WEBVTT

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Thank you, Bojan,
that means a lot.

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Check's in the mail.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Bienvenidos todos. ¡Cincuenta!

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That's a pretty cool number.

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I can't believe
that I've actually

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run the gamut of
all of those years.

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I came to U of A. I
was born in Nogales.

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Not exactly a college
prep experience.

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And I started the U of
A, not as a university.

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I didn't know how to
come to university.

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We didn't have a lot
of college recruiters.

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And instead, what I did know
how to do is come to 13th grade,

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and that's how I came to
college as what I could handle.

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And when I came here,
what was thrilling

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was not my first year.

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That was, you know, you get
through your first year.

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But when I signed up for
classes for my second year,

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sophomore year.

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The truth of it is, I was going
through the U of A catalog,

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and I went to
English department.

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I had grown up in a
bilingual household.

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I struggled with
freshman English.

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I thought I'd never come to an
English department again ever,

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but by accident, I landed
on an English department.

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And I will never forget this.

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And one of the funny
things is to tell you

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how far back it goes.

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English 9, introduction
to poetry writing.

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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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No final.

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I signed right up.

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Right under that.

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Introduction-- English
10, introduction

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to fiction writing.

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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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No final.

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I have found my major.

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I thought these were the
coolest classes ever,

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and they were until the
end of the first semester

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or so when Bill Roecker--

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I think, Bob Houston,
you might remember him--

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Bill Roecker was my
first poetry teacher,

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and Peter Wild was my
first fiction teacher.

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What I love about
that is that jumble.

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And even though I had maybe
a bilingual sensibility

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in terms of language, taking
both poetry and fiction,

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the joke was on me.

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It showed me there could
be a sense of bilinguality

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in the arts that you could
go all sorts of ways.

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That if in a word I could
see all sorts of other ways

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to see a thing, I could do
that in the arts as well.

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And that there were no limits.

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And as an undergraduate,
I started taking classes.

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Peter Wild, took
a lot of classes

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from Peter Wild, Dick Shelton,
Bob Houston, Steve Orlen.

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And I remember it wasn't
just the teaching,

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it was the environment.

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This is a great turnout tonight.

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I thank you all for coming.

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And I remember the
anticipation of the writers

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that were coming through.

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Men and women like
Mr. Root here.

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The anticipation--
the anticipation.

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We were all on the verge of
something, and now here we are.

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I'm going to start by
reading a quick poem.

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I know this is a
celebratory night,

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and that's what I want it to be.

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And if I can just find my--

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what was I going to read?

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[LAUGHS]