d.w. was a student i taught in the fall of 06. she is generally curious and studious. i enjoyed working with her quite a bit. for her final project for my class, she did a drawing dealing with religion and spirituality within asian america. it mixed iconography of christian, buddhist and hindu religions. when i asked her about the iconography, she told me that it was a reflection of how she approaches spirituality. when i was thinking about what she said in relation to the project, i kept thinking about how the early twenties (well, and i suppose at any time of life) we search for our own identities. the character that came to mind upon some brief meditation of d.w. was the one above. in japanese, it is "ji" or "onozu" which roughly means "self," "ego," or "independence." "jiyuu" means freedom. "jikaku" means self-awareness, etc. it was perhaps a bit pedagogical for me to write this for d.w., but i have no pretensions of knowing my self more than anyone else. in fact, this whole project is a bit about finding myself. i was hoping that it might incite others (and d.w.) to do so as well.