it was the best of times...

FREEDOM!
What a sweet and subtle thing. Few hardly notice its even there. All of the summer programs which I have been in have been vastly different. One thing which I noticed as time went on was the amount of freedom given. As a younger kid, everything was planned to the smallest detail to the point at which you could not decide what you wanted to do with five minutes of your time. As I grew older, I realized that slowly we were given more freedom to choose what we wanted to do. Being here, at college, it is the ultimate freedom. Maybe even the ultimate curse. There are many ways which this can be a completely successful program for me, there are even more ways to mess it up completely.

I chose my class, Native American Studies, now I can choose if I want to pass or fail. The teacher, Mrs. Warren, is an extremely intelligent woman, who has mastered an art that very few can claim. She knows how to speak her mind without dismissing other people's opinions as false. Every opinion has the potential to be correct, because it is an opinion. She has been helping the class relearn history from a different perspective. It is not always written by the victors.

The most encouraging thing that I got from this program is the people. Maria, Lina, Chung, and all of the other students are so stupendous (this adjective was given to me by Alex TChamp) I really believe that a greater group of people has never come together before. They are trying to make us better people in every aspect of our lives.

Thank you.