back to school
Aug. 27th, 2005 02:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
godreamWe have frosh!
Okay, not all of them, just the early-arriving ones, and okay, I've only talked to a few so far. But we have some, and there are more coming, and the hall is clean and the courtyard is full of construction and general awesomeness and enthusiasm, and I'm totally remembering why I adore East Campus.
Utterly unconnected strange, random contemplation: so I'd been discussing with -- argh, I can't remember who, someone on 4e -- with somebody the fact that home has a smell and you don't really notice it much till you leave and then come back, and walk in the door and all of a sudden: aha! I'm back!
After the fire at my mom's house last March (or those of you just tuning in to the sitcom of my life, one room was totaled, everything else was mostly okay give or take water/smoke damage) the whole upstairs smells funny. There used to be faint ghosts of warring candles and incenses, my mom's and mine and my sisters', and the scent of my mom's perfume, and the brand x shampoo we buy vats of at BJ's, and a bunch of other things I can't pin down at all. Now there's mostly just new-rug-smell -- not necessarily bad, but not what it's *supposed* to be.
I think I read somewhere once that there's an actual reason why scents and emotions are so closely tied -- okay, a quick Google says that "olfactory receptors are directly connected to the limbic system, the most ancient and primitive part of the brain, which is thought to be the seat of emotion". So let's blame science: coming home keeps feeling less like coming home. I love my family, spending time with them is important to me, I miss them when I don't get the chance to visit... but I'm catching myself doing this weird growing-up thing where my parents' houses are places I visit, and home means MIT. Next thing you know I'll be starting to act actually mature, it'll be ridiculous... nah.
Okay, not all of them, just the early-arriving ones, and okay, I've only talked to a few so far. But we have some, and there are more coming, and the hall is clean and the courtyard is full of construction and general awesomeness and enthusiasm, and I'm totally remembering why I adore East Campus.
Utterly unconnected strange, random contemplation: so I'd been discussing with -- argh, I can't remember who, someone on 4e -- with somebody the fact that home has a smell and you don't really notice it much till you leave and then come back, and walk in the door and all of a sudden: aha! I'm back!
After the fire at my mom's house last March (or those of you just tuning in to the sitcom of my life, one room was totaled, everything else was mostly okay give or take water/smoke damage) the whole upstairs smells funny. There used to be faint ghosts of warring candles and incenses, my mom's and mine and my sisters', and the scent of my mom's perfume, and the brand x shampoo we buy vats of at BJ's, and a bunch of other things I can't pin down at all. Now there's mostly just new-rug-smell -- not necessarily bad, but not what it's *supposed* to be.
I think I read somewhere once that there's an actual reason why scents and emotions are so closely tied -- okay, a quick Google says that "olfactory receptors are directly connected to the limbic system, the most ancient and primitive part of the brain, which is thought to be the seat of emotion". So let's blame science: coming home keeps feeling less like coming home. I love my family, spending time with them is important to me, I miss them when I don't get the chance to visit... but I'm catching myself doing this weird growing-up thing where my parents' houses are places I visit, and home means MIT. Next thing you know I'll be starting to act actually mature, it'll be ridiculous... nah.
