IJM

Today was spent in the atrium of the law school...but for good reason: my officers and I sat all day long in attempt to garner membership for our club: THE FIRST LAW SCHOOL CHAPTER OF IJM EVER. I am SO excited - I just don't know what to say. We sat there all day and as of my last count, had almost SIXTY people sign up to join our chapter.

I can't even begin to talk about how happy I am. I clearly made the right choice as per law schools. Dean Gash and Dean Starr weren't lying when they told me that this would be the place to come if I wanted to start an IJM Law School Chapter and eat up all the human rights stuff I could hold.

Jay and Judd and I went down to the Law School Worship night this evening at Stauffer Chapel: it was great. Afterwards though, my real worship began: our law school chpater in conjunction with the undergraduate chapter showed Invisible Children at Elkins Audotorium. If you guys don't know about Invisible Children, your lives are lacking somethin' awful. Invisible Children i the story of Ugandan children who run away from home each night in search of a safe place to sleep: a place where the rebel army LRA will not find them. The run from terror and blood and horror. And the disgusting truth: that over 50,000 of them have already been kidnapped, is IGNORED by the world at large. They are invisible.

BUT THEY ARE NOT INVISIBLE TO GOD.

And so they are not invisible to me.



Elkins was full tonight; we had standing room only. I don't know what to say except that as I watched the movie, wrought with tears, I had a heart full or both horror and joy at the same time. What is happening will not be tolerated. But the fact that we got SO many to witness it means that God's justice will be done. And even if not tonight in Uganda, then tonight in the hearts of the newly broken.


SEEK JUSTICE.

This Weekend

This weekend was so much fun. Friday morning I took Mel and Tyler over the conference. After my morning class and around lunch time I met Tyler in the atrium and took him to Contracts II with me. He LOVED IT!! He absolutely adored McDonald. :-) Melanie went to Torts with me and although Miller was a bit out control at that point it was great.

I was able to get out of the intramural soccer game and worked on homework and my memo while the ACU Super Four finished the conference. Afterwards Melane, Tyler, Joey, Jim, Jim's sister [who is a 2L here], her boyfriend, Judd, Jay & I went to Alegria's for dinner. We love Alegria's: best Italian food ever.

We all went our seperate ways Friday night. Saturday morning the ACU Crew had to go back to the conference. During the middle of the morning I had to take Melanie back to the airport. Tyler went with me and we ate at the Promenade on the way back. ...in the afternoon those [now three], me and Judd and Jay headed out. The two boys went straight to Santa Barbara and I took the ACU Super Three to see Air Force One at the Reagan presidential library.

We met up with everyone at Santa Barabara and had Peruvian food on State Street. We walked downtown, saw the pier, the Santa Barbara Mission; it was wicked.

THEY ARE HERE!!

Well you guys, my Texas friends have arrived!! And WHAT a fiasco. I had my TA meetin' yesterday [Thursday] for our first Memo of Points and Authorities at 4:40. While I was in the meeting, Melanie called and left me a message stating that the airline had informed her that her bag was on the 9:15 plane out of DFW into LAX, meaning that her bag wouldn't be in LAX until about midnight. She stated that the options were to stay and wait for it or to have it delivered. I was torn. I wasn't able to talk to her though because by the time I got out of my meeting and heard the message, their plane had already taken off. Their plane was scheduled to get in at 8:09 so there really wasn't a practical way to wait around out there till midnight so I made and executive decision.

I went to Banana Republic.

I bought her a shirt and some socks etc. This way she would not have to meet the Dean of the Law School feeling icky in the same clothes, and we could have her bag delivered.

I left Malibu at 6:30 and got to the Inn & Out outside of LAX by 7:30, since traffic was unusually good. So, I waited. And waited [I was working on my memo and stuff OF COURSE]. I waited until almost 9:00 and got worried. Then the call came: their plane had JUST gotten in. 20 minutes later I was picking them up at the terminal only to discover that of the four of them, THREE of them had had their bags placed on the later flight by the airline. So, in Jay's words: "At least it makes the decision about waiting or not easier." Clearly.

We met Ryan Mannix at Inn & Out Burger to wait it out. He is the other founder of the IJM Chapter here, and Jim and Joey were going to stay with him. He had been having supper at his parents' house in Orange County and had been the back-up plan for Melanie's bag: he would pick it up on his way back to Malibu. Sinc he was already there by the time we left the airport [flippin almost 10:00] we went ahead and all ate together. On the brighter side the bags were going to be there at 11:00 or so...

We got the bags and Jim and Joey went with him and Tyler and Mel came with me. We took the 405 back to the 10 and decided to do a quick detour through Hollywood. So I took the 10 East instead of West and caught the 110 toward Pasadena to hop on the 101 North. We got off on Hollywood Blvd. and drove it past the Highlands and then turn around and went back. We pulled into campus around 1:30 or, exhausted but happy. Melanie stayed here [she's asleep in my bed right now...] and Tyler stayed downstairs with Jeddidiah.

Today's going to be a long day but WHO CARES??? My Texas friends are here...

It's been a long long time

Hey there!!

Well I know it's been a long time since I have blogged so let's get started; there is a WHOLE bunch to catch up on.

First off, on the 21st of january Jay and Judd and I went to the Reagan Presidential Library. It was WONDERFUL!! Besides the fact that the museum was in and of itself cool, the ultimate compelling factor was AIR FORCE ONE. That's right, Reagan's Air Force One was THERE. I got to WALK THROUGH IT...TOUCH IT...'nuff said.

After we got back that night, Jay and one of his suitemates, Dan, and myself all went to see Underworld II. it was pretty good. A little to graphic for me perhaps, but after having seen the first one there was no way I was NOT goiing to see the second one.

Let's see. Then this past weekend I went to Home the Remix But, before I did that, I went to Church with Jay in Loma Linda. I had never been to a Seventh Day Adventist church before; it was interesting enough to be sure. We sat in the front since he was a producer for that day. [Their church is HUGE; it's like a giant TV studio. It was beautiful to be sure, but so big. They broadcast their services on TV and stream it live on the internet.] I met the preacher - who is from Texas - and saw all the soundboards, the graphics managers, all the tech rooms, the green room and everything. It was an experience allright.

Last night Jay and I hosted a party for the State of the Union in the Law Student Lounge. It was fun but exhausting. I'm about to take myself a nap. Tomorrow Tyler, Melanie, Jim & Joey are coming from ACU tomorrow. I'M SO EXCITED. I'll have more to say later when I'm less sleepy.

Who Gets My Mail?

am watching You've Got Mail. I love it. I don't know what it is about the movie that gets me going. I think it's Meg Ryan in manner of a sweet tempered girl. I love the movie. I think the lines are so adorable...

But moving past the ridiculously cute lines and cheesy plot, I think the movie itself is pretty real. i am especially fond of the scenes where she and Tom Hanks are exchanging emails. They seem so real. Two people who barely know each other but are learning more and more about each other. They do what we all REALLY do, and that's talk about nothing:


"The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino. " says Hanks in reply to Meg Ryan's telling him about a butterfly she saw on the subway.


But most importantly I think it's so endearing when they show Meg Ryan at night, wondering about her life sending an email to the one person she wanted to hear her heart. She didn't want an answer, and he didn't even have to respond. She just wanted it to be heard...

"Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, valuable but small.And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void."


We all have the person we would send that question to...or else we are still looking for them.

Guilty??? Or Innocent?? YOU decide!

Well, this morning I received the following email from My Mystery Man.



From: Mystery@rMysteryMan.com
Subject: I didn't do it.
Date: January 19, 2006 10:59:57 AM PST
To: elizabeth.alvarez@pepperdine.edu


It wasn't me:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060119/ap_on_en_ot/poe_mystery_visitor

Mystery


The link, if you click on it, contains the following story:

Mystery Man Places Roses on Poe Gravesite
By KASEY JONES, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 52 minutes ago
BALTIMORE - For the 57th straight year, a mystery man paid tribute to Edgar Allan Poe by placing roses and a bottle of cognac on the writer's grave to mark his birthday.


Some of the 25 spectators drawn to a tiny, locked graveyard in downtown Baltimore for the ceremony climbed over the walls of the site and were "running all over the place trying to find out how the guy gets in," according to Jeff Jerome, the most faithful viewer of the event.

Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum, said early Thursday he had to chase people out of the graveyard, fearing they would interfere with the mystery visitor's ceremony.

"In letting people know about this tribute, I've been contributing to these people's desire to catch this guy," Jerome said. "It's such a touching tribute, and it's been disrupted by the actions of a few people trying to interfere and expose this guy."

Jerome has seen the mysterious visitor every Jan. 19 since 1976.

"They had a game plan," Jerome said of the spectators. "They knew from previous years when the guy would appear."

But Jerome declined to reveal details of what the Poe toaster was wearing, what he did at Poe's grave, and whether he left anything besides the roses and cognac, such as a note.

It was a the crisp, cold, clear night. "I was hoping for wind and rain in keeping with a Poe story," Jerome said.

But the museum curator was saddened by the disrespectful spectators.

"I hope to preserve this tribute. It's one of those things that make Baltimore so unique," he said.

For decades, a frail figure made the visit to Poe's grave. In 1993 the original visitor left a cryptic note saying, "The torch will be passed." A later note said the man, who apparently died in 1998, had handed the tradition on to his sons.

Poe, who wrote poems and horror stories such as "The Raven" and "The Telltale Heart," died Oct. 7, 1849 in Baltimore at the age of 40 after collapsing in a tavern.




Is he guilty? you decide....

Compliments

So tonight after a small "tiff" with my Mystery Man this evening, a long talk followed. Sometimes the best things you learn come from silence.

When Mystery Man is in a hole, and he'll tell you this himself, he keeps on digging until he can't get out anymore. He just hopes, he says, that he can come out the other side. It all starts with a word not meant...and then more words come that we both hope we will each forget.

So my accent makes me sound dumber? And that's true right Mystery Man, because you say "the polls" say so? Oh, and I shouldn't let people make me upset because then I lose control.

Ok so I tuned you out long ago you jerk. You just don't hear yourself do you? You are so busy being so logical you don't notice the girl next to you, the one next to you when no one else even knows you exist - ya her, she's crying. You don't know though because you are busy showing how you "were wrong" but you have to do it in the smarter fashion. It has to be in the way most logical huh? You are SO competitive you can't even just be sorry unless you win at it.


Behind all the words, are the silent thoughts we knew before...

I should learn to be more quiet, less sensitive.

Buy maybe you should learn to be less cold.

I should learn to breathe easier.

Maybe.

But you should learn to apologize.

I need to give you the benefit of the doubt; sure.

But you need to meet me half way.

Don't you even care????


But i'm so upset I don't hear you apologize. I don't see your hands shaking, your voice quiverring. You can't believe you hurt my feellings; and it was all from a statement that wouldn't make you flinch. You mean well don't you?

I didn't see your eyes open wider with concern, nor did I hear your voice sound so shaky until I was done being upset. I didn't see your facial expression...untill i was done crying enough to look

I thought you were turning away from me, but the whole time you were wishing I'd understand you were lost down a road you didn't know how to navigate.

At the end of the night, a few shaky voices and tears later, I find out that only a fool would let my friendship go...and I am a friend that's hard to find. Yes, yes he DOES care, more than he can show.

I won't put words in your mouth anymore Mystery Man. I know you care. :-)

So you care..and you just don't know how else to show me? So you can only demonstrate this over the long term...what? What exactly? What I already knew...before you said the only people you'd intentionally hurt in this life would be the ones that hurt me....that it's a good thing I was quiet during this or I may have missed it.

As you wish.