Photo Project

This is my most current photography project. I took all of these photos in a Chemistry Lab on campus. It's a study of shapes and lines by photographing in the abstract. I will be submitting these and a few others. I print them out for exhibition so they always look a tad different (if not a lot). I would love your comments!

Me and Ellis Marsalis are Besties

Ellis Marsalis, one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, taught my African American Music class on Tuesday.
Sweet!!
He was like an old cute grandpa with all of these great stories of his friends growing up except that his friends happened to be Louis Armstrong among others.

HELP!!

I just spent an excessive amount of time looking for wedding invitations without much luck :( Please help me!! If you have ideas, websites, etc, please comment!!

My new header photo was taken on a family vacation to Florence.
So beautiful!

Part II of the Weekend

Friday night continued on... I staffed the GlobeMed booth at The Vagina Monologues, which I also attended. The Vagina Monologues is a play that raises awareness about the sexual violence towards women that occurs in the world every day. It was very enlightening and very well written and performed in general so I suggest you go see it in your area if you get the chance. It spoke to the forms of torture during war that include rape and sexual assault of women in areas such as the Congo.

Saturday and Sunday, I woke up bright and early and headed to Peace Jam where hundreds of high school students gathered to hear from Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi of Iran and discuss how we can bring peace to our communities and the world. I had the privilege of serving as a "mentor" to a "family group" or high schoolers. We got to get down to the nitty gritty of what was going on. It was SO inspirational to hear these high schoolers speak to the passions in their hearts.

We also participated in a service project on Saturday. I painted signs like this with the word "Unity" in six different languages. They will be put out in a nearby neighborhood that really struggles with violence.

Got to hear about the ongoing service projects that the students at the conference were leading.

Saw an Iranian dancer and danced a little ourselves.



Did some free style rapping about peace and love.



Attended workshops... I went to one about the environment. I'll have to share what I learned soon!


Played some group games to build trust.


Talked about what we learned.


And left inspired, motivated, educated, and ready to take action!
(That's me with Shirin.)

Promising solidarity with Iran's efforts for peace.

Part I of the Weekend: World Day of Social Justice

This weekend was crazy fun! So much so, that I will be posting in several parts just so you can get the magnitude of it's awesomeness. This weekend kicked off with our celebration of World Day of Social Justice. A group that I am part of at school, GlobeMed celebrated by raising awareness of social justice issues and our common humanity through these super cool, bright yellow bumper stickers that each had an educational fact or proverb. We were sticking them on people, walls, doors, notebooks, water bottles.... everything and anything so that people would hear us out. I was asked several times throughout the day about their significance, allowing me time to talk about social justice issues that mean a lot to me. Mine read:

"Ubuntu: 'I am because you are.'"
It's a South African proverb.

Haiti's GDP: $11.5 billion
Goldman Sacks bonus pool: $20 billion

"The only real nation is humanity." -Paul Farmer

This Past Weekend

So I'm a little late on my Valentine's Day weekend post because this week has been no less than CRAZY but here goes :)

Andrew and I met up in Nashville after a long three weeks of being far away. It was fabulous. Mostly our weekend revolved around food and fellowship (but that might be how it always is in the South?). Friday night we met up with my mom and ate at Bosco's. SO TASTY! Above are pictures from my phone (sorry for the poor quality). These are the appetizers. Left is Andrew's artichoke with tastiness (some kind of gunk wonderful) baked inside and on the right- me and my mom got tasty oysters. The night was spent catching up and laughing and watching the opening ceremonies to the Olympics (sweet!).

Saturday, I worked a lot on a photography project, which I was critiqued on this week and I think went pretty well (at least half of it did)... I will need to post pictures soon. Saturday night Andrew brought me a beautiful bouquet of wild flowers and took me on a wonderfully romantic date to an Italian eatery in Nashville, Maggiano's. Once again, SO TASTY! We spent the night chatting and laughing and loving.

Sunday, we went to our second class of premarital counseling, which is always insightful (maybe I will have to post what I learn some time) and sadly parted ways after exchanging Valentine's Day gifts. Andrew made me this super cute collage with a really sweet message on the back.


Now I'm back to Memphis. Fast forward through a week of craziness here in Memphis, with lots of meetings and you meet me here on a beautiful sunny Friday which I have spent reading a great book on the couch with the windows wide open. Tomorrow I will be "mentoring" at a conference called Peace Jam and celebrating World Day of Social Justice. Hope you have a great weekend!!

Hats off to Sunchips!

Starting Earth Day, Sun Chips will be packaged in plant-based, biodegradable bags. Nice!! I'm all about hugging trees in as many ways as you can :)

New Blog

Wanted everyone to know about a new blog I am writing for/facilitating. http://rhodesadvocatesforchange.blogspot.com/
It is a blog that seeks to educate people on issues concerning social justice and create productive dialogue around these issues so I think you should head over there and check it out!

Winter Olympics 2010

Anybody else obsessed with the Olympics? It's the perfect thing to watch while doing homework. I really love how it brings all people of the world together if only for a sport despite what is going on in the world at the moment. It shows that we have the potential to get along. The biathalon is INSANE! Those men and women are beasts!!

Love.

Happy Valentine's Day Loves!!
Hang out with someone you love this week and make sure they know you love them :)

NISSAN LEAF

Cool commercial introducing the first mass-produced electric car- the Nissan Leaf. This car has the potential to change the world. Not only will it be great for the environment, the US will no longer need to rely on foreign oil as much as it does now. Equals big economic change? I think so. Anyways, check out the commercial and click here to get more info from the Nissan website.

Countdown Commense

Today marks 100 days until our wedding and I get to see Andrew this weekend!!
Doesn't get much better than this!

INFJ

Today I took a personality quiz Meyers-Briggs style, but for free.
IT WAS CRAZY!
I'm and INFJ aka Introverted, Intuitive (my score was highest for this), Feeling, and Judging, which is the RAREST (read 1% or less) personality type in the world.
It described how I acted in different situations, general career advice, etc and was uncannily true to how I acted and which careers were most appealing to me.
It also told me which famous people were closest to my personality type which was my favorite because the closest people were Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
HOW COOL IS THAT?!?
Amongst them were a slew of other great thinkers like Plato and Aristotle and some great authors like Chaucer.
I made all of my roommates and Andrew take one. Andrew and Jackie were the same and everyone else was different.
Anyways, you should take one. It's very insightful.
Check it out here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

NO SCHOOL AGAIN!

Once again, the snow hit Memphis and school was canceled. (The nerd in me was a bit disappointed that I had to miss class.) I woke up to a white world of winter. Now unfortunately it's raining, creating deep ravines of snow slush. Not as pretty. The day has been filled with movies, good books, and LOTS of wedding planning.

Anyone else in love with this invitation seen here on Etsy?? I talked to the artist. She said they could custom color the balloon and such. Let me know your thoughts!

Also looking for rehearsal dinner options in Nashville/Franklin/Brentwood area. Any ideas?

Good One Henry.

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
Henry David Thoreau

Lovey!

Can't wait to see this boy some day soon :)