A funny thing happened on the way to integration...

I'm secretly proud that my study group is racially diverse. What can I say, I love a rainbow.

There's two white girls, three black girls, and an Asian girl, me.

Yesterday, Brittany, one of my black study-group girls, commented that she once met a white girl in grad school who said, "Brittany, you are the first black girl I've ever met!"

Brittany thought it was incredulous that someone in the US could go through her entire life, up until grad school, and never meet a black girl in the flesh.

And while my study group was having a good chuckle over that, I thought to myself, "Hey, wait a minute...I've never met a black girl in the flesh until this study group formed!"

I announced my revelation to the group and Brittany gave me a what-the-hell-look. "Where are you from?!" Brittany asked.

"San Jose, California," I replied, "where the population is atleast 50% Asian."

And then as I thought about it some more, I realized that I had only met one black man before, a friend from college. And as for black women, I met a lot of African women from Uganda, but not African-Americans. Very different.

During our discussion of my lack of racial experiences, Brittany happened to be checking her school email account and exclaimed, "What the hell! I just got an email for a 'White Christmas Party'! This school is so progressive it's going backwards!"

And after a moment's pause we all realized, it was 'white' because of the snow.

One of the things I love best about my school is meeting all kinds of people I would otherwise never have met. And I don't just mean race, I mean everything. People from all over the states, of all political persuasions (I met my first anarchist this year), and sexual orientations.