Around Atlanta

So, there hasn't been much free time. But we've managed to get out once or twice. Last weekend was great. I really wanted to go home, but staying turned out to be the right decision. I've struggled with how to deal with people who are different than me during institute. Mostly, I have a hard time being around people who don't subscribe to the same moral values as me. Meaning, the rest of the world apparently. It's hard when almost everyone else thinks it's okay to get drunk all the time.

It's also been difficult, just because everyone is so open about the things they do. I've heard all about some people's sex lives, and there pasts, and just any myriad of things that I thought normal people didn't talk about. I'm not sexually active. I have a very strong conviction that God created that for marriage, and that in that covenant, it will be BEAUTIFUL! I'm not judging, but it's been a struggle for me to not judge. All that to say, it was good I stayed. I needed to be around these people. And force myself to love and not judge...


First stop...Sweet Water brewery. A huge group of NCC (Nashville Charter Corps) went, but these are the girls who rode with me. From the left - S, N, C, Me, P.
We had a great time. Also, it's a great deal. $8 gets you a tour of the brewery, a souvenir glass, and 6 glasses of beer (*be advised I had like 1 and a half...maybe). There was live music outside, and it was just a fun way to spend Friday night.

Some notes about the girls we were hanging out with. N, she's definitely one of my favorites so far. She is my age, and played volleyball at Dayton in Ohio. We get along really really well. She has a good head on her shoulders. I'm looking forward to getting to know her better the next 2 years.

C is one of my institute roommates. She's crazy, but a whole lot of fun. She's from New York, but was born in Opelika. She short and spunky, and apparently people confuse her as me sometimes, saying we both have attitudes. I can live with that.

Then there's P. She's is HILARIOUS! She can talk to a brick wall. Example, at Sweet Water, she met 2 German guys and 2 Turkish girls. At the braves game on Thursday night, she was BFF with the usher lady. Seriously, she's fun.

After all the group fun on Friday, I needed some alone time, so Sunday I went here...

The Martin Luther King Jr. historical site. This is where he and Coretta are buried, and it is right down the street from his birth home and the church he went to as a child, and then pastored at later in life. There is a really good informative museum there, so I spent some time looking around. There was an art exhibit set up in honor of him, so that was cool to see also. After touring the museum, I went here...

His birth home. There was something historic about walking around the neighborhood he grew up in, knowing he walked these streets years ago, and something about them transformed him into the activist we all know him for. I like to think about world leaders as small children. Someone knew them before everyone did. I want to know those people. It also got me thinking...If not him then who? One of the exhibits in the museum had a quote from him about a time when he thought about quitting the civil rights movement. He was just looking for a non-cowardly way to back down. WHAT IF...What if he'd backed down? Where would we be. If not him, then who? If not me then who? I ended with a tour of the grounds. I found these little plaques lining a rose garden. They all had poems written by elementary school kids. This was my favorite.

"Love is when you like something so much...Silence is when you fell good and listen to the ocean...Conscience is when you listen to your mind and do good."

If only we all had Love, Silence and Conscience!