Thanksgiving

Ah, Thanksgiving. What a great holiday. Here is a small journey into my Thanksgiving experience this year. Start and end with an 8 hour drive. Play "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows" on cd while you stare at this picture for 8 hours at a time and you will have completely captured this experience. However, arriving at your destination makes the drive seem like a distant memory, until you have to turn around and do it again.

I started my holiday in Kansas, where I got to spend time with some of my mod mates. We did some wedding planning, dress shopping, and cake tasting. Good times.

Then my sister and I ditched my brother-in-law and drove to Nebraska. Along with 30 other Bartels, I spent the time eating, sleeping, and playing games.

The cousins made their traditional trek to Lincoln for a movie. This year we saw Enchanted. There are no words for it.

Overall, it was good times. Oh yeah - and I'm done.

Can I Just Be Done?

Although I am done with classes for the next 7 weeks, I still have two papers to finish. . . or make that two papers to begin. I just want to be done!

I had a very interesting week at my field placement. On Tuesday I was able to tour a detention center for immigration law violations. I was only able to gain access to this facility as a guest of RMIAN - the Rocky Mountain Immigration Advocacy Network. They do amazing work with the residents of the detention center, mostly surrounding legal issues. The politics of the detention center and immigration law are too convoluted and charged to get into in a blog, but it was very enlightening to see the facility, the detainees, and learn some of the dynamics surrounding their situation.

Tonight I and some friends are going to a benefit for Prax(us), a not-for profit organizations that serves victims of human trafficking. As far as I know, the night holds live music and some spoken word performances. Should be interesting as well.

Corey Made an Appearance

I had such an amazing weekend. My good friend Corey was finally able to relinquish her law books for a weekend and make the trek out to Denver. Yeah! It was so good to see her. We did some hiking, a lot of coffee drinking, and got some fabulous hair cuts. We also enjoyed a great Ethiopian meal. It was an amazing ATVP reunion, with four former members getting together. Too bad she couldn't stay longer.

A flashback to my travels. . .

We don't know what inspiried Maria to give this dance number in front of the Rathaus in Munich or how Lauren was quick enough to capture it on video, but every time I see it it makes my day. It also looks like some other tourist in the background got it on video as well. Lucky him.

The Final Countdown. . .

Okay folks, I am down to one more week of class this quarter. I have one take-home test and two major papers to go. It's going to be a stuggle to get them done because my good friend Corey is flying in for the weekend. All I need right now is a good excuse not to do my work. . .

Nothing New Here

Not much new is happening with me. . . same old routine, same old grind. I did, however, seek to utilize the new feature of blogspot - the poll. Clearly I am tapping my readers to solve very important questions. Next week: who made a better investigator for Matlock, Tyler Hudson or Conrad McMasters? I am sure none of us will be able to sleep until these burning questions are answered.