Photo Challenge Day 27

Day 27 - A picture of yourself and a family member

This my cousin, Darlene, and me at her brother's wedding reception at the Adler Planetarium a few years ago (SUCH a cool venue!!). She's pretty much amazing and I've always looked up to her. And whenever we get a chance to hang out, it's always a great time full of superfun games, side-splitting laughter, and great conversation. Sadly, I don't get to see her much these days cause she's a smarty pants doctor out at the Mayo Clinic in MN but when we do get the chance to spend time together it makes myheart oh so happy. :-)

Cheaters (Should) Never Prosper

So, there's this fella in my Biology class who other students have noticed cheating on our previous two exams by pulling out his cell phone (to look up answers on the web & also to look at pictures he took of his notes). When we're finished taking our exam we're supposed to wait out in the hallway and that's when my classmates have talked about it. Most of them were upset by it but didn't want to turn him in and others said they didn't care. This student would typically be the last to finish the test and came out into the hallway smirking when some students would make comments about him be slick and getting away with it. He would smile bigger and say that he only used his phone for a few questions.

Whether it was a few questions or the whole test, it doesn't matter; cheating is cheating. Since I didn't personally see him do it I went back and forth about approaching our teacher. I decided not to say anything till I actually saw him do it.
Tonight we had our third exam. Before we started, our instructor told us he didn't want to see any cell phones out at all and seeing one would be construed as attempting to cheat and a zero would be given. You would think that such a specific and stern warning would be enough. Not so.

The student in question sat right in front and to the left of me so I had a perfect line of vision. Sure enough, I saw him pull out his phone a number of times. I decided to finish my exam and write a note to the teacher on the back of my response sheet. I gathered my things, handed in my test, and pointed to my note so he was sure to read it right away.
A few minutes later, as I was sitting in the hallway, I saw the student in question walking out of the classroom down the hallway. He had pulled out his phone again and was caught! Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't feel good about it; in fact, my stomach was in knots. However, I know that I did the right thing. Cheating, in any form, is morally reprehensible, and it is disrespectful to both the teacher and one's classmates. End of story.

Most of my friends agree with me and affirmed my decision to turn this student in, citing it as the right thing to do. To my surprise, though, another friend said she disagreed with turning students in, that it is bad karma. First of all, I don't believe in karma. Second of all, people need to learn right from wrong and understand that there are consequences for breaking rules and ethics. And frankly, it's sad to me that I'm the only one in my class who said something. When cheating and academic dishonesty enter the picture it compromises the educational process for everyone. And I felt that by the extent to which I was keeping quiet, I was participating in and contributing to this compromised situation that affects everyone. Some people might say it's just a test, but what really worries me is the way this ethic tends to get carried into other situations and facets of life. When people of good conscience see something wrong happen and do nothing to stop it, I feel that they're just as culpable. What has happened to integrity, principle, and character?!? People are their principles!!!

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people."  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'll step off of my soap box, for now....

What are your thoughts, friends???

Photo Challenge Day 26

Day 26 - A picture of something that means a lot to you

Last school year I was able to get my own apartment off campus. It was the first time I had ever lived by myself and I LOVED it! The 9 months I spent in that apartment were really special to me--while I wasn't financially independent, having my own place gave me much of the independent lifestyle I was craving. I got to decorate how I wanted, buy whatever groceries I wanted, eat what I wanted when I wanted, go to bed whenever I wanted without hearing anyone nag that I was staying up too late, be as loud as I wanted when I wanted, have friends over when I wanted, and only had to worry about cleaning up after myself--things that aren't usually afforded when living with other people. So what this little apartment on Woodlawn represents for me is the sweetness of independent living that I so look forward to returning to one day. :-)

Photo Challenge Day 25

Day 25 - A picture of your day

Holy crap! There's a car in my next door neighbor's yard!!!

Rewind.... so....I was upstairs cleaning my room and all of the sudden I hear this loud POP and a big BOOM so I look out the window to see my car move forward and down. As I was running downstairs and outside I was thinking, "why is someone moving my car?" and "what the heck is making that terrible noise?" My eyes went straight to my car.

NNNNOOOOOO!!!!

This is the second time my car has been hit (while parked!!!) in the last two years--Dad and my brother Jeff say that my car is cursed--maybe so...

But within a few seconds my eyes were drawn to the commotion a few hundred feet to my right...

Some elderly gentleman not only smashed into my car (back AND front!) but he managed to jump a steep curb and wound up crashing into the front stone steps of my next door neighbor's house!!! My mom and I ran over and stood awestruck for a second and then she shouted "Call 9-11!" [I'll admit it, as I was dialing, the movie The Little Rascals popped into my head as I said to myself, "Quick! What's the number for 9-1-1?"] LOL
But I quickly snapped back to reality and nervously spoke with the emergency operator (my 1st time calling 9-11). After hanging up I rushed over to see if the driver was ok and talk with our neighbors to make sure they, too, were ok. Thank God, no one was hurt--not even the driver. And within a few short minutes 6 squad cars, an ambulance, a fire truck, and a fire dept. SUV came down the block from both directions and neighbors from several surrounding blocks came out to see what the commotion was all about.

It was such a scary freak accident and despite the damage done to my car and the very minor damage done to the neighbor's lawn & front steps, I count us all very lucky that no one was harmed. It was a beautiful (and outrageously unusual) 70ish degree day out and people could have been out infront playing. In this situation I'll say thank goodness everyone was inside (or at least in the backyard)!

One never knows what an afternoon will hold...

Lessons of the day: drive safely and within the speed limit--especially on residential streets!, never drink & drive, and cherish life always--one never knows when disaster will strike and possibly take a life.

Photo Challenge Day 24

Day 24 - A picture of something you wish you could change

This is super random, but I wish that I could change my level of awareness regarding the facial expressions I display... SO often I'm told that I make really funny or dramatic expressions and I'm totally oblivious. I don't know that it's a skill I can hone or anything like that but if I could, I would change the conscious control (or at least awareness of) I have over the facial expressions I make.

Photo Challenge Day 23

Day 23 - A picture of your favorite book

Being a literature student, it's hard to pick a single favorite book. So here's one of my favorite [fiction] books: Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. :-)

I read it for the first time in 2009 for an interim course I took on the art & literature of the Southwest in Taos, NM. Not only is it a great story but it's so beautifully written--just as the protagonist Antonio (Tony) talks about how there is "magic in the letters," Anaya exemplifies this in the way he's able to craft words. There's a great quote in the introduction that gets at the heart of the novel (and part of the premise of the course): "Her (Ultima) role is to open Antonio's eyes so he can see the beauty of the landscape and understand the spiritual roots of his culture. With her guidance he begins to understand that the river, the open plain, and all of nature is imbued with spirit. Everything is alive; God is everywhere."

This is what I wrote about the book for my last journal entry (for the course):

The last chapters of the book were amazing! The book just got better and better as it went along. :) Tony's had to make a lot of choices--Cico tells him, "You have to choose, Tony, you have to choose between the god of the church, or the beauty that is here and now." I love, a few paragraphs later, when Tony asks, "Does one have to chose? Is it possible to have both?" --Exactly. I would say yes, it's possible to hold both at the same time.

Antonio also struggles to define good and evil throughout the book and struggles to pin point what constitutes each. His father tells him, "I think most of the things we call evil are not evil at all; it is just that we don't understand those things and so we call them evil. And we fear evil only because we do not understand it." Exactly! And that's the point some of us have been trying to get across in our discussions. His father goes on to say that "in the end understanding simply means having sympathy for people. Ultima has sympathy for people, and it is so complete that with it she can touch their souls and cure them. That is her magic. Ay, and no greater magic can exist." Tony goes on to reflect on what he's learned and says, "I made strength from everything that had happened to me, so that in the end even the final tragedy could not defeat me. And that is what Ultima tried to teach me, that the tragic consequences of life can be overcome by the magical strength that resides in the human heart." Man, how beautiful is that? We talked about how ethics (like understanding, sympathy, empathy) come from the kind of love you have for people. And that the real tragedy is not being able to connect with other people--for empathy is at the root of love.

It seems that Anaya's purpose was to write a story that makes readers uncomfortable--to make Western readers question their perceptions of spirituality and shake the roots of what we believe and raise questions. He causes readers, like myself, to question how and why so many people blindly believe in tradition and asks us to stand outside of our position as Christians and realize that the world is a bigger audience than Christians. Linda encouraged us to use our reactions to the text as data, to figure out what we bring to the text and why we react the way we do, and then to consider what we believe and how others would react to it. I thought that was a pretty cool way to alter our perceptions and understanding, not only in terms of understanding the text but in how examining our own faith, we're able to better understand it, and thus make it stronger. Gwen asked Linda something about how her understanding of God and Christianity has changed over the years. She said, "God is more beautiful, I know less; I'm more mystical in my faith and appreciative of the mystical in my faith" I thought that was pretty cool.

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If you haven't read this book, I urge you to pick it up sometime--it's fantastic and generates some great contemplation, reflection, & conversation.

Photo Challenge Day 22

Day 22 - A picture of something you wish you were better at

I wish that I was better at timeliness!!! If you know me at all you know that I tend to struggle with this pretty much on a daily basis. It's terrible, I know, and I need to work on it. I guess we can't all be winners in that department all the time. In the meantime, I'll keep setting my clocks and watches ahead in the hopes of getting to where I need to be ON TIME. :-)

Photo Challenge Day 21

Day 21 - A picture of something you wish you could forget

Sure, it's entirely cliché to say that there's nothing I want to forget but that's the honest truth. I've experienced more darkness in my short 24 years than I'd ever wish on anyone, even Dick Cheney. But what "they" say is true--all of life, even the ugliness and misery, is important in forming the unique person each of us becomes. I had a teacher in high school who told me that I was "blessed with misery." I wasn't sure how I felt about his remark--wasn't sure that I believed him. About a year later, though, I gained some good perspective and understood what he meant. We are blessed with misery. It isn't that misery and ugliness itself is a blessing, but that blessing and grace often shine in the midst of ugliness and misery. Grace and blessing are what happens when God makes flowers push up through the misery and ugliness.

Five years ago, as a freshman, I wrote a paper about human suffering for my philosophy class. I included some personal stories to illustrate some of my points. And this is some of what my professor said in response: "The world is a beautiful and dangerous place, isn't it.  There is so much joy and gladness I can sometimes hardly conain myself. And there is so much pain and misery I can sometimes hardly contain myself. And we live smack dab in the middle. That's where the light shines. In the midst of the darkness. Feet in the mud. Heart in the sky, and grace is right there, for those w/ eyes to see. You seem to be seeing it, and I'm so glad."

Most days, I do indeed see the grace through it all and understand how all of my life's events have made me into the wonderful and strong woman I am becoming. And for that reason, I don't want to forget a second and lose many of the difficult leasons I've learned. As the wise Erykah Badu sings, ""peace and blessings manifest with every lesson learned."

I'll leave you with a few quotes that seem approps:

"Kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight." --Bruce Cockburn, "Lovers In a Dangerous Time"

"I've been in trouble, but I'm okay.  Been through the ringer, but I'm okay. Walls are falling and I'm okay. Under the mercy, and I'm okay." --Bruce Cockburn, "Fascist Architecture"

"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." --Frederick Buechner