So. I'm here.

For the first time I can remember, Grandfather and Da' agreed on something, and that was me coming here. To Eupheme.

I don't want to be here.

It's crowded. I have a roommate who seems to think it is his solemn and avowed duty to invade my private space and seduce me into theater and homosexuality. He grates on my nerves. And if he makes too many more suggestive comments, or can't find it in himself to refrain from touching my ass or my thigh, I'm going to find myself spending a lot of nights on the roof. Chased out of my own room by one of the very people I used to fight for.

I miss home.

Boston is crowded. It's stinks. It's loud and there are too many people. All of them seem to think I'm some kind of bumpkin, some kind of stupid hillbilly who doesn't know anything about anything. At least overseas they didn't mistake a southern drawl for stupidity. Still, I'm going to let them think that. It'll take too much time and too much energy to correct them all.

I want a quiet night. I want a clear sky, full of stars. I want a cool breeze and the scent of trees and the brush.

Instead, I hear cars and bad music and people who call soda 'pop'.

These people are so transparent. So many of them have only one layer. They're all interested in who's sleeping with who and who's gay and who's not.

The 'gay' thing seems to be a big deal here.

All of my roommate's friends seem hell bent on 'converting' me. Hell, if Da' couldn't make me a Christian after all these years, then how could they make me something I'm not? I've never had a problem with it, before. Hell, I've shared a bed with a gay man for three months before. I've showered with a gay man. Yet, here, in the confines of this school, I'm afraid of them. What happens if I say no too many times, or I break one of their stupid rules of propriety and then they'll decide I'm a homophobe.

I just wish they would take a single 'no' as an answer. The same for joining one of the summer theater groups they've got going.

I don't like theater. I don't like acting and I don't like attending the shows. I hate musicals. I hate opera.

I'm here because it's supposed to be good for my tribe. It's supposed to give one of us the credentials to go out into the world and go to college and get more credentials. To prove to them that being a medicine man doesn't mean you're a witch-doctor or charlatan or a fool.

This is important enough I'm spending a summer away from the reserve to catch up - I'm coming in two years late as it is. I'm going to find a construction job, maybe, and earn some spending money. At least it'll mean I'll be spending time away from my roommate and his crew.

Da' was right. This is going to be hell, but it's the only school that would understand what I'm doing and why. Grandfather was right, too. In the end, it will be worth it, no matter how much I hate it here.

I miss Cleante. I'm going to have to write her. For now, I'm moving out to the roof before I do something unforgivably violent to my roommate.