Today we attended a symposium entitled Our Systems and Theirs: Indigenous Knowledge, Racial Identity, and Higher Education hosted at Harvard. We were joined by some Native American and Canadian students to discuss our identities and how we can exist as indigenous peoples in traditionally Western/European higher education institutions.

It was a wonderful day, honestly. I loved hearing everybody’s stories and making some new friends. One particularly bookish member of the Canadian party has promised to visit Perth one day, and I think I will have to return the favour! Perhaps in the meantime we can send each other book recommendations every now and then.

After the symposium a couple of the other Scholars and I found the cutest little basement café, where we had some delicious tea and soup and killed some time before the group dinner in the evening. We also took a wander through the Harvard Book Store and I fell in love with the place. It’s massive, and has an amazing selection of both new and used books. Pictured below is one that I picked up which I have heard many good things about—and which won both Hugo and Nebula awards. I’m excited to read it!

Dinner was fab. We ate at the Harvard Faculty Club, and the food was so good. There were vegetables! Vegetables!!

Everyone had a great time chatting and getting to know each other better. The camaraderie continued back at the hotel, with some Scholars playing a game or two of pool, and others of us just sitting around and continuing our dinner conversations.

Tomorrow we have a group lunch, but I’m going to head into Harvard early with my roomie for some breakfast and a wander around campus since I will miss the tour on Thursday (I’m visiting MIT!). There are two other bookshops I’ve been told are worth checking out, one of which is called Raven Books (my fave bookshop back home is Crow Books, so obviously I have to drop in).

But now, heat pack and bed. Goodnight!

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor has won both Hugo and Nebula awards, and it’s only 90 pages long!