Lunch with Mr. White

So, this story starts last Monday in Seminar and ends...whenever I'm done being excited about it--which, for the amount of tired I am right now, should have been hours ago.  Anyways, In Seminar we were talking about The Republic (btw, most Johnnies consider completion of the Republic indicative of birth.  What freshman hear most often at this time of year--"Oh you're reading the Republic, You're Finally going to be a real person!") and it's very hard to explain, anyways I got called out by both my teachers, but I didn't exactly think that they won.  So, at the beginning of Seminar yesterday, my teacher, Mr. White, called me up to talk to him about this point.  (I was, first off, excited that he remembered it, but also very excited that he realized that I had a point and was not done--VERY encouraging)  We talked about it up until the beginning of class--at which point I asked him out to lunch. 

After Seminar, I went up to him to schedule lunch.  My friend Mr. Liu was there talking to him and we had some awesome conversations where Mr. White was very complimentary of what I had to say! Score! As I was getting up to leave, I asked if he was alright and he replied "I think I'm just going to sit here for a while."  (Background: There are several stories that Mr. White has cancer or some disease and that he is going to die relatively soon.  I don't understand why he would be teaching, but whatever.  He also misses some classes sometimes and doesn't always look his best (sweaty etc.), which is very scary because he's a very nice man.)  So anyways, I stayed and talked to him while he was getting up his energy and finally left Seminar at 10:51.  Worth every minute.

Tutor-student lunch dates are a very common occurrence here at St. John's, but unfortunately, Mandee is too shy to ask her tutors out.  Generally these lunches take place in the Dining Hall on campus, but he told me that he was taking me off campus!  SCORE! Dining Hall food is really getting to me at this point. (Lunch was...AMAZING! Salmon BLT. TDF.)  We had AWESOME conversation. I was able to talk to him a little about my feelings on speaking in class and he talked to me about the way a perfect seminar should work and how different it should be from a conversation that we have in small groups. At that moment, it encouraged me to talk in Seminar, but Monday is a long way away.  Then we talked about the Republic.  And Plato.  And Moby Dick.  He told me this quote about "pleasurable deaths" that involve basically being suffocated by the thing you love. Then he relates that quote to Plato and just the amount of material that is in his works.  So cool!  There's apparently an essay from one of the Tutors here that talks about how the Republic, like many of Plato's writings, is written like a specific myth.  So cool!  Then we talked about how the ideas that Socrates is actually trying to find are just so difficult. Then we talked about Socrates' dialogs show how he knows the people he is talking to and his knowledge of what they would say in response to his argument might actually hinder his quest for virtue, justice, etc. 

Anyways, still reeling from this.  Mr. White used to terrify me because he is so insanely brilliant, but now I think he is awesome!