Back To The Here and Now, Whoa-Oh

[Classes back in session today; though I was never able to get thru on Tuesday, I was right in believing that classes had been cancelled. (I have no classes on Wednesdays.) Everyone still was tentative around one another, giving brave smiles of encouragement, but then people have been like that at New College from the beginning (encouraging, not tentative).]

[Lunchtime at New College isn't called lunchtime, it's called "Community Building," and today they actually did something about it. We had a session where almost the entire first year and a good percentage of the upperclass and faculty and staff sat in a room and talked about their various feelings. One staff member and one student still have friends missing, and there was a lot of talk of the fear, sadness, rage, and "loss of innocence and sense of safety."]

[This being a very leftist place, it didn't take long for the misgvings of some of the government's more warmongering rhetoric to get a thorough airing; there was one student who expressed his absolute rage and willingness for the military to do whatever was necessary (he was allowed to speak his piece), but the overall tone was real worry that an unregulated war was on the horizon. There were gentle reminders that while this terrorism was off the charts in its audacious and violent scale, the people behind it didn't act in a vacuum. The U.S. and the West have acted in so many reprehensible ways over the years that some sort of retribution can't have been a complete surprise. The consensus seemed to be that someone, anyone, needs to act to break the cycle of violence, not escalate it. I don't know how to do that, and no one else seemed to have too many suggestions either.]

[Violet, though she sat thru the entire session, was skeptical and annoyed that people were only now beginning to see the violence and evil people are capable of inflicting on each other. "Where are the tears for Afghan women teaching their daughters to read in the dark?" "Maybe bringing this home will wake people up," was John's response when I told him just now. Maybe.]

[The brief I wrote for homework for last week was used as a teaching tool in today's writing and research class: life, with all its emotions, goes on, and one of those emotions is pride.]

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