quills in the inkwell: West Coast Walk For Life 2015

I'm back from San Fran! Sorry, I should have done this post Monday but I was so exhausted...

I worry waaaay too much. The whole trip was exciting, amazing, and overall a really great experience. I live in a little city on the coast and so to me, a four or five story building is pretty impressive. I'm used to small buildings, grassy yards, and friendly, familiar faces. So after our long car ride up to San Francisco, I thought I had prepared myself for the big city.
Not. Even. Close. I went into the city with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

How beautiful

That hill was super steep. I don't think this picture captures the steepness.

But lets back up a bit. The car ride.
We left the school at about one and to be honest, the eight hours I spent in the car wasn't that bad. I had a pretty good car, all my friends were in it. We basically had music blaring the whole time. We made Uptown Funk our theme song and listened to it about a million times (which is strange, 'cause its a weird song. It is pretty catchy though...). We spent a lot of time waving to people driving by. We were driving by a military base and we saw a military truck with boxes in the back labeled "explosives." We waved to the guys driving it and they waved back.
Then, at about seven-thirty, we drove into San Francisco. We had Uptown Funk blasting and we were dancing and bouncing up and down so much that the car was shaking. A bunch of people on the streets were giving us weird looks, but some smiled and waved, and some even started dancing with us!
Then we got to the wharf and everyone split up in groups to get dinner. SF at night is creepy. On every corner, there was some sort of street show or homeless guy asking for money. There was one guy dressed up as a dog and another Michael Jackson impersonator dancing in the middle of the street. There was another guy painting, which was super cool to watch. It was some sort of spraypaint-on-canvas thing that I've never seen before but it was impressive.
We stayed at a covent. It was really nice, actually. We got a big room to sleep in (we all had to sleep on the floor, naturally) and the nuns gave us the whole first floor. So we basically were up till eleven at night in our pajamas and socks, running around the halls or playing card games or just sitting in the hall talking. It was a lot of fun.

The next day we went to the Golden Gate Bridge and Sausalito for breakfast. We saw the biggest sea lions when in Sausalito!

Look at them! They're so cool! And we were so close to them!

Morning sunrise behind the bridge

Fast forward a few hours to the actual walk.

Squished in the very large crowd

About 100,000 people showed up to protest against the murder of babies and to defend life! How great is that!
A lot of people showed up to protest against our protest though. The people who were pro-choice, I noticed, were a lot more aggressive. Three got arrested. One guy was holding up a sign that said, "Abort babies, kill children, save the planet!"
WHAT???
First of all, save the planet from what exactly?? Children are the future for this big earth and if people keep killing them, then who's going to be left? All these mothers should want their children, and if they don't, if they really cannot take care of their child, then let me introduce you to a marvelous word: adoption.
Christ gave up His life so that we can live. Abortion is the opposite. Abortion is the mother saying to her child, you give up your life so that I can live. What kind of mother is that?
Many people say, "Oh, abortion is okay because the baby isn't really formed yet, it's a fetus. It's still dependent on its mother." If its not a human, if life doesn't start at conception, then when does it start? God gives us a soul at the moment we come into the world: conception. Mothers have no right to take their lives. We may be small at conception, we may not be fully formed, but we're a person. A baby person who is completely vulnerable. A person who will someday grow up to be someone who has the complete capacity to do God's will. All these babies that are murdered every day... They'll never grow up. They'll never be able to serve God, or see the blue sky, or smile, or laugh, or experience all the great things in life: school, college, friends and family, music, hobbies, marriage... They never get to see God in the beauty of the world. But mothers do. How could they deprive their child from that, simply so they can do what they want and not have to take care of the child?
My latest poem:

Two Hearts by moi

Two hearts that beat as one
My life is small, but I want to live
And someday maybe my life
Will be bigger
Bigger than this
Where I am vulnerable

So much to live for
I want to live for God
I want to serve Him
Love Him
Know Him
But you wont let me

You cut my lifeline
My soul has left
I am only a fetus in your eyes
A problem
An obstacle
We had two hearts together
That used to beat as one

Mine has gone silent
But I loved you
Why did you not love me too?

I may be trapped
You may not care
But during my short life
--My small, vulnerable life
As fragile as a twig that snapped--
I loved you
And I wish my heart
Still beat with yours

That pretty much sums it up.

On Sunday, we went to Chinatown. Chinatown is so cool! If you haven't gone, find the Chinatown near you. I'm not sure if they're all like the one I went to, but it was a lot of fun! Ironically, we didn't get Chinese food, or at least I didn't. I got Subway (in Chinatown. They have Subway in Chinatown.). But in my defense, I thought we only had twenty minutes before we had to leave so I wanted something that I could get quickly. Turns out, we had an hour and twenty minutes.
So I got a really cute San Fran bag instead.