Amelia has a yellow living room with traces of hunting decor, a wood stove, a french press, a banjo, and an entire bedroom with an underwater theme. I don't think I've ever been so enamored with someone else's material culture in my life. When we blustered into Iowa City with the Minnesota wind at our backs, we were greeted by a rendition of "Crimson and Clover" on bass, accordian, guitar, banjo, and musical saw. We ate shot-dead rabbit in ballroom gowns at suppertime, and photographed ourselves doing it. The lifestyle she has crafted out of the hodge-podge and cornfields of the mid-West proves that there is no excuse for disenchantment with life.

The next day we made marzipanimals, which had me convinced that this recurring motif is some sort of a sign from the powers that be--my spirit animal is the marzipanimal. Holly and Megan also made it out from Chicago...somehow all of them have made these so-fun-they-can't-possibly-be-meaningful endeavors into eerily effective ways of influencing others. It'd be nice to document my metamorphosis from a critic to a believer in art; I guess I've still got aways to go in that regard, but my course is charted. Talking to Moana the plant scientist about the micro-something-isms that she studies, as well as the philosophical underpinnings of her interest, has reminded me, as I often need to be, that the world is full of pages left unturned and every pair of eyes reads something totally unique in every landscape.

My old boss told me once that in life it's easy to criticize, but you are more effective if you figure out what you are for instead of what you're against. That was paraphrased rather awkwardly, but in the past few days it has click-click-clicked. If anything, this school has taught me to articulate opinions--and now I'm trying to concentrate on withholding judgement. It's important to take a stand, but I think all too often I have merely accepted whatever opinion that I, as a liberal, ought to have emblazened on my chest. I fly the liberal flag and recite the liberal pledge of allegiance and march lock-step to the "beat of my own drummer."

If anything, being abroad sort of taught me that disconcerting statistics are probably the wrong basis for a career. I don't really believe anymore that there are some people who make a difference and some people who don't; nor that this difference can be measured in numbers or prestige; or if it can even be witnessed by others in the first place. I don't really believe that a poor farmer is making less of a difference than the head of the World Bank. The World Bank may be wider-spread, but in the end his influence can only be a mile wide and an inch deep. Not that one is better than the other. Simply re-phrasing life's mission from "alleviating suffering" to "creating joy" has worked wonders on my ability to go to sleep at night.

Gumdrops of grandeur in DC, sugarplums of organic farms in Portland dance through my head.

Today I finally presented the Sudan Divestment proposal to the committee, and the sniper who I was expecting to shoot it down with a few curt remarks actually pulled me aside and whispered that it was "very good." I jumped for joy. I think working with Jimmy, who is from Sudan, at my side has helped so much...sometimes it feels arcane to be advocating on the behalf of a friend when your only perception of a situation is in terrifying headlines and not shared experience.