It took until my senior year in college before I started having “college” discussions. When you watch movies or read books, you get a picture of college as a gathering of intellectuals, who sit around in coffee shops and have brilliant discussions about whatever (or you get a picture of the frat house who keeps pulling pranks on everyone, and the evil headmaster is looking to shut them down!).

I never had these discussions. College for me consisted of a series of classes, followed by a bus ride home, and goofing around on the internet. It was like an extension of high school, only with harder classes and more freedom to skip.

This year, I’m suddenly having these occasional intellectual, insightful conversations. Today, for instance, I was talking to Mateo, who was explaining the differences between socialist education in Spain and school here in the States. Absolutely fascinating. Mateo is brilliant, and Miles and I have remarked a few times on how the American school system doesn’t produce many people like Mateo. We got a sense of how good the system over there is. Mateo gave me the other view today, of the ways in which the Spanish school system is failing. This hasn’t convinced me that the American school system is better (far from it) but it makes me feel better that neither us or them have really found the perfect system.