I don’t walk past Universitate too often. I drive almost every day by it but I pay attention to the traffic, I’m on the run, my mind is all over the place.
But when I walk near the University of Bucharest, when I am in front of the entrance to the Faculty of Foreign Languages, all the butterflies in my stomach, otherwise lethargic, activate in a crazy rhythm, which makes me dizzy. I seem to forget about myself, the current one and I become a foreign language student from many years ago, when the hall at the entrance to the college seemed like a temple to me, when I felt privileged to be there, when I thought I had to study a lot for that I had the chance to be among the 20 students who had been admitted.
I don’t know how it was for others, but I really liked college. If I could resume, I would still speak foreign languages. I would spend as much time in the library, I would go to the classes of some teachers who were like encyclopedias, I would enjoy again and again the well-being that books create.
But as I walk past the entrance of the History department, I remember the day I ran out, confused, frightened by what I had seen from the library window: miners beating students on the street. Running away so as not to suffer the same fate, I came across a burning bus. I have not forgotten, the impact of that time has faded but it is still present, always with me.
I have emotions on Edgar Quinet Street. Pleasant emotions, even if I had good and bad in college. I chose to go to foreign languages and I think everything I learned there, what I liked a lot and what was less enjoyable, the teachers I remember and the few whose names have faded, the ones who fascinated me and others who did their job conscientiously, without many pedagogical skills, all this built me.
The people who influence us are part of our personal history. We learn from everyone we meet, even if we learn from some how not to do something, how we do not want to be. If we throw away our interactions, people, experiences, we throw ourselves in the trash. An important part of how I am was formed there, at the University of Bucharest. That part was polished, I hope, I added more colors, other parts, but the tone was set there.
