2002-10-26 || 9:26 p.m.

This is an email I wrote to my friend Andrea that I thought I should paste on my diary:

Andrea,

I experienced the most amazing thing today. I went to a huge antiwar protest at the Civic Center. The same thing was going on in D.C. so it was supposed to be a big event to send a message out about our voices not being heard in Congress about the war in Iraq. A group of people decided to march down Market Street (which is probably is busiest street in San Fran and where all the big stores are). We marched through traffic (actually, stopped traffic) and everyone just watched us and took pictures and cheered. They honked their horns and just watched, like they understood. I can't even express the feeling, I felt so high. We ended up marching all the way down Market Street to Fishermen's Wharf. By the time we got to Fishermen's Wharf, the police were already in riot gear and had their weapons out. They wouldn't let us march down to the "tourist" area of Fishermen's Wharf cause we would have had stopped traffic and caused a big scene. It was kind of getting out of hand by then so my friend and I took the bus back to campus then. It was still such an amazing experience and I know that I can look back on it in years and know I did something towards the cause. There must have been about 80,000 people there (at the Civic Center, not marching). I don't know if the news will cover it, but it made a great impact on the people in the bay area. Maybe that is why the news media won't cover it, too many antiwar feelings they don't want all of America to see. Oh, and all the hippies are alive and well.

Maybe this is my "crazy" thing I should do, not getting my nipples pierced. I decided it needs to be something "mental", not physical.

Work sounds fun. So hip and cool we are. I just feel so proud of where we are now. I'm doing the typical university thing in San Francisco, protest capital of the world and you are in Seattle being a hip pastry chef. I get such a high off youth.

luv, steph

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