Great Minds Think Different

So remember this? (And this and this and this?)

I wrote that at the end of last semester. I’ve now finished a class called Language and Culture, in which I did a semester project studying the language divide in Belgium. In fact, I was studying the exact crisis that I wrote about in “Letdowns”. I managed to take two quotations from an interview that Yves Leterme (the new Belgian Prime Minister) gave to a French newspaper, and yammer on about them for nine pages.

I can’t believe I’m about to say this and get perilously close to vindicating my high school English teachers who I hated so much: I have learned a lot from doing this project, and enjoyed it. Basically I’m turning into a humanities major. Not that this is a bad thing; not at all. I just never expected this to happen.

What I’ve learned from doing this paper is that the problem in Belgium is more serious than I thought it was. The country’s not at imminent risk of splitting in two, but the possibility is on the horizon. I’ve also found out that there are sound, legitimate reasons for the separatism that an unfortunately large number of people adhere to. While I was researching for the project, I changed my mind from thinking that Leterme is a tremendous jerk to thinking that he just needs to choose his words more carefully. I’ve gotten a bit disillusioned with Belgians: a lot of them don’t believe that being Belgian counts for anything, or even that it’s possible to “be Belgian”. I’ve thought about what it might be like for me if Belgium split, and I just can’t imagine it – can you imagine what it would be like if your home country ceased to exist?

This is one of the best kinds of learning: learning something you wish wasn’t true, but having fun in the process. Because that means thinking about how to fix it isn’t a hardship.

I harbor no illusions of coming up with a real solution to Belgium’s linguistic problems. Chances are there isn’t one. But at least I don’t mind putting my mind to it.

So I have to write a paper for philosophy, answering the question, “Who Am I?” A rough draft is due less than 24 hours from now. This is what I have so far:

Who Am I?

I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo ga joob

This is just the rough draft, but this paper is worth 20% of my grade in that class.