Culture can be invisible to its natives.

It is hard to create community when the sheer number of options generate a system in which no one is in the same place at the same time.

Community in the American university is paradoxically a private and individual decision.

The author's differing experience of school geography as a faculty member going from parking lot to parking lot and to locations centered around HER office and her experience of the more scattered life of a student speaks to a larger truth. As adults, we are used to following the same routine and look romantically on anything different.

Ethnic minorities were 10 times more likely than whites to eat at a table where they were the only representative of their race.

I find myself constantly taking apart be taken-for-granted.

The adult author finds that by inadvertently violating the school's alcohol policy, she breaks down some part of the barrier between her and the younger students who are subject to more rules.

Villagers saw me as a person when I played with them, as opposed to when I talked with them.