Jaguar

, originally uploaded by la_fleur.

Let's be honest: who doesn't love fast? No one. I can't really argue with the adverstising of Jaguar, especially given their new XK coupe it seems the pinnacle of gorgeous and fast. It just needs to be offered with a manual gearbox. The XK is easily best Jag design since the Series I XKE in '61. Beyond the XK, I saw a lot that I liked at the 2006 North American Autoshow in Detroit. I love cars, so that is rather easy. Every day I hope that I can find a job in the auto industry next year. But when I pick up the newspaper, and read stories about Ford's "Way Forward" with its 30,000 job cuts focused on the executive level or GM and Delphi's continued debts I am continually pushed toward other industries and maybe even abroad. Autos just aren't the things to work with right now. While it is exciting to think that I have no idea where I will be 12 months from now, it is scary as well. It takes a lot of energy to find a place to live in the real world. Maybe I should take a semester off from school and leave knowing I still have a little more to do, in case I cannot find anything. That is a problem though, since I am done with all my credits and such for graduation.

That said, this semester is undoubtedly going to rock. I am hoping to make it rival my best semester (and best 5 months) ever, which were in Stockholm. Happiness certainly abounded there, and I'm off to a good start for this semester. The key, for me, in a good semester has been less class. Not that I need less intellectual work, but I enjoy pursuing my own interests, which are not always covered adequately in classes. When I can study things that others don't, I gain so much more. I have one independent study so far, and may soon pick up a second in game theory. Prospects look good. To take a step back, I might question my choice of schools, given I find so much pleasure in those times when I can escape the classes at Bowdoin. I soon realize, though, that the point of my schooling hasn't been the classes, though. It is so much more. It has been learning frisbee and telemark, it has been having a radio show and choosing bands to come to campus, it has been doing research with professors and those random conversations one gets into where the topic is something of a nerdy complexity that only a fellow Bowdoin student can comprehend. That has been the point and value of being at school. I am sure this is obvious to many, but it bears mentioning nonetheless. So many people focus on somewhat lesser social perks in college, be it parties, hook-ups, or whatever, but there is much more. I notice when I go home to my Christian Conservative hometown how much I miss Bowdoin's atmosphere. I need to be sure that I am somewhere like this next year. Small, liberal, intellectually driven, but random enough to keep things interesting. I need a place where people appreciate "Old School" as much as Alexander Pope and Tolstoy. Until then, I can just bask in that sort of thing here in the northern reaches of Maine society.