Someday, I will be that cool.

So yesterday I was emailing the lovely people who did my recommendations for grad school to ask them to do one more, because I'm applying for a scholarship. When I emailed Dr. Tate, from whom I took the most incredible class about WWI, I mentioned that I had just gone to see Lawrence of Arabia at International Cinema because I wanted to see it on the big(ish) screen. Although I first saw Lawrence when I was 15, talking about it in Dr. Tate's class added all kinds of understanding for me, so I knew he'd appreciate it.

He told me that he had gone to see it too, hoping for something akin to his first experience with it - in 72 mm. No such luck, but hey, it's better than a 30" television. Then he wrote this: "I don't know if I told you that Karen, Andrew, and I were in the Near East this last May and June.  While in Jordan, we visited Wadi Rum, just north and east of Akaba, where most of the desert scenes were filmed.  We had a wonderful Howeitat guide who took us out in a 4-wheel drive to many of the Lawrence sites: Auda's camp, Lawrence's cave, spring, etc., as well as the formation he named the Seven Pillars of Wisdom.  It was fun to see some of the formations again in the film."

Um, someday I want to be cool enough to have a reason to go and see Lawrence sites. With a Howeitat guide.