My birthday cont'd

Today was rather anti-climatic. I had a reasonably good birthday though, lots of messages and phone calls and exciting presents.

For instance, the present my roommates Becca and Katy got me. I got home from work and on the table was kale, beets, lentils, and a Soy! Soy! Soy! cookbook. They know me too well, what more could I have asked for?? They also bought me a bottle of Martinelli's with the little fact that my day of birth coincides with the day prohibition was repealed. Even more reason to "drink" on my 21st. I gulped down some of the drink before hitting the sack shortly after.

Other than that, nothing terribly exciting happened today. During my IR class, Dr. Hudson "randomly" chose 3 students from the class to have a little debate on their viewpoints toward the U.S. interventions (or lack thereof) in Desert Storm, Bosnia/Kosovo, Rwanda, and Iraq. Of course I was chosen and it was really nerve-racking.... I'm pretty sure I sounded like a complete idiot 78% of the time I was talking because I am not very good at on-the-spot public speaking in front of 200 of my peers. Not to mention I knew almost nothing about Bosnia because I wasn't paying attention that day in class for whatever reason. If I had been forewarned I'm sure I would have been able to actually discuss the conflicts. And I think she chose us because of our high scores so the other two were brilliant and articulate. Great.

After my stats assignment was turned in, at 5 I went to the third day of the Amnesty International Film Festival. We watched two films on gender: the first was called "Operation Fine Girl" and it was about using rape as a weapon of war in Sierra Leone; the second was "The Day My God Died" about human trafficking of Nepalese girls into sex slavery in Bombay. Both were incredibly powerful documentaries. We had a grad student talk to us about an organization, safe-house he worked for in Belgium that took in and rehabilitated former sex slaves. He's starting an NGO here in Provo to bolster support and increase awareness for the issue from the community, especially here on campus where "sex" is such a dirty word people will not even talk about human trafficking according to one professor. Nonetheless... BYU has shut down him forming this group on campus for a few years in a row but he's hoping through wording and increased sensitivity he'll be able to get it through this year.