Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Sole brother

Went to my old friend, the Geisel Library at UCSD today - the first time I can remember that I've been there when classes are in session. The campus was overflowing with students, many perhaps most of them Asian American, fraternities and sororities had tables out... one forgets what a state university is like, let alone one with a big forested campus.
UCSD's been growing in recent years - I got lost in the small city of new science centers, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, etc.! And the Price Center, with its outdoor food court and bookstore etc., has expanded to include an indoor food court, which has inspiring words underfoot, from the likes of Confucius, Virginia Woolf, John Stuart Mill, and this one. Can you make it out? It's W. E. B. DuBois: It's a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others. Is underfoot the right way to help students stumble on this insight?