The national philosophy olympiad ended today. I was there, even though I didn't participate. I met up with the people at dinner yesterday and suggested I could help out some way. I suppose next time I really could come up with such ideas some time
before the olympiad... But yes, it was good. Somewhat nostalgic... last year, I was the one taking part and being all nervous about the results and overjoyed at finding out how well it went, and then it was all over and... well... okay, last year it was more about the results than the environment and company, and there was the international olympiad which really overshadowed the national one. So it didn't really feel sad or anything. The year before it did... it had been living 4 days in a beautiful dream and it was hard to return to the mundane world. Definitely motivated me to work harder to achieve good results and get into university where the environment and people would be like that all the time! ...or, well, so I thought then. University life is nothing like what I feared, but at least in some ways it is nothing like what I hoped for, either. People are on the average more intelligent and motivated, but most of them are still just... people. And you're just one more person, and you've got to define yourself all over again. The latter, of course is not necessarily a bad thing... probably a good thing really. I guess I'm used to the good things that come with life in Tartu. Some things I used to take for granted, I no longer do. But some things I seem to take for granted now, I never did before. I guess that's humanity for you.
I do hope I'll get to see more of the olympiads though... from any point of view I'll get to have. And I hope Heidy does really well at the international philosophy olympiad... she won this year! I'm really happy for her... I'd have been surprised if she hadn't been among the first two, actually.
I really should take part in more things. I'm starting to get the feeling more and more that people tend to be quite happy about me wanting to get involved. Something to think about, I guess.