Spring break was nice. On Thursday, March 23rd, I took my last final and went home. I returned to UCSB on Friday night to pick up Kevin from the airport. We hung out in SB and returned to SY on Saturday. On Saturday afternoon we went to (Carlyle’s sister) Rosanna’s wedding. The wedding was very impressive and was a lot of fun. Doc Severinsen (the band leader of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show) played a few numbers with the jazz band and people enjoyed the evening.

For most of spring break, the three of us (Carlyle, Kevin, and myself) just hung out around the valley (Car was busy with work and it rained a lot so, um, yeah). We went to the beach for a barbecue, we went to Inside Man and Ice Age 2, we rented some other movies, we built a shed at Kevin’s house, and did a bunch of other stuff. Oh, and we practiced our parkour skills everywhere we went.

On Saturday my family received a gift which I was convinced was an April Fool’s Day joke. Amazingly, it was for real. An actual April Fool’s joke arrived a few days later. That’s right, I got punk’d by my RA of all people. Now I’m just trying to think of how to get him back. As far as school goes, this quarter looks promising so far. More to come later.

We were literally 200 meters into our hike and already there were a few stragglers. One scout was losing gear off his pack, one was without a headlamp, and a few were already tired. Boy Scout Troop 41 was up at 3:45am, and hiking by 4. We were in the Colorado Rockies, two years since our last venture into the San Juan Range and our early departure was due to the unreliable behavior of summer weather in the Rockies…
Continue reading Carlyle’s post

Ahh, brings back great memories. That was an extremely fun trip. If you’re curious, you can check out some photos (taken by Carlyle Eubank Sr.) on flickr here and here.

Desmond Tutu spoke about ubuntu which is the South African ‘belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity’. Tutu hopes for world peace and is currently working towards that goal with the Tutu Peace Centre.

Tutu is a very charismatic speaker. He made a few points that I really agreed with. He has a very optimistic view on the progress being made towards social justice. Instead of dwelling on the bad in the world, Tutu tries to emphasize the good. I also felt that his thoughts about the truth of all religions were right on. When Tutu was asked what Christians can learn from other religions, Tutu replied “God is not a Christian”. After much shocked applause, he went on to explain what he meant by this. Tutu firmly believes that God does not have a ‘Christians-only’ policy and that people of different religions should not be segregated on Earth or in Heaven. Tutu has great respect for those who devote their life to prayer and he particularly admires the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. Tutu shared a theoretical conversation between the Dalai Lama and God at the gates of Heaven:

The Dalai Lama: “Can I come in?”
God: “Dalai Lama, you know, you — you are the cat’s whiskers, but, ahh, sorry – no. Better luck next time.”

(Did you catch that great pun by ‘God’ referring to the Tibetan Buddhist belief in reincarnation? Desmond is a sharp fellow!)

The entire experience was wonderful and I’m very glad to have been able to attend. As this was a UCSB Arts and Lectures event, Tutu brought up the role of students in social change. The 1976 student protest in Soweto against the use of Afrikaans in black schools began a massive uprising in South Africa. In addition to the direct action, Tutu reminded the audience that the end of apartheid would not have been possible without the help of foreign countries and their citizens, particularly the students who urged their governments to become involved. These words of encouragement made the lecture not only spiritually uplifting but politicaly uplifting as well.