I talked about the banana industry in Latin America, the history involved, current economic, political, and social problems with children, women, men, and trafficking, and some potential tangible solutions to some of these global problems.

You can view the presentation here. This is my first Prezi Presentation, and while it was a lot of work to make, I’m happy with how it turned out.

Unpeeling the Banana Republics: Human Rights Violations in Latin America

I wish I was blogging more often. I’m having a hard time back at school balancing work, school, Valerie, volunteering for ESL and the Pulse, applying for summer internships, keeping up my Spanish, and maintaining friends and relationships.

Unfortunately, this blog was one of the first things to get cut out of my schedule. I’m hoping after Spring Break that I will have more time to write on here. I am learning plenty, and would like to record and share what I’m learning. Because its worth it.

So to you, the reader, I apologize for not having posted in over a month. I hope you like the Prezi.

My interim course of Spiritual Formation finished up Tuesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, we students at Spring Arbor University had Wednesday off, but Spring semester is already in full swing.

I’m taking a full load this semester with 5 classes: International Relations, Economics of the 3rd World, Intercultural Communication, Social Theory and Historical Development, and World Religions. Altogether quite interesting.

Today I completed my first real application for an internship for the summer with International Justice Mission.

I have a roommate again, which I am learning to adjust to. In Guatemala I had my own room, which had its pros and cons. I liked going to bed and waking up whenever I wanted to, but I also like talking to someone when I am waking up in the morning and getting ready to go to sleep. I also like sharing things, but am rather peculiar about organization, orderliness, and nicety.

Valerie and I are also, for the first time ever, on campus at the same time. I’m excited about being around her, and having her around. We even have Intercultural Communication with Mary Darling together.

I’m hoping to post on here at least once a week throughout the semester, but it may take me a week or two to get fully adjusted to the new spring schedule.

Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act and PIPA is the Protect Intellectual Property Act. These acts are being protested.

I joined the bandwagon by changing my Facebook picture to this.

I’m going to be honest. I haven’t read this bill. Or that other really long, always talked about healthcare bill. But there’s still a lot of hype.

I don’t download things illegally anymore. No music, movies, video games. I just watch the Colbert Report with commercials on the Comedy Central website.  Part of that is because there is a Firewall here at SAU blocking The Pirate Bay, but it’s also because I just don’t need that stuff anymore.

And what do we need, really?

Do we need to download all the episodes from a favorite sitcom and televison show? Do we need to download movies so that we can watch them right now, for free? Do we need to download the newest albums of music to stay up with what’s happening in the music scene?

I think not.

These acts also carry a fear of government internet take over. Something like the Great Firewall of China, where the freedom of speech and the freedom of the internet can be taken away. And for bloggers like us, that is a very scary thought.

I don’t want to have my blog taken down for quoting Thomas Friedman, or for mentioning Five Iron Frenzy lyrics without asking the publishers and music producers permission each and every time.

Also, what’s up with intellectual property rights?  I just don’t get what that’s supposed to mean.

So I’m with Google. Here’s to ending piracy, not liberty.

If you haven’t seen it, visit http://www.google.com/takeaction/.

There’s also this other website with this mini-documentary on SOPA/PIPA. http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa

Congress, I hope you hear us!

This is another journal entry. This is for my Core 300 class of Chrstianity and Spiritual Disciplines at Spring Arbor University. My professor, Helen Edwards, reads this. This is a confession of my transgressions in class today.

It’s weird, being back on campus after a semester long in Guatemala, and after bicycling across North America. In many ways I feel like a college freshman, visiting my high school. The teachers, faculty, and buildings are the same. Permanent structures. However, the people are different. Very different. All of a sudden, I don’t recognize many people. I feel like a traveler coming home to find a house full of people, in shock as to what to do. SAU once felt like home, the one place in the world where I belonged.

In many ways, I still feel like I belong. I have many friends here, and many of my closest friends are living right here, at Spring Arbor University. While Wesley Lawton, Valerie Sartor, and I prepared for class by reading 11 chapters and printing out notes, my friend Melodie came with a box of 5 things for show-and-tell in here Core 400 class. I’m taking Core 300. Oh, liberal arts education.

My awesome friend Melodie, excited for the first day of J-Term class! Can you see their family resemblance?

Campus is different since arriving my freshman year. After biking and living as a nomad for three months, I am less timid, and more friendly and hospitable. I am also less interested in people who are not interested in me, it seems. I have somehow lost the appeal to hang out with ‘normal’ people. Whatever that means.

In this context, it means people lacking passion. The kind of people who stay in their dorm rooms hanging out with their girlfriends, playing video games, gossiping, and watching TV. I’ve just lost interest in investing time into these things. Sometimes I’ve lost interest in the people obsessed with them too. A sin, I am sure of it, but to be honest, in this moment, this is how I feel. I long for people with passion and interests and fire in their hearts for learning. Lord, help me to love everyone to the best of my ability. I’m no better than they are. Remind me God, in the words of Helen Edwards, my Core 300 professor, that “I am just another beggar, searching with other beggars for where to find bread.”

After being in Guatemala and being around people who are the poorest of poor, I no longer take for granted my life as a college student at SAU. I’ve realized I have been more blessed than I could have ever imagined, and to treat my classes as a blessing, instead of a requirement, changes everything. Sure, I can’t like every class. But after prayer and reflection in Guatemala, I’ve learned that often the best thing to do with my time is to stay in my room at night, reading, writing, and studying. Other times the best thing to do with my God-given time is to go out and talk with people, to converse, to debate, to argue, to learn from someone who believes the same things I do, as well as someone who believes something completely different.

Sometimes I just wish I could speak in Spanish all the time. I miss it. Spanish is what I devoted most of my time to in Guatemala, as bicycling was during the summer. I’m not an expert, but it is what I spent most of my time practicing. Back at the Arbor, it feels somewhat useless. In my hometown of Woodstock I would occasionally run into someone from Mexico who I could speak with. On the train from Ann Arbor to Chicago I somehow ended up sitting next to a woman from Spain, a wonderful blessing. We visited my Guatemalan host mother’s sister in Chicago, where we spoke an eclectic dialect of Espanglish.

Back here at the Arbor, I’m refiguring where I fit in. I think I’ll be doing less and less social things and more and more academic things. A New Year’s resolution is to get straight A’s all year, and to join the E.P. Hart Honors program.

I also will be more professional. This involves many smaller goals.

I’m trying new things like using tissue paper to blow my nose, something I’ve never done in my life. I tie and untie my shoes when I put them on or take them off. I will be prepared for each class and wake up early to have a fulfilling day. I will go to bed earlier and write legibly. I will eat with proper dining etiquette and gorge less in the sweets I am so addicted to. I will say “Please”, “Thank you”, “sir” and “ma’am”. I will shave regularly, and keep my hair relatively short. I will tuck my shirt in, most of the time.

In general, life’s been busy. Very busy. So busy, I have not journaled or blogged hardly at all. Today I started my Core 300 class of Spiritual Formation, in which I get extra credit for journaling each day. In accordance with my New Year’s Resolutions, I will strive for excellence with this class. I think it will work. I’ve also started a new job at the Cross Cultural Office on campus at SAU, which I am quite excited about.

Adjusting back into the lifestyle as an American student at a Christian University in Southern Michigan will be interesting.