(Self-)consciousness
This post is going to be kind of schizophrenic, as I have a lot of very short things to say. Every day I am increasingly embarrassed by the American reputation abroad inspired by the Bush era and the Iraq war -- and also about our culture's relative disregard for other cultures. Every exchange student I meet speaks at least three languages -- one of their native country and two others. Some of them speak more. A lot of the exchange students who are studying here will go on to spend another year or another semester in another country to practice their third language. By contrast, our two "mandatory" years of language in high school seem to pale, and a lot majors don't even require college-level language courses if the high school requirement has been completed (Engineers, mainly). It's silly. When I was in the exchange students meeting today, the auditorium was empty of Americans -- mostly because they're all in French as a second language classes already. ...