Gothic cathedrals look the same…
Also, I just noticed a gigantic gash on my right hand…which doesn’t hurt at all for some reason.
I have to study orgo!
There’s this annoying sound coming from outside the music library. Some construction, perhaps, but it’s really distracting.
Back to work.
Sterling library is literally a cathedral!! And the music library is the best place to study in the world, and the first library that I haven’t fallen asleep in. Too bad it’s only open until 8:45, and then I’ll have to pack my life back into my backpack and hole up in the dungeons of Bass. Gah, art history :)
Wow, I thought upperclassmen were exaggerating or messing with me when they told me that the freshman holiday dinner is the most gluttonous thing (in a good way) you’ll ever attend. Yeah, seriously Yale? This must be the reason tuition is so expensive…
Yesterday I managed to waste the entire day. Of course, neither Joe nor I woke up in time for orgo (they REALLY need to stop making that class at 9 a.m…I sound so spoiled hahahaha). I went to art history discussion (a section with literally 3 other people LOL) where I found myself quite clueless because I hadn’t read the biography on Saint Jerome that the TA had sent at like 7 p.m. the night before, and embarrassingly thought relics and icons were the same thing, betraying the fact that I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes open in class for the past week. Oh, on that note, check out what happened to my notetaking when I dozed off for 10 minutes during Wednesday’s lecture…apparently my fingers were still trying to take down what the professor was saying, but alas sleep made them incoherent:
Asjflksjflksa asjkfWn pasisjfa ajsafjsdjfadjfSam use of body as a mungash cuxaMtaierlas of the column
Cas bronez, no toin
Heads are almost tre-dek]cant tell from flattteed pootoots
Laoacnti tecjoSigifie by ld ]BEGIING OF WORL TO EDNaTOMS BEIG MOLDED ERE, HBEING MOFCED TO TOIL. MrEDEMPTON FO UMMoFFERINGS OF Ci an Agel. Eventully leads ultimately act of idsobeidnace
Booth of the top
K0ketjf0f tuemsacr9fetuatm 8j0aphraoperate in parellel, undoing in eawonderflul gestures, serving to convy the nature of reltionl narrartive mode also see in beayeux tapestry
Indvctipiond dyivhrf snob
Noy trlly syspsdfgjdfs
Mrsny yo nr rmnzsolf derstinh olf, iln now progressivlh enhrinsdin plaes sent it dtheyre getting from ancient art
Mnay passages in Beax needs to summoned at this time to stell storiesstarting the relatiy of the accuracy of the scenes being partrayed
Pilgrimmage to Santiago de Compostela
I just realized how pretty the skylights are in the Morse common room!! I used to be so disappointed that I didn’t get to live in a castle, but now, I genuinely LOVE Morse. Like love love love love love it. It’s so light and airy and modern, and BOY DOES IT HAVE THE BEST BASEMENT! Not to mention the fact that both the common room and the library are delightful places to sleep in hehe.
Yesterday was quite a day, I must say. Actually, the entire weekend was rather eventful. Actually, the past two weeks in general has been such an adventure.
I guess any recounting of these latest events wouldn’t be complete without a tribute to the kid who has made life so interesting recently. I technically met Colin the second week of school at the liquid nitrogen ice cream thing for chemistry club. You know, normally you’d remember at least the president of a club (right?), but I guess I was too busy burning my tongue eating tons and tons of ice cream mix doused with liquid nitrogen to notice (or maybe he just didn’t look very presidential =P). Either way, nothing really rang a bell when Joe (IChO gold medalist #1 [see previous post]) ranted about how amazing this “Colin Lu” (IChO gold medalist #2) was at piano, and chem, and math, and life in general. Ironically, when we finally actually met at dinner one day in Stiles, I remember telling Joe that I thought his amazing friend was quite a jerk. I liked Ivan, Colin’s roommate though, although I later found out from Colin that Ivan used to be kind of a womanizer and had an uncanny fetish for Asian girls. (So that’s why he was so nice to me…JK!!) Okay, apparently this year’s he’s made a complete 180 degree turnaround but you can never be too sure. Hahahaha, I jest too much - Ivan is delightful.
Back to the main story…
The next time I ran into Colin (which was surprisingly much later considering the fact that we’re in the same residential college and have similar schedules timing-wise) was after dinner, like a month later (after the whole pneumonia episode), when he passed my friends and I just chilling outside the dining hall and proceeded to give us a O_o look. Jerk…I remember thinking, and decided against saying hi when I passed him on my way to the library to study. I never made it there that night, because somehow I ended up talking, playing piano, and doing homework with this kid from 8:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. It’s not every day that the first conversation you ever have with someone lasts six hours, especially after you’ve firmly confirmed the fact that they were a jerk multiple times before.
So, on to the REAL story. Maybe chem nerds bond quickly (though compared to Joe and Colin I might as well call myself a humanities major), or maybe people suffering simultaneously through hell weeks tend to gravitate toward each other. Two weekends ago, I again ran into Colin in Morse common room and proceeded to waste several hours “studying” aka not studying. After leaving for an hour to watch the DPops concert, I ended up staying in Morse till like 1 a.m. before walking back to Durfee in the freezing cold (sigh, though I love how all freshmen live together on Old Campus, sometimes I really wish we lived in our residential colleges from the beginning…) Anyway, I digress.
I met Enrico on Saturday after stealing his phone for three hours after dropping mine in the snow (OBLIGATORY SNOW SCREAM: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) while I was drawing benzene rings. Lovely first impression, eh? :P Enrico is also a genius though, and keeps murdering orgo and genetics tests while I get slapped in the face by them. Three hours out in the cold digging through snow wasn’t very conducive to productivity, and I proceeded to waste the rest of my afternoon distracting and being distracted by Colin. Singing Christmas carols two months in advance was fun though (OBLIGATORY ZOMG HOW CAN SOMEONE BE SO GOOD AT PIANO SCREAM: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH).
On Sunday, thanks to a visit from Colin who was nice enough to walk to Durfee to return my balloons, I didn’t finish my genetics lab until 3 a.m. and ended up starting my orgo PSet at 4 a.m. I ended up literally writing complete rubbish and probably looked like a complete idiot in front of my TA, but I guess I can’t do anything about that anymore can I…Monday was Halloween, and I dressed up as a mad scientist and wore a model of cocaine on my head as a crown (the benzene group was hanging off the left side of my face and I had on the nerdiest lab glasses ever).
Tuesday was the craziest day I’ve ever gone through, and it was all Colin’s fault (okay, maybe it was also my fault). Basically we ended up chilling in Morse all night. Literally. Like I didn’t get back to my suite until the afternoon LOL. My suitemates and I are all used to our strange [non]-sleeping habits, though, especially Jordana’s and my ability to sleep in random places (other people’s suites, chairs, pianos, libraries, common rooms, you name it, one of us has probably took a nap there at some point). Colin was working on what ended up being a 56-page lab report for some ridiculously advanced p-chem lab and i was [not] studying for my orgo midterm that Friday (neither of us was very productive, as you can probably imagine, especially since I basically fell asleep every 10 minutes).
Sunday evening was family night, and this was the first time my suite didn’t eat together for some reason…Or maybe I just ate really early. Anyway, I had dinner with my new “family,” Colin’s suite, met the last of the suitemates (I’d met Andrew at Halloween dinner and Sam in the common room earlier that week), Alex, who TALKED EXACTLY LIKE MY GUARDIAN ANGEL EXCEPT WITH A BRITISH ACCENT. Sorry, just had to mention that haha.
Hmm, I really should be getting back to my genetics studying. I have a quiz tomorrow, and I need to get a 100% on it otherwise I’m screwed. One last story, though. Last night while checking orgo in the Morse common room, Joe and I made Colin play some of our favorite songs for us, and I discovered that even self-proclaimed gangsters who swear a lot and enjoy acting like thugs (cough Joe) can be closet romantics. Yep, the highlight was definitely when the two of them serenaded me with Music of the Night from the Phantom of the Opera, and I basically melted into a puddle. Good friends are wonderful things to have. That is all.
Wow, it’s NOVEMBER already. I kind of can’t believe it. How did the past two months fly by this quickly?? It seems rather unreal that in less than three weeks I’ll be on a plane home for Thanksgiving break, but at the same time, I can’t help but realize that it’s time for a respite…Meanwhile, what’s happened in the past month:
Being healthy…at last.
I’d be lying if I said that life in New Haven has settled down, because when I think about it, life in New Haven will never simply settle down. But the one thing that I’m grateful for is that finally, FINALLY, after almost a month and a half of constant fatigue and struggle simply to stay alive (with no help from Yale Health, I have to snidely remark), my body seems to have regained any semblance of well-being at last. First a fever and muscle aches that made me want to sleep and never wake up, then a cough that forced me to sleep sitting up for weeks, then bronchitis for two weeks, then pneumonia for two weeks…I guess one good thing that came out of that ordeal was to take care of myself better (though i’m not doing too good of a job this week). And to use stuff like Dean’s excuses to postpone important things like midterms until my brain became more functional - I didn’t for art history or orgo, and the results weren’t that pretty =/.
Band.
I thought I’d quit band in college - I wasn’t ever really that big of a fan of the clarinet, and SDYS always made me fall asleep, but now I’m soooo glad I didn’t. The YCB conductor is an absolute crack-up, and seems to either have met or is friends with pretty much every well-known person in the music/performing arts industry - “So I called up Frank [Ticheli] and told him about a piece I had in mind….my friend from Warner Bros asked if the band and I could do a scene in…etc” Sometimes I wonder if he’s telling the truth, but then I think about how much fun rehearsals are when he’ll randomly stop and tell us about that one time when he found out that YCB had one of the last three hecklephones in the world, and the only one that hadn’t been restored (the other two are in the Met)…Then we get free trips to DC area to perform in STRATHMORE HALL with Chinese choirs celebrating the 40th anniversary of the sent-down youth movement, cultural revolution stuff. It’s great. I feel like the luckiest person in the world sometimes.
A campus that makes me cry with happiness every time I stop to look around.
Seriously, this place is absolutely stunning, and there’s nothing like that brilliant starkness on a crisp, gray autumn day; everything looks like it’s ageless in that light. And it always happens to be at just the right moment when the ringing of the carillon will drape the campus in all the loveliest melodies, everything from Beauty and the Beast to Sounds of Silence - at those moments I think there’s nothing more beautiful. And no matter how tired, how depressed I’m feeling that day, if I look up to see Harkness tower framed against the sky, I can’t help but feel as if someone were throwing me up into the air while telling me “what are you doing, frowning like that?? You freaking LIVE here.”
The city.
New Haven. Apparently the fourth most dangerous city in the U.S. according to some poll nobody pays any attention to. One of the most beautiful cities in the world, according to my brainwashed mindset. I’ve already grown to love this town - there’s something about living on the edge, straddling the fence between that shooting down the street I sometimes frequent and amazing YSO shows in the gorgeous (but acoustically treacherous) Woolsey Hall that keeps life exciting. Because of New Haven, I think I’ve acquired a sixth sense of when it’s safe and when it’s not, when I should just hustle down the street with my head down (and when I should just camp out in Morse common room instead of trying to walk past Toad’s at 4 a.m.) and when I can stroll and amble dreamily (like through Old Campus in the glowing afternoon). Also, I’ve learned that homeless people aren’t so bad when you talk to them - sometimes they get lonely too. There is something magical about New Haven, that despite the fact people treat it as an encumbrance, as a detraction, it kind of weaves its way through the campus; it forces people to look out for each other more, forces us to be more aware of our surroundings, to walk each other home (or not, either way works), to stick together; but at the same time, it’s finally made even the directionally challenged me be able to find my way to any spot on campus and near campus at any time. Kind of important if you happen to be stuck in shady territory at an inopportune time, to be able to know if you’re running in the opposite direction of safety. Haha.
Orgo.
Oh, chemistry, why must you always take over my life? I swear, I can never get rid of you. I mean, all of my best non-extended suitemate friends right now are a. sophomores+ b. somehow related to orgo or chemistry (IChO gold medalists keep waltzing into my life. Seriously, I’m never going to get over my inferiority complex if these guys keep doing that.) and c. 90% guys (I know, big surprise >.<). Well, I suppose it comes with being a freshman premed. I really should be studying for my orgo midterm on Friday, but it’s hard to focus at the moment and it will just stress me out more. 12 hours should be enough for 3 chapters right? Even if I still have no idea what one is about. Yeah, it’s best to get back to work. More self-pontification (I just totally made up a word) later.
ARGH!!!! I KEEP MAKING STUPID MISTAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT LAST GENETICS QUIZ WAS SO EASY TOO!! GAHHHHHHHH.
I keep getting 9’s on 10-question quizzes. My quiz average is going to end up being a 9. Why do they have to be 10-question quizzes?!!??! Perfection is like impossible for me to attain *tears*.
Grade stress grade stress grade stress grade stress.
And the quiz averages are all insanely high too, like 8.4 and stuff…stupid upperclass cutthroat premeds >_<.
I like tests much better. Less room for stupid errors.
GAH.
I am going to watch the sun rise over Yale!! This is such an exhilirating, yet surreal moment. Just a moment ago, the sky was pitch black like obsidian, but now, even as I’m staring, wide-eyed at the ever-forming outlines of the shadowy trees by our common room window, I’m almost afraid of glancing away for even a moment. I’ve never seen such a sight before.
I suppose there is something symbolic with this all-nighter that I’ve pulled. As the sky lightens, and the morning begins to stir, I can’t help but gaze in wonder, and wonder at all that’s changed in the world, all that I’ve changed in my life in the past 12 hours. I finally did it. I said goodbye to the albatross, with the brightest carrie-smile you could ever see and without a glance back, I did it.
All right, maybe I regret it a little, but then how could we not regret anything in our lives - that would be stupid, impossible, improbably. But for the first time, I suddenly feel like I don’t owe anyone anything anymore. Of course, I’m going to be curious for a little while as to what my albatross thought, but something tells me that to be honest, we both already knew this day was coming. I just can’t believe that I had the audacity, the impulsiveness, the downright idiocy to be so straightforward. Now that my mind is cleared and spirits lifted, I hope that a bit of luck will peek through the fading stormclouds again. I really do hope so indeed.
buttonMaintenant, c’est la première fois
Que j’ai perdu totalement ma voix.
Ma voix, vous êtes si perdue!
Malgré que j’aie tant besoin de vous.
Is what I chatted someone as I tried to stay awake in the dead silent library. I fell asleep from 10AM-12PM when I was supposed to be brainstorming ideas...
