Today, I met up with my friend R. at the university where I did my undergraduate education -and where I latter lectured-. I hadn't been there since I started my PhD and I wasn't sure how I felt about going.
Driving up there I noticed how much things have changed: you need to give your ID at the door due to recent burglaries on campus, the old coffee and book store is gone and new, chain ones, have opened. Most things, however, are still the same: the kids looking just the same as they did when I started school there ten years ago, the quiet atmosphere and the brisk air of zone 15 have not changed one bit.
And I also ran into some of my former students (I'm still surprised as just how many kiddies were either in the classes I lectured or TA-ed). I laughed so much, and they still remembered so many of the silly things we would pull in class. And they seem so happy to see me that I cant' help but to want to have to go there every day again. Sure, the pay was shitty, I don't really like (aka, I detest) the head of my department now, and I have to go to Sweden (and I want to go to Sweden)... but for a few hours, it was like being back home.
2 comments:
Having to leave the ID at the door was kind of a shock for me. Unheard of.
The guy even asked "Who are you coming to see?" And I was like "Nobody, I just feel like visiting my old school"... Since they insisted on wanting to know where I intended to go I just made up a name.
Lovely experience going back though.
I know! But my friend told me that its because some thieves got into the university and locked in a class full of students!
I did the same thing though. It feels like going into a gated community. Inside though, it still has the same vibe, doesn't it? I really did miss it.
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