First Day of School - who am I?

Of course I agonized over what to wear. My identity keeps hovering over me. Am I a San Francisco hipster, an almost 40 year old trying to look 25 or a mom trying not to have too much snot and goopy hands smeared all over her? For some(?) reason I ended up wearing a white shirt this morning. Boy was I brave, although my shirt did survive the day. Of course, as soon as I walked in the door at the end of the day my gorgeous daughter put strawberry hands all over it. That felt great. My breasts and I missed her all day.

I was nervous walking into the big Starr auditorium (Chris wanted to know if it was named after Kenneth Starr - probably...) - there were big signs at each seat with our names on them. Apparently, we have to carry them around all year and use them in class. A great idea, I guess, but it definitely felt more like preschool than grad school at Harvard. Everyone was mingling when I walked in. I started up a conversation with the first person whose eyes met mine. His name is Marc Vogl - and it turns out he's from San Francisco and has done doc film. Small world, but when he asked what I do, I blurted out, "I'm a mom" - and then "I guess I don't have my rap down yet - I was a documentary filmmaker, writer and activist in my former life." I did that with the next person, Judith, a school teacher from Queens, who was seated next to me. "Oh, I'm a mom..." Why is my identity tied up in motherhood? Is there anything wrong with that? I still consider myself first and foremost an activist but don't feel like I've done as much on that front these days.

Our nametags also listed where we are from - if from the U.S., it lists the state - if not, the country name. One of my first observations from the large group of people listening to the administrator, Lesley, talk about logistics, was that all but 2 folks were white. Hmmm.... Oh, aha, then Lesley says that this is just the group of Americans, Europeans, Canadians and Israelis. People from "transitional economies" (transitioning to what? capitalist imperialists?), the Mason fellows, have been at the Kennedy school for a few weeks already, and that we would meet them in "The Forum" in a few minutes. So then I started browsing through our thick notebook of info. In it is a list of all of the "mid-career" students, the organization they worked for and their state/country. I was stunned. I naively thought most of the people there would be from NGO's/non-profits. Instead, with a few exceptions, it seems like most folks are from the military, corporations, government (yes, the state department), and many of the Israelis are with the military. This will be an interesting year. Though I guess it's not that surprising since the program is so expensive.

I talked to ? - who works for the state department. His last posting was in Guatemala. When he told me this, I replied that I thought that was the only Central American country whose U.S. embassy I did not protest in the 80's....ok, maybe Costa Rica, too. He quickly retorted that the U.S. government has subsequently apologized for their participation in "that era." Later at lunch, he told me that the state department funds his time at the Kennedy school. Rough life, and then as I looked through the list I wondered if that were true for all of the other folks coming from "the man." Can't wait to meet the man from Kenya who works with some golf organization over there.

I did have an interesting chat with the Danish member of parliament who is the Social Democrat party's international laison - especially since Denmark is enmeshed in Iraq.

During the director's (name?) welcome to us, he twice referred to the those crazy's in California (comparison with Berkeley where students are asked at the start to look at either side of them and know that one out of the three of them won't make it past Christmas and that people have come from 40 different countries to be part of the mid-career program and even as far away as California).

Took quant and econ entrance exams today. They weren't as tough as I thought they'd be, but I hope I'm not placed in classes with super math geeks. I don't think my brain could keep up. After the second test, there was yet another chance to mingle with other students (and eat fabulous food) - I was too tired at that point, met a few folks and then headed back home to get that strawberry juice on my shirt and relieve my breasts that had been exploding all day (oh, and to bond with my kids - though early upon my return, Liam told me to go away and that he didn't want me to be around with him - it made me so sad - though for Liam that often means that he really does want me to be closeby. Wonder where he got the passive agressive gene...).