Is this real?

I am sitting in an empty classroom, taking a little of the campus internet to finally update my blog and try to figure out what 2+2 equals in Turkey. This morning I woke up, had a coffee and played guitar and then took a bus along the channel to my university. I walked down the steep university hill towards the south campus, taking in the bobbing boats in Bebek and debating the possibility of taking my longboard to school despite the steep hills and occasional speed-bumps. I grabbed another coffee and a pizza (black olives are briny here, and very tasty in the morning) and wandered the Engineering building to find a room that was not in use. It is such a minor morning. Nothing extraordinary happened, but what I cannot quite believe is that I am back on a university campus after nearly 10 years.

University campuses are  different from community college campuses. Community college lacks the, well, community, that universities try to cultivate. The students are too diverse, focused on different aspects of their lives. Here there is a strong majority of traditional students, all focused on two things: their studies and their social lives. Work and career are still whispers in their souls that they have paid little attention to. They think they are academics. They are here where things are safe. As my instructor for Communications and Media pointed out: here you can try things, you can make mistakes, you can create as many alternative models that you wish, and you do not have any consequences. Academia is a place for the theoretical. It is a place for taking chances. And the students talk about politics and current events and social theory instead of gossiping and complaining about administrative issues. They think that they are academics. Of course, the cats here think that they are lions, so maybe we are all just fooling ourselves, but I will take it while I can get it.