To finalize the second week of school, The Creative Writing Department went on a field trip to the SF MOMA. We were assigned to find a piece we related to, and to write a poem inspired by it- So we drifted through the Muni downtown, and dispersed throughout the museum, inspecting each piece through our own interpretation. The Freshman had come up with the plan to walk around downtown afterwards, get boba, maybe go to Blick Art Supplies. So as soon as everyone had relocated themselves to the museum entrance, we started to ramble our way to the nearby park. Little to our knowledge, a colossal Pokemon convention had sprung into full action, taking downtown into its arms. So we held onto each other’s backpacks, leading a string of writers through a crowd of Pokemon enthusiasts, and eventually made our way to the park. We settled down under an empty play structure, bags outsprawled across the ground, eating stale popcorn. Over the break, we had all worked religiously over our summer homework, and in the middle of a Pokémon convention downtown, the only plausible thing to do was to read each other our summer poems. So one by one we each read out loud our stories, our poems, and each time concluded in an applause of gratification, of community. We even attracted an audience, consisting of a 9 year old named Cashmere who wanted to spend his time in the park listening to poetry. 

In Creative Writing, you can imagine how much everyone loves what they do. Whether you’re in the Department classroom, on the Muni, or even in the middle of a Pokemon convention, you’ll never stop thinking like a writer. As I now type this at my bathroom sink whilst brushing my teeth, I reference Roland Barthes, “Writers are on holiday, but their muse is awake.”