Don't ALWAYS do as the Romans!

It's been a while since my last post.  I have been busy at school, finishing up my last semester of classes and preparing for graduation.  Busy times over here.

In the midst of all this, something has been living and growing in my mind.

How did people feel okay with making other people their slaves?  With participating in genocide and killing huge numbers of people?  With standing aside as three thousand and seven hundred people are aborted every day in the United States alone?  I know the answer.  

It's because they're not people.  

Simple, right?  If someone has a different color skin, has a different background, or has not been born yet, he or she is not a person and therefore does not have the same rights normal people do.  No reason to treat them with common decency.

It must be the way human traffickers view their victims.  Sex slavery is the second largest--and fastest growing--criminal industry in the world.  In my recent experience, people know that this kind of thing exists, but not near them, and not in such great proportions.  According to the FBI, the average age a child is first sexually exploited is 11, and as many as 40% of forced prostitutes nationwide are children.  Chicago is the second highest city in the nation in terms of child sexual exploitation.  The majority of forced prostitutes are 18 or older, and are either literally grabbed off the street or lured away from home by someone they meet and grow to trust, only to be betrayed into a life of sexual slavery.

Enough.

Like many Americans, I have both a dresser and a closet filled with clothes, and I wear different outfits different days.  Not anymore.  Every day until Easter, I will be wearing a simple green dress so that when people comment, I will be able to explain what I am doing and talk about an issue that they may or may not be aware of.  Sexual slavery is a huge issue, both in numbers of lives affected, and in impact on the lives of those involved.  It's worth doing something about, even something as small as wearing one dress for a month and a half.

A long time ago, in a land far, far away...

When I last left you, dear readers, I was stuck in a foreign land, short on both sleep and food.  Fortunately, I made some friends during my months in Milan.  So, after a kind roommate made me some homemade Chinese food common in her hometown and then I slept for 14 hours, I headed to downtown Milan to spend the day with a friend.  She bought me lunch and we hit up all 8 levels of Italy's posh most famous department store.  Fun day.

Early the next morning--EARLY the next morning--I hopped on a bus, got to the metro, and waited for the first train.  From the central station, I caught the bus to the airport, whipped through security, and got on the plane to Dusseldorf, Germany.  Oh!  My bag was a couple kilograms overweight, which was definitely a potential problem.  The airline charged 10 euro for every kilo over the limit, but I had a woman checking me in who was either kind or lazy and she just let my bag slide on through.  Woohoo!

Onto Dusseldorf, which looked like a snowy winter wonderland as we landed.  A quick pass through the passport check desk, and I was at the gate.  My plane was a bit delayed because the pilot wanted to wait for  a couple late planes coming in with a bunch of people transferring flights.  We made up the time during the thousands of miles to Chicago, during which time I slept some blissful albeit leg-asleepy hours and watched the movie "Salt."  There's nothing like a fast-moving action movie on a nice 5 x 6 inch screen. Oh, yeah.  I also watched "Despicable Me," which I loved!  A nice animated movie, plus my natural high level of emotion, temporarily enhanced by the anticipation of finally getting home, all adds up to me tearing up in either sadness or joy at least four times during the movie.

I left Milan in the morning, I saw Dusseldorf in the late morning, and I landed in Chicago in the early afternoon.  Not too bad, right?  It was the longest day of my life.  Not in a bad way, just in a really literal way.  It was 33 hours, to be exact.  Beat that!