First Week (Last Week)

Thomas Friedman is the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times. He toured some campuses this past year and came up with a name for the current body of American college students: Generation Q. He says that students are generally more aware of current events than ever, yet we are surprisingly QUIET about them. Instead of protesting the Iraq war, or the environmental crisis, or government corruption, we simply blog about them on the internet. 

I think blogs are sweet, but Friedman's got a point. Instead of demanding real change, people just sit around and complain on their blogs. Nevertheless I firmly believe in the merits of dialogue and I know that only good things can come out of such an interesting project such as this. Honestly, I was a little disappointed, because I signed up for the class in spite of the blogs, hoping to spend more time talking to Israeli and Palestinian students. This whole blog thing terrifies me because it means I actually need to come to terms with what I believe and face criticism from the general public. I'm excited to meet our counterparts at Hebrew U and Al-Quds, in the meantime I hope I warm up to this whole bearing-my-soul-online-like-a-MySpace-junkie thing. 

So last week was the first week of class. It was a pleasure to meet you, I hope can all get through the new-quarter jitters quickly so we can get down to some challenging, unpleasant, and constructive debate.