Thank you, Bojan, that means a lot.
Check's in the mail.
[LAUGHTER]
Bienvenidos todos. ¡Cincuenta!
That's a pretty cool number.
I can't believe that I've actually
run the gamut of all of those years.
I came to U of A. I was born in Nogales.
Not exactly a college prep experience.
And I started the U of A, not as a university.
I didn't know how to come to university.
We didn't have a lot of college recruiters.
And instead, what I did know how to do is come to 13th grade,
and that's how I came to college as what I could handle.
And when I came here, what was thrilling
was not my first year.
That was, you know, you get through your first year.
But when I signed up for classes for my second year,
sophomore year.
The truth of it is, I was going through the U of A catalog,
and I went to English department.
I had grown up in a bilingual household.
I struggled with freshman English.
I thought I'd never come to an English department again ever,
but by accident, I landed on an English department.
And I will never forget this.
And one of the funny things is to tell you
how far back it goes.
English 9, introduction to poetry writing.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
No final.
I signed right up.
Right under that.
Introduction-- English 10, introduction
to fiction writing.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
No final.
I have found my major.
I thought these were the coolest classes ever,
and they were until the end of the first semester
or so when Bill Roecker--
I think, Bob Houston, you might remember him--
Bill Roecker was my first poetry teacher,
and Peter Wild was my first fiction teacher.
What I love about that is that jumble.
And even though I had maybe a bilingual sensibility
in terms of language, taking both poetry and fiction,
the joke was on me.
It showed me there could be a sense of bilinguality
in the arts that you could go all sorts of ways.
That if in a word I could see all sorts of other ways
to see a thing, I could do that in the arts as well.
And that there were no limits.
And as an undergraduate, I started taking classes.
Peter Wild, took a lot of classes
from Peter Wild, Dick Shelton, Bob Houston, Steve Orlen.
And I remember it wasn't just the teaching,
it was the environment.
This is a great turnout tonight.
I thank you all for coming.
And I remember the anticipation of the writers
that were coming through.
Men and women like Mr. Root here.
The anticipation-- the anticipation.
We were all on the verge of something, and now here we are.
I'm going to start by reading a quick poem.
I know this is a celebratory night,
and that's what I want it to be.
And if I can just find my--
what was I going to read?
[LAUGHS]