I just had a very enlightening encounter with someone. I'm at the library trying to write a paper and I went over to the coffee shop in the student center next door. While in line, one of the ladies that works at the student center whom I have gotten to know simply from seeing her there all the time was, surprise, there as well. She came over to me, and after saying hi and whatnot, said, "I'm working the post station for a while now, but a professor just came over, and he said to me, 'You have beautiful hair. You're beautiful.'" Clearly anyone would be somewhat perplexed if a person you have hever met before just said this. She explained to me that, being an African American woman, with her braided hair and beads, she usually only gets those kinds of comments from men who are like her. The professor, she continued, said, "'You look like no-one's ever told you this before.'" He was at the post station for the purpose of sending in a theory which he was hoping would get published. What he said to her was also what his theory was about. He had told her, "I see myself in you. I see beauty in other people when I see myself in them. When one sees this, it gives them a permanent level of respect for the other person. This is what many people fail to see, and this is why we run into so many problems between races and cultures. We need to learn to see ourselves in everyone." This made so much sense. She said to me too that she really felt what he had said. So deep! "So what does he teach? Philosophy?" I asked. She brought over his business card he had left her. "Molecular Biology."