I struggle to write. There has been a school shooting at UCLA, which is apparently a murder-suicide. They have just lifted the lockdown, which means that my self-imposed exile in a dark room is about to end. Frankly, I do not think that I, nor my multitude of friends I've made at UCLA, should know exactly how a school shooting feels. I have had friends who have had to belt doors closed because some doors do not lock from the inside. I have had friends who have had to run across to another building for safety. This is not acceptable.

As I've said before, we live in a res publica where we have to live with others and all the consequences it entails. Gun rights and mental health are complicated issues, and topics that I will not delve into with this post because of the length they inherently entail. However, I will say this. The center cannot hold. We cannot continue like this.

During the lockdown, something hit the electronic lock on the exterior of my dorm room door (I suspect it may have been a squirrel). I froze, and was immediately terrified for my safety for a brief ten seconds. I should not have to fear for my life because there is the possibility that I will get shot and killed within the next few minutes. That is not the way a res publica functions. We do not function well in constant fear. I do not want to live my life in constant fear that a deranged person may shoot me. I do not care whether you attribute this to mental health, or gun rights, or whatever, but I tell you all this: the center cannot hold.

On a happier note, some updates from the news included in "Her Last Bow" and "Another Farewell":

I am pleased to announce that I have been selected for the Helen Caldwell Prize for Outstanding Minors by the UCLA Department of Classics. I am pleasantly surprised, and I am quite honored to have been selected for this distinction.

I presented my poster for "Hearts and Minds: Comparative Counter-Radicalization Strategies in the United States and United Kingdom" at UCLA Undergraduate Research Week and won an Outstanding Poster Award, for which I am immensely grateful.

On a last note, I went to the Model United Nations Senior Banquet last night in honor of the graduating seniors, including me. It was a beautiful and heartwarming night in which I bid adieu to several people and made plans to bond further with many others. I can only hope that the warmth and loveliness of that night is what demarcates my life, not this terrible morning.

That evening, after a few glasses of wine, I was wondering what the next day, and the day after, and the day after brought. I did not imagine this. I cannot imagine a worse incident to mark my exit from UCLA. But that is life: warmth, love, hatred, death, and everything that comes in between. Triumph. Disaster. We meet the two equally in our lives, so I've found.