Of placement tests

In relative terms, the past few days have been amazingly hectic. This is, of course, not a wonderful thing for someone whose natural inclination is to nua. Let's try to recall the things worth recalling (or not).

One thing that has struck me about America and Americans is that you come in with the expectation that maybe the average American is the hardcore Christian right Bush-voting gun-toting redneck and then you realise you're at a good university, which means that you won't meet any of those. I'm not sure if the average American really is a redneck but certainly in terms of the areas that we've been in. But the point is, we've yet to meet any rednecks. In fact, most of the people we've met are pretty intelligent and sophisticated. Jem's roommate, Andrew, is remarkably intelligent and perceptive and we had a discussion about publications like Foreign Affairs and how Krugman is pretty slanted in his writings for the NYT. June (Joon?), on the other hand, is wicked in his humour. I'm not sure if it's possible to convince him to quit college for the comedy circuit but we'll see.

And I just received an e-mail saying I have to take the Spanish placement test. Goddammit. Time to go be productive.