a pacifist primer.

By Clark Hanjian
Pacifists oppose war. While this statement is true, it is only a small part of what it means to be a pacifist. For all of my adult life, I have been a pacifist and associated with pacifists. We are a minority, largely misunderstood, and often disparaged. In light of our precarious standing, I would like to clarify what many of us mean when we say “I am a pacifist.”

Pacifism is often viewed as cowardly or naive opposition to the use of physical violence. Many believe that pacifists avoid conflict due to some utopian hope that conflicts can be resolved without courage, sacrifice, or direct engagement with the adversary. I will address this myth by reviewing the analysis, intentions, methods, and training that are, in my opinion, central to being a pacifist.

Analysis
Conflict is the tension we feel when we interact with others whose goals appear to be incompatible with ours. Often, the tension is bearable and we learn to live peaceably with our adversaries. Occasionally, the tension is intolerable and we must act to relieve it.
How we approach conflict is the primary ethical, spiritual, and practical problem in our lives. If we fail to handle a conflict well, we suffer, or our adversaries suffer, or perhaps both. Thus, before we engage our adversaries, we need to be clear about our intentions and our methods.

The popular approach to conflict, as highlighted in our media and modeled in our entertainment, encourages us to maintain the following intentions: ( a ) define your desired results before engaging your adversary; ( b ) achieve your desired results using whatever means necessary; ( c ) achieve your desired results as quickly as possible; and ( d ) if suffering must occur, ensure that your adversary suffers more than you. To support these intentions, we are encouraged to use methods such as deceit, coercion, stress, confusion, threats, humiliation, distraction, exploitation, dehumanization, and violence.

This approach to conflict has many adherents, it enjoys a long history in human affairs, it is easy to understand, and it is reinforced daily throughout our culture. Nonetheless, pacifists reject this approach for three primary reasons.

First, although the popular approach to conflict has the potential to bring quick results, these results typically lack substance. Current symptoms of the conflict might be suppressed, but deep-rooted causes are ignored. Alleged solutions are short-sighted and inadequate. The conflict appears to be resolved, but soon thereafter the celebrated resolution begins to unravel.

Second, the popular approach to conflict is filled with suffering. We leave our adversaries dissatisfied, hurt, angry, and vengeful. These feelings set the stage for old conflicts to resurface and new conflicts to emerge.

Third, although the popular approach to conflict is often marketed in moralistic terms, it typically abandons the highest callings of most ethical traditions. Little value is placed on engaging our adversaries with respect, generosity, understanding, or compassion.
In light of these concerns, pacifists seek an approach to conflict that offers more substance and less suffering. Riding roughshod over our adversaries might provide short-term results and immediate gratificaton, but pacifists are more concerned with sustainable results and genuine reconciliation. To this end, we suggest an alternative with a completely different set of ground rules.

Intentions
Pacifism is an approach to conflict based on four intentions:

Use Means Consistent with the Ends Desired: This is the intention to engage our adversary using methods that embody the outcome we desire. We reap the fruit of what we sow. Thus, if we desire to live in a world where practices such as respect, understanding, truthfulness, and compassion are the norm, then we must endeavor to use these methods when approaching conflict - even under the most demanding circumstances.

Touch the Adversary’s Heart: This is the intention to connect with our adversary on a personal level so that our conflicted relationship can change. If we use force to compel our adversary to change their actions, we do nothing to address their concerns, and we can expect that they will return to their original course as soon as the opportunity arises. If we use persuasion to change the mind of our adversary regarding a particular conflict, we do nothing to address conflicts involving other matters. However, if we use methods that touch our adversary’s heart, we cause them to pause, and we open a door to a new relationship that will enable us to approach current and future conflicts more fruitfully. A change of action or a change of mind might yield some short-term relief in a conflicted relationship, but a change of heart redefines the relationship.

Leave Room for Error: This is the intention to make allowances for the possibility that we are mistaken. Due to our limited capacities as humans, there is always a chance that our perspective on a conflict is incorrect or incomplete. Thus, we should use methods that are flexible enough to: ( a ) provide our adversary with some benefit of the doubt; ( b ) provide us with opportunities to gather more information about the situation; ( c ) leave space so that we might have a change of mind or a change of heart; and ( d ) allow us to explore options that might be better than anything we can envision at the moment.

Intend No Harm: This is the intention to abandon any desire to hurt our adversary. In the heat of conflict, we consider bringing harm to our opponent directly or indirectly, physically or emotionally, quickly or over time. In moments of reflection, though, we know that these desires undermine our efforts to resolve conflict. Harmful intent only fuels the fire. Thus, when we approach our adversary we are challenged to intend no harm, intend no offense, intend no humiliation.

Methods
How might we engage our adversaries in a manner consistent with these four intentions? Pacifists offer the following ten methods. These methods have been practiced and promoted for ages. Nonetheless, when push comes to shove, when we face our most critical conflicts, we rarely use these tools. In light of the intentions outlined above, pacifists suggest that these methods deserve fresh consideration.

Each method below can be practiced in the familiar settings of conflict: families, organizations, communities, politics, commerce, and international relations. Each can be exercised with dignity and honor. Not every method is suitable for every person or every situation. But as we increase our skills with these tools, we can customize methods appropriate for the conflicts we face.

Good Faith: In all relations with the adversary, maintain truthfulness, keep my word, be trustworthy, bear no intention of deceit.

Unconditional Respect: Value the adversary under all circumstances. Show high concern for his or her well-being. Do not take advantage of any misfortune the adversary experiences. Defend the adversary from third party attacks. Show respect even when respect is not reciprocated.

Humble Engagement: Before approaching the adversary, review my contributions to the conflict. Maintain an openness to the possibility that I am mistaken about one or more critical elements of this conflict. Give the benefit of the doubt to the adversary. Be prepared to offer apologies, and to correct any misunderstandings I might have. Extend forgiveness. Refrain from insulting the adversary directly or in communications with others.

Correct Understanding: Make genuine and multiple attempts to learn more from the adversary about their perspective. Inquire: How do you see the circumstances? How is this situation impacting you? What are your key concerns? What are your intentions? What are your feelings? Analyze their perspective for new information and insights, and be prepared to revise my perspective. Share my revised understanding with the adversary to confirm my accuracy.

Sensitive Clarification: Clarify for the adversary important information about myself: how I see the circumstances, how this situation is impacting me, my key concerns, my intentions, my feelings. Share this information in a manner likely to be digested by the adversary. Be sensitive to timing, location, manner, and content. Even when my intentions are good, evaluate the potential impact of my sharing. Minimize sharing that is likely to make the adversary defensive and closed-minded. Maximize sharing that is likely to open a path for future interaction.

Selfless Service: Work to address the needs of the adversary. Touch the heart of adversary by offering assistance with no taint of self-interest. Also, work to address any external circumstances that might be contributing to the conflict. Demonstrate good will and sincerity by serving with no desire for compensation, recognition, or reciprocation.

Material Generosity: Contribute resources to help address the needs of the adversary. Abandon my illusions of security in favor of offering concrete assistance to the adversary. Give freely of my money and possessions. Place the adversary’s well-being over my own.

Purposeful Self-Suffering: Use self-suffering to demonstrate my sincerity to the adversary. Suffer the adversary’s attacks without responding in kind. Instead of retaliating, knock on the door of the adversary’s heart by responding unexpectedly: lower my defenses, share my resources, make genuine attempts to understand and address the needs of the adversary. Use self-suffering to create a dissonance that the adversary might resolve by a change of mind or a change of heart.

Courteous Non-Cooperation: When facing a demand from the adversary to act against my conscience, politely decline to cooperate. Do not participate in, contribute to, or consent to activities which rend my heart. Maximize the possibility of touching the adversary’s heart by making an effort to use some of the aforementioned methods before proceeding with non-cooperation.

Honorable Self-Defense: When I am under attack, when I have lost my stamina to experiment with other methods, and when I feel unable to touch the adversary’s heart, the option remains to defend myself honorably. This means attempting to free myself from the adversary’s attack while simultaneously maintaining a genuine intention to bring no harm to the adversary. This method includes techniques such as: verbal protest, aikido-style actions that redirect the adversary’s energies, physical escape, identifying those who provide support to the adversary and touching their hearts, and resolute non-cooperation with the adversary in the face of threats and attacks.

Training
The intentions and methods outlined above are embraced by many, but their use is generally limited to low-risk conflicts. Pacifists push the limits by suggesting that these intentions and methods are suitable - even necessary - for high-risk conflicts.

In order to approach a high-risk conflict as a pacifist, one strives to maintain these intentions in the heat of the moment. One strives to wield these methods instinctively and competently while under pressure. Hence, a pacifist invests in three areas of training:

Technical Training: Much is known about the very practical aspects of each intention and method outlined above. A pacifist attempts to develop proficiency in each area, drawing especially on the fields of psychology, interpersonal relations, and group dynamics. Particular attention is given to developing skills in communication, facilitation, and collaboration.

Spiritual Training: We are powerless to maintain these intentions or wield these methods unless we are spiritually fit. In order to approach conflict fruitfully, a pacifist trains in the very concrete practices of tolerance, patience, compassion, understanding, generosity, and voluntary simplicity. We try to develop nonattachment to views and possessions. We try to rid ourselves of strong aversions and strong desires. And we try to increase our ability to ease the suffering of others, regardless of whatever suffering we might endure. Support for this type of spiritual training can be found in most religious traditions.

Daily Experimentation: A pacifist trains by experimenting with these intentions and methods daily. As one consistently applies this practice to the small concerns of life, it becomes easier to approach the larger conflicts with skill and courage.

Pacifism is not a panacea. As pacifists, we always risk some degree of failure: our skills might be inadequate to the task; our adversaries might not be moved; we might suffer emotional distress, loss of property, physical injury, or death. On the other hand, we also risk some degree of success: we or our adversaries might have an insight or a change of heart, opening the door to a resolution and long-term benefits which could never be achieved through intimidation or violence.

In failure or success, the pacifist approach to conflict enjoys a ripple effect. Whenever we engage our adversaries with integrity, respect, and compassion, we throw a stone into the waters of the status quo. Sooner or later, the ripples touch our adversaries and other neighbors. In small but certain ways, these ripples promote the evolution of the peaceable society.

art gish quotes

Let me just say that Art Gish is my hero. He is the guy who came and spoke at Lipscomb about CPT.

These quotes come from Art's Hebron Journal.
"Guns are stupid--they're useless. You can't build anything with them, you can't farm with them, you can't nurture children with them, you can't care for the sick with them. What can you do with a gun? They certainly do not bring anyone security, or peace, or freedom. The soldiers have lots of guns, but they are neither free nor secure." (31)

"A basic way of confronting evil and injustice is to make ourselves vulnerable to that evil. This goes to the heart of a Christian understanding of nonviolence, the way of the cross. The New Testament presents us with an understanding that God's ultimate way of overcoming evil is the cross: nonviolent, redemptive, suffering love. It is not through worldly power, but rather through love, weakness, and vulnerability that we overcome evil.
Whether with an angry, alienated individual, or an unjust system, the only way to reconciliation and peace that I know of is for people to open themselves to the pain of the person or system, and through active suffering love to be agents of God's healing power." (17)

"I came here [to Hebron] knowing that it could mean my death. I have tried to accept that I may be killed here. That acceptance of death gives me a lot of freedom. If I am free to die, then I am free to live. I am free to take risks, free to be open and vulnerable, free to go anywhere. But I am still afraid." (29)

"How naive it is to believe that we can act unjustly and it will have no consequences for the future. What we sow we will reap. There is karma. All of our actions have eternal significance. The judgment of God is sure. We sow the seeds of our own destruction. Say it how you will. There is something true and real about the almost universal understanding that we ultimately cannot escape the consequences of our actions. How important is it that our first concern be to live justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8)" (58)

I love this man.

i really hate putting titles up here, but if i don't then it just uses the first sentence of the post, and i like that even less.

Anyway, I am missing people tonight. It's not like I didn't see some of you guys less than 48 hours ago, but. . .it's not the same. I miss people from high school. It seemed like we as a class were closer, like we were all in it together. We had awesome community. In college it seems to be more every man for himself, and that makes me sad. I miss all the friends I made and I know that our relationships will never be the same. We don't share our lives anymore. There's too much and nothing to talk about. We're all leading separate lives now. Well, this is getting to be rather depressing.

Overdraft charges are pretty much the dumbest idea ever.

American Fictions just might kill me.

more ponderings of life and future.

Ummmm. . .yeah. So I think I will be staying at Lipscomb for the spring semester. It would really suck for Caroline (my roommate) if I left in the middle of the year and took the fridge and tv and dvd player and all that stuff. Plus, I'm really excited about the CS Lewis class I'm taking, and I'm getting initiated into STD (sigma tau delta) in February. There is just a lot to stay for. But not necessarily long term. So that decides things for my December 19 deadline. I still really really really do want to go to Manchester next fall. Will have to see how $$ goes. But, if it's meant to work out, it will, and that will be a sign. Perhaps my future husband is up there. We could be some awesome radical, liberal Christ-followers together. That would be fun. And exciting. I do still want to have a cattery some day too. But I would like it to be after I'm married (so whoever it is, he better LOVE cats). There is just so much to think about. But I have made my next small step decision by my Foot Lamp. I still wish for flood lights. Everything will become clear in time. Patience.

Manchester College

What can you do with a degree in Peace Studies?

Where the heck is Manchester College?

What is Peace Studies?

Church of the Brethren?

why the crap do I have to travel almost 600 miles to go to a school with a peace studies program?

Are Southerners war mongers or something? Looks like I'm going to go to Manchester College in North Manchester, Indiana--probably fall 2007. North Manchester is a little bitty town, but it's only 2 hours from Chicago which is pretty much the greatest thing ever. The bad thing is that it's 600 miles from home and I have to live on campus, so I can't take my cat (or Malachi). Let me just say--my parents think I'm nuts, and may or may not choose to support me in this. So--I might have to get a real job and save all my money to go there...we'll see.

wahhh!

nobody leaves me any comments anymore! major stuff is happening--I need a sounding board.

my other wedding reading

From "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams: "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Not the conventional 1 Cor 13, is it? But I think they are so perfect.

And I'm not posting these because I'm necessarily planning on getting married soon. I should definitely have a boyfriend and date for a long time first...but it's still fun to think about.

What an interesting week!! I pretty much experienced every emotion possible. Sheesh. So anyway, I'm watching Bridezillas right now, and this girl is amazing. Wow. She is the meanest person I have ever seen in my whole life. She is horrible. People need to remember that getting married is a way to celebrate your LOVE for someone. Good grief. Speaking of weddings, not that I'm getting married any time soon, but here's one of the readings I'm going to have (or at least I want to have it read).

From Jazz by Toni Morrison: It’s nice when grown people whisper to each other under the covers. Their ecstasy is more leaf-sigh than bray, and the body is the vehicle, not the point. They reach, grown people, for something beyond, way beyond and way, way down underneath tissue. They are remembering while they whisper, the carnival dolls they won and the Baltimore boats they never sailed on. The pears they let hang on the limb because if they plucked them, they would be gone from there and who else would see that ripeness if they took it away for themselves? How could anybody passing by see them and imagine for themselves what the flavor would be like? Breathing and murmuring under covers both of them have washed and hung out on the line, in a bed they chose together and kept together nevermind one leg was propped on a 1916 dictionary, and the mattress, curved like a preacher’s palm asking for witnesses in His name’s sake, enclosed them each and every night and muffled their whispering, old-time love. They are under the covers because they don’t have to look at themselves anymore; there is no stud’s eye, no chippie glance to undo them. They are inward toward the other, bound and joined by carnival dolls and the steamers that sailed from ports they never saw. That is what is beneath their undercover whispers.

Isn't that beautiful? I love it. *sigh*

new revelation.

God is ridiculously amazing. I woke up this morning with the most wonderful feeling of peace and joy. I also had a nervous excitement sick anxious feeling most of the day. I'm not supposed to be a professor. I feel like I'm supposed to be doing something with CPT or something like that long term. So now I need to get some training in peace studies. I've been looking for colleges that have a peace and conflict studies program. They're all ridiculously expensive. Maybe I don't have to go to college for it. . .maybe I can get accepted to CPT without it, because once you go on a delegation, then you come back and do a month of training. We'll see. . .one day at a time.

*monty python voice* I got better!

For some reason, today was just a much better day. God and I had a serious talk yesterday, and I cried for a while, and I think that helped. I am still frustrated, but not angry anymore. I know that things will be revealed, just as I've known that all along and things have been, it just isn't going to happen on my time table. I do wish that I knew what step I was going to be taking next, but that will be revealed when the time is right. He is a lamp at our feet showing us the next step to take, not a floodlamp that lights up everything and makes it all clear. This is where faith comes in, and it's not easy to have faith when there are really important decisions to be made. But God is faithful, and He always will be.

I don't understand.

I feel myself growing bitter over everything and nothing. I realize my faults and the more I examine them, the more I see that there are more faults than strengths. I feel used up right now. Not empty inside, but devoid of vaule. I'm tired. Tired of searching. I've lost the zest--everything is mundane and ordinary. I'm tired of not knowing the answers. I'm tired, but I don't think I'm broken. Perhaps that's the problem. If I were broken, then I could start over. I feel like I'm circling the drain. I want to get away from everyone and everything, but I have obligations and responsibilities. My soul longs to make a difference, but I'm stuck here trudging through the daily routine. I feel oppressed. Satan is attacking and I have nothing left to fight back. Apathy is taking over.

yahtzee!! I figured out how to fix the time on here! and CST is GMT -6 hours, by the way.

something a little deeper than Good Morning America

So basically I am beginning to see a pattern in my flakiness. I don't know what the crap I'm supposed to be doing or anything with my life. I'm starting to doubt my abilities to be a professor--it's pretty hard for me to verbally get my ideas out cohesively. . .and I suck at reading aloud (it got better when I was in voice therapy and I was practicing all the time). I don't know. I don't know what I would be good at. Part of me wants to be a psychologist or counselor of some sort. Part of me just wants to be a student forever. I've been doing it for 14 years--I've got it down. It's something I'm good at. I thought that meant I would be a good professor, but I don't know anymore. I'm doubting everything. I hated who I was becomming when I was singing, but at least I knew what I was doing. I had a plan and I was focused on reaching my goal. But that was stolen from me. Maybe I never really had it in the first place. I don't regret making the decision not to sing, but I miss the confidence I had when I was doing it. Even though my lack of confidence then was what was keeping me from progressing. I just get the feeling that I am seriously flawed. I know a lot of it has to do with just being this age, but still. I just feel like I'm ok at lots of things, but not really good enough to do anything superlatively. Even if I do go on and get my degree(s), I'm not sure I'd be using them. I'll probably get married and we'll move off somewhere and I'll have kids and do all that stuff. But I don't know--maybe I won't. There are entirely too many variables to take into consideration. I like it when I know what's going on. When I'm in control and I have everything planned out. God has taught me this lesson SO MANY TIMES--I know it's not supposed to be my plan. I'm not the one with the control. But that is infinitely hard for me. My entire beign fights against it all the time. I'm trying. But I feel like it's not enough. Nothing is ever enough it seems. I'm good at a lot of things, but I'm not the best at anything. It's been like that my whole life. I have best friends, but I'm never their best friend. I'm a good student, but I'm so self-conscious that I got into the habit a long time ago of dumbing things down, and now I can't seem to stop doing that. I feel like a big phoney if I really said how I felt or what I thought to the extent that I feel or think it. And I realize that makes absolutely no sense. If it's really how I feel, then it should make me feel genuine, but it doesn't. I've been trying to "find myself" as cliché as that sounds, and I'm realizing that there are so many layers of fakeness piled one on top of the other that maybe there's not any of the real me left, and if there is, I have no idea what it is like. So back to the beginning of my post--my flakiness. It seems like I stay wanting to do the same thing for about the same amount of time, and then I change my mind or start doubting myself. It's really pretty ridiculous. I wish someone would just come along and say "hey, this is what you're going to do, so suck it up and do it." First I wanted to be an opera singer. Then I turned into a neurotic b**** who didn't care about anything but singing. Then I wanted to be a therapist, but I took psych classes and figured out that I don't agree with any of the methods, so it would be pretty hard to do that (plus it's a BS degree and that means more math and science). So then I switched to English--something I've always been good at. I feel safe here. Safe, but still not the best. I can analyze a poem or story. I can write a story (haven't gotten my comments back, so the story may be crap). I can think like an English major. But what am I going to do with a degree in English? I don't feel like I'm smart enough to be a professor anymore. I don't think I'm a good enough speaker, and my ADD makes me lose my train of thought all the time when I'm talking about something. That would just not be a fun thing. So crossing all these things off my list (how ironic--I just accidentally typed life instead of list), what does that leave? You wanna know what I really want to do with my life? I want to have a cattery (you breed cats). So really, I could just quit school and go buy a bunch of cats and call it a day. Save myself all this drama (not to mention THOUSANDS of dollars). But you wanna know the reason I won't do it? If I own a cattery and stay around the house taking care of kittens all freaking day, how the crap am I ever going to find a husband? That's right, folks, Ashley is after her Mrs. degree. I really don't want to be alone. And I am terrified that if I don't stay in school, I won't ever find anybody. I don't go to a conventional "church" and I don't know the first thing about dating, and there is no way I would use the internet for something like that (those people are losers). I know this sounds ridiculous, and it is. I don't know what to do. I really don't have any desire to be a vet, or I could stay in school and do that and have my cattery and being a vet would definitely be helpful there, but it would be freaking hard (and yucky). I haven't ever put any of this down into words before, but it all just sorta came spilling out today.

I am retarded. I have to write a journal for American Fiction, read a story, and finish my paper for tomorrow...and it's 10:37, and I'm watching Criss Angel, so I'm not going to work on stuff til that goes off. Grrrrrr. Hopefully it won't take me very long, because I am tired already.

hey--here's the link to my photobucket, you can see my pictures from Good Morning America.

http://s93.photobucket.com/albums/l74/Ashley_Lauren_2006/Bon%20Jovi%20GMA/

updates

I learned today from the audiologist at VUMC that my hearing is better than perfect. . . . I had several hearing tests and fluid tests and all kinds of fun (note the sarcasm) things done to me this morning (all before my usual waking up time, I might add). Right now there isn't any fluid behind my ears, and as I said before, my hearing is awesome. Mom always thinks I'm crazy because I tell her I can hear her watch ticking in the car (really--I can). I guess that's a little creepy. I guess then that it's my ADDness that keeps me from being able to hear when people talk softly in restaurants. I'm always picking up on conversations from different tables and it's hard for me to hone in on the person who is talking to me. The otolaryngologist (I like that word--it's the ENT specialist, but otolaryngologist sounds way cooler) said that my ear infections were probably being caused by my allergies not being under control, so he gave me 2 nasal sprays to use, and that is supposed to make things all better in 6 weeks. If it doesn't, then I have to go to an allergist for allergy testing and probably allergy shots to take care of that. Then if that still doesn't work, then I have to get a CT of my sinuses and maybe have surgery. All this news is much better than Minute Clinic guy--Dennis--who said that there was definitely something anatomically wrong with me and that I would probably need surgery to fix it. I thought it was weird that he wanted to be called by his first name--those kinds of people generally revel in their formal titled positions. Anyway, I used the sprays this morning when I got back to school, and surprisingly they didn't kill my nose. I've had nasal sprays before, and every single one has made my nose just ache nearly unbearably bad, but these didn't, so that is super. Um. . . I can't really think of anything else to say on this topic, so I will switch now.

I'm going to be on Good Morning America on Monday! I am about to reveal the depths of my dedication (some would say obsession) to Bon Jovi. Sugarland is performing on GMA's Fall Concert Series Monday, live from Nashville, and Jon and Richie are joining them for "Who Says You Can't Go Home" (I almost abbreviated it--WSYCGH--but then realized that none of you would know what the heck that meant). Well, I am going to be there--in the front. But, Ashley, Good Morning America comes on really early in the morning--heck yes it does. I will be leaving at 3am. . . . I can't even stay in the dorm that night because they keep the doors alarmed til 5:30, and that would be way too late, so I am staying at Melissa's apartment at BU. Isn't that a silly rule--you can stay out all night if you sign out, but you can't leave between 12 and 5:30? Whatever. It is going to be really cold at 3am. . . and I will be standing on the corner of 5th and Broadway waiting for my band (that sounds bad, doesn't it. . .). There are several other girls from the fan club that are going too (one is even greyhounding it down from Cincinnati!). Since I'm the closest, I'm kinda coordinating everything. We're gonna stand together and maybe go get some breakfast after. The taping starts at 6. Luckily I don't have a class til 11! That is a wonderful thing.

Well, that's all that's going on around here. . . I miss you guys (and my cat), but I'm not coming home this weekend (since I'll be downtown at 3am Monday). You can watch GMA and probably see me though! I probably won't be home next weekend either because the week after that is Thanksgiving break (I get a 11 days off--counting weekends), so we will get to spend plenty of time together then.