Last night (4-20), I attended an Invisible Children speaker and documentary for political science extra credit. I never would have described myself as an activist and have seen the Invisible Children documentary, but was touched by the videos the "GO" video presented and it made me incredibly excited to go to Mexico.
GO was about teenagers from the top-fundraising high schools who gave money to Invisible Children taking a trip to Northern Uganda and their experiences getting to know the kids. I became very empathetic and was in tears, as inspirational words in the movie were things like "What we've been given, it is your responsibility to give back. Think instead where you can GO." I'm just elated at my decision to go to Mexico, even though I'm not living in Columbia and getting in-state tuition, and can't wait to get to know the boys at the orphanage, other interns, participants, community and staff. A girl in the movie also said "It's time for us, the leaders of tomorrow, to be the leaders today," which was too much inspiration and push for activism in one night for me apparently. In less than two months from today, I'll be doing just that in Tijuana at St. Innocent Orphanage! But on my list of future charities to write checks to once I'm rich, Invisible Children was added :), so I'm glad I felt I needed a better grade in poli sci enough to attend this documentary viewing!
It was a day full of empathy, because earlier Tuesday morning, my journalism course was discussing Jayson Blair, a former New York Times writer who had fabricated stories and sources, like Stephen Glass in Shattered Glass. I did a Wikipedia search on Blair just to understand the background a little bit more, and found some ironic information. After he was essentially forced to resign, this amazing guy Jayson "has worked as a life coach in the field of mental health." Good job being a hypocrite...you must have some mental issues to feel the need to make up details, people, feelings, information and more. I proceeded to read examples of what he had created, and started to cry in the middle of class. It tore me apart that he could make up stories about soldiers in the hospital, injuries and worse, and had to stop reading what he made up. Good thing I didn't read the New York Times when Blair was a writer? The day of tears continued, sometimes I get too emotionally involved in stories people tell me about themselves. But everyone and everything is okay, except obviously in the third-world countries, but Meredith convinced me that for now, everything is fine :D.
....On to another story, the entire world really is connected:
Now that I am back on Facebook, I'm not on there quite as much but still do my usual checkups/look at photos. One of the PAs in my hall had a new profile picture, so I clicked on it. I accidentally clicked the left arrow which took me back to her older profile pictures, and one of them was with a friend. My impulsive Facebook stalking abilities told me to click on this girl, and even though she didn't go to Mizzou and attended a college in Texas, we had four mutual friends. Which was kind of odd because there really isn't a reason I would know a PA in my building's friends from home. But those mutual friends were the Stornellos and essentially the PA (Lindsay's) best friend from high school is Lena (my goddaughter)'s FIRST COUSIN!!! How weird is that?!
Last story: J-Week. All of Mizzou knows about E-Week (Engineering), and even the business and education schools have pretty big 'weeks,' but the J-Week schedule is out and incredibly lame. Laura pointed out how we're the ones who claim our college as the most credible and best on Mizzou's campus, but we can't plan an over-the-top week of commemorative events like those engineering boys can. Kind of contradictory, but just another observation.
Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!
