So I just totally had a fabulous time cheering for my fellow MoHos who are all incredible troublemaking women from all sorts of different backgrounds and I just thought I’d write some of this down. 

We’re so full of energy and support and even though I come back to my dorm exhausted every night it’s all worth it for the discussions we have. Some of these women, it seems, have bared their souls in some ways to us in just the short time we’ve been living on campus. I know I’ve talked about things here and been more emotional than I ever have been. It’s strange to feel vulnerable as far as being shaken by what people say but there are certain things that have happened within the last week that have just brought me to tears for the fact that I’m so privileged to get to live and claim my education here in this open community. Many of the activities we have been doing for orientation have been just to build a community and, as we discovered this morning in our “Moving beyond Tolerance” discussion, a community based on trust, and deep knowledge and care for our classmates. 

To the women who stood up today (you know who you are and you know what I’m talking about) THANK YOU! I stood when it was fitting and I just remember once I was in a small group and it was a little uncomfortable for me to just stand there even if the topic wasn’t something I was uncomfortable talking about. It wasn’t because I don’t like my classmates it was just the fact that I was sharing personal information with a group of 600+ people with very little explanation on my part. For you to stand before the crowd and tell us through that motion that you had attempted suicide, been sexually abused or anything of that sort was incredibly brave and I am honored to be among such brave young female scholars.

For the record, we definitely discussed that and the Intersections until about 11:20 last night (with some other things thrown in too) and it was awesome. 

Mount Holyoke forever shall be!