Greeks Bearing Gifts

On Saturday (registration day), Mary P came running up to my table in the gym, squealing. She had spent the summer in Spain with a school program and then in Greece, of which her father is a native. She looked radiantly happy to be back at school and to see me.

She was in one of my sophomore English classes last year. She attacked her learning with enthusiasm, curiosity, and good cheer. When her advisor, one of my closest friends at school, told her advisees that she was leaving, Mary P asked if I'd be her advisor. I'm honored. Truly.

She brought me this little refrigerator magnet and a beautiful postcard of the blue blue sea surrounding Greece. Little does she know that once I was a Hellenophile, that I have always dreamed of going to Greece, that I studied ancient Greek and Greek history and classical drama and Greek art and architecture. Some day, some day, I'll see these beautiful whitewashed houses clinging to the rocks and looking out on the sea.

In the meantime, this magnet cheers me every time I pass the fridge.