Class Dismissed

Last summer I read an old story called The Once and Future King.  In it, T.H. White wrote a beautiful passage about what to do when it seems as if all is lost and there is no purpose to living - he says to learn something is, 

             ...the only thing that never fails.  You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds.  There is only one thing for it then - to learn.  Learn why the world wags and what wags it.  That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.  Learning is the only thing for you.  Look what a lot of things there are to learn.  

How true?  No man can understand all the mysteries of our complex universe, and the process of learning stimulates the mind and awakens within oneself a yearning to comprehend and conquer the unknown.  To White, learning was redemption.  I've thought a lot about this quote over the past months, and in times where I've questioned my effectiveness at work, it comes back to me and holds me up, challenging me to reach at least one student, to make him question, critique, understand, and perhaps walk away a bit more enlightened.  

For the past 8 months I've been working 12 hours per week in an Austrian school as an English language teaching assistant.  Working with a team of 27 English teachers, who average 9 classes each, I've visited with nearly 2,000 high school students, ranging from age 14-23, not including several adult evening school students.  The school is so massive, that even today, my very last day teaching, I was still introducing myself to classes.  This was a recurring theme throughout the year, having to repeatedly say "Hello" to new groups of kids, and on more than one occasion, I seriously questioned if my being there would have any positive effect on the students, as with many of them, I only visited them once.  I also came into the job with several major preconceived notions of what teaching entailed, and how it should be done - both of which proved to be misinformed.  On my first day, one of the older teachers told me, "Don't take any of this seriously, and just be open to whatever they throw at you," and those words entirely transformed my thoughts on being in the classroom.  I soon realized that the best made plans might work swimmingly with one group of students, and then flounder like a fish out of water with the next.  Flexibility is key.  Sometimes the students are outrageously eager to participate, and then at other times, trying to elicit engagement is worse than having teeth pulled.  Contrary to popular held belief back in grammar school, teachers aren't maliciously holding students hostage on beautiful days, and would like to be outdoors just as much (if not more) as the students. Same goes for school holidays, the source of life and hope for teachers everywhere.  It's a hard life, and one Hell of a way to make a living, but every so often, it hits you, just how incredibly privileged you are to be exposing these kids to the world around them, even if they don't always appreciate it.

My largest wrongly informed idea about teaching was that the teacher is the source of all knowledge, and that the job consists of walking into a classroom, spilling information for students to remember, and then leaving.  In fact, I had major reservations about accepting the offer to come to Austria, because I expected to research full time and meet "real" Austrians through the university, etc - afraid that teaching would bog me down and limit my immersion abroad.  So, so, so wrong.  I got to spend 12 hours a week chatting with the people who live here on a real level, seeing how they see our world, having them challenge some of my held beliefs, challenging them, learning about our similarities, our differences, and why they exist.  How cool is that?  I now know that teaching is a far cry from the authoritarian image I had in mind.  In fact, teaching is half learning - or, as that wise teacher said, "be[ing] open to whatever they throw at you."  You can read as many textbooks on Austria as you'd like, but if ever you've the chance to actually talk with them like I had, do it - it'll change your world.  

Today was my final day.  It's over; a closed chapter in my life.  But what a chapter it is!  Funny, how the condition of my grant about which I was most dreading before arriving here has developed into my most treasured.  Of the hundreds of students I met, I'm positive my thoughts fell on some deaf ears, but I've striven these many months to touch their minds and open their world view to how someone else sees it - it's certainly worked in the reverse - and even if only a single student walks away with a spark for something we've discussed, then that's rewarding enough.  Learning - "it never fails!"

My final class presented me with an engraved hammer / screwdriver that they made in class.  On the other side it reads my name and position.  The handle is a hollowed-out drill bit, and the ball cap unscrews to form a spinning top that's designed to "flip" and balance on its axis.  

From Afar

I often find it difficult to describe to friends and family back home just what it is about this place that keeps calling me back.  My default answers are flawed attempts to explain the culture, the cuisine, the experience, and I almost always fail to wholly convince them of this place's allure.  Many, not understanding my motives, are puzzled as to why, if I wanted to travel and experience something foreign to my own way of living, I didn't select to travel to a new region of the U.S.  Why travel thousands of miles away from home to experience something which could be explored a mere few hours away?  Mountains, old buildings, coffee and cake, beer, rivers and blue skies - all things which can be found at home.  But put them in the right context, a different context, and they mean something entirely removed from the learned conceptions people have who have experienced them in only a singular, or very limited, frame of reference.  It really takes being here, seeing the differences, both obvious and subtle, that one starts to comprehend why I speak about this place the way I do.  Two weeks ago, it was my parents' turn, and recently, I was able to show two friends my home away from home.

My best friend arrived last Tuesday, and after a quick tour of the city after flying through the night, the day was over.  The next morning we traveled to a sleepy village called Gmunden on one of the eastern lakes of the Salzkammergut.  Pastel colored buildings, a single church steeple rising towards the sky, a tree-lined promenade ran along the street-car avenue that leads up towards the quiet train station.  Before us, a wide, blue lake ever-expanding to the bases of snow-capped mountains in the far distance, interrupted only by a lonesome castle, the sole occupant of its tiny island, a tired bastion against the lapping waves.  Sun, fresh air, and a good chat by the shore - it was wonderful.  Over the next few days, we explored with another friend Munich, Vienna, the Obersalzberg, and Linz, as well as, naturally, Salzburg and its environs.  We ate countless times (too much, for certain), walked all over creation, had tons of good laughs, and above all, it was just great to see two good friends, one of whom I hadn't seen in nearly 4 years.  This place brought us all together again, and I think it's charm helped break down any remnant of misunderstanding.  Sometimes, "a day in the life" is all that's needed for one to understand everything, and I think we had a terrific time exploring, catching up, creating new memories.

The final resting place of 5,600 murdered victims of Nazism.

One of the more interesting visits we made during their stay was to Mauthausen, a Nazi concentration camp on a beautiful hilltop overlooking the Danube valley not too far from Linz.  I had been there once before, but for my two friends, it was their first visit to one of the camps.  There, at this place in the sun, thousands of people lost their lives to hatred.  Much of the original camp is intact, and that's partly due to its construction.  Mauthausen is one of the richest granite deposits in central Europe, and from its quarry, the fortified camp was constructed.  Its prisoners were forced laborers in the quarry, cutting stone and carrying it up an uneven and perilous staircase known as the "staircase of death."  For the amusement of the SS guards, groups of workers were occasionally marched off the cliff above in "parachute practice," to their deaths below.  Though it was not an extermination camp like those of infamous stature in Poland, Mauthausen was equipped with gas chambers and crematoria.  At one spot, one can stand on the mass grave containing nearly 6,000 people.  Memorials, images, and texts constantly remind visitors of the oppressive brutality and human anguish that occurred in the not too distant past.  It is sad, or at least it should be - and that is something that troubled me.  Seeing people around me, fellow visitors, young and old, with tears in their eyes, hearing gasps and quiet appeals to God, seeing the discomfort and sadness on faces - all appropriate reactions.  But surprisingly, and disturbingly to me, I felt nothing.  I walked through as if it had been a museum on dinosaurs, or some Roman settlement.  Names were only numbers, ovens only museum exhibits, graves only parcels of land.  Having been to almost a dozen camps, and having learned so much about this era in history recently, I feel like I've been desensitized to what others find grotesque.  I remember my first visit to such a camp, which was with a high school group on my first trip to Europe in 2007.  We went to the place most frequently associated with the camps, the place which must have been the deepest level of Hell, of greatest despair and violence, to Auschwitz.  I can remember being nearly physically sick - being in the same place where over a million people perished, smelling death 60 years later, wondering if the dust I had on my sleeve after brushing up against a wall was human ash or simply disturbed dirt.  It was terrible.  And now, they all seem the same.  No reactions, flattened affect, a place to be analyzed, a task to be done.  I always questioned how on earth people who had childhoods not unlike mine grew up to systematically follow orders and kill people in the camps without hesitation.  I guess, for some, after the first time, it only gets easier until it becomes such a mechanized action that it ceases to be a question of consciousness.  I feel as if the closer I have gotten to understanding the Holocaust, the further I grow from acknowledging the human element that seems to integral to it.  What a frightening and terrible field!

2 days of teaching, 6 weeks left, and still lots to do!

When You're Having Fun...

...time flies.  I had forgotten to turn my watch forward a day at the beginning of May, and when I corrected it just the other day, I realized that I've been here 8 months, with only two to go.  I remember distinctly my thoughts before I left home back in September, thinking that this would be an awfully long time away from home, a challenging year, a year of working and learning, a year that would be integral to the foundation of my future.  I thought it would be a lot of things, and it certainly has proven to be that way, but the one thought that was furthest from my mind was that it would be short.  The first month, I think, was the quickest, as there was so much to do, so many trains to take, so much moving around, so many people to meet, and so much adjusting that needed to happen swiftly.  Right off the bat, I became friends with an awesome group of people, and so then the hardships were balanced with great times being around a fun crowd.  8 months, 36 weeks, 3/4 of a year - it's a good chunk of time, and it's just crazy how fast it's passed by.  

Last week I took an early train about two hours north of Salzburg, to the tiny Bavarian city of Passau on the Austro-German border.  It's famous for being at the confluence of three major rivers, the Inn, the Ilz, and the Danube, and for its Italianate baroque architecture.  I had spent a day there on my first solo trip to Europe while participating in a summer German immersion program in northern Bavaria back in 2009, but this time, I wouldn't be alone.  There, in one of the most random of places in this neck of the woods, I met my parents.  Mom & Dad were taking a 15-day river cruise from Amsterdam through the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary to Budapest, stopping at a new city each day.  It was surreal seeing them in Passau, of all places.  I met them in Lederhosen, of course, as they were on my turf, and we walked around the city for a bit.  It's really tiny, and I think we saw absolutely everything in under an hour.  We found a quiet street corner café and had some coffee.  I think the thing that surprised my parents most was how little coffee one gets, as compared to your average American cup, but, they really, really enjoyed it.  The café was sort of quirky inside, but it had two huge glass counters with sweets, one with cakes, and the other with a multitude of chocolate truffles of every flavor imaginable.  We actually liked the place so much, that we returned later in the afternoon and split three different cakes between us: a plum torte, a sort of cherry cheesecake, and a colorful liqueur-soaked cake that tasted a bit like cassata.  

Mom & Dad get a taste of my life for the past 8 months.

At midday we joined the the rest of the group from their boat at the Cathedral of St. Stephan for an organ concert.  The church has one of the most stunning ceilings I've ever beheld, and the organ is the world's largest cathedral organ, with nearly 18,000 pipes.  The organist started with a rousing Bach piece, jumped forward 300 years with a work by the French composer Marcel Dupré, and finished off with the finale from Widor's Fifth Symphony, which everyone knows and which really (literally) shook the building - it was incredible!  After the recital, we headed to a rooftop restaurant along the river for lunch.  Wiener Schnitzel, potatoes, and Weißbier - couldn't have asked for a more typical, or better, meal.  We headed back to their boat just across the street, and took some comfort in the shaded lounge chairs atop the deck and relaxed to the view of the pastel-colored houses across the way and the rush of the Danube as it flowed on to the east. A little bit later, and it was time to say farewell until I return home before the 4th of July.  

Stunningly beautiful and tremendously sumptuous sound in Dom St. Stephan, Passau.

Because of a few holidays, I haven't worked in nearly a week, so I took up some quality time here in Salzburg.  I've been to my favorite café here 5 times since they opened a little over a week ago, and the owner says I'm his best customer (which I'm slightly ashamed about, but it's SO good!)  I went with a few friends the other day, and the waitress already knew my order before I opened my mouth.  That's bad!  I hopelessly try and justify my going there so frequently, so I'll just say that because they were closed for 4 months, they could use the money, and, I have to get as much of this café culture as I can possibly take, because 2 months from now, there'll only be Starbucks back in the States!  Many of the museums in town opened their doors free of charge, and I took the opportunity to visit the Cathedral museum, which has the most ridiculous opening hours.  After months of hitting and missing, I finally got inside, and grabbed a pretty cool view of the place from the organ loft.  There were also some incredible treasures in there, like bejeweled vessels hundreds of years old, and vestments handmade in Spain of gold threads for one of the archbishop's elevation to the cardinalate in the 1700s.  A few days ago, I went to the local brewery, Stiegl, to pick up some gifts in their store.  Two friends came along, and we ended up in their courtyard beer garden for lunch.  I nearly ordered my go-to dish, Schnitzel, but they had a burger on their menu, and oh, how I have been craving one of those!  1/2 lb. of fresh, really fresh, meat cooked medium rare, cheese, thick bacon, lettuce and red onion - delicious!  Add some crispy fries and both a Weißbier and a seasonal Kräuterbier, and I was very, very happy!

The past few days Salzburg's been host to a regional brass music festival.  The bands were pretty amateurish yesterday, but this morning I caught about an hour of Salzburg's own Trachtenkapelle, a wind ensemble that specializes in the traditional music of the province.  There they were, dressed in the blue and brown Trachten from Mozart's time, playing Austrian military marches, Strauss waltzes, and even some Dvorak and von Suppé's famous Light Cavalry Overture.  It was quality music, a fun performance, and a wonderful venue set in the shadow of the great cathedral and the mist of the lively fountain in the Residenzplatz, and it's one of the things that I treasure about this place - a living tradition that attracts those from all ages, and brings them together (for free) to celebrate the Austrian way of life.  

Apologies for the atrocious picture quality - not sure why it's distorted here.

Franz von Suppé: Ouvertüre - Leichte Kavallerie

Guitar hero in the room next door has his final recital coming up before he returns to Colombia for the summer.  At this point, I think I'm going to pay for the ticket simply so I could hear how the end of his singular piece actually ends.  If he actually plays it through without erring, I can die knowing I've witnessed a true act of God, because that's really the only thing that'll pull him through.  In the meantime, as always, he's "trying."  

I booked a trip to see a great friend in England, my best friend comes in 2 days, 4 more days left of work, and a whole lot to do.  Time flies when you're having fun!

Klein Aber Fein

"Small but pretty" were the words once said to me by my barber here when he was trying to sum up all that Salzburg is, and I think he hit it right on the nose.  A friend and his sister were passing through town on their way from Munich to Vienna, the two largest cities in this area, and I could tell they felt a little claustrophobic here.  We walked through the old city and saw all the major sites within a couple of hours.  It is small.  But I think that's what I like most about it.  As much as I adore Vienna, for example, I'm overwhelmed at times by how vast it is spread, with a large multinational community, far laying suburbs and distinct neighborhoods, subways and tram cars, endless streets and apartment buildings, the business and rush of a major capital city at all times.  Maybe having lived in a smaller city like Salzburg has conditioned me to feel so small and insignificant when staying in Vienna, but I definitely lean towards life here.  

Salzburg has, in my opinion, the greatest combination of city and nature.  It is home to world class concert venues, attracting artists of the highest caliber all year round.  It contains over a dozen museums, over 20 beautiful churches, a plethora of quality restaurants and unique cafés, two major universities, a mountain top fortress, professional sports clubs, and beautiful, preserved architecture spanning 1,300 years.  My favorite aspect of the city is that within 15 minutes from city center, I can be in the Alps.  How crazy is that?  There's not a single American city I can think of where that's possible.  It's city surrounded by smaller cities, surrounded by smaller yet cities, surrounded by suburbs, upon suburbs, upon suburbs, until one can find nature on the scale that one does here.  Three alpine mountains are within the city limits, and, in fact, the old city is confined by two of these.  It is the only large city in central Europe to have cow fields within the city limits.  I love that I see the same people all over the city - it makes me feel as if I know them, like I've been here long enough to distinguish myself from the tourist.  Frequenting the same places, and having the people who work there recognize me makes me feel more like a local.  For example, one of my favorite cafés, Café Würfel Zucker, reopened after moving from their former location.  They were ridiculously busy on opening day, but I went back the next day, and the owner stopped to chat - he remember that I and my friends visited their old location often, and he was really glad that I had returned.  I know nothing about him, and he knows nothing about me, but simply because we've seen each other a few times, we can strike up a conversation and learn, and that's a really great feeling.  Salzburg's an unbelievably beautiful place, and it still doesn't fail to take my breath away on a daily basis.  There are some days where I wake up, walk down to the river, plop down on the side, and, while taking in the sheer brilliance of the view before me, think to myself "there's no other place I want to be."  It's often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but I don't think a thousand words could do this place justice.  Beautiful.  It just is.

Small but fine, indeed.  

Thursday evening I was called by the school for something urgent.  Friday morning is the first day of the students' final examination, and the test begins with a listening section.  The test preparation books three of the teachers had came with a CD, which they assumed contained the spoken texts.  Wrong.  They waited until the day before to discover that it was just a practice test to use on the computer, which meant they needed their resident native speaker at the ungodly hour of 6:30 to read the selections aloud in 5 different voices, as it was a dialogue between 5 people.  I remembered earlier in the year when I had worn a tie and jacket to school, and consequently nearly gave several students a heart attack, that I was told only to wear a tie if someone's died or if the students have a major, major examination, such as this Matura.  So, I wore a suit and tie, thinking I'd fit in.  Wrong again.  Apparently that dress code is only for the final, final oral presentation, and I could have gotten away with wearing a t-shirt.  Oh well!  Some good news was that in return for coming in for a few hours at the last minute, and on my day off, 5 of my classes will be cancelled, and, as 4 of them had already been cancelled due to scheduling conflicts, I have only about 20 classes to teach over the next 4 weeks...and they can't come soon enough!

I'll be able to see my parents on Tuesday, and my best friend and another friend from university are coming the following week, and I'm really looking forward to seeing all of them again.  Getting caught up work, research, school work, and my friends here, I can sometimes forget that this isn't going to last forever, and that in coming here, I left my whole life behind me, including the people I miss the most.  Sometimes, in order to grow, though, you need to do that yourself, and that's probably the most important thing I've gained from this experience abroad.  7 weeks, and counting!

Here We Go

The end is in sight, the time flies as the weather betters, and the feeling that 'soon this'll be over' is starting to set in.  It's been an amazing adventure since its start in September, and with the past few weeks having been as incredible as they were, there's a strong indication that my time here will go out with a bang.

Last Friday I caught an early train to Vienna, perhaps my favorite city.  I took the metro right into the heart of the Altstadt and rose from underground to meet the intricate façade of the great Cathedral rising high above the city.  It's towering spire was caressed in soft sunlight, and the roof's colorful mosaic tiles were glistening brightly under the radiantly blue sky.  A little walk through narrow, shaded streets, past varied architecture, including Otto Wagner's once-radical post office, I found myself amidst an unruly garden with trees hanging over walkways, benches with elderly couples sitting intimately, sharing the experience of watching the city slowly come alive for the start of a new day, monuments to masters of music stand surrounded by beds of brilliantly vibrant tulips, sprinklers sputtering the last rush of water before being reclaimed by the ground, the lone police officer keeping watch over the growing bustle through his tinted red glasses.  There are few things in life which are as magical as witnessing a great metropolis come to life at the start of the day.  

The Wiener Sezession, "To each age it's art, to art it's freedom."  

I walked along the winding paths of the Stadtpark, working my way around the Ring, on to the Karlsplatz, past the Islamic-influenced Karlskirche with its engraved minarets flanking the cross-topped copper dome.  My first stop of the day was the famed Café Museum, originally designed by Alfred Loos, diagonally across from the famous Wiener Sezession venue, and the old haunt of architects and artists alike, where I had a scrumptious Schwarzwälderkirschtorte (black forest cake, thankfully with morello instead of maraschino cherries) and a Melange.  Heavenly.  From there, it was on to a yet another Viennese landmark, Café Sperl, for a much needed water, as the temperature had climbed to nearly 80°.  This place definitely gave off a different vibe than the rest I had visited.  It was simple, worn, if not downright grungy, and I could definitely see how it became the favored café of a blue collar, failed artist by the name of Adolf Hitler.  It wasn't really my cup of tea, as it were.  Off I was again, but this time, keeping sure to stick to the shady side of the street. I was to meet up with a friend and her boyfriend, and when I arrived early, I ordered a Radler, which is half beer, half lemon soda, and drank it like it was water!  The place was a real hole in the wall, and filled with locals, and after my friends arrived, I did not expect what was to come.  A mountain of Schnitzel...a mountain!  Two massive pieces of fried meat, hanging off the plate in all directions, sat before each of us.  More food than any one person should attempt at a time, it was crazy good!  My friend, Margi, had promised it would be better than my newly beloved Figlmüller, and boy, was she right!  Probably the best Schnitzel I've ever had, and I will definitely be making a return visit before I head home. We had a really fun time chatting, laughing, but then the day had to continue and we were both off.  I made my way to another favorite place in Vienna, the hallowed Staatsoper, to meet another friend, Daniel, for a night at the opera.  We waited in line a bit for our tickets, and raced up to grab out spot, dead center, a few floors up.  The orchestra began with a roar, and then we were in for an emotional roller coaster.  Puccini's La bohème, my desert island opera.  A simple story in Paris' Montmartre about poor artists falling in love under the moon, the struggles of life, the death of a lover, the opera's music is beyond romantic, filled with tenderness, passion, and sounding like a classic film soundtrack.  It's arias still give me goosebumps, and it's reality permeate every cell in my body.  It speaks to me, as it does to so, so many, and brings me into the core of its emotion, letting me go only in the final chords - the final chords, which signify the soprano's death, which are written in a major key (unheard of for 'sad' music), and make the sadness even more terrifying and heartbreaking.  It's an opera that is about life and love, and it's rapture gets me every time.  Incredible to see it on the stage.

The quiet, dingy Café Sperl hidden away on a Viennese side street.

May 1st, Maifest, closes schools and businesses across Austria, and much of Europe, for a holiday to honor the laborers, a tradition in Austria restarted and codified only after the annexation with Germany in March 1938.  The more traditional provinces celebrate the day with traditions rooted in paganism associated with preparing for the growing season of spring and the return of longer days and warmer sun.  Villagers clad in Tracht (Lederhosen and Dirndl) amass in a field or public square for the raising of the Maibaum, a decorated tree, nearly 100ft. tall in Salzburg's case.  By a simple system of supports and pulleys, the tree is gradually raised by men throughout the day, sure to rest for the necessary beer.  At the end of the day, once the tree has been set in place, youngsters are encouraged to try and climb the tree to reach the treats suspended near the top.  As I experienced with the national holiday on 26 October, not a single student over the past 2 weeks could explain why Austrians celebrate May 1st.  To them, it's a day off from work to wear traditional costumes and drink beer with friends.  To me, and apparently to them, today's celebrations remain cryptic, and I'm not entirely sure of the significance behind any of the customs, and again, this sense of little civic knowledge surprises me - it's so foreign.  

Raising of the Maibaum for Maifest.

Yesterday I had run out of my coveted Pecorino Romano and headed to the shop around the corner to pick up some more.  It was the end of the day, and Antonio's father was manning the shop, singing to himself as he cleaned up some knives behind the counter.  To him, I'm the "Americano," and his face brightened when I approached.  Without saying a word, he reached into the display and grabbed the wheel of my cheese.  As I was about to leave, he threw in a loaf of fresh bread from Udine, and poured me a small jar of freshly pressed olive oil from his family's farm south of the border, as a gift.  He told me to forget the pasta tonight - cut a thick slice of bread, a paper thin slice of pecorino, and dip it into some of this oil with a bit of fine balsamic vinegar.  Wearing a red bow tie, a white apron, hunched over and with wrinkled face, with a voice like Corelli and a heart of gold, he's the type of man you want to pick up and place in your pocket to keep with you always, and he sure as heck knows good eats.  Bread, oil, cheese.  Throw in a light Chianti, and dinner's on the table.  Mmmm!

Monday evening I planned my final teaching schedule with my supervisor, and get this, I'll work a whopping 5 days in the whole of May.  He's given me plenty of opportunities to travel around my classes, and my final scheduled "class" actually consists of him taking me out for a drink.  Many of my Fifth Form (final year) students are preparing for Friday's Matura, or final examination, and have been taking me out with a small group of students for beer, simply so they could practice their English.  In doing that, in meeting with them and shooting the wind, I've seen a different side of them, and they of me, and a few of us actually consider each other friends now, which is a really remarkable thing.  I came into this year thinking that I'd have very little effect on the kids, but now, after nearly a year, even though I haven't often visited with the classes, I see just how much I've learned, how I've changed simply by being with them.  It hasn't always been fun, but I think we worked together every time we met to break down walls, to search for the truth, to explain how we see both see the world, and to try and find our place in it.  It's a rewarding feeling, and I think I'll be able to look back on this experience and smile knowing just how great an influence both of us have had on each other, and that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.