Ad Verticem!

So wow these blog posts lost all hope of structure when I arrived in Gent. I'm notoriously bad at logging memories via pictures or journals (this blog) when I'm faced with such glory in wandering the earth. Gent is such glory.
Not much has happened stateside since my return other than the summer Differential Equations course and various familial musings. But as is typical when I return from lovely experiences in semi-utopias (AGS, Iceland, etc...) I am welcomed to the U.S. not with open arms but with the "jumper cables of culture" charged and ready to deliver their horrible shocks. The difference in culture between Europe and Arkansas tears me to pieces.
In my first blog I posed the question if the European public and policy makers are more empathetic/better people than Americans. And yeah they totally are - - - at a glance. But I think the true difference is just how care is allocated. We in America place so much care on things that reeeeallly don't matter. We put our care on so many of those arbitrary societal stigmas that do nothing to protect humans and only seem to hinder personal freedoms. It seems like, compared to the rest of the world, we are still those squabbly little Puritans. Meanwhile, Europeans are allocating their care to SUPER IMPORTANT STUFF LIKE CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN RIGHTS. Our culture facilitates the idea that the only concern the people should have is individual; that we have to "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps" (dumb phrase) and that as long as we, the individuals, are okay the society is okay and the world is okay. Europeans' care is allocated in a manner which allows the individuals to think primarily about the society/planet first! Maybe they are just older more compact and less naive, but that should be no excuse for Americans not seeking similar progress.
Anyways, the culture shock for me has worn off and my sights are once again aligned towards all those idealistic goals of grabbing America by its haunches and dragging it into a progressive future.
Oops, there I go a ramblin' again.
Here is the last photo I took in Gent (sorry I added an accidental extra "L" to Vaarwel my phone doesn't spell check for dutch) :

And here is another photo from the resilient Brussels Airport of Dr. Rom looking stoically onto the tarmac:

Finally, I should probably explain my last couple of post titles. "Ad fundum" is a Flemish term that is used when finishing a glass of something, often fermented fluids. It is actually Latin though and literally translates to: "To the bottom." So my last post in Gent was a last hurrah, an ad fundum per se. While this title, "Ad Verticem!" inveresely means: "to the top!" And the top is exactly the spot where I plan to take the knowledge and experience of this academic endeavor. 

So,

Americans, Europeans, Earthlings --- the countdown to launch has begun. Soon we will liftoff to that idealistic world with a bio-based economy and equality for all!

Ad verticem, folks!