Place, object, story.

My "special" place is UC. I love it here. Anyone who has known me since I was a freshman knows that I have changed dramatically over the last three years I've spent here. I can't really pinpoint the changes I've gone through but UC has dramatically altered who I am and the way I see the world. Since I can't realistically expect that this is an appropriate answer I will instead choose to focus on the Ursinusiana Archives. I feel that the time I've spent at UC is being brought together by my honors project which, appropriately, is about the College and what has shaped its character over the past 140 years. The archives also represent the College as a whole for reasons that I don't think need to be explained.

The object I'm choosing is a paperweight with a picture of a bird on it. I hate birds, but this particular one is different. This bird picture also represents my time at Ursinus because the poster print is all. over. campus. Seriously, just take a quick walk through any building (especially Corson) and I guarantee you'll come across it. Now, I couldn't STAND that stupid print but last week when I was looking through my desk space in the office I work in I cam across a few paperweights with the bird on it. I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen but my boss pointed out to me that that bird would probably remind me more of Ursinus than most other things I've acquired during my time here. She's totally right and I'm totally holding on to that paper weight.

My story is about a place but it's not a place we can walk to as a class. When I was 16 I studied abroad in Israel for 4 months. One of the excursions we went on was to a small suburb/village thinger outside of Jerusalem called Abu Ghosh. It's an Arab Israeli community that sets a great precedent for co-existence. Basically, the people of the town live in perfect harmony with their Jewish Israeli neighbors. When we went there a few of my friends and I were wandering around a spot in town where the shops and stands were set up. We had gone to buy hummus (Abu Ghosh is known for its hummus) and we got a little lost. While we were trying to find our way back we came across a local woman - probably in her mid 20s - who not only helped us back but engaged us in a conversation about Arab Israeli-Jewish Israeli relations and her take on the whole business. I don't remember exactly what was said (it was in Hebrew - one of the people in our group was fluent and translated for us) but I do recall coming away from the whole experience feeling incredibly optimistic about the whole world and the possibilities that exist for those who just take a minute and engage their neighbor.