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September 30, 2005
What Goes Around Comes Around
I send OpinionJournal a tip yesterday that Omaha Public Schools reversed their decision to punish the boy with the kinfe. They published the update today (still under Zero-Tolerance Watch), but without thanks to me. :( Oh well, I guess I'm probably not the only one who wrote in.
Posted by Megan at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2005
Possibly?
This was my first interview that started with a prayer.
Fitting, I guess, since it was with a church. I applied for the "Informational Secretary" opening. I was told it would be 95% data entry, but right now a non-people oriented job sounds just fine.
And I would be working in a community of believers. Awesome.
Maybe I wouldn't dread getting up every morning with this job.
Just one small hitch...
It's in Omaha.
The interviewer, who would also be my boss, said that she makes hiring decisions based on prayer. That brings me some relief, because hopefully, between the two of us, we can discern God's will. And if it's for me to be in Omaha... well, I guess I'll just have to continue my frequent road trips to Ames.
Posted by Megan at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
Ahead of the Curve
Check out OpinionJournal's take on the butter knife incident (under Zero-Tolerance Watch).
Posted by Megan at 03:01 PM | Comments (4)
September 28, 2005
THIS is a Knife!
Omaha made CNN Headline News this morning. Apparently a boy was suspended under the Omaha Public Schools' zero tolerance policy when a butter knife fell out of his book bag.
The kid's parents swiftly issued a threat to sue the pants off of the school district, and OPS promptly recanted its threat to take action, saying that the incident will not go on the boy's permanent record.
Now, after reading this story, I would have said that the school district was over-reacting. Plus, zero tolerance policies don't always make much sense because they don't take other factors into account (such as the kind of knife and what the kid was doing with it). But this is the biggest butter knife I've ever seen!
The boy claims to have had no idea that a knife was in his bag. His mom says that she figures that his 4-year-old brother must have put it there. Likely story. That actually raises some larger concerns about what a 4-year-old is doing with a knife -- especially one that appears to have the capability of doubling as a machete.
Posted by Megan at 08:25 PM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2005
Great Shirt
Posted by Megan at 09:59 PM | Comments (1)
Mrs. President
Commander in Chief just premiered, with Geena Davis staring as the first female President of the U.S. Despite the portrayal of Republicans as hairy power-hungry, conniving Neanderthals with pre-historic worldviews, I thought the episode raised some important issues -- whether it intended to or not.
The opening montage brought me to the verge of tears when then Vice-President Allen was pulled away from a choral concert and rushed off because of the President's dire health situation. It didn't even mention how much time with her three children she must have missed out on during her prior Congressional campaign or even her Vice-Presidential run. And I have a feeling that, in reality, she would not have had the opportunity to return home and ask her children how they felt about her taking the Oath of Office.
The scene with President Allen (Davis), her daughter, and her Communications Director in the backseat of a car on the way to the inaugural speech was also poignant, though the scenario was somewhat unrealistic. The daughter continued to interrupt her mother as she tried to put the finishing touches on her speech, and finally ended up spilling a glass of red juice on her mother's white blouse (conveniently solved with the Communication Director's red scarf).
Maybe some women can do it, but I have felt the pull between a demanding career and the maternal instinct, and the desire for a family won out. No, I'm certainly not a mother yet, but already the prospect of my own family has outweighed the allure of power, prestige, and politics.
Finally, amidst all of the hullabaloo, I could help but wonder... if we were really so progressive, would it even matter than a woman was President? All things being equal, the President should be seen as the President, regardless of gender, chosen for his or her credentials as a leader and ideals as a politician rather than gender.
Posted by Megan at 09:12 PM | Comments (3)
September 26, 2005
Great Quote
From Talk Soup:
(A video clip from Filthy Rich, which is evidently some kind of reality show with rich kids. One of the kids says, "I'm never going to feel sorry for anybody less fortunate.")
Talk soup host: "I hope that when the meek inherit the earth they beat the crap out of him."
Posted by Megan at 11:32 PM | Comments (1)
Lost
I thought I'd have another job by now.
I had my first thought today that I wish I was back in college. I never thought I would wish that, and certainly not so soon. But I miss the security of knowing that tomorrow will just bring more classes followed by more hanging out with friends.
I ordered the Finding a Carreer That Fits You workbook by Larry Burkett and Lee Ellis, some good Christian guys, a few weeks ago. I received it in the mail within a week and completed all 100+ pages of it in another week. Upon completion, I came to the conclusion that I should have majored in music. After all, I had decided to become a professional musician my senior year in high school.
So why didn't I? After about ten years of piano lessons, eight years of violin lessons, and seven years of trumpet lessons? (By the way, I am repeatedly asked which my favorite is, and I love them all uniquely. But my first love was the violin, and I do believe that it has the biggest capacity for expressiveness.) Because, after all those years, I was sick of them. I was sick of practicing, sick of the rehearsals, and even sick of concerts. I was especially sick of sitting in rehearsal for three hours every Sunday night with the evil conductor of the Omaha Youth Symphony, even though I had dreamed for years of playing in that very ensemble.
After all that time invested in music, any major other than music seemed extremely enticing. I was never really challenged in high school, so courses such as English and psychology sounded like a breeze.
So I took a four year break from music. With the small exception of three years of violin lessons (for which I seldom practiced), one year of Philharmonia, a semester of jazz band, and accompanying a good friend's jury performance.
Now I would give anything to audition for a symphony and make it. But I'm rusty. Just think where I could have been with four years of focused practice. I would even settle for teaching lessons, but I don't even think I'd be a good teacher right now.
When I think of this dilema I'm in, the phrase "forsaken your first love" keeps coming to mind.
So what do I do? I guess I find a job so I can afford lessons. Then maybe I'll work towards a symphony audition or teaching credentials.
But we're back to finding a job. I seem to be having very little luck in Ames. I have been hearing of openings at the Republican Party of Minnesota ever since I left my job. At first it was easy to dismiss them, but now they are becoming more enticing. But I was restless for four years in Minnesota, so I swore that I wouldn't go back.
No conclusions. Just listening to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, wishing I could play violin like that.
Posted by Megan at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2005
"Say a Prayer for Texas"
...and Louisiana.
Posted by Megan at 11:53 AM | Comments (1)
September 20, 2005
The Somber Truth
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.
Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
Posted by Megan at 09:40 PM | Comments (1)
September 19, 2005
Weekend Adventures
Thursday: Rockin' performance by the Lone Strangers at the Bali Satay House. It never gets old. Stayed long enough to hear one karaoke performance - a passionate version of Total Eclipse of the Heart. And by passionate I mean a quite gruff and grumbly voice with a few explatives thrown in. Evidently it was done that way in Old School by The Dan Band.
Friday: ISU interview. Parking ticket. Went back to St. Olaf for the first time since graduating. Parking ticket. It was a strange but awesome feeling to be back on campus as a non-student. Hanging out with friends again was wonderful. It was like nothing had changed in three months... other than Justin growing long hair!
Saturday: Went to Jordan, MN to see the coffee shop/bookstore where Laura works. It was an extremely cute small-town shop filled with homemade cards, jewelry, and baked goods -- eerily reminiscent of Kathleen Kelly's (Meg Ryan's) Shop Around the Corner in You've Got Mail. My iced latte was expertly made. Also visited the dog and cat (Bailey and Shadow) for whom Laura was sitting.
Made it back to Ames only to learn of an outing to Batman Begins. Couldn't refuse. It was action-packed with a decent plot. The dialogue was a little lacking, but overall it was quite entertaining.
Sunday: Church at Stonebrook. Lunch with friends. Stopped at my grandma's place on the way out of town. She's moving to Lincoln this week and is also giving away a lot of her things, which is obviously hard for her. She has given me some things, but they don't have the same memories for me. It was good to see her again, though.
Monday: Slept in. Ate lunch. Took a nap. Checked the mail. Learned that Diet Pepsi tastes funny after chewing mint gum.
Posted by Megan at 04:41 PM | Comments (1)
September 15, 2005
Weekend Tour
I finally got a job interview at ISU. It is for a Clerk Typist position with the Biomedical Sciences department. Not exactly what I had in mind when I first started looking, but it would be a job nonetheless. Plus, I've learned that jobs may not be what they appear.
The interview is at 9:00 AM on Friday, so I'm heading to Ames this afternoon -- which means I'll get to see the Lone Strangers play at the Bali Satay House! Woo hoo!
Friday afternoon I'm headed up to Minnesota for a friend's birthday and mini-reunion of college friends.
I hope to spend Saturday with another Minnesota friend and head back to Ames in time for church on Sunday.
Here's to another tour of the greater Midwest!
Posted by Megan at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2005
Other Shreeveport Happenings
Franklin Graham and Al Sharpton were evidently at the shelter on one of the same days as us. I was back in the computer room, so I didn't see either of them, but Nancy had the opportunity to witness Franklin Graham set up housing for a couple of evacuees with his father. It was suggested that Rev. Sharpton should have picked up a toilet bowl brush and helped out with the scrubbing, but no such luck.
I'm not sure my last entry was entirely cohesive, and I've had time to process everything a little more, so I have another concluding thought. It was really difficult for me not knowing what to expect at all before I went to the shelter. I knew that we were going to Shreveport to help evacuees, and that was it. So I just prayed that we would be able to meet whatever need there was, and God did just that. As Matt has mentioned, it was amazing to see God use every person in our group. God definitely put each of us where we needed to be to use our gifts.
Posted by Megan at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2005
What Now?
I just arrived back in Omaha after my trip to Shreveport, Louisiana. I say "just arrived" to mean that I walked into the door of my home just minutes ago. And I don't know what to do next. So I would like to share my experiences with you while they are still fresh in my mind. It's long, so I broke it up into sections.
Wednesday
I spent Wednesday on the road to Shreveport with twelve brothers and sisters. We departed Ames, Iowa around 3:00 PM and arrived in Texarkana, Texas around 4:30 AM after a brief detour through the panhandle of Oklahoma (oops). We spent the night (morning) at my Aunt and Uncle's home, where we experienced the epitome of southern hospitality.
Thursday
On Thursday we headed to the Hirsch Coliseum in Shreveport, which is one of the Red Cross shelters for evacuees. We became Red Cross certified volunteers, which is typically earned after a week of training, after only an hour of instruction. During the training, we were warned against trying to "convert" people.
Yet most of the Red Cross volunteers who had been coordinating the shelter were believers. In fact, I am fairly certain that the shelter would not function without the help of the Assembly of God church in Shreveport, which was our contact in arranging our trip. Almost every time I mentioned to other volunteers that I was there with a church group, they praised God for us, blessed us, and encouraged us to minister. A Red Cross coordinator named Kathy claimed us as "her" volunteers as we came out of orientation, and she made sure that we had opportunities to reach out to the evacuees and specifically address their spiritual needs. The Spirit was so evident to me during times of talking with other believers that on several occasions I had chills.
When I walked into the coliseum for the first time and saw the air mattresses lined up on the floor, I almost broke down. I just couldn't imagine living with so many strangers and such little privacy. Yet the rest of the evacuees' needs were provided for. We ate the same food as them, and I thought it was quite good. There were boxes overflowing with clothing, a room with packages of diapers overflowing from it, and more bottles of hand sanitizer than residents of Louisiana.
One of my fears was that the evacuees would be frustrated and take their anger out on volunteers. I never had this happen to me. Every person I helped was incredibly gracious for anything I could do for them, even though sometimes it seemed like so little. It amazed me how these people could be so happy with what little they were given.
Another fear I had before the trip was that the whole situation seemed unreal to me from just watching it on the news. I was afraid of being shocked when I saw it first hand. But the situation never did become real for me. Shreveport was not hit by the hurricane. The closest I came to the disaster was listening to the evacuees tell about how they had spent hours in flood waters up to their shoulders days earlier. The majority had lost or was missing several family members. But hearing the stories first hand did not make the hurricane much less surreal to me.
The first evening, I worked on sanitizing all of the children’s toys and discarding the extremely dirty or broken ones. The task evolved into playing with the children once they returned from school. (They are being bussed to area schools.) Most of the kids didn't have very attentive parents, so they were on their own. They also craved attention and a playmate. We were all instantly their best friends when we took the time to sit down and play with them.
One of the kids who I hung out with quite a bit was named Kentrel. "Trel" seemed not as well behaved as the rest of the kids, and always wanted one-on-one attention. He would alternate between hugging me and hitting me. I wasn't shocked by his behavior the first night, because I new he, along with all of the other kids, had been through more than anyone should ever have to deal with.
Friday
On Friday I helped in the computer room with searching for missing people. In the evening, though, more volunteers were in the room than computers, so I left to help elsewhere. Nancy and I took some kids to see the very end of the circus. When the little girl's feet got tired, we gave her piggyback rides half of the way back. When we couldn't carry them any farther, we discovered two abandoned shopping carts and pushed them the rest of the way.
After we returned, Trel saw me and ran up and grabbed my hand, so we went over to play with the toys. By the end of the evening, I had seen several obvious warning signs that Trel had seen and experienced things that were deeply troubling him, and he needed more help than I could give him.
I took a few minutes to walk over to the mental health desk and meet the two psychologists who were working there. I told them that I was worried about Trel, and they agreed to talk to him. Heather and I tried to walk him over that evening, but whatever we wanted to do, he didn't want to do it. Soon, his mother called him to go take a shower, and we had to leave. That evening was really hard for me. I felt incredibly helpless and prayed constantly that God would give me the opportunity to help Trel.
Saturday
On Saturday morning, Heather and I took a shift in the diaper room. We arrived around 7:30, but the "guests" were sleeping in since the kids didn't have to get up for school. Sleeping at night was difficult, since we were putting in 14-hour days at the shelter and didn't have much time to process our experiences. It took me at least an hour of lying in my sleeping bag each night with my head spinning before I could sort things out enough and relax enough to fall asleep. So I'm not sure about Heather, but I was falling asleep in the diaper room.
I shifted around a lot on Saturday. I worked in the toiletry station, where guests could come pick up shampoo, deodorant, towels, and even check out curling irons. A few people stopped in, but not many. I helped haul in some boxes of hand sanitizer. I ended up back in the diaper room for a while. Trel was running in and out, destroying the diaper room and strewing clothes all over. I was rapidly loosing my patience and continually praying for more. I worked at the registration desk for a bit, then was summoned back to the computer room. I felt like a ping-pong ball, and wasn't sure that I was accomplishing much of anything.
Late that afternoon, I decided that I needed to make Trel my priority. If it had been up to me, I would have stayed far away from that kid, but I wasn't there for me. I walked back to the mental health desk and was relieved to find the same two guys working there. I had checked a few times earlier that day, but couldn't see past the crowd of people in front of the desk. I told the psychologists that I was going to try to bring Trel again. I nabbed Heather from the registration desk, and she had the brilliant idea to give Trel a piggyback ride over to the desk.
We sat down at the desk, and I introduced Trel to my "friends." Trel wasn't very verbal, and he clammed up and wouldn't even tell them his name. He ran over to the wheel chairs (the health center was right next to us) and sat down in one. One of the psychologists came over, popped up the wheel chair on it's back wheels, and took Trel for a ride out the door. He looked thrilled as we waved good-bye.
Heather went back to the registration desk, and I had the opportunity to talk with the other psychologist. He said that he had never done disaster work before, but he worked for the state and they assigned him to it. Talking with him made me start thinking again about going back to school and getting a grad degree in psychology.
After a while, Trel came back, and the pscyhologist asked me to bring him back again in about an hour. We played until then, and took another piggyback ride back. This time, he went over to the psychologist right away without any hesitation. I was so thankful that Trel seemed to be clicking with him.
The medical desk was in dire need of volunteers, so I worked there for the rest of the night. I had hoped to be able to talk to one of the long-term volunteers and ask them to make sure that Trel went back to talk to the psychologists, but most of them had left for the day. I ended up just going over to Trel's bed with Tiffany and Heather to tell him good-bye. Whenever I had to leave in the past, he had grabbed my hand and begged me not to go, but he seemed to understand this time that we had to leave for good. He gave us each one last hug, and I told him that he should keep hanging out with our new friend and that God loves him.
It was so hard for me to leave the shelter. I felt like there was so much more that needed to be done, and I wanted to stay with Trel and make sure he got the help he needed. But we left and had a relaxing dinner at a restaurant with an amazing view of the river and the city.
Conclusion
One general experience I will take away from this trip is God's provision. I'm a planner. I want to know where we will eat and where we will sleep. The first night in Shreveport, we slept in tents in Tim's brother's backyard. The second night, some people at the shelter learned that we were camping and offered us their homes. Meals were provided for us. Someone, I thought it was Matt but can't find it in his blog, posted Matthew 6:31-34 before we left, and I saw that promise kept.
Finally, there has been some talk on the theory that God sent Hurricane Katrina as a warning or as punishment. I don't believe that. I believe that this world is not perfect and is filled with pain. But I believe that God was with every person during that hurricane, hurting with them. And I believe that he is there meeting people in their time of need. He will work through the tragedy to bring about good.
I know I will think of more stories and experiences in the coming days, so I'll post them as I recall them. But what about my feeling of "what now?" I have seen need, and I feel like I should continue to help meet it. But I need to find a job, so I'm going to work on that some more. I don't get the adrenaline boost from the job search that I do from disaster relief work, but that's life. On the other hand, if a group decides to go back, I am ready to go again at a moment's notice.
Posted by Megan at 07:36 PM | Comments (4)
September 06, 2005
Katrina
Just watching the news is horrifying. Just seeing the pictures brings a state of shock.
I want to change the channel. And for a while, I did. I didn't want to see the people sitting on rooftops, surrounded by water. I didn't want to see them wading through the flood, trying to get somewhere, anywhere, dry. I didn't want to see people screaming at the camera, wanting to know why there wasn't food or water or help. So I changed the channel.
Then I was convicted. These are people in need. Not only that, these people are Jesus. On judgement day, I don't want him to ask me where I was when he needed clothing or was hungry.
These people are at the lowest point. They are helpless. They need saving. They need someone to be Jesus to them.
I'm not a superhero. This is going to be hard. Frankly, I'm scared. I'm going to be staring these homeless, hungry people in the face. I'm going to try to reach out to them. Will they even let me? Or will they resent me?
But, it wasn't easy for Jesus either. He was crucified! I can go to Shreveport, which wasn't even hit, and help the helpless. I can give them what I have, listen to them, care for them, and pray that they see hope through it all in the form of God's love.
I don't believe that God sent the hurricane as punishment or as a warning. I think he watched, horrified, as his it hurt his kids. But I think he was there with them, and I believe that he still is. And I believe that he's sending me, just another fallen, broken kid, to do what I can.
So here I go.
------
"I'm not afraid to live
And when I'm flat on my back
I hope to feel like I did."
-Kite, U2
Posted by Megan at 03:14 PM | Comments (1)