Friday April 10

I came to school today to see Clemantine talk and attend the lunch. I’ve taken Mr. Randolf’s Holocaust and Genocide  and have a particular interest in her story. Oh, in terms of senior project stuff, I think that working at school is more beneficial to me than working form home. There are distractions (my friends are here and there’s a constant flow of people pretty much anywhere you go) but there’s also no beds or other random home things to distract you (should I take Onyx for a walk? Maybe do a load of laundry?) so I think I’m gonna start working there full time, at least until I find myself in a comfortable place in terms of my work (Ha, which knowing me will be never). Anyway back to Clemantine. I felt really weird watching the video of her and her family getting reunited, uncomfortable, that I and the whole nation was watching something so deeply personal and private. As Clemantine teared up at the playback and the audience members cheered I couldn’t help but imagine some unseen producer rubbing their hands together and saying into the mic “Oh this is gold, the ratings for this are gonna be phenomenal” I felt… like I was intruding on something by watching it and even though I think it was AMAZING what Oprah and her team did I still felt, off, so I decided to ask Clemantine about it at the lunch. I sank my teeth into m pizza crust as she spoke, eyes sparkling. She explained to me that the members of the live studio audience for that show were genocide survives themselves; and she said that the moment wasn’t really hers, or rather, wasn’t hers only. She put is more eloquently than this but she said that that moment wasn’t really for her it was for everyone. Like she had a holocaust survivor call her up after the show and say “thank you so much, I needed that”. The closure she got wasn’t just for her but for everyone who wouldn’t ever get closure for their own tragedies. It was a gift for her to share, something bigger than herself; which I loved. She is so humble and so wise at such a young age. I aspire to have some of her grace.