SMASH

The Westboro Baptist Church had the nerve to show their wretched faces in New Brunswick by picketing the high school and the Jewish center at Rutgers. I think these pictures will speak for themselves:The real dealPolice trying to kick us off a public walkwayMe with my reporter's notebook of courseA final message

Some signs the church brought were "God is your enemy", "Fag University", "Fag Halloween", "God Hates You", and "God Hates Jews". I'm going to guess they didn't like my buddy Spina's sign that read "Abort God".
The Rutgers Hillel had a peaceful protest which wasn't even in front of the Westboro loonies. The church only sent about 6 picketers and they left within 15 minutes after someone drove up with a mini-van. It was fun heckling them, one of my favorites being "God hates gas guzzlers" as they were getting in their van. All photos courtesy of my buddy Alex Jackson!

homeless advocacy

GCU is proud to announce a new homeless advocacy group thanks to Dr. DasGupta! I attended the first meeting on the 21st, and there was a great turnout.
Our three main objectives are:

• Advocacy
• Support
• Awareness

I suggested we plan a coffee house on campus to promote our new group and let people know what we're all about. We would have live music, (I would also be playing, hooray!) videos of visits to our local tent cities, and speeches about our group and our plans. Also, we have a petition we need signatures for so we can send it to the Ocean County Board of Freeholders to strive for an affordable housing trust fund for the homeless. I thought we could get most of the signatures at this event, it's just a matter of planning the whole thing.

Power to the people!

Like mother, like.....myself?

My mom and I went to a jewelry party the other night....I usually don't like events like that but I went for sheer entertainment value. It was funny looking at middle-aged women, women going through mid-life crises, and older women who want to look young, pick out the most flashy pieces of jewelry to make themselves look more "classy". I did however, meet the cutest grandma...she couldn't have been taller than 5'0; she was the tiniest thing I'd ever seen. She was the type that told sarcastic jokes to someone else and then would turn to me and wink because she got them good. I miss her already. Oh, and I ended up ordering a cool whirlpool ring. Go figure.

Whoa....blows my minddddd

We walk because they walk....

So the CROP Hunger Walk went very well, I even raised $50 passed my goal of $100! $150 can buy 100 chicks, 2 wire chicken coops, providing 2 families with eggs, protein, and income. GCU was recognized as the top college in N.J. and the U.S.! There were a lot of participants in spite of the cold weather.Me all bundled up....looking a little funky but I was warm!

Some GCU athletesRandom participant with a cool sign

And I just wanted to give a shout out to my buddy Alex who gave me $20 at the last minute even though he couldn't make the walk, thanks man!
Alex and I being silly as usual

Thanks everyone!

What am I drinking?

I was flipping through an issue of Wired magazine in GCU's library the other day and thought an article about coffee was cool. And disgusting. So here are the ingredients:

• Water: hot H2O brings out the flavor/oils from the beans. A decent cup is about 98% water and 2% soluble plant matter *Note: Coffee newbies pee it out faster than those who drink regularly and build up resistance, much like other beverages of choice such as Pabst or Colt 45s
• Ethylphenol: creates tar-like, medicinal odor. Components of cockroach alarm pheromones, chemical signals that warn the colony of danger
• Quinic acid: gives coffee slightly sour flavor
• Dicaffeoylquinic acid: allows the cells to be protected from free-radical damage. Meaning....coffee is a good source of antioxidants. Hooray!
• Dimethyl Disulfide: product of roasting the green coffee beans; one of the compounds that gives human feces its odor. Yum.
• Acetyl Methyl Carbinol: gives a rich, buttery taste. I can deal with that.
• Putrescine: produced when E. coli bacteria in meat breaks down amino acids. That's nice.
• Trigonelline: a molecule of niacin with a methyl group attached. Breaks down into pyridines to give coffee it's sweet, earthy taste. It also prevents tooth-eating bacterium from attaching to teeth.
• Niacin (Vitamin B): From a methyl group. It breaks down from trigonelline.
  

So you ask what's the story morning glory? There's your answer.

My Budget Soup

When Autumn rolls around, to me it's time for a good vegetable soup. For about $12 I make enough soup to last me a whole week (depending on if my mom and boyfriend are around to mooch).
Here are my ingredients:

• potatoes
• onion
• radishes
• celery
• cauliflower
• carrots
• green squash
• organic vegetable broth (2)
• olive oil
  
• fresh parsley
• salt/pepper

I don't measure anything except one tablespoon of olive oil to cook the potatoes, onion, celery, and carrots in for about 5 minutes before adding everything else in a soup pot. I just chop however much of each vegetable I want. If I use a lot, I add 1 1/2 cartons of the broth, and about 4 cups of water. Bring it to a boil and then simmer for about 20-25 minutes. I like to add the parsley at the end.

My weapons of choice.

Just add to your favorite cracked crock bowl and voila!
He likes it! Hey Mikey!

Newsies!

Just a quick post of my newspaper staff (The Lion's Tale); we know how to have a good time.
(Clockwise from left: Advisor Dr. Lin, Randall, me, Dalzelle, and Krystal)

Some fun things we like to do:

• Listen to Dr. Lin talk to his wife in Chinese when she calls
• Play music videos on YouTube ranging from Otis Redding to Foo Fighters
• Be sarcastic with Randall
• Have Randall be sarcastic back
• Come up with fillers
• Mess around with fonts
• Find a sister to identify other sisters in photos
  

Pretty good.

Blog Action Day: Climate Change

So I'm taking part in Blog Action Day which is where millions of bloggers post about one issue on one day, which happens to be today, October 15th. The topic is Climate Change so here is my contribution:

Ever since I first heard his story I was intrigued. It had all the right hooks to reel me in: Malawian youth wind entrepeneur, transforms village, builds electric windmills out of scraps. Even better, his storywas captured in a book entitled "The Boy who Harnessed the Wind" by Bryan Mealer.

The young entrepeneur is William Kamkwamba of Malawi. He grew up poor and was actually forced to quit school at age 14 because his family couldn't afford it anymore, but that didn't stop him from learning.

In 2002 Malawi experienced one of the worst droughts which killed hundreds and almost claimed his own family. It was then that he realized something needed to be done. Talk about a dreamer, who at age 14 dreams of bringing running water and electricity to his village?

Everything changed when he stumbled upon an old tattered textbook with a picture of a windmill inside. Thank goodness for curious hands. It was then he decided that he would build one himself.

His weapons of choice were a turbine made from spare bicycle parts, a tractor fan blade, an old shock absorber, fashioned blades from plastic pipes which he flattered using fire. Out of these he constructed a 16-ft tall tower.

Even though all his neighbors (his village contained only about 200 people) thought he was crazy, he amazed them all when he hooked up a car light bulb to the turbine and as the blades moved, it stood aglow.

I found it so endearing reading about his first time using the internet. While we Google things like movie listings, concerts dates, and clothes, Kamkwamba Googled so much information about windmills.

It's amazing that Kamkwamba accomplished everything being self-taught, with no Western influence at all. I'll let that speak for itself.

My digs!

Just a quick post of part of my room; my bed is where I do most of my writing.

STAND UP TAKE ACTION/CROP Hunger Walk

This weekend, the 16-18th, a movement will take place to demand that world leaders achieve the Millennium Development Goals, (MDGs) which offer a plan to end poverty from its roots. My University is doing our own chapter, and we are joining millions of people around the world to help break a world record for the largest protest to end poverty.

Furthermore, on Sunday the 18th I along with other GCU students will be participating in the CROP Hunger Walk which raises funds and awareness for international and local hunger relief.

For more information on these events, check out:

http://standagainstpoverty.org/

http://www.churchworldservice.org/site/PageServer?pagename=crop_main

Tent City

My boyfriend Sean and I went to the local tent city yesterday to drop off a trunk load of stuff including coats, dishes, and clothes. I was really excited because I hadn't been there since classes began again, so it was nice to sit and have a nice chat with Nina.

Nina is a Polish woman who cleans houses for a living. She lives in a camper which she adorns nicely, and she's one of the most caring people I've ever met. Her daughter Maggie just had a baby on Friday named Julia. We flipped through her photo album and it meant a lot that she shared them with me.

I also met someone new, a wonderfully charismatic woman named Merrielle. She used to be homeless but through a program called STEPS, (Solutions to End Poverty Soon) she now has her own apartment. She said one of the best quotes I've ever heard:

"I went from the trees and the leaves to a set of keys" - Merrielle

There are so many awesome people there that always greet you with a smiling face, I'm going to try to interview someone new each time for my school newspaper.

A fresh new blog

I decided to start a whole new blog and at least be half-serious with it since my other one kind of went stagnant.
I'm going to be posting random thoughts, experiences, and photos, as well as keep you updated with my journeys to a local tent city that I donate and visit daily.
It's good to be back.