By Hannah Marcovitch

The day started off heavily with a visit to Columbine High School and the memorial for the massacre that occurred there 11 years ago. Immediately after driving into the high school parking lot we could feel our moods dampen. It was a humbling experience to be on the property where a tragedy took place. We then walked to the memorial and each of us realized how much we could relate to the victims and the normal lives they had led. The story at the memorial of Daniel Mauser was especially striking because we had spoken with his father about gun control the day before. One of the quotes at the memorial really struck us. It said, “A kid my age should not be going to this many funerals.” It made the tragedy so much more real, showing that a shooting like this could happen at any school.

We then drove to the JCC in Boulder to hear about climate control. Our speaker worked for the Alliance for Climate Education and informed us about how each of us can make a difference in the effort to reduce the carbon footprint. This discussion counter balanced the discussion Jim Pfaff had with us about how global warming is not manmade and should not be controlled by man.

After lunch we went to Naropa University, which is a Buddhist-inspired college. It was interesting to see a different take on education. We also met with Steven Taylor who teaches in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poets, which is the summer writing program at Naropa. He spoke to us about the beginnings of the Beatnik culture and the various writers and poets that inspired that generation. We heard about such people as Jack Kerouac, Allan Ginsburg, and William Burroughs. This talk prepared us for our visit to San Francisco.

From Naropa, we walked to Pearl Street for some free time to walk around and shop. We had dinner and then went to the movies where people had a choice of seeing “Eclipse,” “Grown Ups,” or “Knight and Day.” After the movies we went on our overnight bus ride to Salt Lake City.