September 15, 2006

• where the beautiful people go

  visited my schonmei later in the day at columbia med school. again NY shocks me with the sheer largeness of it; is there anything the city doesn't offer?? is there any niche not fulfilled? immediately after getting off at 168st, i saw, with my own little eyes, a group of students so obviously med students that i was almost convinced i had somehow wound up back at college. it's the "mark," you know, of the unadulterated academic: the fresh, un-made-up faces still idealistic and eager, the northface knockoff jackets, the unfashionable scrunchy jeans tucked into high-top sneakers. the same way i can sniff out stanford students from a mile away.

  tired, burnt-out looking resident? check.
  nerdy looking guy scurrying to library? check.
  crowd of asian students? check.

  yup! i was at the right place!

  it's so strange, isn't it? PhD students probably in their mid-thirties walked by as i waited, and i could have sworn they seemed younger, somehow, than the fresh-out-of-college twenty-two-year-old bankers i see rushing this way and that around where we live. it's as if the latter are in a hurry to grow up, and the former has resolutely stayed young.

  it was soo good to see harvard people again though...had forgotten how nostalgic i am about college sitting around sm's room, i was struck by how comfortable it was! comforting to know that somewhere in midst of the city, there's a nook where...well, nothing really has changed.

  schonmei and alvin had an interesting theory that we put to the test: namely, that columbia seems to accept more attractive people than the average med school. after meeting their (all asian!! hahaha) friends, i'd probably have to concur. but a mere two months has passed since i graduated from the University of Homely-er, Inner Beauty, so perhaps i still have goggles on. a pretty med school? i thought stanford was pretty good already. i dunno, we shall see!

  • 12:02 am
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