Last Friday I went on a bar crawl with the actuarial science club. While my major is traditionally filled with quiet and reserved individuals, those who attended the crawl were actually very outgoing and easy to talk to. Being a social event, conversations were light-hearted and relaxed, never getting too serious. However, at Cafe one of the other students mentioned being vegetarian and I quickly started inquiring more. She of course has faced questions before so was ready to answer them, but I could tell by her hesitations that she didn’t want to start a discussion on the health, moral, and environmental consequences of being vegetarian or even vegan. That being so, I wanted to learn more about the effect of my diet, and since I’ve cut nearly all red meat out of my diet now, I thought I should receive some “clout” for that. Unfortunately, she wasn’t very impressed and mentioned that the belief that red meat is worse for your cardiovascular health than white meats like chicken and pork is not as true as many believe. In fact, chicken can have very similar negative effects on your cholesterol. When I pushed to learn more from her, I could see her back down and not want to continue the conversation, so we ended it there. I did my own research the next day and learned more, but I couldn’t help but feel like the conversation was cut off. I thought back to my similar discussions in PLA class with my fellow students where nobody was afraid to continue an intense discussion. That was largely because we had a sense of trust that we would all remain respectful, and it led to great conversations… conversations that I miss. And that’s when I realized how much I miss PLA class. Not being in the engaging class has led to me not having intense issues to write blogs about and therefore having a weekly email from Kristine that I forgot a blog again. I’ve found it challenging to look forward to blogs when I don’t have the class to support me in discovering new perspectives on issues. I miss being able to “go off” on a topic I’m passionate about and then calmly get dinner with my “opponent” the next day. I miss hearing new ideas that make me rethink an entire aspect of my life. And I miss my PLA friends.

That was a little sappy at the end there but it’s true that I miss that intellectual stimulation you can only get from the PLA. I’ve noticed I ask my roommates thought provoking questions all the time now and they look at me like I’m crazy. I can’t wait to be back in class next semester and talking again about what matters!