Sandbox

It’s second semester, which means that several hundred juniors are returning from study abroad programs. A friend of mine once told me he “never liked someone more after they came back from abroad than I did before they left,” the implication being that students who study abroad somehow become less likeable in the process. This manifests itself, he claims, in “stories we don’t care about” that abound with “buzz phrases like ‘rich heritage and/or culture,’ ‘host family’ and ‘crazy seven-floored club that plays house music until the sun comes up.’

It’s tempting to agree with him, especially since most of these stories end up reading like flaccid advertisements for some sort of drunken Common Ground experience (or, in the case of the lattermost, the next phase of the dubstream revolution). But what my friend is forgetting is that these students are trying to undergo a transition back into life in the United States. And it’s hard for them, because they’ve got to realize both that they haven’t undergone as profound a change as they think, while their native country has. So, if you’re one of those students (or someone who has to deal with them), it’s important to understand that they’ve missed out on a lot. For one thing, the most important presidential candidate that this country has ever seen has already come and gone. In the words of his own campaign ad, “America’s never seen a candidate like Herman Cain.” Unfortunately, neither have the study-abroad kids, and they’ll never get to fondly remember his rampant promises of pizza at $9.99 for all Americans. And if it took a transoceanic flight to remind them of how “bad” homelessness was, then just imagine how they’re going to feel when they realize that the university’s choice to build multi-level common rooms instead of more bedrooms in K4 will sort of make them homeless in their own country!

But some things never change. And for all the European “DJs” and “house music” they’ll interminably gush over, Shooter’s II is still the only western-style saloon of choice on Saturday nights in Durham.