photos i didn't take, posts i didn't write

I have been having vague, ephemeral ideas for posts since I got here.

One: I wanted to take pictures of the colleges' courtyards. The colleges are the dormitories of the undergraduates; they modeled the system after Oxford, I think, and it really feels a bit like in Harry Potter. At least, it feels so from the outside. Except that there are not just four, but a lot, I think more than ten. If I were a different person, I would check it out, but I am not. Well, nobody is a different person.
Oh god, these thoughts give me the sense of what kind of philosophy dork I'm becoming. Not that I wasn't dorky, but I wasn't one of the philosophical kind, more the generic kind. When I begin to make philosophical jokes, please drown me.
Anyway, these colleges are awesome, the buildings are old enough to look authoritative but not pretentious, austere, but not grim. Inside they have these unexpected open and green (so far) gardens, where people in the summer used to read and chat, displaying this relaxed confidence that all undergraduates here seem to have, for obvious reasons.

Two: I am truly impressed by these kids. They're smart. They're fun.
They're nice! I mean, they're not even snobbish. They are so cool they don't need to show off, they give it for granted, I guess. They're wealthy, some more, some less. I take the average undergraduate is better off than the average graduate, although with philosophy graduates you never know, those spoiled guys. But I just gave a look at some photos of a friend of one of my young ADD mates from a fancy restaurant in NYC and thought that my career will allow me to eat those microscopic delicacies in a hundred years.

Three: ADD stands for A Different Drum, and is, among other things, my way of defying aging. A less narcissistic description would be: one of the many dance groups/companies here at Yale, all composed mainly by undergraduates. At ADD they're really fun and really good, and I'm really excited about being part of it. If only I had the time to take some dance class every once in a while, I could keep a balance for more than a second and not feel decrepit. But still, I pretend well enough. I am not choreographing this semester, and I wonder if I will have ever find the guts to try.

Four: one of the reasons I love being here is that there is so much ethnic diversity. I am unsure whether it is also cultural. I mean, in a way, it is: people come from very different parts, and consequently cultures, of the worlds. I have met Muslim people for the first time, some of which are my friends. I met people from the Middle East, the Far East, Central Africa, India, China, and so forth. But what I like more is that people mix up more than I have seen in other universities. The group that is devoted to one, amazing, kid of Indian dance (bhangra) features Caucasians, African Americans, East-Asians, besides its South-Asian core. But I hesitate to talk of cultural diversity for evident reasons: it's not exactly full of peasants, here.

Five: how am I living the social (and racial) segregation? I wish I could say I rebel to it. I do not, of course, as I didn't do it in Chicago. I am not planning to do any social work in the next future, although I constantly remind myself I should. I am too busy, and selfish. The truth is, I might be living anywhere. I do not pay attention to what surrounds the campus. I am already captive of the "Yale bubble".

Six: and you know what? I am "in-a-rush" as never before. Not in terms of intensity, but in terms of directionality and concentration. I have only one focus, one priority. Dance is a nice complement, but really just that. My personal relationships are reduced to the minimum (in the good way, the essential). I am tired, but the good tiredness of a clean conscience. If feels just right.