Last weekend, I drove about 2 and a half hours west of Philly to a little town called Carlisle, PA, home of Dickinson College. That night, CTY (Center for Talented Youth) was having a celebration for Dan Allen, a professor of history at the CTY Dickinson site for 24 years. It was also his 80th birthday. It was a very low-key event, some wine, beer, appetizers, and make-your-own tacos. Most of the people there were his CTY colleagues or his family. The former students were all older than me, many having attended CTY in the late 80s. Many people are probably wondering why I drove so long for a guy I only knew for 3 weeks, some 7 years ago. Part of it was just the fact that it was CTY -- it is such an integral part of my teenage years, because it was the first time living in a college dorm, having a roommate, picking a subject to concentrate in, living independently and meeting friends from all over the country, and of course, let's not forget the first boy-girl dances and stuff. But I also went back to Carlisle because Dan Allen really was a spectacular professor. Even though I wasn't a history major in college, I still carry with me the mindset that DA imparted to me, with how to approach history, and learning in general. DA's history classes were filled with stories, such as the one about his friend who dropped the bomb on Japan. It was the first time where I took the facts in front of me and truly processed them, mulling them from all different angles, and just truly living and breathing history as if I was there. And of course we still had map quizzes requiring us to know every country and capital in Europe (it's harder than it sounds), but DA really taught me the importance of passion, creativity, and enthusiasm for a subject --- if those aren't there, you can never be a successful scholar.
So after the event, it was dark, but I still wanted to walk around the campus for awhile, since I hadn't been back since freshman summer of high school. It was a wonderful, but very eerie feeling to be back. It was a hot muggy summer night, and you could hear the summer insects buzzing, and a few current CTY campers were running between trees and bushes with glowsticks, and a few were tossing a frisbee under the light of a streetlamp. I found the tree where a fellow camper professed his love to me after only knowing me for a week, haha.
I think what got me was not just visiting the physical campus, but being there also took me back to the old Hope -- the person that I was 7 years ago, and all the thoughts, emotions, wishes, dreams, and experiences that composed the 14-year-old Hope. It was a good chance to just remember what my thoughts were for the future back then, and compare that to where I actually am now. It's weird that those feelings can only be spurred by being in a specific location, but that's just how it is. All in all, I felt that the 14-year-old Hope would be glad of the current decision I made, to go to grad school. I think that is the route that will get me back to the passion, creativity and excitement that I got from Dan Allen so many years ago.
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