Is it really where fun comes to die?

idad
Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:01:43 +0000

My S said the saddest thing about his first year was that it ended so soon. He had a great time, said he can’t wait to get back in the fall. He said the one thing that surprised him the most were the number of exclusive relationships that rapidly developed. He called them mini-marriages. He said at times when first meeting people it takes a little while to get a “normal” conversation rolling. This is not because of any personal defects, only that everything is so intense and and argument/discussion is so much part of the culture, it just kind of becomes natural to extend what one is thinking about into new situations. Overall, he said it is ridiculously fun, in both its traditional, and non-traditional connotations. He has spent time at parties doing crazy stuff, and spent time discussing physics and string theory for hours with professors and grad students who love it and with those who hate it (and he is not a physics major), which he said was pure joy. In short he is deliriously happy there. I asked him for a one word description of the students at Chicago, he said “insane,” in the best sense of the word of course.