Rising sophomore

A rising sophomore in my house passed away this past summer.

As I read an email about a memorial service for her, I realized that she will be forever enshrined as a rising sophomore. Rising, but never reaching.

Are we any different?

Emo music

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
 
I suspect that the widespread hatred for "emo" music is merely a compensatory mechanism for people that are embarrassed about their own past.

Secondary concentration

Things they don't tell you at orientation:
#31. Everyone graduates with an honorary degree in acting.

Euphemisms

*I'm somewhat disgusted that until sophomore year, I believed in the "Friend Zone." And no, I'm not saying that just because I "got out" of the friend zone; I'm saying this because I think it's what any good human being should believe.



Dear College-Aged Males,

Hello.

Over the past two years, I have both accidentally and willingly soaked up your numerous cries of woe regarding the so-called "Friend Zone." These conversations are generally colored with a tone of embitterment and self-pity, in addition to copious volumes of disparaging remarks directed towards college-aged females. Such discussions generally build around the same thesis statement -- namely, "She's such a bitch. I can't believe I got friendzoned."

I find these conversations quite stupid.

Yes, you had a four hour long conversation with her that one night in September. You also did your organic chemistry problem sets together and you helped her move some boxes into storage. She smiled at you a grand total of 14 times and has made physical contact with you half as many times.

"Oh," but you exclaim, "she always smiles and giggles when we say hi. And when she hugs me, she leans in and never pats my back. One night when we were eating in the dining hall, she also said she was thankful for having met me."

Yes, those are signs of a decent friendship.

"Seriously. She can't just go lead me on like that! She's such a bitch."

No, that's just called being a goddamn human being. You can be nice to people without any real reason -- you should try it sometime.

"But why doesn't she like me back? I didn't do anything wrong."

Well, other than the off chance that, oh I don't know, maybe she just doesn't like you? Hmm...no, I can't think of a single reason.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Friend Zone is just a silly euphemism for someone not liking you back. For your sake, please man up and learn to deal with the fact that no one is obligated to like you.

Keeping secrets

"You won't tell anyone this, will you?"
"Nah. You know I don't talk that much anyway."
"Right. Okay, so then..."

Today it occurred to me that I'm only good at keeping secrets because, by definition, they never involve me.

From one acquaintance to another

"This is why we're friends."


Dear Acquaintance,

I think that saying such a thing is more of an insult than a compliment.
But you know, that's just like, my opinion.

A Concerned Acquaintance,
Ryan

Midterm report/rant on MCATing

After a not-so-fantastic performance on the PS section of a Kaplan full length this morning, I just about flipped the table over. My studious side's instinct was to maniacally go over every wrong answer, but then for some reason, I couldn't do it. Fuck it. I'm not doing the rest of this test.

It's actually quite scary how it took until this morning for me to recognize that I haven't been myself; I've been eating one meal a day (maybe two), sleeping less than 6 hours, and willingly throwing myself into isolation. I'm losing my drive in the lab and I haven't been going on walks at all.

So thanks Kaplan for triggering a burnout breakdown. I've found my wind.

Also this morning.

This morning.

 

Come at me, MCAT.

Someone else revisited

Some five years ago, I wrote a column in our high school newspaper about a fatal car accident (The Search - Thanksgiving). Though I only knew the young woman's name from glancing at my sister's tennis tournament draws, hearing the news of her death while still a teenager was nonetheless a jarring thought.

In that comic (it was part of a two week-long sequence in which Calvin's house gets robbed while they are attending a wedding), Calvin's parents touched on something that I've long since internalized. It's a rather morbid rationale, but I think one of the main reasons I can push myself to keep working hard year after year is because of the fear that something irrationally tragic could always happen to me. True, I still can't imagine myself getting stabbed by a  deranged college dorm roommate, but I'm sure that neither could George Chen (one of the victims of the Isla Vista shootings/stabbings who was from my high school graduating class). These sorts of things happen, and to be honest, I'm not so sure if there's that much we can really do once the situation presents itself.

In any event, the "punchline" of that column was that we rarely see ambulances screaming down the street and stop to wonder about the people behind the situation -- does John, the father riding along in the backseat, root for the Red Sox or the Yankees? Does Michael, the middle child with his tibia jutting out of his leg...does Michael have friends at school?

Invariably, everyone riding along in the ambulance is a human being with a story worth telling. But as far as commuting drivers and their passengers are concerned, the distinctive sound of a blaring ambulance merely means to look all around your car to first identify the source, then to adjust your position as needed to allow the ambulance through.

I realize this is a rather inane idea, that we should stop to think about the stories and thoughts that are also riding along in the backseat of those ambulances. Yet from a young age, for some reason I used to picture myself as the patient riding in the ambulance or as an onlooking family member worrying whether my child, spouse or relative would be okay. You could argue that it was simply a product of my imagination and role-playing tendencies, but I think on some level, I knew and recognized the humanity of the situation -- of an ambulance frantically blasting through traffic, inconveniencing many lives but saving lives as well.

So no, I don't believe that I have the most riveting explanation for why I developed an interest in medicine, and that's fine with me. But whether I'm changing the media for iPSCs from cystic fibrosis patients, watching ambulances pull into Mass General while I'm pushing patients around in wheelchairs, or watching an ENT surgeon excise a tumor from someone's larynx, I always try to remember that there are stories behind the people that I'm ultimately trying to help.  It's the aspect of humanity that makes medicine more than just the science of the human body.

After all, one day that patient riding in the ambulance may very well be me.

The Genie -- (a thought experiment I came up with while studying for the MCAT)

You are walking along some generic beach in some nice tropical island. You are, of course, in a dream.

You happen to spot a lamp lying out near the rocks, and you squeal in delight as you sprint over towards it. But you soon see that this is no golden Aladdin lamp. No, this lamp is made of crumpled aluminum foil, with cheap gold paint flaking off the handle and crusted marinara sauce from some teenager's Bagel Bites. 

It's quite a sketchy lamp. Still, who are you to judge a magical genie's choice of residence, especially when he can grant wishes? You rub the lamp anyway.

GENIE: *wheeze* (waving arms, trying to clear the dust and sand) What the bloody hell do you want?! Egh.
You: So you're the genie in this lamp?
GENIE: (glaring) Look here sonny, you don't go around asking a homeless guy if that cardboard box he's sitting on is his house, so where the hell do you get off on asking something so asinine?
You: Oh, no no, that's not what I meant at all! I uh, I really like your lamp! It's very, um, economical.
GENIE: ...
You:  Anyway, do I get my three wishes?
GENIE: (pulling the lid back down) 
You: Wait, no! Come on, I'll bet an old genie like you has granted tons of wishes before! 
GENIE: Yup, calling me an old fart is definitely helping your case right now.
You: Please? Please? Please? Please? Ple-
GENIE: Whoever told you "please" is the magic word was full of shit and couldn't tell the difference between magic and a light bulb. Stop that.
You: (pause) Please?
GENIE: ....Fine. I'll tell you the same thing I tell everyone else who's found me on this generic beach that doesn't even exist. On another note, have you noticed how everyone around here is either naked or can fly?
You: ...
GENIE: So to answer your question, yes, you do get to say three wishes-
You: Sweet! My first wish will be to ha-
GENIE: ....three wishes that I will take away from you.
You: What?!
GENIE: You say three wishes, and on your command, I will remove them from your conscience for as long as you live. You won't ever think about those wishes again.
You: Why on earth would I want to do that?!
GENIE: Suit yourself. You'd be surprised at the results though; no doubt that I make people happier than that idiotic Smurf of a genie in that lame Disney movie.

 *************************

Be careful what you wish for because you often don't end up any happier than you were before, blah blah, cliche stuff. That's a lesson everyone should have heard by now.

But let me ask you this: would you take the genie's offer?

My instinctive reaction is to say no; figuring out why that's the case has proven much more difficult.

Interrogation

 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/12/09/131209fa_fact_starr

The most terrifying thing that happened to me last semester had nothing to do with school.

I was interrogated for 2 hours by the university police as a suspect in a laptop/iPad theft from the summer. No matter that I had also had my wallet stolen around the same time -- since I was one of the roommates and I just happened to work at MGH (where a wifi signal was apparently traced to),  there was reason enough to consider me as a particularly juicy suspect for the case.

At first they were reasonable. I had chatted with them over the phone during the summer regarding the case, so I figured this meeting was simply a follow-up to make sure they had the details straight.

Oh, but was I mistaken.

After some not-so-pleasant pleasantries, the lead interrogator promptly whipped out a voice recorder and a massive 50 page stack of documents, presumably all "proof" that I was the criminal. In retrospect, I should have realized that this whole thing was a massive farce; in the 5-10 seconds that I was able to sneak a glimpse at the stack of papers, all I could see was complete gibberish.

But I was too frightened to be rational. In truth, I was shitting bricks.

See, I had always thought it would be easy to prove your innocence if you were, in fact, innocent. There's that saying "if you're innocent, then you have nothing to fear," and I'd say in many situations, that's probably true.

But when you're dealing with a duo of supremely biased "investigators" with the tunnel vision of an earthworm digging in a dung pile, you would be surprised how difficult of a task it can become. Correlation and coincidence is their energy source, and if you gather the courage to point that out, they invariably exclaim that "you're hiding something from them."

I have to admit, they were so insistent on saying that I was responsible that at one point, I almost started to believe them. They were winning this game of psychological intimidation, and I was terrified.

Yet, they began to slip. Their questions became less and less specific. When I asked to know precisely what "all of this evidence" actually was that they kept referring to, they said "knowledge of that evidence is not necessary." And when I kept denying that I was the thief and that their entire case was built on circumstantial evidence that they couldn't even produce to show me, they asked If not you, then who?

I didn't have an answer to that idiotic question. Of course I don't fucking know who did it. Did it ever occur to you two monkeyheads that if I knew the answer to that question, no one would still be missing their wallet/laptop/iPad?

I was still shaken at that point, though. What really did those two interrogators in was what they asked next:

"Would you say that you usually walk up the stairs pretty quickly?"

Uh....what the actual fuck did you just ask me?

"Because we know that on the night of the theft, you climbed 3 flights of stairs in a very short amount of time. Why were you in such a hurry?"

Okay then, this interrogation is probably going to end in five minutes, tops.

Having lost a major chunk of their credibility, I almost caught myself scoffing when they closed the interrogation with "We'll be in touch, Ryan. Here's my card if there's anything you want to tell us. Remember that it will look favorable for you in court if you cooperated with us now."

Yeah, and after I cooperate with you two, let me tell you about this one time my pet cow flew to the moon and back..

Mentees and mentors

I may have hit a new milestone in my natural progression towards old age.

Said my 4th grade mentee: "Clearly, you've never been a kid."

Well then.

The Antlers - Stairs to the Attic

Reminds me a bit of the yearbook post I wrote during senior year.

Jelly Belly

I recently learned that a lot of people actually like the Juicy Pear flavored jelly beans. Apparently, a friend of mine used to buy entire bags of nothing but purified, uncontaminated Juicy Pears from the Jelly Belly factory and munch away while doing her homework.

Now personally, I find them more or less equivalent to artificially colored pills of shit. (pvalue = 0.051)

But no matter. As the next logical course of action, I then turned to Yahoo! Answers to get a definitive and accurate survey on this pressing matter from the best and brightest minds of our generation.

The results rolled in, and it turned out that Juicy Pear was incredibly polarizing. Of course, I found more than a few of my fellow Juicy Pear haters on those sacred Yahoo! threads. Yet I also discovered a shocking number of Juicy Pear maniacs lurking amongst the rest of us. Just what, I asked myself, did such intelligent people perceive in these jelly beans that I did not?




 (Yes, this is a metaphor for our political opinions).

Basketball

Somehow, without my knowledge, I've turned into a basketball player.

I used to entertain a tremendous variety of activities and outlets. But that's no longer the case. Outside of class and friends, my life has slowly grown to revolve entirely around research. I think I might be becoming obsessed.

It's a strange feeling, having a very clearly defined goal for once -- a basket -- just sitting there, waiting for me to take a shot. I don't think I've ever been this confident in what I plan to do.

I guess I better practice my free throws some more.

Summer

I'd say it was a summer well-spent.

1. I met tons of people, as I had hoped
2. I became friends with said people
3. I guess I kind of started dancing again, and want to keep dancing now
4. I started playing ukulele for people
5. I realized that tennis is really meant to be a social tool, not a competitive ritual to establish dominance (hahaha)
6. I didn't worry about girls
7. I finally had the time to goof around Boston, and I learned that it's a damn good walking city
8. I went to a lot of the activities, instead of camping out in my room
9. I let myself loose (see comic below)
10. I pretty much didn't write anything on the blog, which meant that I was keeping myself busy


So here I am writing some filler blog post because I still have too much energy from not having done anything interesting during the day.

 

Throwing stones at the sky

"It's like you're playing the piano for ten years and you still can't play 'Chopsticks,' and the only thing you have to keep you going is the belief that one day you'll wake up and play like Rachmaninoff."

There you were -- a wide-eyed freshman with goals and dreams just like everyone else. Of course, some were genuine while others were externally imposed. But no matter. You were here now, and the world was yours for the taking.

You told yourself that this was your one shot at reinventing yourself to become someone else, and so you did. As the semester continued, you slowly realized that everybody had bought your new personality. But you never really bought it. No, too bad you didn't realize that until you met...well, him. 

You soon met your soon-to-be best friend "Mike" through a service group, and fell into a fever. You wouldn't dare admit to anyone that you had a crush on him since that would make you seem shallow and far too injudicious with your heart. So you allowed yourself to secretly fall for him. Whenever he needed someone to talk to, you enthusiastically obliged. Whenever he wanted to go out to eat, you made sure you were available. And so naturally, you would grow to reciprocate his requests.

But even though you both were asking the same questions on the surface, you knew that behind each invitation to dinner, you were always hoping for something more. And hope you did. You carefully tried to give more signs. He kept spending time with you. You started joking about being a couple someday. He kept doing nearly everything with you.

So one night, you couldn't help but ask -- is there something more between us?

He said no, not right now.

That is your story. And though you're too embarrassed to admit it, that's essentially the singular source of everything you ask me about.

And you keep asking because I'm not giving you the answer you want to hear.

That's why you keep saying that you're screwed and that nobody likes you. Of course, we both know that's a blatant lie. Sure, you make it sound as if you just want somebody to say that they like/love you so that you know you're not a total failure. But in truth, you don't want just somebody. You want him.

So you keep torturing yourself, beating yourself up over your inability to play something as simple as "Chopsticks" on the piano. Yet you still won't give up and pick up a different instrument. No, you've already set your mind on hammering out the same two blasted notes on the piano over and over until the steel strings snap.

All this so that you can continue to believe that somehow, someday, you'll wake up and suddenly be able to play like Rachmaninoff.

Call me a pessimist, but I don't think that day is coming.

All you're doing is throwing stones at the sky and expecting them to come back as diamonds.

Happy endings

I don't think I know how to write a happy story.

For a while now, I've only written depressing and cynical stories because I thought that those were the only stories worth telling. It felt more "meaningful" to write about unrequited love and my worldly insignificance, as opposed to feel-good stories involving people finding happiness. I felt better too: in a way, sad stories are a form of indulgence.

But now I realize that those depressing stories are actually the easiest stories to tell. Everyone has their own problems and everyone has their moments of sadness -- put those moments into writing, and there you have it: instant realism, instant emotion, instant captivating story.

My impression is that we judge stories with happy endings far more harshly than tragedies. Since they always run the risk of becoming sappy and cliche, we set our standards for happy stories incredibly high. But depressing stories? So long as they can trigger some form of emotion within us, the stories seem all too real.

See, we're so much more skeptical of happy stories because we have trouble believing that they ever happen in real life. We shake our heads in disgust at storybook teenage romances, and we deem saccharine any tale of a marriage that forever stays exciting and impassioned. We dismiss stories that travel down a straight, flowery path from point A to B, and we convulse at even the slightest suggestion that there is indeed one true love for each and every one of us. It's no surprise that we do: we haven't experienced these things for ourselves, and so we naturally find these stories to be, well, stupid.

But maybe these things do happen. Maybe they happen all the time. Maybe it's just that when they are about to happen, we're too busy brooding over the depressing stories to realize it.

Sum

Sum - Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman

Read it if you have time. It's mindblowing.

Roses

This story ended up becoming a combination of past blog posts, so don't expect much.
(Edit, 2/10/15: In retrospect, it's really quite funny that the name I randomly chose happened to be Jen).
--------------------------

"Tell me a story."

About what?

"You."

I don't have any stories worth telling.

"Everybody has stories worth telling."

Whether anybody wants to listen to those stories is a different question.

"I'll listen."

Thanks.

"You never really told me what happened with you and Jen."

That's not an interesting story.

"Interesting or not, I know it's still on your mind after all these years."

That ship set sail long ago.

"Doesn't mean you don't remember it."

†††

I never really liked social events. It certainly showed.

"Hi, I'm Jen. What's your name?"

"I'm Ryan, I'm from San Jose, I'm going to study biology or computer science, I live on the fifth floor, and I like it here so far."

She raised her eyebrows. "You have a little trouble with this whole socializing thing, don't you?"

"I'd just rather talk about more interesting things than this silly Mad Libs 'networking' bull we're forced to learn here."

"Well, what do you want to talk about?"

"Not sure. Just curious though, is there anyone here you already don't like?"

"Gosh no, it's only been two days, I'm not going to make those kinds of judgments that fast."

"Sure you won't."

"Okay, well, I just might add a certain Ryan to the list now."

"That's a start."

"Why do you ask anyway?"

"Because I just met someone that I didn't like. She's over there, pouring some soda."

"That's my roommate."

"Oh. Well, in that case, have fun."

"...See you around Ryan."

"Before you go: would you like to go for a walk sometime?"

She didn't seem to hear.

†††

"...So anyway, that's what we've been doing in Music 51. I guess I like it -- it takes so much time though. How's your French class going?"

"Eh, it goes. But no, I think it's all right, even though the teacher definitely cares more about the language than we do."

"Well, the only French words I know are 'love' and 'death.' La mort and l'amour."

"I would think that most people would learn how to say their name or ask where the bathroom is before learning la mort or l'amour." She laughed.

"My sister taught me those two words, actually. They almost sound the same when you say them, don't they?"

"I never noticed that. Huh."

"She brought it up because I was talking to her about this one song, 'What Sarah Said.' The last line is Love is watching someone die. So who's going to watch you die?"

 "And what did she say?"

"Well, she pointed out that every successful marriage ends with someone dying."

"That's pretty depressing."

"You really think so?"

"I mean, yeah. Isn't that really sad?"
I shrugged. "I think it's beautiful."

"I kind of wonder though: it usually only takes a few years for people to decide to get married, right? Say you get married when you're thirty and all goes well. Then you've got another forty, fifty years or so with that person. You only spent one-twentieth of your life making a decision that will affect more than half of it."

She thought for a moment. "I don't know if I'll ever be ready to make that kind of commitment."

"Exactly. I can't even predict how I'm going to be in two years. How am I supposed to figure out whether I'll be happy with some girl for the rest of my life?"

She stopped and looked at me. "I guess you just have to try."

†††

"Huh. Didn't think you would be outside this late."

"This blizzard's pretty awesome, I don't want to sleep right now. And my window won't close, so my room's really cold anyway."

"Ah. Well, don't look over at the statue for the next few minutes. We're going to...yeah."

"Not bad, two out of three in freshman year. Primal Scream, then this...that just leaves the Widener stacks...."

"Yeah, I'm not so sure about that last one."

I made my way over to the statue. " Jen, I'll come look at your window when we're done, okay?"

It was 2:30 AM when I knocked on her door. I stood on her chair and tried to shut the window, but it soon became apparent that whatever I did wasn't going to do any good. We started talking, until we realized her roommate was sleeping. So we went to my room. A few minutes passed with idle conversation.

"I'm going to put my head on your shoulder in about ten seconds."

"You really don't have to announce it like that, you know."

A head on my shoulder soon became an arm wrapped around mine. Then, at some point in the night, she turned sideways, leaning her entire body into my arms. Flirting on the edge of unconsciousness, she sank deeper and deeper, dragging me along with her.

We woke up several hours later with a start. It was 7:00 AM.

The room was silent, but our words and feelings and emotions screamed within our minds. I replayed the conversation that we had just the morning before. I was just thinking/"We" are ambiguous/Do you want it to be clear/I don't know/I'm patient I can wait/I like you but I just/But what/I don't know. I thought about the shirt I gave her for Christmas that had nine adorable kittens on it and how she told me she loved  the shirt but was hesitant to wear it because it would represent "us" being an item, and yet she wore it the very next day. I wondered why she just did what she did last night if she wasn't sure, and why I had let her in the first place. I asked myself whether I could see myself with this girl for the rest of my life, despite the fact that weren't even dating yet. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

She broke the silence, saying aloud what we both we knew the other had been thinking.

"That wasn't very ambiguous, was it?" she asked weakly.

"No," I said.

"It sure wasn't."

†††

"You ever read The Little Prince? It's a French book, actually."

"Yup. I thought it was a very beautiful story."

"Well, I finally got around to reading it last night."

"Did you like it?"

"I loved it. I was thinking though: you know how the fox tells the Little Prince that his rose is unique because he has tamed her? What's stopping the Little Prince from taming any other rose? What if two roses showed up on his planet instead of that one rose? Hell, what's stopping him from taming all of the roses in that rosebush?"

She nodded. "I see your point. But if he's already in love with that one rose, I don't get why he would worry about taming any other rose."
"But the Little Prince could have just gone ahead and installed a sprinkler system or something. He could have just as easily killed off those baobabs to save one rose or two roses or twenty roses, and as stupid as it sounds, he could have just built a bigger plastic dome. There really isn't anything different about one rose to the next, and he knows that. The only difference is that she just happened to be the one he tamed first."

"Which leads into why you don't think that anybody is truly unique to all the world," she said.

"Right. There are far too many people on this planet for that to be true. Somewhere, somehow, I'm pretty sure you can find someone else similar enough to take your place in society."
"Well, I think you're very unique. That's why I like being with you."

"I don't feel the same way about that."

"But don't you think there's a difference between being unique to all the world and being unique to a certain person?"

I turned to meet her eyes. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, I agree that it was just random chance that the Little Prince tamed that rose. Any other rose could have landed there and the Little Prince wouldn't have known the difference. But that's the thing, though; it was by chance that it just so happened to be her. And it just so happened that he was there to take care of her."

"So I guess what I'm saying is, you have to remember that out of all of the infinite possibilities and all the flowers in the world, the Little Prince just happened to fall in love with that one rose. That in itself is pretty special, isn't it? I mean, sure, the people you meet may not be unique. But that doesn't make them any less important."

"I think you're important to me, Ryan."

†††

"So finally I walk in my room, and by now it's 3:30 AM because we had to walk back from Boston Commons. And guess what I see? My roommate is in his boxers with some topless girl that I've never seen in my life, on my bed. I'm beyond exhausted at this point, so I just tell them to do their business in his room. I grab my toothbrush and go to the bathroom, and when I come back, now the lights are off. Someone got up to turn off the lights, but then decided to get back in my bed to do who knows what. Unbelievable."

"Wow."

"Yeah. That night of The Game was pretty insane, but for all the wrong reasons."

We were sitting by the pond in the Commons, holding hands. A massive willow tree swayed its shaggy unkempt locks in the wind, casting its leaves towards the sheet of ice that lay below.

"Why don't we do that kind of insane stuff anymore?"

I chuckled. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know, sometimes I feel like we're just going through the motions, and we're only staying together because it's familiar."

"Familiarity just means stability, and I don't think there's anything unromantic about that."

"It's a lot less exciting though," she said, pulling her hands away.

"You think relationships actually exist that always stay that exciting?"

"It would be nice."

The wind stopped, and the willow tree slowly oscillated to a halt. Near the subway station, a man started playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue on his trumpet. It had always been one of Jen's favorite songs. She had played the solo piano arrangement for me before, and I was particularly fond of the slow middle section. It has a very pretty melody of course, but what I think makes it special is how the rest of the piece is so frantic. Somewhere in the urban inferno, that scrambling young man was able to find calm and happiness, however fleeting it may have been.

I closed my eyes for a moment. "You know how every fairy tale always ends with 'And they lived happily ever after.'? Have you ever wondered why they don't ever talk about what happens afterwards? The knight slays the dragon and saves the princess, sure. But that's just the story of how they met. If what you're saying is true, isn't all the good stuff supposed to be about their life together after they get married?"

"Right, ideally marriages can keep getting better and better," she said after a pause.

"But see, I realized something the other day. Those stories always end at 'Happily Ever After' because it's just too depressing to admit that love is a lot harder than just falling in love. The whole point of reading fairy tales isn't because they're realistic and relatable, but because on some level, I think that's how we wish reality actually was."

She looked away, mindlessly running the tip of her shoes along the contours of the sidewalk.

"Do you want to keep walking?" I asked.

"No, not really."

We buried our hands in our own pockets on the way back.

†††

No, I can't keep this. Can't keep that either. No. No. Definitely no.
She wondered as she looked around at her room, the floor strewn with torn envelopes and photos: what does it take to forget someone?
A crumpled slip of paper caught her eye. She walked over to pick it up, momentarily disregarding the mess she had made. It was blank, save for three faded words.

He had lied when he said he loved her.
She meant it every time. 

But then, what was she doing now, falling for another? For in truth, it was none other than him once again; a different face and a different smile, sure, but identical in all the important ways -- the things she had since learned to scrutinize more closely.

So why again?

She wondered as the flames engulfed her frozen heart once more -- does the phoenix possess the knowledge that it will be reborn, or does it relive the agony of dying over and over again?

†††

"I didn't think you would come," I muttered.

She took off her red blazer and draped it over her arms. "You didn't seem to care if I came. So I did."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"When you stop caring, something's wrong."

I looked away. "Let's walk."

We turned towards the statue and made our way towards the gate. A middle-aged woman stopped in front of us, her feet stocked on four-inch heels and her face plastered with powdery insecurity. Her husband scampered along after her, appearing less like a partner and more like a suitcase, slouched over from the burden of her purse and her unspoken frustrations. She gestured to her husband, and he obediently took the lid off of his camera to capture the scene that surely wasn't going anywhere soon.

"Did you like it here?" she asked.

"Why are there always tourists? I don't understand. It's not even that pretty."

"You don't have to take photos of only pretty things."

"It's a statue of some rich schmoe that everyone mistakes as some other famous guy. And you'd only know that if you had paid some tour guide to read you a script from the Wikipedia page, or you're a student here."

"Well, I think it looks nice."

"I hope no one thinks I'm nice."

"That's a strange thing to hope for."

"If the only word you can use to describe the sum of all of my thoughts, experiences, habits, and mannerisms is 'nice,' then you're just calling me boring."

"Believe me, you're not a very nice person, so don't worry."

She briefly tilted her head towards me, and our eyes met. I tried to casually pan my gaze over to the right, as if my eyes had only momentarily rested on hers. 

"How are you?" she asked.

"Fine."

"Okay, but how are you?"

"If you're trying to incite some 'deep, meaningful' conversation from me, we should just stop now."

"Look, I'm just asking how you're doing."

"But are you really? When I used to pass by that cute girl on the first floor while walking to the elevator, the only words that we ever said were Hi, Hello, How are you, Good, See you. Sure, there's a question mark at the end. But I'm not so sure: is she actually asking or just saying that?"

"Well, seeing as you don't feel like talking about yourself, I'm doing rather well. Thanks for asking."

We continued on our way across the yard. I tried my best to keep my eyes glued straight ahead, walking with perhaps a bit too much confidence to seem believable.

"I forgot, what did you say you want to do? You keep changing your mind."

"I want to sit at home and just watch television all day."

She laughed. "I meant for a career."

"Something that will let me retire early so that I can sit at home and watch television."

"You don't think you'd get bored of that?"

"I probably will. Why do you want to be a doctor?"

"Well, because I like knowing that I would actually be helping people."

"Conveniently, those same people have to pay you a lot of money too."

"Seriously Ryan, do you have to be so cynical about everything?"

We came to the intersection that separated the rest of campus from the nearby river. The red light flicked on and the little orange hand stopped blinking as we set foot on the pavement. We kept walking forward.

"I mean, I'm sure when you were younger, you didn't want to just sit at home and do nothing when you grew up."

"I wanted to be an orthodontist when I was in middle school."

"Any reason?"

"It looked like a stable job with good pay."

"And what happened to that?"

"I realized there were lots of other ways to make a stable living that didn't involve cashing in on people's insecurities and fumbling with crooked teeth."

The familiar opening arpeggios of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" rang through the plaza. Some four years ago, I had gathered the ignorant courage to perform that very song for a fundraiser. I was still too embarrassed about that performance to enjoy listening to that song now.

"Let's sit over there."

"Is there a reason you asked me to come walk with you?"

"Because I wanted to. I'm sorry, do I need a reason to go on a walk?"

She drew her hands out from her pockets. "You know, I used to like talking to you."

"So did I."

"There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.

In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven."

"Ryan, do you hate me?"

"No. You're not important enough for me to hate."

I thought about all the other times we had walked and talked. I thought about the arguments and fights that had slowly severed our friendship. I thought about the silly inside jokes we had made and shared. How she made fun of me for always getting two cups of water at breakfast when I could never finish one. How we had talked about The Little Prince and all those roses in the rosebush. How she had gone to lunch twice just so she wouldn't have to tell someone "No, I already ate." How she had set afire my frozen tin heart, refroze it, then thawed it once more.

"But I used to think you were."

"What am I to you now?"

"You're one in a million. But there are seven billion people on this planet, and there are seven thousand people just like you. You're just one rose in a garden of beautiful flowers."

By now we had reached the river, and after a couple seconds of silent deliberation, I chose to head towards the left. She went to the right and we bumped into each other. I remembered how I used to "accidentally" bump into her while we were still getting to know each other, just so that I could find a few moments of fleeting joy from her physical contact. But then again, accidents were all I had ever known. Just like our first meeting, or how we became friends, or our relationship of three years, or the end of that relationship, or now our outward appearance of just being acquaintances. It had all been an accident, a freakish chain of random chance. How else could I explain it all to myself?

She paused. "Ryan, I have to go now."

"Thanks for coming."

"See you."

"Maybe."

I wondered whether I would ever build such a strong connection with someone ever again. I wondered how things would have been different had I not gone to that freshman social that August afternoon. I wondered if the Little Prince and his rose ever had the chance to live out their own 'Happily Ever After.'  And then I remembered the answer.

They didn't.

I sat down on a bench by the river and threw stones at the sky.

Death of a dreamer

Growing up is a tragedy.

I look at our backyard now and wonder how I was ever able to spend two hours outside with nothing but a shovel. Somehow, I was perfectly happy to repeatedly dig holes and fill them back in, unearthing stones and what I presume were maggots. It all sounds quite futile and mundane, but from what I remember, it was incredibly good fun.

Then there was the fact that my sister and I had our piano lessons consecutively after each other, leaving me with an hour every week to goof around at our teacher's house. It was always a productive hour; I'd set myself to the task of collecting branches from the giant oak tree, or maybe chopping off a usable bamboo pole to fend off a possible monkey invasion. I even took the time to build a miniature aqueduct from a faucet in the yard to the grass several yards away, like a chute for little rocks to tumble down.

Understandably, your first instinct would probably be to say that I lost interest in nature as I grew up because of technology. With all those fancy toys around me, playing outside would naturally start to seem dull.

Yet even with computers and televisions, I was still able to find entertainment in ways that we would find strange. Nowadays, I lose all interest in a game once I finish it. But I clearly remember how I would replay the exact same dungeon over and over in Zelda, to the point that my mother once asked me if I was even doing anything productive. I would never bother to actually move forward in the plot line of Lego Island, instead electing to build cars and drive around delivering pizzas. And I was able to watch the same episode of The Magic School Bus repeatedly without ever really understanding what was going on, other than the fact that Arnold was a wuss (the most important lesson of them all, undoubtedly).

But I think childhood was more than about having fun. In the larger sense of the word, childhood was about dreaming.

For one, I literally had more dreams (at least, I remembered more of them). My dreams were, on occasion, batshit insane. I still remember a few of them, one of them involving my tennis coach spontaneously catching on fire from yelling at us so much. Another involved a highly complex and intense obstacle course with my friends and family as the contestants -- death awaited all who failed. I also vaguely remember having to face a horde of moblins armed with a guitar and a lightbulb (how I got myself out of that one, I don't remember. I probably just died then woke up or something). Then of course there were the typical naked dreams and flying dreams.

But I also dreamed about my life more. I was a little man with big plans. For instance, I told my mom I was going to become the CEO of the world's biggest company and do whatever it is that rich people do for fun. I also said I was planning on making it to Wimbledon some day, though even I knew at the time that it was essentially impossible for me to actually win.

Fast forward to when I'm 13, sitting in the car on the way tennis practice. I certainly had trashed any notion of making it to Wimbledon by now. My mother is talking to me about the importance of high school or something, and she brings up the topic of having to figure out what it is I want to do when I grow up.

I said I wanted to be an orthodontist.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because it doesn't look very hard for how much money they make, and it seems pretty safe."

The dreamer had died long ago.

He might come back someday, true. Maybe I'll get some flash of idealistic risk-mongering and pursue something that doesn't involve security and stability for once. But more likely than not, I won't. I'll be satisfied with doing what's safe and practical for the rest of my life, because I'm far too aware of the fact that dreaming doesn't get you food on the table.

Satisfied. What a tragic word.

What an ugly word.

"I just want to be happy, Dad."
"Don't talk to me about happiness. You don't know what being happy means."
"I don't. But I know enough to tell that you aren't."