It's 7 PM on the East Coast and I have just settled into my first dorm room in a decade. Things are a bit different this time around. I'm ten years older, a bit wiser (hopefully), and instead of my parents and a U-Haul, I managed to move my belongings in using one small suitcase. Instead of a semester, I'll only be here a week. Phew.
I'm here for "summer week," similar to other schools' J-terms, where you study really hard for a short period of time and get full credit. My class is video production and I am the only student. My professor has been a rocker for 20 years, has 2 screenplays currently being optioned in Hollywood, and mainlines coffee until well after 8 PM. This is my second class with him and I look forward to the energetic, dizzying approach he brings to learning.
The dorms are, well, dorms. They are concrete, utilitarian and barren. There is no trash can. I have no roommate (!), but do have a suite mate who brushes her teeth every ten minutes. So much for water conservation. Our suite is positioned directly across the hall from our "dorm mother." (Note to self: cancel the Tuesday night kegger!)
I am the youngest of all my classmates. Well, that's not entirely true, but I'm the youngest who isn't pregnant. Everyone is wonderful and I've made lots of friends. Well, until the "incident" at dinner. Sitting at my table were 5 girls from all over the South, all were Christians - that came up within 5 minutes of introductions. Not far into our conversation, one of the devout Baptists made made a flip, racist comment about one of her son's friends. I, without restraint (shocking, I know), expressed my offense.
It always takes me aback when people make hateful comments, especially to people they barely know. It is insulting to me that she thought I also would agree with her - I must fear, distrust and dislike people of a different color as well, right? It is unacceptable to me that others supported her so openly. Trust me, I am not delusional that there is still a lot of hate in our country, but it always disappoints me to learn that it festers just below the surface in the unlikeliest of people. Perhaps Eric Hoffer was right when he wrote "to know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.”
Oh well, I never really bought into the sorority girl scene anyway. My fate this week is sealed. Off to wander about town and campus. The skies are growling persistently, so my evening could be short.
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