Day 53 – Lunch at The Cheesecake Factory

His breath reeked of fish.

It was awesome. I’ve never been to The Cheesecake Factory although I’ve passed many over the nine weeks that I’ve been in the States. If you haven’t been to The Cheesecake Factory yet and you live in the States… then that’s alright, you don’t have to go. I just highly recommend it, that’s all. I had some enchiladas with rice and black beans. It sounded like the perfect meal to get at a restaurant like the Cheesecake Factory.

So Joe and I met with this elderly woman who works with the LAPD and with children and with all kinds of social entrepreneurs around the globe. It was inspiring to hear her stories about the orphans who were rescued from homelessness and malnourishment in countries like Brazil and Indonesia.

She also gave us a book called The Creature from Jekyll Island, which I’m super excited to read because it’s about economics. I’m really interested in finances because the second (or maybe the third) novel of our series will be about the global economic system. I mean, I’ve researched quite a bit and read a lot of books about it, but TCfJK will probably be the best read out of all of them. Or so I’ve heard. We’ll see.

Other than that, Joe and I have been writing our novel and we’ve made quite a bit of progress developing an additional character we thought we might add to the story because she contributes a very important aspect of the plot. It’ll be a little tough, though, because Joe is flying to New York tomorrow and I’ll be flying up to Seattle on the same day, so we won’t be able to write this book together in person, which will be a bit difficult. But thank technology for Skype and Facebook. We’ll figure it out.

Day 8 – Injustice For All

The Academic Mentor Summit was great. I’ve gotten offers to preach in churches in Kenya, Myanmar, the US, and Brazil. Also, an educator from Myanmar had asked me if she can translate my soon-to-be-published book, We Need a Completely Different Kind of Education, into Burmese. That means my book will be available in four languages so far: English, German, Russian, and Burmese.

So we said our last goodbyes and the other educators were driven to LAX. I stayed on base for another night. I played some more soccer with the guys there and I taught the group how to control the ball and I talked to them about what to do as a central midfielder. This is the only sport I’m relatively decent at. I suck at basketball, volleyball, baseball, water polo, and chess.

In the evening, Amanda and I thought we might celebrate the completion of a busy week by having a fancy dinner at a fancy restaurant somewhere in downtown LA. We dressed as casual as possible and drove around in her little Yaris, searching for a place where we can dine like pseudo-royalty. We’re paupers, by the way. I literally only have 20 dollars in my pocket, and I am currently hunting, looking for a come up. #ThriftShop

We parked about 10 minutes away from the fancy Cheval Bistro, where we decided to just eat dessert, because a full meal would be way out of our financial reach. It was a great idea, though. I had a bowl of crème brûlée and Amanda had a bowl of berries accompanied by some amazing whipped cream. It was heavenly. If I only had money, you know? But that’s the thing though, I couldn’t justify spending, say, $50,000 on myself just because I had the money. I would feel dirty, selfish, and ignorant. Why do I get to drive a fancy car whereas some people don’t even have legs and have to sit on self-made skateboards and push themselves around on a dirty street? I’d be such an asshole if I thought I deserved a fancy car.

People say that if you earned it, you deserve it. But I know of people who have worked, served others, and have poured their hearts into other people for years and years, and they’ve received nothing in return. What about them? They deserve it, too. But many people are selfish. That’s an understatement. Many people are egoistic narcissists. I know of millionaires who sit on their money and aren’t willing to give even a fraction of a percentage of it to someone who is in desperate need of it. It’s sick. It’s literally an illness.

If injustice is a disease, who’s got the cure?