Far Above Cayuga's Waters

This evening, my college friend, grad-school friend, colleague friend and just plain friend, Shahana S. and I went to a Cornell University Glee Club concert. The Glee Club is doing a tour of California and tonight was their kickoff concert in Berkeley. But I think all of us were there to hear the Cornell songs. The Football Song was great and The Evening Song brought back to me a flood of memories. But as everyone in the audience stood to sing the Alma Mater, I couldn't help but realize that I was welling up.

I can now understand why old men cry at the thought of their college years. It's because THEY ARE GONE. I will never live those years of my life ever again, and that truly is sad. I think back about all the stupid things I worried about, like tests and looking good in front of my professors. Those weren't the important things, well in some ways they were, but it was the amazing experiences I had, the people I met and those friends who I still maintain friendships with today. I look at the email address book I have and there are names of Cornellians sprinkled all through there.

I sat there during the concert with all these nuggets of wisdom and clarity fly through my mind. But most importantly, how valuable the experience was. Cornell, although with its faults, was the place where I grew up. I became an independent person and some of the decisions I made there are consistent with who I am now. For example, majoring in Geology, was NOT in the cards as played by Mom and Dad, but I went down that path and loved it. Following what was true for me was an experiment I first dabbled in at Cornell and has now become an integral part of me.

I won't bore you all with the other things, but I now understand why so many parents find it so important that their sons or daughters go to their alma maters. I used to think it was all about the prestige of a child going to that school. But instead it is that the parent wants their child to live that same wonderful experience. If and when I have kids, I would want them to experience Cornell and have for it the fondness for that institution far above Cayuga's waters.

Look at how good my bed looks!!!

Look at the great work that Mom did. And I even got the cover on the duvet with little incident. Thanks Mom, I love you

It's Olde Reunion Week

This past weekend I reunited with two friends from different parts of my life. It is sad that sometimes wonderful people drift out of our lives under circumstances we can control and those we can't. Whatever the reason, they are gone forever. Luckily, fate brought me back with two friends that I hadn't seen in a a couple years (Jeffrey B.) and fourteen years (Mason K.).

Jeffrey and I had a nice lunch at Max's right of Union Square. He's had a couple rough years as have I, so it was nice for us to be able to see each other when we both had pulled it all together.

Mason K. sent me an email early in my days of recovery in the Great Trauma of 2002. As I was cleaning out my inbox over the holidays, there was Mason's email. I did a search on his name and LO AND BEHOLD, Mason and his wife Amanda live in Bernal Heights. Both are Columbia graduates with Mason being an architect with a small firm in town and Amanda taking six months off before starting her postdoc in Neuroscience at UCSF. I wish I could say that the Kirby's and I live spitting distance, but alas, I live in the SW quadrant and they in the NE quadrant. If we were to walk in a straight line between the two, our beloved Bernal Hill is smack dab in the way. Amanda recently gave birth to the Kirby's daughter, Julia Rae K..

Mason, Amanda and Julia K. (January 2nd, 2004)

Glad to have them all back in my life.