This is a good week. I'm even a bit giddy! Today I'm driving down to NYC with a handful of other SIT students to attend the Sustainable Development conference being put on by Columbia. I'll be back from that Wednesday and then Friday I'm flying home to San Diego for spring break.

yeah!!!!

And then after I get back from spring break I'll essentially have about a month left of school! Thank you, Jesus! That is such a sweet thought (beaming smile)! I still have a ton of work to do in that last month but it's still a sweet thought nonetheless (still beaming)!

And it's going to be interesting to go this conference where the school of thought about development is quite different. It's going to be healthy for us to hear perspectives that would make some of our teachers either faint or howl.

I was listening to a speech Jeffrey Sachs was giving on the village project he's involved in and certain things he said were textbook examples of what many of my teachers think is wrong with main stream views on development.

I had the full on angry SIT commentary running in the back of mind as I was listening to the speech as if one of my theory classes was in my brain and I could hear their gasps of unbelief and disapproval. I almost cried out, "Watch out, Jeff, for that rotten tomato!" but then realized he was safe in my computer. :-)

Ever wonder what the heck is Joyce getting her MA in anyway? What's that woman talking about?

What is Sustainable Development? (this will give you a working definition because you know how everything is debatable and controversial in academia-specially in this field)

Sustainable development is a process of developing (land, cities, business, communities, etc) that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" according to the Brundtland Report, a 1987 report from the United Nations.

Take a Sustainable Development quiz...you know you know whaz up (after being informed on my blog-right? uh...yeah)!

Listen to an interview with good old Jeffrey Sachs, author of "The End of Poverty", on the current state of Sustainable Development.

thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you silence

thank you, jesus, for all i have right now

Ever wonder what you, little ole YOU, can do in the fight against poverty or AIDS? Feel powerless and insignificant when it comes to these issues?

Hey, you can play your part little by little as a citizen. For example, sending emails or calling your senator about these issues. You can be informed about these issues and what to call about by getting on this list.

Have you ever called your senator? It's easier than you think.

What is The ONE Campaign?
ONE is a new effort by Americans to rally Americans - ONE by ONE - to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. The ONE Campaign is engaging Americans through a diverse coalition of faith-based and anti-poverty organizers to show the steps people can take, ONE by ONE, to fight global AIDS and poverty.

edit: hehe... This kind of sounds like a 6th grade civics assignment or something. But I'm serious, people! :-)

News, news but sorry no booze....

Well, I just wanted to let you guys know that I might be doing my internship overseas, so that you won't be too surprised if it works out. For quite a while, I changed my mind everyday about the direction I wanted to go after my on-campus phase here was finished (May 19th-ish!). Mostly, I just wasn't sure the direction God wanted me to go in. I've known for quite a long time that I was eventually heading overseas as a long term Christian worker. I've wanted to go into full time work overseas for a while but feel the Lord had been telling me to wait.

A couple months ago I was debating if I should work with a secular nonprofit org or a Christian nonprofit org. But now it seems I've gotten a peace about moving towards what I really want to do.

Hmmm...this is all very cryptic. I guess that's because things are still in the works. But all that babbling was to say please pray for me as I seek God's will in all of this. I so easily try to take the reigns of my own life and I need your prayers and advice as I seek Him.

And the second bit of news is that I'm going to Montreal with some friends this weekend! (It's just a three hour drive...so we're seizing the day. ooh-la-la!)

This has been one hard year but even in the midst of my worrying and anxiety hope often still wells up in my heart. In my wrestling with self-absorption, self-pity and inertia, the certainty that I'm learning something, that I'm being trained shines quite beautifully in my mind. It's this idea that has really served as a turning point for me.

Life is challenging. Ministry that transforms people also transforms you in the process and as we've seen in many cheesy sci-fi movies transformation can be painful. When I've chosen to see this year with its various difficult circumstances through the lens of training, everything seems clearer. I feel tougher and more resilient.

I've cried a lot but I've also prayed my brains out. I've fought spiritually and won but also lost. But that is what the spiritual life is really about anyway. I've often felt like a failure this year but ironically these pressures have produced a brokenness that has reaped more earnest and consistent prayer than I've prayed in a long time. And then there's the hope that I'm walking out into new territory. When something dies in you, even though it's painful there is the excitement of the resurrection.

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12:24

This chick is sooo funny... How she personifies her animals reminds me of Ro. It just seems like a very Ro-ish thing to do.

DC baby! In front of Washington monument....

more random thoughts..

I think I'm getting sick. Even at 7:30pm I seriously considered going to bed because I was so tired.

It seems I often unwittingly live in places with activist/socialist leanings. Even though I don't see myself as fitting that mold entirely at all, it seems that I must be one deep down as I always end up in areas like that. (ex. Portland, Vermont)

I was reading some of my poems online tonight and realized that I haven't posted any since 2004. It's not that I haven't written any poems in the last year because I have. It's just that...it seems I've hit a wall with my poetry.

Most of my poetry over the last couple years seems like a broken record to me. It's always the same thing. It's like I'm trying to get past something but instead I just keep repeating the same theme. And for my journal that's okay because that's the way I deal with my raw emotions. But I haven't posted any of it because most of it annoys me. hmmmmm....

Check this movie out....

Weird. Right now blogger isn't showing the comments I made under my pictures. Anyway, the snowmanless house is where I live right now. It's my Vermonter house. :-)

Right now I'm actually staying with Sandy in Baltimore for my break. Trying to do stuff that I don't normally do like email and load pics while she's at work. Her growing bump is SO amazing. Makes me want to have babies right now. hehe

If you look at my "more pics" link you'll see some new pics I've recently uploaded. (sorry no pics of sandy's bump yet)

You know one thing the West coast has down? Clean bathrooms. And something amazing and oh so novel here on the East coast-paper seat covers. Apparently this beautiful invention has not occurred to the East coast because they don't have them in any bathroom (except for maybe the airport)! So the result is lovely pee covered toilets everywhere. Even the nicer places.

Vonderful.

So that's one pleasant surprise whenever I go home to CA-wow, the bathrooms aren't landmines of grossness that I have to navigate with utmost care lest I catch some disease!

This is my Vermont house.

Winter in VT.

Sorry I've fallen off the face of the planet. I just finished Spring 1 at my school which is like a mini semester. So the last couple weeks I was trying to finish papers and projects. Now I'm on break and will be going back for Spring 2 next week. This week I'm going to catch up on emails.

yeah!

you gotta love, Bono!

random thoughts...

Amazed and awed as I realized how far we've really come as women. When my grandfather was born women were still fighting to vote in England. Wyoming was the forerunner giving women voting rights in 1869! I said 1869!

That's really not that long ago when measured in life times. Just a couple generations ago. People my grandmother knew (her grandmother, aunts) lived when women were struggling for the right to vote. It's wild when you think about it. My grandmother's life has contained interactions with people from both that time and our current time period.

Saudi Arabia still doesn't allow women to vote!

I was thinking the other day how bizarre it is that Memoirs of a Geisha has all the actors and actresses speaking in broken English with a supposed Japanese accent. It's weird if you think about it. We're watching a story that is supposedly set in Japan and in reality they would be speaking in Japanese but instead they're speaking in broken English. Like that's supposed to make it more authentic! haha!

Wouldn't it be funny if the tables were turned? A movie about some historical period in the US like the Civil War with "real "American actors speaking broken Japanese! How bizarre that would be. hmmmm....what does that reveal to us about power and language, my fellow space cadets?

I had a sudden sadness surge (S.S.S. according to the american psychological society...okay, I'm just joking about that last part...don't be so gullible!) when I was reading through an article on the nuclear arms race. Particularly when I came to a chart titled "the cold war: navigate through history."

I had been pretty peppy up to that point but after reading through the lists of conflicts categorized into the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and today. I wanted to just lay my head down and squeeze some tears out.

But I just sighed and thought “I just don't get it”. I read every day about revolution, social justice, power to the people and standing up for the marginalized, the oppressed....yadddaaaa, yadddaa!

And I so often want to ask these same people that spout these noble ideas, what or who are we fighting against? Who is the big bad "they" that we so often refer to? Because the same people that yell themselves hoarse don't believe in evil. We are all groovy. Like in "we are the world".

But that's what I don't get.

When I trace the cheery chart of conflicts over the last 50 years, I know the "they" I'm fighting against is not out there somewhere. But is the face staring back at me in the mirror. That "they" is all of us. That's what I want to hear more about, Che. Sorry, buddy but that revolution is not enough. I...we need a deeper, more fundamental revolution.

Thank you, Jesus, for when I don't have technical difficulties because when I do have them it's super annoying! Like right now. Randomly explorer is doing the weirdest stuff.

Anyway, life has been surprisingly busy. Last semester the first 4 weeks of class were low demand-not the case this semester. I'm also starting to feel a bit pressured about applying to internships. There are just too many options! I am feeling somewhat paralyzed by the myriad of directions I could go in. But I'm working on that and just this morning I was reminding myself just to take everything one step at a time.

Which brings me to some hook-ups I need from YOU! Yes, you staring at my lovely blogola. I'm going to be taking a one week citizen advocacy class in DC Feb. 13th through the 17th. Does anybody know anyone in the nonprofit sector that I could chat with about the scene in DC? Church connections, your impressions of the culture of DC, or just info in general is also welcome.

But back on the farm, life is good off campus. I'm LOVING it. It's really making me realize what a cool little town Brattleboro is. My house is a five minute walk away from downtown with all its artsy stores, coffee shops and breweries.

Fun...I am one with the city. ooooommmmm....

I've moved into a classic Vermont house. It's a hundred years old, has a bathtub with clawed feet, squeaky doors with huge key holes and drafty wood floors.

Yes, I'm renting a room from an elderly woman that watched all six of her children grow up in this house and then move out. She lived here with her husband until he passed away twenty years ago. Lots of memories in this house...yup, that's for sure.

So far living off campus is absolutely marvelous but it has only been about three hours since my friends and I hauled all my crap up these stairs. :-)

Dang, even wikipedia has a section on the emerging church. This is also a really funny and enlightening (definitely going to read some of the books listed) critique of emerging churches.

Okay, going to bed. Leaving for Vermont bright and early!

what a sparse blogger i've been since i've been home in the CA. all my entries since the beginning of the break can fit on one page. that's a first.

yeah, it's been really busy. i've hardly been home. it's been more like my gram's house has been "my base" as i've been out hanging out and catching up with people about 85% of the time. it's been good but I would have liked a little more down time. By the time I got back from Portland I had definitely had enough of sleeping at different people's houses. Seriously, maybe I'm a closet introvert.

well, i'm gearing up to go back to Vermont early Sunday morning. i've been really afraid of going back most of the break but now that it's drawing near I'm feeling braver. it's been such a mixed bag at that crazy school. On one hand, i love what i'm learning and i never regret going there but on the hand there are so many things that frustrate and terrify me about being there.

Potential failure, rejection seem to loom around every corner. People are ultraliberal, oversensitive, reactionary and often illogical when it comes to debating issues.

Underneath it all something scarier moves and drifts just below the surface of my consciousness like an indiscernible creature in murky waters. What is it the squinting fishermen ask. It's....me or rather what I fear most about myself. The fears and insecurities that threaten to swallow me, that seem to have a life of their own and without much notice fight to take over my life.

Who has control of my life?

Lord, You do. Please help me....I really don't know if I can do it.....