<p>OK, the title was a pun. It has to do with my user name xanadu.... never mind. Anyways, I went visited Swat! I'm not even home yet, but I wanted to thank you for the GREAT advice. So are you all curious? First of all, the timing was a bit different than what I expected... but that is OK. So we parked out rental car in some parking lot near a little house, and near a bigger, gothic looking building (I heard music, so I peaked in the window, there was a piano inside, and some guy playing pretty decent blues). We sort of wandered up the hill, and were in front of the library... so I went inside. It was fine - I wasn't overwhelmed. There were lots of comfy chairs. It was earliesh in the am, so there were very few people inside (and they were all using the printers. free printing? oh my!). </p>
<p>We then walked up to the pleasure dome on the hill - Parrish, I beleive its called. Man, that place made me ready to start college now. More comfy chairs! Cool architecture! Random dean's offices with their doors open! Meter after meter (yard after yard!) of posters and fliers of stuff happening on campus! The big difference between the fliers at swat (I feel like I know it well enough to call it swat now) and at other schools was that at other school half of the fliers were ads for test prep companies, or insurance companies, or travel agencies... whereas at swat (there were a few of those but) 99.5% of the posters were for parties, or lectures, or concerts, or meetings. And people live upstairs? </p>
<p>I sent my dad to the admissions office, so he could go on a tour, and I, map in hand, skedaddled to the big building behind parrish with the foreign languages (and econ? and sociology? and coffee!) departments. I went to two classes that morning... kinda shy about saying what they were, but sufficed to say I just stood outside the classroom and accosted the professors as theywere going in, and neither had any problem. Anyways, one of the classes was an upper level lit class, and it was amazing. I didn't think you could have a discussion in a foreign langauge that was really at a high enough level that it would be substantively interesting... but there you are, I was wrong. The other class i went to was lit in translation class - I think there were a mix of years. The prof seemed awesome, but the students didn't like the reading they had done, and began by complaining about it, and ending up making (what sounded to me like) a quite legit criteque of the text, as a bad translation, as out of context, etc. It was fascinating to watch, because I get the impression the prof would not assign it again, or assign a different translation if they taught the class again. Also, I got the impression that the students had all read this text, even though they found it frusterating etc, and really wanted to engage with it. </p>
<p>Ok. So far so good. I went down to the coffee bar to get myself a drink, and I was chatting with the super cool ladies who were making my chai, telling them I was a high school student, etc, and the gal begind me in line insisted that she pay for my drink because she always has too many points at the end of the semester! What? When you could drink chair every day how could you have points left over? So she was awesome, and we talked for a few minutes about what philly is like, and about some swat stuff and some random stuff. Anyways... to make a long story short I ended up meeting up with her and her friends (and not my dad - although i invited him) at sharples for lunch. Her friends were awesome. The food was good, although I understand that it rotates, and after the second or third or 10th or 11th time eating the same menu, you begin to get a bit sick of it. </p>
<p>So then I had to go with my dad to do family stuff... and ended coming back not thursday night, (pub night) but friday night, which ended up being a great plan. I went to a concert and Old Club, which is like a sort of little music venue place on campus, with music upstairs, and drinks and ratty sofas downstairs. The music was fine... people were having fun... it wasn't a good place to get to know people, but I chatted with a few people (and didn't tell them I'm in high school) and swatties after schoool seem just as nice as swatties during school. </p>
<p>So the most relevant points of my experiance? The most important thing was that I got a great vibe... other places I've visited that I thought would be perfect on paper, I just didn't really feel that happy in - even though people were always nice. Swat students seemed pretty 'real,' friendly, but not fake, and 'interesting' in the best sense of the word. I didn't end up seeing that much of the campus, but what I did see was certainly amazing... I don't know if I can imagine myself there, just because things were so nice? you know? Like I might forget to go to class, just because I'd be staring at parrish thinking 'my, what a lucky fluke I get to be here.' Part of that may be an underlying doubt I'd actually get it, but thats another post. So in summar, thanks everyone for your tips (I did see the music building! it was gorgeous! and the amphitheatre! on friday before the concert!) and thanks to all the AWESOME swatties who basically made my visit.</p>