Thursday, November 12

Next Semester

I'm part of a demographic that seems to always know what the next stage in life is going to be. Granted, I can't predict everything, but the past several years have been full of not-so-ambiguous events of a few months (college semesters, traveling, music, camp counseling, etc etc). Well, now I still know what to expect (guess I haven't fully embraced this African "presence" yet). So for January I am not doing J-term, I am traveling with my band down the east coast for a few weeks of performances. In February I start spring semester at Messiah Grantham campus with these classes:

Intercultural Communication
United States History Survey to 1865
Historical Study of Peace
Ethnic and Racial Politics in America
Christianity in Africa
Introductory Statistics

I'm not too pumped about US History or Stats as gen ed classes, but I figured since there was nothing else I needed to take I'd knock them out by taking the full 18 credits. Might have to pick up another minor later on down the road if I stick with this whole collegiate education thing, but what I would really like to do is make my minor of Peace and Conflict Studies my major. At this point, it is not being offered as a major though, so I'm just rolling with it.

As far as life here is concerned, I'm doing well. Last night we had a huge dinner: posho, meat, spaghetti, g-nut sauce, fried matoke, beans, pineapple, soup. I ate so much. Suzan left early this morning for Kitgum (she'll be there until Sunday). Apparently because of instability USP does not allow us to travel to northern Uganda. I want to go there someday, however. Besides, there has been no Lord's Resistance Army induced violence for over a year anywhere within the border.

Also, when we talked about Environmental Issues in class yesterday, I came up with a holistic approach to address the issues of pollution, AIDS, and poverty: hire those working as prostitutes to support their families to pick up trash and litter. I think it'd be a good plan to offer to the people of Uganda.

I also started working with USP director Mark on the presentation topic of homemaking vs. homelessness. Basically, the argument is whether Christian college students are taught to be upwardly mobile, traveling anywhere and vandalizing the earth and foreign communities or if they are being taught a sense of place and rootedness in a geographic location.

just some ramblings and updates for today....tomorrow I'm going on an ATR field trip to a shrine and then meeting with a Mennonite Central Committee missionary for dinner (which will be cool on account of my theological convictions and steadily increasing interest in peacemaking). Saturday I'm going to meet Megan Clapp in Kampala.

1 comments:

kathryn said...

glad to hear there's been no recent LRA violenceness going on :)

Phil, you are brilliant. Decent income opportunities absolutely need to be available to get women out of the industry. Hey, bring that idea to Thailand, will you?

Do you see 'place & rootedness' as a negative? [to me, that sounds like kids who graduate, get married & have kids & live in the same house til they retire/die]
Or is the mobile lifestyle & earthly vandalism a bad way to go?

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