back after a long time away

My last post was right before I went to New Orleans for a week over Winter Break. While we were there, we wrote about our experiences in a blog and that alone was an amazing experience. I"m a blogger and a writer but a lot of the people on the trip had never even heard of blogs. But as I read their posts, I kept thinking "I could have written any of these posts because I am having the same experiences." For some reason, when I got home I lost my drive for writing every day like I had been since last summer. It was almost as if it had all been said before. But now that I've finished yet another tough quarter at Northwestern and have taken a little break from this online journal and rant outlet of sorts, I realize that I need to share my thoughts again through writing. Even if only two people read this, I can imagine that I am being heard in some way. In addition, just writing makes me feel better and I'm a really fast typer.

There are two reasons that I picked tonight, after midnight, before getting up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus to the airport, to continue my blogger existance. I had dinner with a friend last night who inadvertantly put me to shame for not knowing who the second NC senator is other than Elizabeth Dole (at least I knew that!). It may seem like a little thing to some but I am an NC voter still and I should know things like this. I can only name one of the Illinois senators off the top of my head (although I know they are both democrats) and I've been living here for three years!

In any case, I went downtown to do some shopping and grabbed my Chicago Trib on the way out. I read parts of the Trib nearly every day but sometimes I only get a few pages in or I skip to read play reviews or to read about exciting events like the Olympics. But on the El today, I read the entire front page section for the first time in a couple weeks. Okay, I skimmed a couple articles but I can tell you the main points at least. It reminded me that this blog has been a place where I can bounce around my ideals and how they exist within the messed up world we live in. I read an article about gay parents adopting children and how that is allowed or not allowed in certain states and religions. I read a great article about what's happening in Iraq at the moment, kind of a "catch-up" article about their struggling government, the aniversary of the war starting, violence in mixed Sunni/Shiite neighborhoods, and prospects for the future. There was an intriguing editorial about polygamy rights and how that issue does or does not relate to the issue of gay marriage. Oh yeah, and there was a great map of the Loop area with pictures of where all the countdown crosswalk signals will eventually be installed.

So all that reading and wanting to talk about it was the first reason I started thinking about writing again. The second reason was my friends who are currently in New Orleans working with Catholic Charities over Spring Break, like I did over Winter Break. They have a blog again and I have only started to read it a little. There were so many entries that I could only read the first few before commenting on them (remembering how wonderful it was to read comments when we were far away in NO). Just writing one semi-short comment and reading several of the post was enough to almost bring me to tears. Between reading the saddening stories of my colleagues and then realizing how much I've missed writing like this, I had a mini-revelation that I don't know if I can really explain.

It's almost 1am and I have a 6:38am bus to catch. But I had to write something before going to bed. I'm reading a really good book and have a lot of new thoughts on life to impart but I couldn't even begin with that until I restarted my obsessive, but healthy, blogging habit. I don't know if some of you will understand why it is so important for me to write these things or why I perfer to write in a public way. However, I"m strange like this and I feel like I"m ready for Spring Quarter to start next week. This is just prep work and tomorrow I will be with my sister getting rested up before the exciting things to come. I've never been really big on New Year's resolutions but I'm all about resolutions at the beginning of each Quarter (thus about every three months). So for this upcoming quarter, I'm going to take care of myself by letting the words flow again and see what comes of it.!

Peace.
Emily

P.S. Go read the Sheil New Orleans blog at http://sheilneworleans-spring06.blogspot.com/. Don't be shy about leaving them comments, even if you've never met any of them in your life! They will appreciate hearing from anyone.