Ishmael Beah - an inspiration for all of us

Yesterday I saw Ishmael Beah speak (I'm getting my fair share of speakers these days!). He was a child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone and recently published a book about his experiences. I've read about half and I can't imagine a more hellacious experience for a young boy. What I found most amazing as I heard him speak was his optimism and approach to the healing process. He feels that all child soldiers can be rehabilitated and reintegrated into civil life, even after years of fighting. For him, part of that healing process has been writing the book and talking to people about his experiences, in large part through UNICEF. He's even gotten to the point that he can forgive the people who made him fight by rationalizing that wishing harm to them doesn't help him at all and only perpetuates more violence. He also believes that those people have families that need them in some capacity and wishing violence on those people would hurt those families. I find this amazing and inspiring.... It also really puts things into perspective! Here's his website if you're interested: http://www.alongwaygone.com/

Ishmael Beah

His book. Buy it! It's a very powerful book and Starbucks will donate money to UNICEF for each book that sells.

The President of the US of A at GW! And lunch with Ben, Terri, and Emily.

Emily (Ben & Terri's baby)

Al Gore

That's right.... Al Gore came to speak today for the National Association of Environmental Law Societies annual meeting which was hosted by GW Law this year. I was wonderful to see him in a small auditorium - so small that I was just 5 rows back from him when he was being introduced - because it felt very personal. His talk was interesting, for the most part, with lots of analogies that helped me better conceptualize some arguments of the "global warming is not occurring or is not as bad as it seems" crowd. One such example is: if your baby has a fever and you take it to the doctor and the doctor asks why you didn't bring him in 3 days ago when it started you wouldn't argue it's because it was only a 3 degree fever... then when the crib's on fire you're not going to argue the baby's flame retardant! What I enjoyed most was hearing his stance on the role the US should play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and, more importantly, the political and economic hurdles that must be overcome in today's world for the US to become a leader in that realm. It seems most of his optimism rests upon the fact that more people are becoming aware of the issues and involved in making changes. His message today is to go to www.algore.com to see what you can do to help. I haven't done that yet but I figure I'm doing my part by giving him some free coverage here.... (for the probably 2 of you who read this blog)

As luck would have it, my good friends Ben and Terri who were on their way back to Philly from Charleston called as I was leaving the Gore talk and asked if I could meet them for lunch. It was really nice seeing them again and meeting Emily, the latest addition to their family. She's absolutely adorable. I also met Ben's sister and her co-worker who were in town for a conference. While neither of them were nearly as cute as Emily, they were really nice and interesting people.

president carter at GW

I just got back from an amazing speech given by former President Jimmy Carter at GW. He spoke about his new book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid" which has been very controversial, particularly in the Jewish-American community. In fact there were even protesters outside of the talk. I wish I'd followed the controversy more closely and read the book before going to the talk because he used some of his talk to respond to criticism his book has generated. However, I have added the book to my list of reading for this summer. I found President Carter's description of the situation in Palestine and his suggestions for peace in the region very interesting. He also happens to be a great public speaker and very funny person.

After his speech, he took questions from undergraduate students. That was fantastic because they had very pointed questions and President Carter actually answered them all fully. It was a refreshing change from the question dodging that generally goes on in DC.

relaxing at home

Hmmm.... maybe they're hiring

The buffalo on the left was sleeping, stuffed, or dead

View of Charleston for those of you who've never been

Early last weekend I decided to spend a long weekend in Charleston to visit family, take bubble baths, eat home cooked food, bask in the sun, and run with Max... all the things law school limits my ability to do! It was really wonderful. For those of you who live in Charleston, I apologize for not calling but I was either with family or studying.

On Saturday Maman, Max, and I went for a long walk on Folly Beach where we saw some kite surfers and had a picnic with our backs to the wind. Then we had aperetif on the porch by a fire and unsuccessfully chased after the lunar eclipse in the car but were rewarded with a beautiful sunset.

Yesterday I went out to lunch with Dad, Joanne, and Avea and then to Charlestowne Landing to visit the animals. We saw otters, buffalo, and a "billy" bob cat (it is SC after all). Today Dad and I walked around the market. The past few weeks have been very stressful and this weekend was just what I needed to gear up for the second half of this semester.

Maman & Max trying to eat without blowing away

Aperetif by the fire

Avea joking around as usual

After Lunch

Conference on Immigration and Human Rights

Since July I've been working on planning a Conference on Immigration and Human Rights with two other law students (and lots of help in the last few weeks). We invited other student organizations to host panels so that we'd have a wide variety of topics discussed. Today it finally happened and it went well. I'm exhausted and happy it's over but it was nice to see everything come together and some of the panels were really excellent. For those of you interested in more details check out our website: http://docs.law.gwu.edu/stdg/hrls/conference06.htm

Entrance to the law school with my friend Rebekah greeting people.

Our Keynote speaker (and my boss at the ILO).

il neige

It's been snowing all day today which has made writing my paper significantly more fun. Here's the view from my room:

El Paso, Texas

In light of Derek's upcoming 1 year "vacation" in Afghanistan I decided to start a blog of my day-to-day life to make the distance & time feel less significant. And the rest of you are just the beneficiaries of sisterly love. I'll let you decide whether my life is actually interesting enough to merit a full-time blog (unless your name's Derek Fro, in which case you have no choice but to check it regularly, act interested, and do like your big sister and start a blog...).

My first post is of my trip to El Paso, Texas with Maman to see Derek before his departure. So El Paso's no Belize but it was a really nice break from my DC life and wonderful to spend time with family. What's nice about El Paso is the arrival on the plane where mountains and dunes seem to appear out of nowhere in the middle of a huge desert. Also nice is the fact that it really feels like a latin american country with great mexican influence in food, architecture, and culture. Saturday we went on a hike up a mountain from which we could see all of El Paso. Also interesting was experiencing life on a military base. I'll miss Derek.