You know what's really scary...

Victim blaming. Victim blaming is really, really scary. It makes me scared.

I've had friends and family recently say "It's not like that, nobody blames anyone for getting raped." Sure, if it's your sister, your friend, your wife, you're not going to blame her (him or her) for being assaulted. And I would sincerely doubt that most people would say things like "It was her own fault. She shouldn't have gotten herself raped." But that doesn't mean they don't do any victim blaming at all.

I hear it's nice in the summer, some snow would be nice...

Sitting in class right now.  Creative writing. Twelve kids and only one other English major. So it goes.

I'm loving studying literature these days.  My Vonnegut course is amazing, as usual Stu Peterfreund is the highlight of my semester.  "Understanding the Bible" is going well, in the sense that I'm wild about the material.  Not the book itself necessarily, but the fascinating history and geography and people behind it.  The professor, however, is quiet and meek, and is impossible to hear from anywhere in the room.  So we're not looking at an easy A, but it's fascinating stuff.

It was so easy, and the words so sweet. You can't remember, you try to feel the beat ...

Today, I got a letter from myself. I wrote it in a computer class that I took in the tenth grade.  It was dated December 19, 2005.  I was sixteen, I still lived with both of my parents and what was then all of my brothers, I had just fallen in love for the first time, and I was as open-hearted and warm as anyone is ever likely to be.  My friends were my whole world, my mom was my hero (some things never change), and I was so willing and so able to put my whole soul out in the open.  Some of this letter is awkward, some is embarassing, some doesn't make sense to anyone but me, and some of it is about people and things that live in my past like a beautiful scene in an old movie.  Reading this letter was like having lunch with myself at sixteen.  Though it is a little strange, I thought it was important, and I'm going to reprint it here, with as few corrections as modesty will allow :). I'd like to introduce you to Rachel Cathleen Esteban, aged 16.