Choosing a fight song

So the college food isn't fantastic, but it's decent. It's also socially responsible -- I'm mightily impressed with the food management company's kitchen principles. In ye olde Waterville, I think we had Sodexho-Marriott doing our food , raising the spectre of prison-industry labor.

Reading the "kitchen principles" placard in the dining hall --as well as getting a general feel for the campus environment-- my initial reaction was "I would've loved it here! I should've gone here!" However, that's not entirely accurate. The "me" I am now would choose to go here, if I were 18 all over again, but the "me" I am now would also be entirely different if I actually had.

I don't think I completely agree with the saying "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." In most cases, it makes you either bitter or indifferent. Spending four days at Reed for a social justice organizing conference, I think if I had gone here in my oh-so-younger years, I would have had a lot more free time to... have a life, relax, not go to so many meetings. But I think I'm indifferent to the alternate-reality "me" I could have become. In the end, there's still a world to change.

The keynote speaker tonight was energizing --not inspiring, which sometimes implies over-reliance on rhetoric and emotional manipulation, but energizing. He was blunt and truthful. Basically, he talked about burnout and breakdowns. (Apparently he had one a while back, and his key points were lessons drawn from the slow emergence from the abyss.) It's one thing for a few friends and family to take you aside and tell you to take the time to eat, sleep, have fun, smell the roses, etc. But when an articulate, intelligent, and analytical stranger says the same thing to 200 overly-active people just like you because he's been there too, it makes a different impact.