Smooth travel

William, lying in my comfortable chair watching Kite Runner (recommended, though main guy as an adult is terrible) and eating warm nuts in your leather jacket, I realize that I am simply an extension of you, like some sort of detachable appendage. :)

The trip home was incredibly smooth and problem free, though the bus I got on for St Andrews decided to take the scenic night tour of what I swear must be ALL of Fife, every small town bus stop, for three hours before finally getting here. But no matter. Have seen Jim and Sammy but nobody else so far...still, it's good to be back. Feels like I just picked up where I left off--studying decently and thinking more about drama this semester. I've really got a lot going on, and I want to start really focusing on academics, as next year starts counting. It's cold but not awful, and I feel good, like I've hit the ground running.

This winter break was interesting, very range-y in scope. I feel like the two recurring themes were friendship--how it changes, what it requires, and the importance of loyalty--and teaching, as I'm far enough from High School that I think I'm really listening when my old teachers talk! Education is fascinating, and while I'm still not that keen on teaching, it's really got me thinking about the fundamentals of how schools are organized, from subject areas to periods for classes. For me, elementary school had a single teacher for everything, Chile had different teachers for subjects but kept classes of kids together, middle school had block scheduling with 2 hour periods of each class every other day, and high school had an hour of each each day. Thinking about it, I'm intrigued by the Chilean concept--though it made it very difficult to integrate as an outsider, I'm sure it prevented what I felt in High School and especially here: that I don't know many of the people in my classes outside of that context, so that each class is a very solitary experience. Though from my visit to UCI it seems that the core classes at US institutions can help solve this issue, leading me to think that the "breadth" classes at universities are more for social than academic growth.

Have also talked with quite a few people about our experiences in college, as we have been here long enough to have real opinions (maybe). There was a common feeling of disappointment, oddly. As if there had been this huge buildup from High School and our parents' experiences, and the actualization was not bad, just...less. People were less engaged than we thought they'd be, academics were more rigorous but at the same time more distant (for larger institutions), social interaction by-and-large good but overshadowed by the Academy, and overall opportunities not as abundant or important as we thought they'd be. Will we revise history as we get older to see this as the best time of our lives, or are we really having a different experience than our parents?

Also, a UK/US thought differential: in the US, university students are seen as having it together, hard-working, intellectually engaged, and maybe a bit dirty or party-ish. In the UK (and probably especially St Andrews), "students" is almost a derogatory term, as they are seen as having too much time on their hands and generally interacting with locals in a drunken and destructive way. I suspect the reasons for this are an earlier drinking age coupled with the fact that most people here have gone to university, so it is not looked at as a elite class indicator but rather as a shared experience that most people have gone through (so that students see it more as a right than a privilege (being free or heavily subsidized helps) and it attracts more types of people).