Sylv
Coimbra, Portugal
Oop, it's still me. I will start soliciting others for entries. I think it's hard to talk about your day in an honest way and hand it to your friend to publish on his internet project.
I'm in Coimbra today. It's a small town north of Lisbon. The University of Coimbra is almost 800 years old and is one of the oldest operating universities in the world. Once again, I am learning new things about new people.
The students here have a tradition. It's something like what we would call hazing in US colleges. If they want to join a club, they have to do certain tasks to join. One such task involved counting rocks. The streets are made up of tiny rocks that people hundreds of years ago piled together. They have to count these rocks on a particular street. It's hard for me to describe but this road must be made of millions of them. It's a hefty and insane task. As we were walking around, I saw an older gentleman counting the rocks. He's not old by any means but he seemed a few years out of college. What is he doing? — I asked our tour guide. She tells me he's hazing himself. He's counting the rocks because he missed his time getting hazed in college. I couldn't help but laugh. How is that enjoyable?
It's weird because I feel the same emotions as him. I miss my old friends, I miss my times as a freshman and sophomore in college. I miss my high school days. I do things that remind me of those days too. But I've never counted rocks. When I saw him counting rocks I thought of it as a silly tradition. Maybe I even thought it was dumb.
As we grow older, so many things seem to be uncool. So we stop doing them for fear of judgment. Then the time passes and those things truly become unenjoyable for you. I believe we should start to do otherwise. Do things that may look stupid to others, get in an outfit and fight your friends with lightsabers, challenge yourself to count all the rocks on the street.
On that Sunday afternoon, the man counting rocks has found, not only the number of rocks the ancients used to build that street, but also a key to happiness that we desperately need.