Martin Luther King, Jr. is someone we have all heard of. We have all talked about him in school. We have all listened to at least part of his "I Have A Dream Speech," we all know about his significance in the movement to end segregation in the United States.
He's a very important historical figure, of that we have no doubt. And although I used to get annually annoyed when we discussed him in school (as I still do with Anne Frank and 9/11, for various reasons you probably don't want to hear), I am now a massive fan. For more than just the whole race thing, for more than just his famous speech (although that is incredibly important and I am incredibly grateful he brought about that specific change, etc.). I am a fan of Martin Luther King, Jr. because of who he was as a person. Because of his passion for right. MLK was not afraid to stand and push for what he wanted, what he needed, what the world needed. I have read his Letter from Birmingham Jail, a letter written to the multitudes of clergymen who had criticized his actions. He wrote this letter in a peaceful and articulate manner, outlining what he does and why he does it. He says, "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws," a phrase I have oft quoted. And I quote this not because I am seeking to justify reckless acts, but because, as Alexander Hamilton says in Lin-Manual Miranda's "Non-Stop," "I’ve seen injustice in the world and I’ve corrected it." (Or, intend to, anyway.) MLK wrote that "One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty." Martin Luther King, Jr. was not breaking laws and protesting to start an aimless fight but to finish a fight that had been started in the hearts and minds of the more just sects of humanity centuries prior. He was fighting for what was right, which I'm sure you've oft been told to do yourself. He was making the decision to stop staying quiet.
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People get really into that whole New Years' Resolutions "new year, new me" kind of thing. And although I've never really been someone to give myself elaborate (or at the very least, formal) goals about things, I love the idea of it. I love the idea of that whole "start fresh" mentality. In early January of 2013, I would end a lot of sentences with "but what the heck, it's 2013!" In the social media world, I suppose this is called "rebranding."
And so, I am rebranding. Junior year of high school I took a break from learning AutoCAD to take some web design classes. I learned HTML and CSS, and became somewhat familiar with JavaScript. This summer, it is my intention to become intimately familiar with JavaScript, and refresh my memory on the other two, and then finally create my own website... or revamp this one. But I got sick of waiting for this summer. New year, new me, right? Love Letters and Blog Posts is no more. I would like to formally welcome you all to The Glitter Bonfire. So, it looks like this year is done. 2016 has somehow gotten a reputation for being absolutely terrible. But at what point did we all just sort of simultaneously decide that it was the worst year ever? I certainly don’t remember making that decision. I thought it was an excellent year, actually. I recognize the reasons we thought it was terrible: continuing chaos in the Middle East, a continuing refugee crisis, continuing terrorist attacks, continuing world hunger and poverty, continuing threats to our environment (both natural and man-made). There was an over abundance of deaths of famous and important people (or so I have been told), and a pretty ridiculous American Presidential Election came to an unsatisfying end. I recognize that terrible things happened. I recognize that in certain categories, 2016 was terrible. Sometimes when I think about things that happened to me when I was quite young, I don't think of myself as being so. I know that, objectively, I was considerably younger and less educated than I am now, but I still consider myself to be just as capable, and roughly just as large. And then I piece together the two unavoidable facts of my age at those times and my brother's age on Friday, and I am shaken to my core. There are things that I did and things that happened to me -- things that so many of us did or that happened to us -- at those ages that may actually kill me if my brother had to go through them. How are children, so fragile and innocent and naive and pure and formative, also so resilient? How is it possible that perfectly capable, confident, and strong people such as myself could come from things so terrible? On Friday I went to a conference at Utah Valley University co-hosted by BYU's Wheatley Institution and UVU's Center for the Study of Ethics. I found out about it about a week and half ago and, as I told my mother, "I saw “PEACEBUILDING” with a picture of a butterfly and knew I would freaking walk there if I had to." I didn't have to. I asked the magical world of Facebook for a ride and successfully obtained a good one. Maybe "obtained" isn't the word. Anyway. The remainder of this post will be adapted from my letter home this week. (So, Mom, Dad, Marian... don't read this yet. Your version is better anyway.) So, the conference! It was so good. We were there for a total of five speakers, and a discussion/Q&A session for two of them. Each speaker was better than the last. I took notes (in pink ink, of course). I managed to streamline (most) everything into a few key points:
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I'm Audrey, a college student and existential rambler.
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