Swap positions

Author: Luochi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: If you like, you can imagine each of these two British literature professors (both happen to be forty years old) being connected to their homeland, workplace, and home fireplace by an infinitely elastic umbilical cord. This umbilical cord is composed of emotions, attitudes, and values. When the professors fly at six hundred miles per hour through the air, the cord stretches and stretches until it almost disappears from sight, yet it never comes close to completely breaking. Imagine further that as they fly face to face over the polar ice cap, their respective Boeing pilots, ignoring regulations and technical feasibility, begin to perform a series of playful aerobatic maneuvers—crossing flights like a pair of mating bluebirds, diving, soaring, and looping—thus completely entangling the two aforementioned umbilical cords. Afterward, they calm down and continue flying in accordance with regulations. As a result, when the two land on each other's territory and engage in work and pleasure, any vibration sent back by one party to their homeland will be perceived by the other, and vice versa. This vibration will also return to the source, but it will have been subtly altered by the other's reaction, and the pathway may very well be the other's communication umbilical cord, which has already taken root in their new location. Therefore, soon the entire system begins to resonate due to the back-and-forth vibrations between Professor A and Professor B, sometimes along one line and sometimes along another, sometimes starting with one line and ending with another. In other words, if the two people swap places for half a year, despite the vastly different environments and distinct personalities, and their different attitudes toward the entire exchange arrangement, it would not be surprising for their fates to influence each other and for their experiences to reflect each other in certain aspects.
The perfect conclusion to the "Lumich College Trilogy," an odd union between higher education and corporate society, a love-hate entanglement between humanistic tradition and mercenary pursuit.