Canada Post and other adventures...

Dear Canada Post: I'd really appreciate if you would stop sending me letters EIGHT MONTHS late. Your tardiness is a bit ridiculous, if you ask me.
(Which you haven't, but hey.)

In other news, I'm taking a watercolour painting class with my mom starting next week. I am very excited to acquire a new skill and exercise the left part of my brain. My mom and I recently arrived home from a long weekend in Hilton Head, South Carolina, which I will be posting pictures of soon. =)

It's like God uses the sky as a canvas. 

I can do nothing but look up and smile.

Thoughts on War

I just watched a docudrama on the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Between this film and the recent reading I've done of WWII accounts, I am incredibly saddened at how brutal humans can be to each other. Exterminating an entire people group via concentration camps or slashing people to death with machetes is unfathomable to me, as young and naïve as I may be. (Actually, morality hardly depends on age, in my opinion.) Anyway, after the film ended I just sat and cried for a bit, wondering why history repeats itself over and over, and why there is so much hatred in this world.

We need not look only to the past to learn of mass violence and war.

• The LRA insurgency in northern Uganda, Congo, and Sudan
• Congo War in the Dem. Repub. of the Congo (formerly Zaire)
• Drug wars in Mexico
• Civil wars in Palestine, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Georgia (not to mention civil unrest in several other nations)
• America's "Operation Freedom" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
• Arab-Israeli conflicts

And the list goes on and on. 

All of this to say that the world is far from where it should be.

I don't really know how I should end this post, but I do feel a glimmer of hope b/c I know that I can help make a difference, as small as my contribution may be. I want to help women gain a foothold in developing and underdeveloped nations so they can improve the quality of life for their families. The key to economic growth and sustainable change is women; I feel very strongly about this. 

If you want to know more about empowering women and their communities, check out a few resources:
HOPE. CARE. UNIFEM.

Today's Playlist

Breathe - Télépopmusik / Airplanes - BoB & Hayley Williams / Ready to Start - Arcade Fire
Here I Am - David Morales ft. Tamra Keenan / Electrify - Mutemath / A Thousand Miles - Vanessa Carlton
The Funeral - Band of Horses / Stereo Love - Edward Maya ft. Vika Jigulina

This weekend has been great -- very relaxing and enjoyable. I was able to finish rereading a book called "Number the Stars", which is a story based on real events in Denmark during WWII. Very interesting. That is the second book I've read this week dealing with WWII events. I am continually dumbfounded by the scope of the Nazi takeover and how it affected people all over the globe. Germany has had quite a violent 20th century, with the two world wars followed by the RAF violence in the 70s. And of course the Berlin Wall, which lasted from 1961 to Nov 1989.

Anyway, I'm ready for the weather to start cooling down! It's been in the low 90s this weekend, with forecasts staying in that range during this coming week. I made the mistake of turning off the A/C one night so I could open the windows. Nothing like a cool breeze coming through the house.
Except there was no breeze.

Finally, after trying to sleep on every floor of the house, I decided it was too hot everywhere and finally shut all the windows. The thermostat indicated that the house's internal temperature was 88*F -- a bit hot for mid September if you ask me! Yikes! Hopefully it'll cool down in the next few weeks. :) I fancy fall weather.

I watched Benny and June with the Muellers this past weekend. What an adorable movie! I had such a great time with everyone over there, even if we did turn the garlic bread into a piece of charcoal. I felt like I was practically part of the family; everyone was so welcoming. :)