Osmosis doesn’t work with books, but it works with music.
-I bet there is a whole other internet out there in a different language. I mean, I know there is obviously, I’ve been to ‘other’ language websites before. But I don’t think google searches scan them like they really could. I really think, when I search “Spain”, that the first 50 results should NOT be in English. (despite the fact that the word “spain” is in english…)
-So I got to eat dinner with Edward Fiske (“Fiske’s Guide to College”) the other night, and I had a thought. (Well i had a few…eat dinner with someone like that and you’ll have a few thoughts.) Anyway, he seemed to know a lot about what made colleges successful and “best.” He took all sorts of things into account, used surveys, etc etc, he is very thorough. The one thing that he didn’t mention, which I think is one of the ONLY things that actually matters, is the people. And I don’t mean the ‘people’ on average or something, I mean the actual people that make up your particular class. This is something that really can’t be measured, but I think it has the most influence on your experience. For example, my freshman year would have been entirely different if I had lived about 300 feet to the left with people from another dorm. In this case, nothing is changing about the school at all, it still has a 4 start “Quality of Life” rating, it’s just who I end up hanging around with that’s changing and matters. Things like food, class, sports… you get this everywhere. And sure, some places have better food than others, better basketball whatever, but it doesn’t really matter at all. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true, it’s all about the peeps.
-Saw some great guitar playing yesterday. I think I actually felt myself get better just by being that close to something that good. Osmosis doesn’t work with books, but it works with music.
