I had my midterm today and I thought it went reasonably well. I feel confident in the fact that I studied and did a lot better than I thought I would do. I got to talk to Bryan for a while about ideas of community. I feel like the community here is small, so you get to see how different dynamics work and then you can see how those dynamics do or do not exist within a larger community like William and Mary or like the United States or like the world. Obviously, not every dynamic can be considered on an international level, but it’s still really interesting to think about.

I also go to e-mail some people I’d been meaning to get in touch with and to talk to Miranda for a while, which was really good for me. It’s always wonderful to talk with someone who will be honest about what is going on in the lives of the people back home since I’m so far away and have no way of knowing, but am still, at times, concerned for their wellbeing.

I also got to talk to one of my old housemates. I realized that before moving in with him this year, I didn’t really know who he was as an individual. I knew that he was friends with my friends, but I have learned that this isn’t enough. I had grown tired of basing my relationships solely on whether or not a person is a friend of my friends. I began to look at people as individuals who I had something to share with and learn from. In doing this, I think I’ve discovered a much richer world in which I can think about people as separate from a larger group. There is nothing wrong with being a part of a group, and often the people within a group will share things in common, but that is no reason to stereotype anyone into taking on a group identity. I believe that this is something we do far too often. We should be looking at people for who they are, not where they come from, what they are interested in, not only what their major is, and what is special about them, not what is just like everyone else.

We’ve talked a little bit in my Japanese Minorities course about how in Japan, people only understand and accept compliments which compare them to being “just like everybody else.” This is because there is a strong sense of homogeneity here in Japan and identity is linked more to the group than it is to the individual. Yet, I think that this can make us machines. In Player Piano, the Vonnegut book that I am reading right now, there is a system set up in which machines have replaced people and computers determine who gets to do what job based on scores of exams taken after high school and college. These people are identified by a number and a title, Dr. this and Dr. that. When you think about it, though, group identity can turn people into a machine, or at least a functioning mechanical part of a greater whole. However, I don’t believe that a community or group should be based off of the one part of a whole idea. Everyone is their own whole, whether or not they belong to a group. Sure, 1+1+1+1+1=1 doesn’t seem to make that much sense, but no one ever said that humans had to obey the laws of mathmatics. Or perhaps the equation would have to read a+b+c+d=1 since every individual is going to be different. Perhaps the true situation is somewhere in between. I believe that people must be looked at as individuals, yet individuals who are all different. I have found that my friendships and my view of the world as a whole has been immensely changed by forcing myself to not take labels as a representation of who a person is. I wish that my thoughts were more conclusive on the matter, but I’m still thinking and figuring it out. Hell, I haven’t even finished Player Piano yet. I think that it’s one of those issues that may never have a resolution, but I think by people individually making the effort to look at it differently, an overall difference can be made.

I started in one place and ended up in another. Hopefully in this weekend I will find new beginnings all over again.