I'm back already! Are you surprised?

So there are two things that have occured recently as far as Supreme Court judgements go that show the complex multi-facted nature of our government and our sense of right and wrong. Both have to do with the sancitity of life and how best to uphold that. Abortion and assisted suicide.

One Supreme Court ruling judged that a New Hampshire law needed to be reconsidered. The law states that parents of minors seeking an abortion in New Hampshire need to be notified 48 hours before the abortion occured. The Supreme Court took issue with this because it didn't provide a stipulation for minors who had a medical emergency that was health-threatening.

The other Supreme Court ruling upheld Oregon's assisted suicide law, allowing physicians in Oregon to provide lethal overdoses to terminally ill patients. The patients, according to law, must have been diagnosed by a doctor as having 6 months or less to live, be 18 or older, and be able to communicate their desires to their doctor in a concise and clearheaded manner. This Supreme Court ruling blocks higher-ups in the Bush administrations (such as John Ashcroft) from prosecuting and punishing Oregon doctors. The Supreme Court said of the former Attorney General's attempts to prosecute these doctors that the "authority claimed by the attorney general is both beyond his expertise and incongruous with the statutory purposes and design.” In other words, Ashcroft had no authority to be prosecuting these doctors.

It was interesting to read these two articles on the same day (even though they were published a few days apart). It's strange how we fight for one group's right to live while another group fights for their right to die. Both topics are so controversial and complex that it is really hard to sift through it all and figure out what really is right and wrong.

As far as the abortion issue goes, is it really up to us to decide for other women what is right for them to do in the case of an unwanted pregnancy? But then, of course, just because unborn children can't advocate for themselves, does it really mean that they don't have rights? What about cases where a choice has to be made between the child and the mother as far as who survives? What about the sanctity of life then? How do you decide which life is more valuable? The unborn child has more potential for what its life could become, but how would its life be without a mother? The mother has already experienced life, but then again, it is possible that she could still have other children if her child doesn't survive. And what about multiple child pregnancies, where the mother just physically cannot carry all of her children without endangering their lives and hers? I am thankful that I don't have to make these decisions.

As far as assisted suicide goes, I understand completely why terminally ill patients would fight for their right to choose how they die. Of course spiritual issues come into conflict with this too. If you believe common Christian teaching, suicide is the one unforgivable sin, because it shows a lack of faith in the miraculous nature of God. The argument is, there have been miracles before at the 11th hour, why give up hope? But at the same time, I cannot believe that an all-loving, all-compassionate God would want people to endure unecessary suffering. I don't believe that God would send a person who was suffering with a terminal illness to eternal suffering in hell just because that person decided to end their suffering on earth. Personally I think that God has bigger issues to worry about than that. I support the right-to-die argument and I am thankful that the Supreme Court did as well.

I think the Supreme Court will miss Sandra Day O'Connor greatly. I know that we Americans who agree with her rulings will. I personally think that there need to be more people like her in the political arena. I love swing voters. I love the idea of a politician that doesn't just vote along party lines, but votes according to what truly is right and wrong. I'm tired of party politics. I'm tired of people's need to fit into these prefabricated boxes. Why do people have to be just conservative or just liberal? Honestly, I think that these categories just give people an excuse to not think about the important issues. They find a party or line of thinking that supports their views on one or two issues, and then when they don't want to think about other issues, they rely on that party to make their decisions for them. How sad.

Anyway, that's my rant for today. We'll see how long it takes me to come back.

P.S. Check out the guy I work with!

He's the guy on the left. The guy on the right is David Tua. How cool is this?? As a fun side note, he's got a tattoo of a gorilla on his left arm that looks like it hulks up when he flexes his shoulder. Neat!

He would steal the bubonic plauge if he could....

And......I'm back......again. I think I'm not even going to bother apologizing anymore for posting so infrequently. I think from now on, it's best to hope for at most, monthly updates. I'm not sure I can remember to do more.

So, to pick up where we left off. Last time I was talking about how excited I was to go home for Christmas and New Years. Well, the trip is done and over with now. It was GREAT!!! I saw my family, and had a marvelous time with them over Christmas. I got to hang out with my mom's side of the family as well, which is always a blast. It was interesting to explain to people what I do at my job. Whenever I do that I feel kind of like a side-show oddity or something (more on that later). Marvin and I also got to spend a night with Courtney and Josh, which is always a fun time. Then we headed into Minnesota for some time with our college friends. We spent a night in Mankato and then headed to Sherburn for New Years Eve, which I have to say, was one of the best New Years Eves EVER!!

So, all of this visiting made me realize how lucky I am that I have the people I love in my life. For example, with Courtney and Josh, it had been at least 5 or 6 months since I had seen them last, and it was like nothing had changed at all. No matter what happens with those two, I know that they are friends for life. I feel the same way about my college friends. I got to Mankato and I felt like I had never left. My family is also so wonderful and supportive of me. I know that they were really worried for me to move out to Colorado and are still worried about the kind of work that I do, but they never give me anything but unending support. I love that.

Coming back to work after the trip was kind of rough. I think the kids were having a rough transition with Christmas and being away from their families and everything, but my first week back was pretty rough, and I've got some bruises to show for it.

This past weekend Marvin and I went to a friend of a friend's house after I got done with work to hang out with some people. There were several of the new USOC interns there that I hadn't met before. As I said it's always interesting to see people's reactions when I explain to them what I do for a living. I get a lot of blank stares and a lot of "Huh, wow....that's really interesting...I've never heard of that before." I feel kind of like a novelty that people can use to tell interesting stories to other people about. "Hey I know this one girl who works with messed up kids....she got hit in the face once!" or "Hey a girl I know has to keep teenage boys from swallowing thumbtacks." One of the girls that we hang out with every so often was telling me that whenever she talks to her mom, her mom wants to know about interesting stories from my work. It's just strange to me that I hear about strangers who talk about what I do for work.

I think this is why it's so great for me to hang out with the people that I work with every now and then. I went out with my co-workers the other night after work for a couple of hours. It was SO nice to just hang out and talk to a group of people who can laugh at the same stories that I tell and know that they understand me. Marvin came with, and I felt kind of bad, because he didn't really relate to the stories that we had to tell. Luckily one of my other co-workers was really interested in what he does at the Olympic complex. This guy is a professional boxer by the way, which I think is super cool. Sometimes he fights heavyweight and sometimes he fights cruiserweight. His last fight was a fairly publicized one against David Tua in New Zealand. He fights on HBO sometimes too. Needless to say I feel super safe when I work with him.

Speaking of the people I work with, we had an experience last night which I think really solidified us as a tough-to-break team. There are three of us that really make up the core to the team in our cabin. There's me, the boxer, and another girl. Last night we got the news that the other girl was probably going to have to leave our cabin for another one. That was really upsetting to all of us, because we've become so close and I rely on the other two so much to back me up. So the three of us got together and first talked to our direct supervisor and then confronted the person that was making the decision. We explained to him that we didn't want her to leave and that our boys shouldn't be punished for the fact that other staff isn't doing their job well. We explained that we would be willing to retrain all of the bad staff that isn't doing their job, but we didn't want our team to be broken up. And we got accomplished what we needed to. And it felt SO good! Our cabin supervisor talked to us afterward and told us how proud he was of us for sticking with each other and sticking together as a team. As surprising as it is, this is the first time that I've ever accomplished something to change the mind of what someone higher than me wanted. I feel like I'm part of something that's going to be really hard to break now. I like that.

Anyway, there's my update on things. See you next month..??