You don't have to follow me

It's Opening Day!

Not only that, it's also my first time in Forrest Hall, the ROTC Building on our campus. (They turned the classroom across the hall in our building into three new offices and a conference room. Must keep reminding myself: Growth and change are good!)

Above the door in FH 203 it says high standards are "ruthlessly enforced." And on the rear wall it says "Follow Me!"

Perfect excuse to pull out one of my favorite Opening Day routines, from the Pythons:

And, perfect excuse to bring my own "terrible swift sword" prop to class. I'll brandish it pseudo-savagely, to reinforce Brian's point that in fact "you don't have to follow me, you don't have to follow anybody!" We're all leaders here, in voicing our own views and giving a respectful hearing to others' in turn.

And we're here to wonder, with the whale, what's next.

But lest anyone get the idea that it's all just fun and games, we can consider this reality check from my favorite filmmaker:

It’s just an accident that we happen to be on earth, enjoying our silly little moments, distracting ourselves as often as possible so we don’t have to really face up to the fact that, you know, we’re just temporary people with a very short time in a universe that will eventually be completely gone. And everything that you value, whether it’s Shakespeare, Beethoven, da Vinci, or whatever, will be gone. The earth will be gone. The sun will be gone. There’ll be nothing. The best you can do to get through life is distraction. Love works as a distraction. And work works as a distraction. You can distract yourself a billion different ways. But the key is to distract yourself.

But seriously, our convocation speaker yesterday was right: now's the time to dream big about whatever unseen future might await us.

And my favorite English prof is right, too: four years can and should transform you. Three and a half months, a semester, can too. Let the journey begin!