Degrees of separation (unspecified number ) and their potential intended/unintended implications.

For some unknown reason, my life has connected me quite personally to some seminal events of the past half decade. Cases in point: in 1971, my family moved to Cambodia - shortly afer Nixon's invasion thereof. My dad worked in the U.S. embassy, and as a Democrat in a Republican administration, it was one of the few posts that did not require him to submit to White House clearance. "We" spent two years there, until my mom and my two youngest brothers were evacuated sometime in 1973. However, I spent most of my time at Abbot Academy, an all-girls boarding school in Andover, Mass. [Hint: the "all girls" characteristic was a covert yet- I realize in retropsect -= central selection criterion for my parents.]

You know the scene in Apocalypse Now where the soldiers water-skiied on the Mekong with flames arising all around them? Well, Apocalypse now was a move, and, pardon me, a somewhat oversimplified version of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. However, my experience was real--not imagined by a film producer in Hollywood. I was fifteen, awkward, overweight, and under dressed.