English 145 (2)

We considered foreground and background in English 145 yesterday—the interplay of primary and secondary, the fringe of context, the depth that is gained by incrementally adjusting the writer-observer's depth of field. We took our cameras out and searched for the iconic, then asked ourselves what lay beyond the chosen subject, what defined the borderlands, how the borderlands in turn shadowed and shaped the subject.

For my part, I returned to the Quad at Penn—my home during a tumultuous freshman year, when the new was alarming, and the raw was very real, and I was saved by a sophomore downstairs who played Bruce Springsteen loud in his room. We were just friends, but friends mattered most. They are what now come into view when weather and mood return me to then.