Today is the Friday of my first recess week, and I remember feeling rather happy all through my last lesson a week ago, from pre-class note-making prep to finally ending half of a semester and leaving campus. Getting to go home a little more carefree as afternoon waned is brought to mind now as I think of the last 4 brilliant days and nights I’ve had on campus, perhaps the most fun I’ve had since ifg week. It might just be that I return even on sat, but whatever the case is the fun has been of a various nature, from studying with friends to movie marathons with no sleep for a whole night; suffice to say this is turning out to be the kind of uni life I enjoy(:
While teaching tuition today I realized as I wrote down the date that it has been 10 years since September Eleven. As an 11 year old watching the BBC it was fairly surreal and disconnected, and since then it has come define a new paradigm, not just for terrorism or national security, but for a debater and now, a student of politics. What struck me a number of years ago and continues to strike me now is how it will be studied as an historical event by students not that much young for me, for whom this date has little more significance than the Cold War has for me. Why should this matter? Well in some ways it doesn’t, but as I was watching the delayed women’s semifinals or the US Open with that date printed on the side of the court, I reflect on many things, things like air travel and debating and political science and Interpol and the age of Bigger government. Who am I that these should matter, but a global citizen whose perusal of the Economist and all that it stands for and thinks rather somberly of the state of affairs.
On any given Thursday night exactly a month ago from tonight, I entered the hallowed halls of USP college not knowing much and left feeling fairly unentertained by what I found to be a pretentious dinner. Come next week I would have spent one month in university; how different things have turned out, not just from my grandiose plans made in the hazy days of 2008, but from that aforementioned night- be it 3 years or just a first month on, I’m slowly feeling like this year could warrant a post. As it has been in the past, experiences are made up of the people in them; I’m privileged to have met some in whom I find joy in investing myself. I look forward to when it is September(:
