10-16-2018
Today is Tuesday. My daughter invited me to join a casual gathering of Israeli visiting scholars and students on campus in the evening. She said: “So you can experience college life again.”
During the gathering, the visiting scholars and the students sang a lots of popular Hebrew songs. Though I could not understand the meaning of the lyrics, I enjoyed the beautiful voices and the bright smiles from the singers.
The gathering was held in a modern meeting place that has room for about 20 people. The meeting place was filled with electronic equipment, including sound system, light system, big screens and a projector, an electronic piano, a few electronic guitars, and many wired and wireless microphones…
My memory flashed back to my own college life (1981-1985), more than thirty years ago. We only gathered on holidays, never on regular school days. Our holiday gatherings always took place in the class room where the only electronic device was the light bulb. During our gatherings, we drum-passed a flower, sang songs, cracked jokes, recited poems, and asked each other riddles. In my college life, very few of my classmates knew how to play music instruments. In today’s college society, it seems every student is capable of playing music instruments, singing, and dancing.
These things will touch me more deeply if I see the big differences between now and then. Tonight’s gathering touched me deeply.
More than thirty years’ of technology and culture advance created these opportunities for students to show off their talents on well quipped stages during school day casual gathering, this is wonderful!
Siting among joyful college students, I experienced the youthful college life for a second time. I was quietly delighted, a good feeling that came from age and life-experience.
I hope all the kids in college will have a wonderful college life.
Side Note: The style of college students
I used to hear lots of joke about a software developers’ favorite style is jeans with checkered shirt. Tonight, I noticed that college students wear jeans and sneakers too, but none of them wear checkered shirts. One of the very active student, a senior who majored in economics, was dressed from head to toe in various blue things: blue shoes, blue jeans, and blue sweater. It was very handsome.
