I am back in town as of 7:36 pm last night, the trip was amazing, it felt way short though. Pictures will be up in the next few days. My favorite part would be either Fort Jefferson or the Yellowcard concert, I can't decide whether my history geekiness should over-rule my wanna be a rock star side. Grad Nite was kind of pathetic because most of the rides were closed and it was the Magic Kingdom, so they didn't have many "big kid" rides anyway. The Hostel that we stayed at in the Everglades was the nicest Hostel that I have ever seen and it was really cool. Well that's it for now, I have a quarter of French to do before May 1st so I better get going on it, I'll check in later and elaborate more, au revoir!

Hank: [upon being asked to get out of the car] They're having a top 100 countdown and I want to hear number 1.
Lee: What number are they up to?
Hank: 86!
- Leonardo DiCaprio as Hank and Meryl Streep as Lee in Marvins Room

As of 12 pm MCT tonight I will be on a plane on my way to Florida, along with the 9 other students of the ICS Class of 2005. Our trip is composed of 5 cities all across the state. Starting in Boca Raton, we are doing a Beach Restoration project with the United Way, and watching the Marlins vs. Mets game on Wednesday night. From there we travel down to the Everglades for a fan boat tour of "The" swamp (Cyprus), and the ritual eating of gator (*tears*). Following the 'Glades we head down to Key West for a 10 hour catamaran snorkeling tour of the Dry Tortugas. On the night of the 23rd we are going to Disneyworld's Grad Night. A night devoted specifically for the Class of 2005, where we along with a couple thousand other Seniors from across the country can enjoy the experience of Disney without the annoyance of young children, and enjoy a few extras; like clubs (alcohol free, of course) filled with soap bubbles, and a concert by Yellowcard and Ryan Cabrerra. From there we head over to Cocoa Beach for a day of relaxation and a tour of the Kennedy Space Center, before our flight home on Monday night.

The trip is going to be awesome, just please be praying for the safety of all who are going. And that we all are able to be a bit more patient with each other than we are now. So this is the cause for the next week long silence of the blog, see ya in a week!

Donkey: You're supposed to say "You have the right to remain silent!". No one said I have the right to remain silent!
Shrek: Donkey, you HAVE the right to remain silent. What you lack, is the capacity.
- Mike Myers (Shrek) and Eddie Murphy (Donkey) in Shrek2

You call highways "freeways." (seriously, what is the difference?)

Snow tires came standard on your car.

You've never taken public transportation.

75% of your graduating high school class went to the University of Minnesota.

"Perkins" was the only hangout option in high school.

You assume when you say "The Cities" people know where you're talking about.

People from other states love to hear you say words with "o"s in them. (and "a"s too)

In a conversation you've heard someone say "yah sure, you betcha" and you didn't laugh. (sadly enough I have said it within the last 24 hours)

The only reason you go to Wisconsin is to get fireworks.

You're a loyal Target shopper.

You've frozen your tongue on a metal handrail before.

You wear shorts when it's 50 degrees outside in March, but you bundle up and complain in August when it goes below 60. (and a swim suit in the negatives!)

You have gone trick-or-treating in 3 feet of snow. (yeah what was it in, 1994?)

You've not only walked across a lake, you've driven across one.

Everyone you know has a cabin or, at least, access to one.

You keep the snow tires on your truck all year because it ain't worth taking them off for only two months.

Your local Dairy Queen is closed from December through February.

You know that everyone has a city preference -- Minneapolis or St. Paul. (St. Paul, all the way)

You can honestly claim Germanic / Scandinavian ancestors, and have been known to say "ya" instead of "yes" (guilty)

Upon seeing an ocean for the first time, you say, "Hey! That looks like Lake Superior!" (Lake Baikal, happens to look a lot like the North Shore...)

I know these can be severly annoying sometimes, but some moments; it is right on the spot. . . any other Minnesotans out there, that agree?

Brick masons work through the cold and snow to erect the massive Wall of Silence, on the morning of Friday March 25th, which was built in front of the Marriott Library at the University of Utah. The wall represents what people face every time they are silenced by a derogatory word. These bricks tell a story of the struggles that we face everyday because of things like prejudices, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, ignorance, hatred and so much more. The students of the "U" found a way to come together to give the campus a visual image of what these things come to look like and how huge of a wall we face when we silence each other.

The wall was smashed down on April 1st, with an attempt to create a campus that despite all of our differences are able to work together for a common goal and purpose and destroy these things. Images of the wall

I came home from school today to find my most beloved most awaited piece of mail of the year (ok, the second), waiting in a big white folder for me to open. I open the heavy folder peaking inside, uncertain if I wanted to see the subject matter of its contents. Inside I find that they, because of my parents income are only able to aid me with $7825 per year. I have yet to hear back from the other grants that I have applied for, but hopefully their contributions will help pad the amount of money that I will be required to find in other places, a.k.a. loans.

Although I did kind of throw all of this on me when I chose to go to a private university that costs $26k per year. And of course with my luck my parents were quite belated, when they brought up the issue of "How in the world do you think that we're/you going to pay for this?". But it seems that the finances are beginning to fall in place, now if only I can manage to get my hands on a little more!

As of there 2004 are approximately 6.4 billion people inhabitating this small world. And over 1/5 of this population (1,280,000,000) are living in extreme poverty (under $1 a day). Today the gap between the worlds’s rich and poor has never been wider. Malnutrition, AIDS, conflict and illiteracy are a daily reality for millions. But it isn’t chance or bad luck that keeps people trapped in bitter, unrelenting poverty. It’s man-made factors like a glaringly unjust global trade system, a debt burden so great that it suffocates any chance of recovery and insufficient and ineffective aid.

Each year more than 12 million children under the age of 5 die in developing countries, most from a combination of preventable causes, including malnutrition, AIDS, and HIV. While millions others are left orphaned by the death of their parents to many different kinds of communicable (usually sexually transmitted) diseases.

According to Unicef:
640 million children do not have adequate shelter
500 million children have no access to sanitation
400 million children do not have access to safe water
300 million children lack access to information
270 million children have no access to health care services
140 million children have never been to school
90 million children are severely food-deprived

Makepovertyhistory says that there are 3 things that can make poverty a thing that is only seen in the history books: TRADE JUSTICE. DROP THE DEBT. MORE AND BETTER AID.

Trade Justice
We need trade justice not free trade (allows rich countries to pay their farmers and companies subsidies to export food.) This means the EU needs to single-handedly put an end to its damaging agricultural export subsidies now; it means ensuring poor countries can feed their people by protecting their own farmers and staple crops. This means ensuring governments can effectively regulate water companies by keeping water out of world trade rules; and it means ensuring trade rules do not undermine core labor standards.

Drop the Debt
Despite grand statements from world leaders, the debt crisis is far from over. Rich countries have not delivered on the promise they made more than six years ago to cancel unpayable poor country debts. As a result, many countries still have to spend more on debt repayments than on meeting the needs of their people.

Rich countries and the institutions they control must act now to cancel all the unpayable debts of the poorest countries. They should not do this by depriving poor countries of new aid, but by digging into their pockets and providing the money.

The task of calculating how much debt should be cancelled must no longer be left to creditors concerned mainly with minimizing their own costs. Instead, we need a fair and transparent international process to make sure that human needs take priority over debt repayments.

And to avoid another debt crisis hard on the heels of the first, poor countries need to be given more grants, rather than seeing their debt burden piled even higher with yet more loans.

More and Better Aid
Poverty will not be eradicated without an immediate and major increase in international aid. Rich countries have promised to provide the extra money needed to meet internationally agreed poverty reduction targets. This amounts to at least $50 billion per year, according to official estimates, and must be delivered now. Rich countries have also promised to provide 0.7% of their national income in aid and they must now make good on their commitment by setting a binding timetable to reach this target.

However, without far-reaching changes in how aid is delivered, it won’t achieve maximum benefits. Two key areas of reform are needed.

First, aid needs to focus better on poor people’s needs. This means more aid being spent on areas such as basic healthcare and education. Aid should no longer be tied to goods and services from the donor, so ensuring that more money is spent in the poorest countries. And the World Bank and the IMF must become fully democratic in order for poor people’s concerns to be heard.

Second, aid should support poor countries and communities’ own plans and paths out of poverty. Aid should therefore no longer be conditional on recipients promising economic change like privatizing or deregulating their services, cutting health and education spending, or opening up their markets: these are unfair practices that have never been proven to reduce poverty. And aid needs to be made predictable, so that poor countries can plan effectively and take control of their own budgets in the fight against poverty.

Poverty is a thing that if we take enough time to acknowledge that not only does it exist, it single-handedly is killing off billions of people each year. According to Oxfam, one person dies every three seconds from poverty related issues; that means in the time that it took you to read this post over 60 people have died. Don't you think that now is the time to stop this? That now is the time to take action? Well guess what it is, and you don't have to be Bono Vox, Brad Pitt or Cameron Diaz or even P Diddy to make a difference. You can make a difference even by just making the miniature contribution of buying a white silicone band that says "makepovertyhistory" for just one euro (plus shipping and handling). Today is the day for you to be the difference in the world that you want to see.

Ok, it has been way to long for this post to be posted. On Friday morning I went and saw the midnight premier of Frank Millers Sin City.

Directors: Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Bruce Willis, Jessica Abla, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Jaime King
Rated: R
Running Time: 126 minutes

To the keep the film remaining true to its integrity, Frank Miller not only helped assert the script, he also directed the movie as well. The film is based on three of Frank Miller's comic book hits, "The Big Fat Kill", "Sin City", "That Yellow Bastard".

The film takes place in Basin City, a city where the police are as corrupt as the streets are deadly. The tale follows three peoples intertwining story lines the first follows a end of his career cop (Willis), who is dying to catch the one pedophile who has baffled the rest of the agency in locating his hideout. The second follows the paths of a harder-than-rocks street fighter (Rourke) that is out for revenge against the murder of his one true love; that of which he has been framed for her murder. The third follows a self proclaimed protector (Owen) of the streets and the highly armed dames of the 'Old Towne'.

The film did indeed deserve its R rating within the first five minutes, and did not stop until the end credits. The high amount of violence was greatly fictionalized (comic style), however sexual overtones (while only containing brief nudity) were adult in nature - with the prostitute outfits,, and continual beheadings, the movie had a definite reason for its R rating.

The film reached new heights in the CGI field whereas the majority of the movie was filmed on a green screen. It was like no movie that has came before, and created a new playing field for all movies that come after it. With the film being nearly all black and white except for splashes of color that accentuates, things like the occasional eyes, lips, dresses, cars, and even at times the occasional entire person. It added a whole new feeling to actually see a world that has before only existed on paper. The sporadic voice-overs added a dramatic edge to the leading characters tales of how they came to become whom they are, and how they got to the situation that they are in.

The film was good, had a great story line, adventure, great acting and excellent cinematography; but the amount of sexual taboo and nudity could have been reduced and the movie still would have retained its true integrity, and plot. The film had probably the best cinematopgraphy that I have seen in ages that puts it on the playing field with movies like, Star Wars, and most likely will indeed become a cult classic. The soundtrack is good, just another contribution that Rodriguez had put into the film (who is this guy? Superman? He directs, writes, composes, what can't he do?). If you can look past the Adult nature of the film without being offended by its actions, then I would recommend this movie, otherwise no, I would not... I give it a seven (out of ten) stars.

"Oh sugar, you just gone and done the dumbest thing in your whole life."
- Alexis Bledel as Becky in Frank Miller's Sin City

As of 9:37pm (Vatican City Time) the Vatican announced the passing of Pope John Paul 2nd. It will be a trying next few weeks for all of those in the Catholic faith as they await the appointment if the next Pope and the burial of John Paul. John Paul was 84 and was the residing Pope of the Catholic faith for 26 years.

Rest in Peace: Pope John Paul 2nd (1920 - 2005)

I went and saw sin city this morning, I'm really tired so I'm going to bed, I'll post later.

*Has anyone noticed that blogger is being very tempermental the last few days? The review of Sin City would have been posted at 3:00pm on Friday if blogger had not decided that it it did not want sign me out after I had pressed the Publish button. So it is coming, sorry for the wait. Blame blogger.