It was a year ago today that we lost our five students in the plane crash. It's hard to believe it's been that long already, but it's especially hard to see all of the Virginia Tech coverage and know that they are going through a similar event, losing so many of their students, faculty, and staff. I can't imagine what a tremendous burden that must be, but we share in their heartache.

What is also very sad to me is the fact that the Korean community here in Bloomington is very frightened about retaliation over the Virginia Tech massacre. My friend Hyun Jung, who I play flute duets with, said that events at his church and other places are being cancelled, and that he doesn't want to be out in public. (It doesn't help that the KKK is threatening to march in Bloomington tomorrow.) We were disappointed because we want to go out to dinner and celebrate with Hyun Jung - he improved his TOEFL (English exam) score by 20 points. He only needed three points higher to be accepted into the masters program, but he's been working very hard on his English and scored that much higher. (I had been helping him practice speaking and listening for the test, but that's the only category that actually went down! D'oh!) So congratulations to Hyun Jung - and we'll celebrate a little later.