Memories of ‘185’

There are not many of us who are going to be able to recall these experiences. I had Mrs. Forsbeck in first grade. The classroom was on the second floor right above the room where I had kindergarten with Mrs. Potter. Then, either my junior year or senior at Princeton, I took a course called Oriental Studies 332, I think. It was Chinese institutional history and the course was filled with graduate students, and the professor was the amazing and legendary James T.C. Liu.

It was in the exact same classroom where Mrs. Forsbeck had taught us how to write our first words of English – except now I was studying Chinese philosophy and using Chinese characters to delve into its meaning. Same exact room – it was astonishing. As we probed into Confucian philosophy, I would sit there and wonder, what would Mrs. Forsbeck think?  Or Mrs. Potter? Or Mrs. Isaacson? Or Mrs. Penrose?  Or Nurse Kaplan?