i got this video (www.invisiblechildren.com/mailers/xmas/video) today and it is hilarious! plus it will give you some great gift ideas from your friends at invisible children! peace!

tonight, yes tonight November 13, 2006, i will be attending my very first duke basketball game at cameron indoor!!!! tonight is not a very big game, but i'll be honest - i'm pretty excited. i've been watching duke play since i was a freshman in high school and i finally get to see them for real!

anyway, i haven't blogged in a while and a lot has happened! school is going well - it's very challenging and demanding, but i still like it. i must admit i am counting down the days until the end of this semester. my friend jo told us today that we only have 29 days left. i'm just hoping to make it 'til thanksgiving.

so a few highlights from the last few months... at the beginning of october i was able to go to d.c. and be a part of the northern uganda lobby days. i'm not very fond of politics in general, but i had a great time in d.c. listening to some amazing people speak, meeting other people who are passionate about uganda, and speaking with my congresspeople - well, talking to their staffers! i learned a lot about what is going in northern uganda right now. it has definitely challenged me and stretched me to think about some of the other issues in northern uganda.

another fun trip was going to auburn for the auburn/florida. those were happier days for the tigers and dustin and i had a blast. my mom made the classic southern tailgating meal - fried chicken, potato salad, and baked beans - which was amazing. this is the first time dustin has been around my family in about 11 years and he got to see them at their craziest during the game!

last weekend i got to go back to tulsa for the united 4 uganda weekend. it was great to be back home and see some of my favorite people. i met some more people who love uganda so that was nice. i got to spend some time with cory and lindsey and we were able to catch up on things. a lot of the high school students were at a retreat, so i missed seeing them, but hopefully i can visit another time and see them.

well, i'm off to k-ville! go blue devils! peace!

so i survived the campout for basketball tickets. there is only one word that can describe it -- craziness! there were over 2,000 people camped out in tents, rvs, and moving trucks hoping to get a season ticket. i had heard that the graduate and professional students are the ones at the duke games that are the craziest ones and after this weekend i believe it! you have to be a little crazy to begin with just to be willing to camp out. whatever sanity you had left is quickly robbed by the lack of sleep, loud thumping music, and constant whistling. i think i got 5 to 6 hours of sleep the whole weekend - 45 minutes here, and hour there. i think the longest break we got was 3 hours saturday morning from about 4 to 7 am.

i wish i had a camera to record what happened when the whistles blew. there was one central check-in tent set up. at the tent you had a specific line you had to got to each time to say your name or number and get checked off the list. when the whistle would blow it was total chaos. people would start screaming "whistle! whistle!" and then people would run from every direction to get in line. it was pretty hilarious and just that sight helped me keep a pretty good sense of humor about the whole thing. by the end of the weekend we were all pretty well conditioned to the sound of the whistle - there were a few false alarms on saturday afternoon and night because people were watching basketball and football games and the whistles would just set something off in people. i'm a little curious to find out what will happen to me the next time i hear a whistle!

i didn't personally get tickets, but i had gone in with a group of my classmates to improve our odds. out of the 18 people in our group, 7 people got tickets which means i'll get to go to almost half of the home games! this makes me very, very happy.

so on to more important things... there is an interesting situation unfolding in northern uganda. a cease fire between the LRA and the ugandan government has been in place for almost 3 weeks and they are hoping there will be peace talks soon bringing an end to the civil war. the international criminal court (ICC) has issued warrants for the top 5 leaders of the LRA and has charged joseph kony personally for 33 different crimes against humanity. kony and the LRA have said they will only participate in the talks if they are granted amnesty which is not what the ICC wants at all. musevni has granted the amnesty, at least for the time being, stating that this is the best chance they've ever had to end the civil war. needless to say, this does not make the ICC happy. the other interesting part of this is that many of the people of uganda don't want to see kony and the other leaders tried - including some of the people who have had lips, ears, and hands cut off. they want to reconcile and for the war to the end.

i'm still trying to get my mind around this and my class is about to start so i'll have to write more about it later!

my friend greg just posted a video on his blog from the new york times about a ceasefire in northern uganda. i was totally oblivious. anyway, this (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html) is the address for the article. you can also access the video here. the war in northern uganda may be over!

there are two noteworthy countdowns in my life right now. the first is that campout for duke basketball tickets begins in about 45 hours. needless to say i'm pretty excited. it should be an interesting and exhausting experience. from what i hear it is extremely difficult to get any sleep. the "quiet hours" are 3 am to 8 am if that tells you anything and it's doubtful that anyone will take that seriously. as a nice little precursor to the weekend, i saw steve wojciechowski (i know, i know, they have crazy coach names here and yes i did have to look up the spelling) at a movie theatre. if you don't know who that is, he played for duke in the 90's and is currently an assistant coach. anyway, it was quite thrilling for me. i think it was a sign that i'll be getting tickets... we'll see...

the second countdown is dustin's arrival in durham. hopefully he'll be here about 8 days from today! even though i'm an incredibly insane duke basketball fan, i'm so much more excited about dustin getting here. right now he is somewhere in british columbia. hopefully he'll make it to bellingham tomorrow sometime to visit his parents for a few days and then he'll head this way!

it's hard to believe that the attacks on the wtc and the pentagon were 5 years ago. i wasn't sure if there was something i should do. at lunch today my friend gina and i started talking about it. we reflected on where we were when we heard about it or saw it, how we felt at the time, and what we think about it looking back. when i think about it now i'm still very emotional about it. i haven't been able to bring myself to see any of the movies about it - i could barely get through the preview of united 93. when i opened up my browser there was a link to a page where you could "watch 9/11 unfold." my first thought was that i did watch it unfold and it still breaks my heart to think about it.

there has been so much talk about terrorism the last 5 years. i don't know how helpful all the talk has been. while i appreciate the complexity of terrorism/terrorists and i realize there are probably many, many factors involved in what drives a person or people to participate in terrorist acts, i firmly believe that one of the things that breeds terrorism is desparation. the kind of desparation that comes from knowing there is no hope. no hope of life getting any better, no hope of violence ending, no hope of having food for yourself or your family, no hope of getting the healthcare you and your family need to survive, no hope. in my opinion one of the best ways we can "fight terrorism" is by loving our neighbors and taking seriously the need and lack of hope that the majority of the world experiences on a daily basis. and i don't mean love in a "romantic" way as u2 would say, but a love that moves us to action and to changes in our lifestyle... of course i'm preaching to myself first here.

anyway, i just want to encourage everyone to get involved with something that gives hope to others. it's no secret i have my favorite organizations and causes, but in case i haven't gotten in your face yet about them...

there is compassion international (www.compassioninternational.com) which facilitates a sponsorship program for children in developing countries.

you should also check out www.invisiblechildren.com. they are trying to raise awareness about child soldiers in northern uganda. they have put together a dvd telling their story and they are currently working on a second national tour to screen the dvd. i think this time out they are trying to focus on high schools, so if you have any connections with a high school you should contact them. even if you don't have connections but want to host a screening you should contact them.

there is another organization that i'm just learning about called (RED). This is a description of the organization from their website: "(RED) was created by Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of DATA to raise awareness and money for The Global Fund by teaming up with the world's most iconic brands to produce (PRODUCT) RED branded products. A percentage of each (PRODUCT) RED product sold is given to The Global Fund. The money helps women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa." go to joinred.com to learn more about what they've got going on.

of course there are many, many more ways to get involved. enough of my rambling. i've now spent enough time blogging to insure that i won't get all my pathophysiology reading done for tomorrow... sigh.

i'm halfway through my first week of nursing school and i'm so tired! it will take a while to get into the groove of being in classes 7 hours a day, but i'm sure it will happen with time. my classmates are very interesting - they come from all over the u.s., range in age from about 22 to 45, and come from all different backgrounds, from rocket scientists to tv producers. surprisingly, i'm the only one coming from youth ministry :).

i'm beginning to get used to durham, although i got lost just last night for about the 20th time. i've been assured this is normal. mapquest has truly saved my life!

i just got information on basketball tickets for the fall and it is pretty crazy. i had always seen students in line, camped out to get duke tickets, but that is just for each individual game. apparently in order to get season tickets there is total craziness that goes on. basically you have to camp out for a weekend and throughout the weekend a whistle is blown. each time the whistle is blown, which could be 2 in the afternoon or 2 in the morning, you have to sign in. you are allowed to miss one sign in, but if you miss more, your name does not go into the drawing. so after you've camped out for three days and signed in at all the right times your name goes into a lottery and you might get a season ticket. i think people normally try to find groups of 8 to 10 people to go in with on the tickets - that way there is a better chance of getting at least one ticket and there is no way any of us can go to all the games anyway! pretty crazy. each school rents a uhaul or rv and "sets up" in a designated spot and you all hang out all weekend. it sounds like it could be fun though. they have vendors and games and drawings all weekend and they are incorporating some service projects in too. i've got to go to a duke game while i'm here and i'm prepared to do what it takes to get a ticket!