanted to mention that I wasn’t driving. J Unlike Ishmael, I did actually get to see my family! As soon as I walked in the door, my mom and dad ran to give me hugs. They like to be goofy and fight to give me the first and last hugs, so I ended up getting like 5 from each of them. I hadn’t been so excited to be home in a really long time. Over the previous three weeks, I hadn’t realized how much I missed being there with my parents. We had all gone to take my brother down to Miami of Ohio the weekend before, but it didn’t cut it as being home with my parents. I was so tired Friday night that I was asleep by 8:30 home time. Saturday morning, my mom and I got up early and drove into Illinois because we love going to the Orland Park Mall. It’s so much better than ours. We shopped a few stores and ended up getting 4 free loaves of bread from Sara Lee before heading down to Lockport to see my grandparents. The four of us went out for an early dinner, and then my mom and I proceeded home. That night, Mike came over, and we watched about four hours of HBO Presents on Comedy Central. Sunday has been extremely exciting. I got to go buy baby clothes for my neighbors across the street because they just had their second child, a boy named Nicholas Dean. My mom and I went out to Kohl’s and found a cute little fuzzy sleeper. Then, we went to Barnes and Noble and bought a book for the baby and two short chapter books for the seven year old girl, Kayla. Later on tonight I get to go out to a new restaurant, Little Tokyo, and maybe up to the Dunes for a walk on the beach and to watch the sunset. Tomorrow before I leave, my mom is going to make me spaghetti, pretty much my favorite food if it’s her homemade stuff, and we are going to make chocolate chip cookies together. My bonding activity with my dad this weekend is going to be learning how to change the oil in my car before I leave tomorrow. I don’t even bring my car to school… Overall, this weekend will have been pretty fantastic by the time I get back tomorrow!