Caveat

I'd like to add a few things to my last discussion, which was already way too long! First, I'm having a fantastic summer and am glad I went to the Middlebury convention - I learned much not only about the school but about myself and unconscious assumptions I make. Tears are one way I let off steam and frustration - perhaps not the most efficient method, but something I cannot really regulate. They seem to have had a cathartic effect, though, because I've been pretty peaceful ever since. Also, I did not want to open a can of worms with my discussion of racial tensions so much as make the subject less ... taboo. On the other hand, there's the risk of talking about it so much that we become extremely self-conscious (as I was) and start identifying each other by our differences and not our similarities. It's an issue I tend to avoid for those reasons - and also because 90% of the time I don't think about race in regards to myself or my friends; I'm more interested in cultural diversity. But perhaps I have that luxury, coming from a predominantly homogeneous town in Minnesota and working in a predominantly white school.

On another note, since I last wrote, an old teacher of mine came to read at Bread Loaf. Cynthia Huntington taught me a creative non-fiction course and also briefly served as my thesis adviser when I was set on a creative writing thesis. She remembered me and the first question she asked after we hugged and exclaimed over each other was, "Are you still writing?" to which I had no real answer, as the paltry few poems I've churned out in the last five years hardly seem to constitute "writing." But she reminded me of the joy I used to have in playing with words, with no intent to share or publish.