No Day But Today for 2005 August 21

Today I had Fall Leadership training for Utah State. Fall leadership is a time where we make people stretch themselves, examine, and re-examine their values, beliefs, and attitudes, as they discover things about themselves and people around them. One game we have to do this with is called cross the line. It is one of my favorite activities becasue it reminds me what I have experienced/believe in, while teaching me how diverse Utah State really is, and that other people have had interesting/hard experiences in their lives too. WHat you do is all stand silently on one side of the room, and we will ask a question such as, "Do you have a family member, or friend who has used drugs/been exsposed to pornography/are you atheist or agnostic, etc...? Then if you have and you feel comfortable exposing that part of yourself, you cross the room, face everyone else and walk back. One question that was asked today was, "If you consider yourself a person of color, cross the line." Everyone in the room was White, and thus no one crossed the room. After we moved on to the next question, I was bothered because I wished I had crossed the room. I am not sure why I didn't cross the room. Maybe I was afraid that someone would be offended, or that when we play with the whole group and I crossed the line with the Latino's, Black's, Indian's... they would be offended. But I am not transparent. I have color too. So rightly I should be able to consider myself to be a person of color. I think culture, not color is what is really important anyway. When we do the activity as a large group next week, I think I just might cross the line when that question is asked. I don't know...I would be interested to hear others opinions on the matter...would you cross the line?

I would like to thank those who responded to my previous post. It is quite a debatable topic, and I appreciate hearing your view. I am on the diversity committee this year for Utah State and I know topics like these will be addressed. I am excited for an interesting year.

I spent the evening yesterday with a friend whom I have been really good friends with for 20 years this year. Isn't that crazy! I couldn't believe it. Audrey and her husband Ryan are moving to the Riverside, CA area, becasue he is getting his PhD in BioChemistry there. I will miss them a lot, but it is an awesome opportunity for them. FOr our last night we went to the Real SL soccer game. It was awesome, no we did not win (0-1) but I adore soccer and haven't been to a real game in some time. Soccer games was how I spent the majority of my Senior year in high school, and I didn't realize how much I have missed that atmosphere. Then we went to our favorite IceCream joint...Leatherby's creamry. We split a Traci's peanut butter cup, which is a lot of vanilla icecream, hot fudge, and melted peanut butter. it is wonderful. We spent the night reminiscing, and thinking about old friends and enemies...people who have died, gotten married, gotten divorced, had kids...we have only been out of high school for 4 years, and it is amazing how different life is, but how some people can still make you angry, sad, uncomfortable, etc...