Old School Ties
I am here at Swarthmore, doing some work for Professor K. David Harrison. It’s fun work, and going well—which is always profoundly satisfying when dealing with programming—but that’s not quite what I’m thinking about. More interesting to me is that this is the first time I’ve been back on campus not explicitly for a social visit. In fact, the campus is nearly void of people I know, or at least seems so, after the social busyness of senior year and the fact that every visit in this past year has been filled with other people from my year visiting too, and all of our various friends in 2009 being on campus. I know relatively few people in 2010.
It’s interesting. Kinda satisfying. There are things I like about this place independent of the people, but I can also feel free from it. I will mull over these thoughts more. Unsure of them yet.
Kit,
I knew you were near Philadelphia but not that you were working at Swarthmore. Do you work on campus? I’d like to say hello next time I’m in the area. You’re only an hour and a half from where I live now, I have easy access to a hybrid car, and you’re extremely close to some friends I’d like to visit soon.
–Blake.
Well, I’m only here until Wednesday … but do let me know if you’re around, I can get to Philly easily enough.
A short job. Where next?
I’m in the general area, in NJ. Until grad school takes me who-knows-where.
I actually look forward to the feeling you’re describing, in some ways. I found it profounding disconcerting when I visited and knew lots of people but was no longer actually a participant in any of the things they were doing. I could bother them on the beach, but had no reading to actually go attend to, could hang out at an event but didn’t have classes to relate it back to, that sort of thing.
In other news, I just discovered this blog! I know I’m entirely hopeless about keeping in touch, but it is nice to “hear” from you again!
Hopeless indeed, but I’m not much better. Let’s fix this!
You’re right, really. It’s all kinda like a complicated break up with Swat, where we want to be friends, but needed to give each other some space, so we could come back and renegotiate the terms of our friendship, figure out how we can now interact. And I feel like I’ve just made a chunk of progress on that.