It's been a looong and interesting three days! Stephen had the Nobel Peace Prize Forum to cover and invited me to several of the events. We spent Thursday night at the Local; my personal highlights were shaking former Vice President Walter Mondale's hand (yea!) and meeting Peter Agre, recipient of last year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry and former Augsburg graduate. Afterwards, (and after several free drinks!) we walked over to Pizza Luce to see if Chris was working. We caught Chris and Cindy before they headed to a concert... the Santa Fe was quite tasty that night! Good for soaking up some Boddingtons anyways! Friday, there was a nighttime reception at the Augsburg House (pres' res) Kind of fancy! Highlights from Friday... Martin Sabo (MN congressman... good liberal man) introducing himself with a good strong handshake and talking with Ole Mjos, the chaiman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee out of Oslo, Norway. Actually I listened while the man I was talking with at the time asked him some interesting questions on how the process works for selecting a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. I was feeling a little chalk-brained, and I don't know a whole lot about the current peace community, so I didn't ask anything... Wish I was smarter on the issues!
Although I was cool to meet/shake with the politicians, I was really humbled in the presence of Peter and Ole. It's amazing to think of the capacity and potential of human beings and be able to meet and talk to men and women who have made an awesome impact on humankind. Speaking of women, the 2003 Nobel Laureate is Shirin Ebadi, who was honored at this year's forum.
I went to two sessions today after deciding that it was more important to go along with Stephen and actually attend the forum than staying home and piddling away a Saturday. The first one was a presentation by two teachers from Pacific Lutheran University in Washington State who have written curriculum to go along with Liv Arneson and Ann Bancroft's upcoming expedition. So I think I'll be trying the lessons in the near future... it's some great stuff on getting students to think critically about the world and human relations within the world. The other session I went to was a presentation by Deanna Armbruster of the American Friends of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam. She explained the village of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, the "Oasis of Peace." "Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam is a village located midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in Israel where Palestinians and Israelis--all citizens of Israel--live, work and raise their families together." I think Walter (my advisor at Hamline) is involved in curriculum for their School for Peace.
The first major speaker of the day was quite moving-- Dr. Sima Samar of Afghanistan. When someone asked what she felt her greatest accomplishment has been, she answered that she feels it is still being alive... A perspective we don't often think about.
Overall, I was pretty inspired. I had forgotten about attending the Alternate Peace Summit (to the G8 Summit) when I spent the summer in Colorado in 1997 with Jen. I saw Jennifer Harbury speak then and was really interested the struggles in Central and Latin America. I've found that the daily stresses of teaching 170 7th graders has tricked me into living... hmmm... maybe too simple-mindedly and that I've forgotten about some of my past passions, peace-building being one of them.
Time for Stephen to scan some negs. He loves how my "just 5 minutes" are the longest five minutes ever! Of course that's my favorite line when I'm taking a nap... "Just five more minutes?" But it's so worth it!
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