California and Friends

Here are some pictures of good friends:

Jules and Scotty made us waffles for breakfast!

Melissa beat all of us at Friends trivia

Steve is cool

I miss my friends

Jacob love.

A classic

Yeah! I'm married!

Home Again

Garret and I have spent the last two weeks traveling, do nothing but study/work, travel again. We have gotten to spend some time with people who are really important to us. Last night while driving back to our apartment, we both agreed that we felt like we were coming home. It was strange feeling like Colorado was home, after spending time in two places that I once called home: Oregon and California. I agree with my friend Juliann who tells me it is the people who make it home. I felt at home spending time with my family and being with my friends Jessica and Melissa and then driving through the green-belt last night, I felt at home with Garet and because we were returning to home Maria and Kristin and Betsy, Andy, Mercy and Eden.

We both long so badly to live in community with the people we care about. Being with these people, however, I question whether or not anyone wil commit to creating this with us. Everyone, including G and I, has established a life for themselves. Now, as I think about graduating, Garret and I contemplate how we can make this community a reality. It looks like it might just be the two of us. Does anyone else what to create this with us. And then I stop and think, and I realize that to some degree we have already started this, we our own neighbors here in Colorado. My thoughts continue to turn...how I want to know what Garret is thinking. I want him to be able to participate in a church community and to be supported in his ideas. Can that happen here?

Since college, Garret and I have had a dream of participating in communal living. During these past three years we have seperated from our friends and have all done our own things. Come January I have to start looking for and applying for internships. This gives us the ability to leave Colorado and move anywhere we want. We have begun to iniciate conversation about what this next step looks like. Our biggest requirement is that we establish home in a location where we have relationships and where we can be a part of the church. Thinking about moving has made me realize how sad I would be to leave Boulder. This may sound strange to many of you after hearing for so long how I hate Colorado. Over this past year, however, I have really begun to feel at home here. I have made such wonderful friends at school and am really starting to feel connected to the community. Making the move back into Boulder has really made all the difference. We love being able to ride our bikes everywhere and walk a few blocks to take a hike in the foothills. As I have mentioned before, we have started attending a local community of christ followers and are establishing relationships with many of these people. Last night while hanging out with our neighbors, I realized that we are experiencing communal living in our very on apartment complex. On the other hand, I miss my college friends so much. I want to once again, live in community with these people. I miss playing with Melissa and Robby, waking up next to Caro and Jess, sleeping over at Annie's, sitting and talking for hours with Lez, listening to Garret and Tim talk about stuff I don't understand, watching Steve and Garret play video games and talking about relationships with Becky. Within this year, Garret and I will make a very big decision and I want the decision to be centered around relationships.

Church Again?

Garret and I have began participating in a church here in Boulder called Roots. This is the first time in over a year that we have choosen to be a part of a church community. We decided on this church for no other reason than our neighbors. The family that lives above us attends this church. There is nothing special about this church. It is a community of about thirty people that get together on Sundays, sing songs, listen to the pastor talk and share communion. The thing is that we have relationships with some of these people that have become very important to us. This is the driving force behind our involvement. This is what is compelling us to step out and confront something that we would rather keep hidden.

Going to church again requires dicipline. We have both come from a very negative experience that has left deep scars. Becoming part of Roots cause many of these wounds to resurface. I am choosing to be driven by the relationships that I am forming and not on the theology or personal thoughts of these individuals. I want to deal with what happened at Bethany and I hope that Garret and I both choose to allow our wounds to heal. I am joining a group of woman that meets on Saturday mornings and i hope to be able to share my feelings with them and be supported in this journey. Garret told me that he has been praying again, praying that God would find him. My prayer, however, is that we woule allow God to find us. For the first time in almost two years, I am excited about being a part of a church again.

Our neighbors and friends

On a lghter note, I had a really strange experience last night. I woke myself up in the middle of the night due to incessant laughter. I was laughing so hard that I even woke Garret up, who looked at me rather confused and demanded to know what in the world I was doing. I apparently thought this was even funnier and could not stop my laughter. After a few minutes, I finally woke up enough to realize that this was very strange. Upon this realization, however, I began to laugh even harder, because this whole situation was so strange. I do not remember what originally set me off, but it had somethign to do with the word "pop" and gorgonzola cheese.

No Child Left Behind and IDEA

I heard about this man named Kozel who wrote a couple of books called Shame of the Nation and Savage and Equities. In Savage and Equities he went into the school system and observed the inequities present. Fifteen years later, in Shame of the Nation, Kozel went back into the schools to reexamine and reveal the inequities that pivot around socioeconomic lines. I plan to read this book over Christmans break and I would love to hear from anyone who has already read this text. Anyway, beinging with the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, Kozel, a profesor at Harvard, has gone a a hunger strike to defend those who are so ironically "left behind". In 2004 IDEA (individuals with disabilities education act) sought to align with no child left behind and do away with "special educaation" (special education still exists). This act requires proof of results in all areas of intervention, even with children birth-3. In Colroado we have a program called Results Matter that requires tracking children three times per year withe extensive checklists and questionaires. Each parent must operate under IDEA which implements dramatic changes when a child turns 4 year old. The parents must research these acts and find out how their child cooperates. They must be activists from their children and seek knowledgable and adequate professionals. Sure this seems just fine for the parent who does not work and still manages to have sufficient money. I find myself alligning more and more with Kozel's views on the inequities in our education system and I am reminded of a profesor in college, Dr. Yarchin, was sought after the least of these through fighting against these inequities. I feel that it is my duty, with the education and knowledge that I am priveldged to recieve, to join in this lucha and struggle against our system. Where do I begin?

Here I Am

This year, I have begun reading many of my friends blogs on the internet. I have finally decided that it is my turn to begin contributed to this new world that I have discovered. Yesterday, while writing a paper for class I thought, "this is something garret would post on his blog." Well, why not post it on my own blog. I typed blog into goggle and created this site. I hope that through this medium, I can contribute to the thought forum that seems to be taking place all around me.

Here is an excerpt from the paper I wrote yesterday that shows very clearly how the classes I took at APU continue to affect the way I think. This paper was in response to an article I read that stated that mother's education level and race may be risk factors for children with mental retardation of unknown cause.

I feel so defensive that this cannot be true; it just does not make sense. I suppose I must return to a definition of mental retardation. This is so subjective. Do the children in this study actually have MR or did they simply fail to be born into a privileged family who had money for doctors and education and possessed the same values and teaching styles of the majority of professionals in this country. I am so frustrated with the systems in place in this country. Privilege and power breeds greater privilege and power. There is one culture in this country that expects assimilation. The melting pot is a lie. Become like us, where us is the conglomeration of individuals that were born into privilege and whose cultural values steered and supported them as they developed their own power. Once clothed in this power, they stopped perceiving individuals and put on glasses of supremacy and viewed difference as a disorder.