it struck me at dinner today (nara: good japanese food -- uni even! -- but pricey) -- i can actually have interesting conversations with the other first-years in my department. and not just about psychology, also on topics that i could never, ever hope to talk about with so many other people (excluding you guys, and you, and you, and also you). the disconnect that i sometimes experienced at duke -- where i felt so culturally different from a lot of my classmates, particularly the americans -- that's disappeared...and i think (perhaps because of being more mature?) we have all tacitly tarred that over with the culture of being interested in each other. i can't even begin to tell you how excited this makes me, because getting along with random people, i've learned how to do that, but sitting down with someone and weaving a tapestry, playing a duet, knowing not just the chords but the harmonic possibilities: that's something you don't often find, and something you learn to treasure.