I guess these things don't shrivel up and die if neglected, like plants, or wander off, bored, like someone who wishes she'd stayed home rather than attending, say, a Mount Vernon District Democratic Party Ice Cream Social at which, it turns out, she knows no one. Just a hypothetical example.
I spent the first half of this week out in Sonoma County; I flew out there to meet with a realtor. I'm trying to sell the property my husband and I bought out there back in 1988 or thereabouts. We used to camp and hike there, Fred, Mike, and I, when we lived in Davis, and Fred and I planned on retiring there some day. Since he died I've been trying to decide what to do with the property, and now with law school looming I need the money.
Mike still can't or won't decide where he wants to go to law school. He has, at least, narrowed it down to UVA or Columbia. He also got into Duke and Georgetown but he only applied to Duke because they asked him to and waived the fee, while Georgetown was basically his "backup" school.
Columbia has the largest program in Chinese law outside of Asia, and Mike's gotten email from the prof who runs the program, on account of his (2nd) major in East Asian Studies. It could be an exciting career, I'd think, international law with a specialty in China. Only NYU outranks Columbia in international law, and Mike didn't apply there, don't ask me why--his choice of schools was nothing if not random.
He skipped the "Admitted Students" program at Columbia, though, because it conflicted with the program at UVA and they were handing out free t-shirts at UVA. This is what I'm putting up with. We're going up to New York on April 12 to spend the following day, a Friday, visiting Columbia. We won't be able to take any tours because the tours are on Mondays through Thursdays. Mike seems to be doing everything he can to avoid liking Columbia.
He says he doesn't want to live in New York, that New York is a big scary city. Yes this is the son who spent a summer in Beijing after having studied Mandarin for one whole year. I know this is the same son because I only have just the one, see. He doesn't want to leave his friends behind. It's true he'd have to give up his "social life", but I say you can have just as much fun sitting alone in your apartment drinking beer and watching cartoons in New York as you can in Charlottesville.
The only thing that concerns me about Columbia is the housing. I'm starting to worry that if he doesn't decide soon and start looking for a place to live he won't be able to find anything anywhere near the campus, which is in the upper-west-side of Manhattan.
Well as it turns out most everybody at Columbia does the university housing which is guaranteed and much cheaper than surrounding apartments.
Anyways, apparently I missed a real show at the Columbia admitted students weekend. I wasn't there so I'm going to copy/paste from someone who was...
So let me relay the funniest story of the whole event. We were all at the big talk by Dean Schizer. He spoke and left it open for questions. There was a dude with an eyepatch and an unrecognizable accent that had a question. Automatically, this dude goes on about how he worked at Goldman and that he doesn't want to be lawyer. He goes on for 3 mins about the field that he's interested in and asks how CLS will work with him on that. Now during this time, everyone is looking at each other in shock. We're thinking is this dude our classmate? GUNNER ALERT!!! Dean Schizer handled it nicely though and answered the q's. Then eyepatch dude goes on to say how he went to Carnegie Mellon and how it's a great institution and how he left Goldman and is a CEO of his own company and how he had a 10g check with him for the school to hire a tutor for his field of interest to benefit the other students. We are all in shock. Come to find out that this kid wasn't even admitted and was waitlisted. He had to be escorted out by Dean Iwerebon.
Anyways nothing this interesting happened at the UVA weekend. The first thing I saw when I rolled up was 2 untapped kegs sitting in a courtyard, so Jon and I proceeded to get them tapped and start drinking in the courtyard. A professor came up to us with some BBQ and said something like "You can always tell which kids went to UVA for undergrad, they're so much more relaxed at first." Hehe, he was a really nice guy.
Well the bit about housing at Columbia is a huge relief. At least for the first year--after that you can do whatever you like.
Yeah I knew you were really feeling comfortable at UVA when you told me how Jon coerced the dean into giving him, you, and Joe more t-shirts.
I confess I've never felt as at home anywhere as you feel in Virginia, nor have I ever felt as comfortable anywhere as you do at UVA. We moved when I was 13; I left a bunch of good friends behind and never really made new ones. I envy you.
But... law school is only three years; it's not like you'd be emigrating to Mars if you moved to New York for three years.
Re the guy at Columbia--the big talkers are always full of shit. It's a little-known law of physics.