I was considering West Point until I read this: “Most are religious…The typical students at my school all wear the same clothes, have weapons in their rooms, and get graded on how well they beat up their classmates.” Thanks, Uncle Sam. But I’ll pass.
Recently I’ve noticed an “intermingling,” if you will, of the subjects. Tobias referenced what we were doing in MacKenzie (Dante), MacKenzie incorporated art into the “curriculum(?),” and Chambers had us analyze a poem as part of the final. I recall one specific instance in which both Lathrop and Nolte mentioned NIMBY (“Not In My Back Yard”) on the same day—it was too much of a coincidence.
Not too long ago I was in the computer lab, when a senior (IBtron?) asked me if I knew who Diana was, or what she did at least. The name sounded familiar, as it should have: think Diana as in Actaeon, Ovid… yeah, her. At the time, I remembered only the name from Ovid; I forgot exactly who she was and/or what she did. But “knowing” that helped point the senior in the right direction.
It felt pretty good. Sure, it was nothing spectacular, but it was like “So that stuff actually has some purpose.”
I somehow came across some further reading that might be interesting:
The Language Instinct, Pinker, Steven
How the Mind Works, Pinker, Steven
On Language, Chomsky, Noam