IJM: 5 Weeks For Freedom Finale And Concert

This summer 15 people from all over the US and Canada took five weeks out of their lives to bicycle 1800 miles, at up to 100 miles per day, along the historic Underground Railroad from Alabama to New York, spreading awareness of and promoting action against modern-day slavery along the way. Their journey, sponsored by the International Justice Mission, ended in Buffalo with a screening of IJM's new documentary At the End of Slavery, as well as performances by two artists, Rwandan-born Enric Sifa and the Top-40, Texas-based band Green River Ordinance. And Jess, Laura, and I got to be there.

Enric Sifa opened the evening. Enric was six when genocide broke out in Rwanda. His mother, who loved to sing and dance, was killed in the violence, along with his father. He ended up on the streets for years, singing to himself the songs his mother used to sing, until finally he was able to go back to school. Now he lives in Portland, Oregon, and sings for audiences, following his calling and trying to spread love to the world. He has a very strong voice.

This is one of the songs he sang, though ours was a guitar version. The title, Vahanze, means something along the lines of "come out and enter in." He taught us how to sing the refrain, as he does to his audience in the video. (Hear the whole song at myspace.com/enricsifa.)

Next Amy Something talked about 5 Weeks For Freedom, and showed episode one of Raw From The Road, a very rough documentary series chronicling the bikers' five-week journey. The rest of the episodes can be found at youtube.com/user/IJM2009. Following the screening, three of the riders went up onstage to share a little about the experience.

After we had clapped for all the bikers, we watched IJM's new 30-minute documentary on modern-day slavery; that is, human trafficking, the sex trade, and forced labor. It's called At the End of Slavery. You can learn more at IJM.com.

After that, the tone of the evening lightened considerably with a spectacular performance by Green River Ordinance. The band is made up of five guys from Texas who started playing in high school and are still together ten years later.

They started the website thehopeGROs.com, where you can download their songs for $0.99 each and 100% of the profits go to charity. You can choose which of the five charities listed (IJM is one of them) your money benefits.

They sang Getting Older (below), On Your Own, Goodbye L.A. (a song inspired by their van's run-in with a three-foot yellow pole in said city), Learning, Piece It Together, Everything You Are, and Come On. They're the kind of band that's well enough on the CD, but really amazingly powerful live. Funny, too. And it helped that the audience was into it.

After a few more words from Amy, and a few minutes spent signing advocacy letters the bikers passed out, GRO came back onstage with Enric Sifa and they did a pretty entertaining duet/improv kind of thing, where we got to see Enric's retro-hip-rocker side. That pretty much made the night.

Afterward, Jess, Laura and I enthused about the show while huddled on the street corner in the rain, until we developed common sense and ran for the parking lot. We met back at Jess's apartment and all got into her car to drive to Spot Coffee, where Jess and I got vanilla cappuccinos and Laura got a green tea. Jess and I impressed the guy making our drinks by reading the message written on the counter - 你爱我们的咖啡！- You love our coffee! - and then we grabbed a table and discussed TV shows, until a random (very polite and uncreepy) guy named Phil came up and told Jess she looked like his Russian ex-girlfriend, which made everyone crack up.

We left fifteen minutes before closing time, headed back to Jess's to say goodbye and transfer cars, then Laura and I hit the road. We chatted the whole way back, which was great because we both stayed awake, but bad because we missed the first exit which added 20 minutes to our trip. But no harm done.

We arrived safely home around 2 a.m., well satisfied with the night.

Still Slogging...

Here is another biodoodle I rather like, because you can look at it two different ways:

or

PostSecret

Frank Warren is the Most Trusted Stranger, the creator of PostSecret (the uninitiated should check out the links at the end of this post). Last night he came to speak at CMU, to share stories that were funny and heartbreaking.

People lined up at the microphones to tell their secrets. I have preserved some of these secrets in my copy of Confessions on Life, Death, and God, the new PostSecret book which Corinne bought me as an early birthday present. There was a postcard in my copy. It says I'M PRETENDING. It was sent in December 2006 from Boston.

I saw Cassia there, briefly. And I got to talk to Frank. He signed my book.

Afterwards Corinne and I stole the advertisement posters from the UC bulletin boards to keep as souvenirs.

postsecret.blogspot.com

postsecretcommunity.com

postsecretcommunity.com/lifedeathgod

Things Biology Has Taught Me:

Firstly, never be afraid to acknowledge your own limitations.

Secondly, make sure you are familiar with the various classifications of zombies so that you may address them properly when they take over the world.

And thirdly, all of the masses of scientific knowledge available today may be accredited to the consistent demonstration of one indisputable truth:

Search Stories!

Go to www.youtube.com/searchstories to make one of your own! It takes about a minute. What an awesome idea. Thanks, Google, even though it's a marketing ploy. I'm sold.

CMU I ♥ YOU

Tonight I went to the CMU I ♥ YOU film festival, held under the big tent as part of Carnival. Terri invited me because she co-directed one of the films.

All of the films were made by CMU students in the film club, based somehow on the theme of love, and they were varying degrees of good. Most were well done enough to be appreciated without being so amazing as to be scary. Some were a bit dull, including one about a boy who has a crush on a girl, so he writes her a note and leaves it in her text book but then - gasp! - she comes back with her boyfriend. Sadness.

But my favorite was called Untitled. It was the only one called Untitled. Figures.

Untitled begins with a girl standing against a wall. You can only see her face. The picture is black and white, and her eyes look like two bright white holes. She stares at the camera for a while and then begins to speak, but you don't hear what she's saying, just creepy music. The rest of the video is startling and disconcerting overlays of streets and lights and colors and the profiles of two faces moving in and out of each other, always layered over the girl's face as she talks and talks about something you can't hear. At the end she falls silent.

Chemists was artistic and well done visually, a lot of wide shots of stairs and walls. Tale of Two Majors was a rather amusing sort of Romeo and Juliet story about a drama student dating a CS major. Map Time was a cute and well done animated piece about some book characters fighting over a female tennis player in a magazine. Morning After was a narrated story about an apathetic couple set to artistic shots around campus.

I froze, but I enjoyed the films.

Emergency Repairs

BleachSpot-B-Gone:

我去年去中国旅行

Last Year I Traveled To China:

My (tentative) contribution to the Polyglot Language Journal.

It took a lot of editing by the SA.

Some numbers / dates may be off, I wasn't particular.

我是一年级的学生，从纽约来。去年一月分，一个中国老师从北京来到我的学校，她叫侯老师。她给我们介绍中国。她也教给我们几句中文：“你好” 和 “我爱你”。两日后，她回到北京去。二月分，我们的校长说侯老师想请学生去中国看她的学校。我很想去。我问我的朋友们，有谁想不想跟我去中国。我的好朋友 Mara 说她想去。我们问我们的父母我们可不可以去。他们说我们可以去，我们非常高兴！

I am a Freshman from New York. Last January, a Chinese teacher from Beijing came to my school, Ms. Hou. She talked about China. She also taught us some Chinese phrases: "Hello" and "I love you." After two days, she returned to Beijing. In February, our principal told us Ms. Hou had invited students to go to China and see her school. I really wanted to go. I asked all of my friends if they wanted to go with me. My friend Mara said she did. We asked our parents if we could go. They said we could. We were really happy!

四月十六日，我的家人送我到机场。Mara, 我，还有七个学生和五个老师一起从纽约坐飞机去中国。飞机非常大，旅程很久，总共坐了十四个小时。我们先去咸阳。我们晚上跟咸阳的市长吃晚饭，然后我跟我的接待妈妈见面。她和我一起走到她的公寓。那儿她给我介绍了我的接待爸爸和妹妹。妈妈会说英文，是英文老师。妹妹也会说一点儿英文，在学校学英文。爸爸不会说英文，可是他给了我一杯绿茶，欢迎我来。我在我妹妹的卧室睡觉。明天早上，妹妹去学校，妈妈和我去公园。公园非常漂亮！接待家晚上送了我一些礼物。我妹妹送了我我的名字：牟俊丽。

On April 15th, my family dropped me off at the airport. Mara and I, and seven other students and five teachers took a plane together from New York to China. The plane was very big and the flight very long; it took fourteen hours. We first went to Xianyang. That night we ate dinner with the Xianyang mayor, then I met my host mother. She and I walked to her apartment together. There she introduced me to my host father and sister. My mother could speak English; she is an English teacher. My sister could also speak a little English; she studies it in school. My father could not speak English, but he gave me a cup of green tea to welcome me. I slept in my sister's room. The next morning, my sister went to school and my mother and I went to the park. The park was very beautiful! That night my host family gave me gifts. My sister gave me my name: JunLi Mu.

我们在咸阳住了四天。我们去看了兵马俑，还去了两个学校，山西大学和咸阳师范学院。学生欢迎我们来中国。他们想给我们写电子邮件，我们就给了他们我们的电子邮件地址。我们在咸阳认识了很多新朋友。

We stayed in Xianyang four days. We saw the Terra Cotta Warriors and also visited two schools, Shaanxi University and Xianyang Normal University. The students welcomed us to China. They wanted to send us emails, so we gave them our email addresses. In Xianyang we got to know many new friends.

四月二十日，我们从咸阳坐火车到北京。然后，我们坐公共汽车到侯老师的学校，北京市十一学校。学校很大，有很多教室，也有很多学生。学生们都非常友好。我的接待妹妹会说英文，说得很好。我们谈到了学校，功课，书，电影，和我们的国家。我很喜欢中国，妹妹想来美国上大学。我的接待妈妈开车带我们去金源时代购物中心吃饭， 我们吃了饺子，也喝了汤 。然后，我们去买东西。我在北京去了万里长城， 天安门广场， 紫禁城，颐和园，和天坛。之些地方都非常漂亮。我不想回家。

On April 20th, we took a train from Xianyang to Beijing. Then we took a bus to Ms. Hou's school, Beijing National Day School. The school was really big, with many classrooms and many students. The students were all very friendly. My host sister could speak English very well. We talked about school, homework, books, movies, and our home countries. I really like China, and my sister wants to come to America for college. My host mother drove us to the Golden Resources Shopping Mall to eat. We ate dumplings and soup. Then we went shopping. In Beijing I saw the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven. All of these places were very beautiful. I did not want to return home.

回来后，我想念我中国家人。我在大学，我学中文为了以后能和他们说中文。我常常给他们写电子邮件。我想很快回中国。

After I got back, I really missed my Chinese family. In college, I'm studying Chinese so I can speak Chinese with them. I often send them emails. I want to go back to China soon.

Four,

as it should be :)

Vitosynthesis

N. [vē-tō-sin(t)-thə-səs]

The gradual process of interweaving dynamic life elements into a single, complex, self-defining existence.

Synonyms.

living