College nostalgia

I had occasion last night to visit a university in my city. I've long known it was there and wanted to explore it, but just never got around to doing so until now.

If some advanced alien race is ever on the verge of annihilating humanity as a dangerous, useless cosmic parasite, perhaps we can offer our invention of the university in our defense.

I loved my years there, except for finals weeks. I had to work hard to get there and stay there -- three jobs just to pay the bills. So I had no time or energy for keg parties and all that crap. I took the absolute max number of credits that the university would allow me, even though everyone thought I was nuts, and it did about kill me. They stretched my not-so-brilliant mind until it literally did ache.

And I made sure to also take some out-of-the-ordinary courses just for fun, like Bulgarian and botany.

Is there any other place on earth where youthful naivette and intense wisdom so freely mingle? Where arrogance and humility, incredible tolerance and ridiculous intolerance are so freely evident? Where a poor kid from some distant village can sit in the same classroom with a sun-tanned daddy's girl/mama's boy from an exclusive gated community and compete for the same grade?

I prowled every corner of my university -- its art displays and mysterious corners, its every field and building, its every possibility, from the law library to the farm where new strains of plants were being grown.

I miss that energy, that vitality, that wonderful place so much.