Good News and Bad News

Katie D.

January 24, 2010 - 11:33 PM

Well folks, there's good news and bad news.

Everyone seems to want the bad news first in these situations, right? Well, here's the plan: the background, the bad, and then the good.

The background has been building for weeks. Or months. Or maybe my entire life.

I've been blogging recently about all of the fabulous activity around Inside-Out, and all the compounding activities happening on campus and in the Northwest region. We have all kinds of plans for new programs, alumni initiatives, evaluation, research projects, and program expansion.

I also remember mentioning Sister Helen Prejean recently, right? Sister Helen is an internationally acclaimed anti-death penalty activist from New Orleans, who has dedicated most of her life to ending capital punishment in the United States. She has served many Death Row inmates as spiritual advisor and has accompanied six men to their state executions in the past twenty years.

This woman is a force of nature, and she is currently in Eugene for several speaking events.

My work for these two events, the Inside-Out Hub meeting and Sister Helen's visit, have totally consumed my time since winter term began. It's wonderful that I have fewer academic commitments than usual, because I have shifted a good deal of focus away from the classroom and into these larger fields of life: into activism and events and people beyond my normal experience or plans. I am discovering a whole new aspect of myself, that includes all my academic past but is working in real-world issues. I am making a difference.

So if all of this is background, where's the bad news?

The bad news, friends and readers, is that it is now 11:47 on Sunday night, and I just remembered that the blogs for the week are due. I have never before been surprised by Sunday night. Even if I've been overwhelmed and behind, I have always planned on the blogging. Even if the blogs arrived a bit late, I was never surprised by their arrival. But tonight I was honestly surprised by the idea that tomorrow is Monday.

So the bad news is that I owe you blogs. Please bear with me, and I promise to get them in soon.

The good news is actually incredible news. Ready?

The blogs will be amazing. I can make that promise without any hesitation.

They will be amazing not because of any artistic prowess or any such thing. They will be amazing blogs because of incredible happenings. I have found myself at the center of a massive collision of wonderful people, events, and opportunities. Today alone I attended one speaking event by Sister Helen, taught a church class about immigration and No More Deaths, ate lunch with Sister Helen and a couple of UO professors, and then took a nap in preparation for the evening. Tonight I attended one hour of an Inside-Out Hub meeting, which included instructors from all over Oregon, plus representatives from the Department of Corrections, and past student participants in the program. From there I rushed off to an event with Sister Helen that I envisioned, planned, and led with my friend Madeline, in which we brought campus religious groups together with Sister Helen to discuss religion and capital punishment. To round the evening out, Madeline and I took Sister Helen to dinner and had a wonderful conversation.

The upcoming blogs will be wonderful because life-changing things are happening. I am so blessed. I have laughed so hard, been moved to tears, felt inspired and challenged, and discovered new levels of ability and interest in my own life.

I hope the full stories are worth waiting for, readers. There are more exciting stories to come, story after story is arriving. If you'll stick around for the reading, I promise to come through in the writing.