Glimpse

There's a proper storm going on outside now. Sky's a dusky red, and the lights of the blocks outside the window are blurred in the cascade. The water hisses and spits against the walls and the ground. There is a crisp, fresh smell in the air. The air is cool. And, when gusts course through the rain and carry it through the window in a fine biting mist, I perk up at the scent, and the feel. It may not be much of a visual or aural spectacle, but red-sky storms simply feel exciting.

Anyway. Just a quick note tonight, before I turn in. Tonight, met up with yet another returning friend, who is special for two reasons. Firstly, she was from the junior batch in HC Humanities. Secondly, she's now my senior at Columbia. She brought along a batchmate to dinner, and over Hainanese food at Purvis Street, we talked shop about Columbia life. Or at least, I basked in the sensation of them talking shop about Columbia life. I did try to ask them on as much as I could think of, but beyond the administrative details on immigration, enrolment and registering for courses, there was something that I did not know how to begin asking.

It concerns what it is like to live in New York and to study in Columbia. Even now, the notion is, to me, a mere fantasy. My ideas regarding it are made up of nothing but speculation, based on second-hand sources and my own hopes of what it should be like. In a sense, I nurture an idealised vision of New York, and I anticipate my arrival there because I want to confirm how right my fantastical notion is.

And, according to what the conversation brought up tonight, there is real reason to believe that the real New York will not disappoint. Of course, there are the predictable low points of undergraduate life: disagreeable hostel mates, forgettable classes, administrative hassles. These should be treated seriously in their own right; but that is not to say that they should be the primary focus of life there. On the other hand, though, they speak of orientation parties in the Met (even though Orientation itself is largely unremarkable), and orientation trips to an Ellis Island that had been booked for their exclusive use (although some of the uses the students put the isle to were less than savoury). I asked them half-jokingly about whether the undergraduate life myth of good friends lying on lush lawns spouting philosophy at the starry sky was true; they readily confirmed at least the "good friends lying on lush lawns" bit.

So, clearly, life in Columbia is not going to be totally hassle-free, or totally agreeable. But that, I think, is one part of what makes life there so attractive to me (at least at this moment). The duality that is present everywhere, the awesome and the awful side by side, that suffuses life in the city with an exquisite sort of tension, between what exists and what it can become - the tension between the present and its potential - that is the central attraction. It may not be a bed of roses, but that's the point: that is what makes the whole endeavour worthwhile.

And I do appreciate very much the opportunity to get some views from current students. Before, reading all the administrative material on Columbia's websites, it seemed as if even matriculating would be devilishly hard, like some intricate and therefore insurmountable task. Being able to speak to people who've actually done it and come out the other side safely and happily does set my worries into their proper perspective. And it also makes August seem much more real, and not only something that is achievable, but something that is really imminent.

One of them said that it is not for her to tell me what to expect; that part of the point is to go there and learn by trial and error. And that sticks with me now, due to the powers of insight that it demonstrates. These people, who've gone through Columbia's education for a year, have come back wise and content. This is not to say that they were not wise and content before; but even so, the possibility of the sustainment of these is something to be thankful for. And they and some other people have mentioned over the last few days that I am uncharacteristically cheerful about being bonded to URA. Well, I really have no reason not to be cheerful, I think. As I said before, one must accept the bond now as one of the circumstances in one's life and work with it, rather than bemoaning it. A condition may be unfair or unjust, but if second-guessing cannot change it productively, then don't second-guess. Work with it. I am glad that I still have the space to be cheerful. But what requires reflection, I think, is not that I am cheerful about it, but that such cheer is uncharacteristic. Why should this be so?

*

Walking back from the station, the rain was just starting to come down, intensifying with breathtaking force. It felt good to be walking in the brisk drizzle: it felt like I was really forging ahead through the circumstances around me towards that long-awaited goal in August. The realisation really started to sink in, that this was really happening, that all the buildup to this August was about to be justified by its culmination in the departure for New York. Finally. Finally.