Day 33.

Today, in my Rhetoric of Human Rights class we had a guest speaker that I was honestly dreading. Out of the many stupid guest speakers I heard throughout high school, I am still not used to the idea that would be different here. So when I observed the stranger standing by the computer that would control the power point I readied myself to be bored out of my mind by an awkward presentation for the next hour or so. When the speaker started to speak, I felt my suspicion of awkward boredness was concerned due to an intonation of words that I am frankly not to familiar and necessarily fond of. That didn't last long. After five minutes of listening to this woman, I was captivated by her energy, passion, and her unfamiliar voice. She spoke knowledgeably and passionately about human rights and the legal definitions of crucial words involved in the powerful rhetoric of human rights. She shared her story of travelling the world and working in the medical field in the U.S. and in parts of Africa like Rwanda, Sudan (I think), and many other places. Not only did I learn something, but I wan't in the least bit bored. While our speaker was very entertaining, it was her passion and the fact that she obviously knew what she was talking about that made her so pleasing to listen to and learn from. The whole thing was so pleasant. I was telling Thomas this evening that after listening to her I just wanted to drop out of high school to work with human rights issues in the inner city ghettos of an american city, or help in a refugee camp in Rwanda, or revise U.S. refugee/immigrant law. Do anything to help people experiencing human rights violations and to readjust the mindsets of those who refuse to help refugees. Did you know that the U.S. did not accept refugees from Iraq until 2008. I think the U.S. played a large part f the displacement of those people they then refused to help. Did you know that the U.S. has a clause in our laws that determine if we accept a refugee called the Material Support clause? You see, refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. have to go through an interview process with U.S. officials and if during that interview the following scenario or one similar comes up, asylum is refused. scenario: terrorists burst into a house and say, "you have two options. one, we rape you and your daughters. or two, you let us eat your food, stay in your house, and take anything of yours that we want." If you choose option number two, you are giving material help to a terrorist organization and are both denied the definition, in the eyes of the U.S., of refugee and are denied asylum here. Lovely, right? I wrote profanity next to this in my notes for the class: fucking US clause. Ya, that's right; I don't use punctuation in my notes.