No matter what you are celebrating, the holidays are about love, family, togetherness, joy and laughter. The past two years I have not gone home (to Atlanta) for the holidays and have, instead, remained in San Diego. I have been fortunate enough to have friends, faculty, and administration open their homes to me so that I would not have to spend it alone. For all the wonderful academic benefits to being here in SOLES, that is one that weighs much greater to me.

The People

That is what makes SOLES, SOLES. That is what brings life to our beautiful building, passion to our thoughts and actions, and edits to our precious dissertations. Faculty, Staff, Administration, Cohorts, Classmates, From the Dean to the Maintenance, we are a family. I understand how that may sound to some, but it is true and I love that!  I take an incredible amount of pride in the communities I am involved in. I used to think that no other place or institution would ever take the place of my undergraduate college. And I was right 🙂 However, there is a new space that is growing exponentially for SOLES. I think by the time I graduate I will have grown to love it so deeply that I often wonder how I will ever walk away from it.  Then I remember this poem: Love arrives;  and in its train come ecstasies/old memories of pleasure/ancient histories of pain.  Yet, if we are bold/love strikes away the chains of fear  from our souls.    We are weaned from our timidity.  In the flush of love’s light/we dare be brave /And suddenly we see  that love costs all we are  and will ever be.  Yet, it is only love  which sets us free.  – Maya Angelou
And I know that when the time comes, I will leave. Braver and unbound by any chains. I will leave here, Free because of the love…and that is worth celebrating.
 
**The University of San Diego will be closed until January 2, 2013, we will resume our posts at that time**