She’s very pretty, big sister said. She was, and had an unconventional charm, with the features of those pigtailed red-scarved proletarian heroines rallied from rural mountain villages in the middle provinces to hold up half the sky for the great helmsman. She was strong, productive, innocent – As if she stepped straight out of the kitschy Socialist Realism propaganda posters that adorn his dormitory room.

And so he noticed proletarian heroine immediately at the club meeting. Hi there, what’s your name. They chatted, found they had some common interests and mutual friends, and got her number down. Not to seem too eager, he only contacted her after the customary grace period, and she said yes. It was a great leap forward.

They met at the appointed time. Proletarian heroine was more beautiful than before, having discarded gym duds for dresses, and he smiled, imagining that she had prettied up for him. There was this one moment when the conversation stopped, and she looked deep into his eyes.

After parting ways, he chanced upon a mutual friend who stayed near proletarian heroine, and asked to visit, thinking he might see her again. When they arrived at the suite, and the friend first entered, the first thing he heard from behind the door was her voice. “Hey [mutual friend], is [protagonist] gay?”

“Why don’t you ask him, he’s right here.” Proletarian heroine giggled, and stood in front of him. She looked deep into his eyes again. “Are you?”

Her cheek was softer than he anticipated. He wondered if she could feel his heart beating faster. Be still, beating heart.

He gave the wrong answer. Apparently there wasn’t a right one.

* * *

Not as pretty as you are, he replied. Big sister was the opposite of proletarian heroine. Slim, delicate, she seemed more akin to the bourgeois socialites of the coastal cities, qipao-clad fan-waving daughters of great trading houses. She rolled her eyes.

They discussed the crush matching game spreading around campus, and she mentions the Gale-Shapley algorithm. The conventional wisdom is that the G-S pairings are ‘male-optimal’, because the (male) asker always gets his best possible choice by the final round.

But he interprets the story differently. To him, it sounds like the worst possible system for men, who must go through the painful process of hearing a series of nos, and then a maybe, with the possibility of being dropped until the game is over. Whereas she need only say yes once, he is never certain of her intentions until then. And the game may never end, and each round may be an eternity; it could be months or years of getting to know someone and letting her get to know you and dancing around the issue until the perfect moment to ask, walking her home at the end of a perfect evening.

* * *

(Hongdae, Seoul)

It’s been almost a year now, and he’s walked her home countless times before. It is not the perfect moment, and not the end of a perfect evening – she’s upset about the party, and social butterfly is a party girl. But the reality is that there will never be a perfect moment and there is no better time than right now.

“Never go for the party girls”, another sister warned. “They don’t commit.” In retrospect, that was good advice. But he ignored it, like all the warning signs.

He got the answer he expected. “I’m sorry”, she said. “There’s no need to be sorry.” He smiled, and walked away, surprisingly not disappointed but relieved. He knew that if she had said yes, he would have let her walk all over him.

Perhaps we never fall as hard as the first time. He couldn’t help but compare social butterfly to the princess, to whom she is as a spark is to a shooting star. But all her flaws also made her more approachable, and it was easier to become friends. But he made the mistake of thinking that friendship is a sufficient condition when it is not even a necessary one.

* * *

The princess packed her things into boxes. It may have been the last time they would ever see each other again. “I can’t believe we wasted so much time not talking to each other,” she said.

Even though there was no reason why they couldn’t be friends, he had avoided the princess for so long because she made him feel inadequate. But over the years there were so many other princesses in his life that had done the same, and since he couldn’t avoid all of them, it made no sense to avoid this one.

As they promised to keep in touch, he noticed her eyes well up with tears. He hadn’t intended to avoid her forever, and had the silly notion that he would change everything about himself and become the ideal person he wanted to be, and when he was ready to face her again, they would catch up from where they had left off and laugh about it. But he never changed. And now it was too late.

* * *

(Beijing park sign) Tread softly because you tread on my dreams…

While they walked around at the festival, they stopped at the omikuji stand. He shook the fortune out of the box and unrolled it. The paper read: great fortune (大吉).

They sat by the steps under the shadow of Athena, goddess of wisdom, warfare, and heroes. Fortune favors the brave. He asked carefully, “What would you say if I told you that I was really into you?”

She smiled. “Is that a hypothetical question?”

“Maybe it is… but you could give a hypothetical answer.”

“Well, my hypothetical answer would start with a y.”

“You mean yyyyy-no?”

She laughed.

NEW HAVEN, CT – “Love Story in Yale” (2009, SBS) is the long-awaited sequel to “Wharton Sonata” and “Tsinghua Spring (semester) Waltz“, starring Geoffrey See as the dashing and brilliant business strategy consultant, and Kim Tae-Hee as representative sample Yale girl.

Happy Birthday and Congratulations on getting into Yale! Through our five years of friendship and mostly-healthy competition I’ve been inspired by your ceaseless diligence, prudent foresight, deep compassion, elegant style, love of life and adventure, sheer determination, your exponential rate of accomplishments, and the humility you’ve held onto throughout it all. You’re one of my favorite people in the whole world. Here’s wishing you every happiness and success in the years to come! (incl. w/ hot Yale girls )

My grandmother took care of me for most of my childhood. She wasn’t aware of any Mozart Effect and let me watch hours and hours of daytime television with her, which back in the early 90s was mostly trashy soap operas on the state-operated Chinese-language channel. (Oddly, my Mandarin never improved very much) Due to the heavy regulations and high economies of scale in the industry, the state channels never faced any competition (outside of TVB imports), and as such they made some truly horrific pablum (they still do). In retrospect, this may have been why trashy soap operas are permanently seared into my psyche now.

I stopped watching television from the O-level examination preparation period onward (14/15ish) and only started again during military service, that is, after the exam that defined my teen life had been done with (A-levels). The first k-drama I came across was ‘Love Story in Harvard’ (러브스토리 인 하버드). Back in those college application days I was obsessed with all things Harvard, and I think it came up during a search for ideas for the application essays. I watched a few episodes before realizing how horrible it was.

It turned me off k-dramas, until the second year of military service, when Geoffrey and I went to the APEC youth exchange in Seoul, and when I got invited back for the main conference in Busan. The friends I made there encouraged me to watch something called ‘My name is Kim Sam-soon’ (내 이름은 김삼순), and they kept sending me more afterwards. I got a stack of CD-Rs with ‘What happened in Bali’ (발리에서 생긴 일) on them when they came to visit Singapore.

In those lazy army days, I had all the time in the world to watch whatever dramas I wanted, and I did. It also helped that my immediate superior was a middle-aged lady officer. She, like many middle-aged ladies in Singapore, was obsessed with all things k-drama, especially that Winter Sonata dude. Having common interests made my army life so much easier, and I think that was part of the reason why she let me take so much time off to go to Korea. Twice.

J-dramas were simply the natural next step up from anime. Mandarin ones were for language reinforcement.

As you can probably guess, dramas are the biggest time-sink in my life. (Apart from school-related things like attending seminars and writing essays, that is) It seems like I must be the only guy who watches these to the degree I do – I guess there’s just not enough real drama in my daily life. A friend recently asked me to send her a list of dramas to watch, so this is my accumulated wisdom of five years of watching dramas. In no particular order, the ones I really liked are:

J-dramas:
Maou 魔王
Meteor Bond 流星の絆
Change
Ally of Justice 正義の味方
Honey and clover ハチミツとクローバー
Daddy and daughter’s seven days パパとムスメの７日間
Operation proposal プロポーズ大作戦
Team Medical Dragon 医龍
Liar Game ライアーゲーム
Black swindler クロサギ
Nobuta wo produce 野ブタ。をプロデュース
Queen’s classroom 女王の教室
Densha otoko 電車男
Stand up

K-dramas:
Cain and Abel 카인과 아벨
Lobbyist 로비스트
War of money 쩐의전쟁
Coffee prince 1st shop 커피프린스 1호점
Soulmate 소울메이트
My name is Kim Sam-soon 내 이름은 김삼순
Sorry I love you 미안하다, 사랑한다
What happened in Bali 발리에서 생긴 일

PRC/TW-dramas:
New Shanghai Bund 新上海滩
Fated to love you 命中注定我愛你

A friend recently told me about a k-drama script writing competition, and I’m putting serious thought into writing one. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could make a living using my talent for something I love?

My little cousin recently received her O-level grades, which were disappointing to say the least. I wasn’t close to her, but I did try my best to make a difference: I emphasized the importance of attending a good JC and getting grades at least good enough to ensure admission to the highly subsidized local universities, if not secure a taxpayer-funded ride to the Ivy schools. I even gave her my extensive collection of college admissions guides – yes, I was that insane about it.

While admittedly part of this was projecting my regrets about my first choice colleges onto her, I don’t think my advice was wrong. This is a competitive world we live in, and early choices make a big difference in later outcomes. The subsidized local universities are a very good deal for the price, so demand far exceeds supply.

In retrospect my approach was a failure, because it did not encourage her enough to want it for herself. I failed to communicate the benefits of a competitive education in a way that would relate to her perceived interests. Looking back, the main reason why I studied hard for O-levels had nothing to do with practical considerations about financing college tuition or career prospects. It was simply what was done by those I considered my peers, the scholar-class kids I met during a creative writing summer camp when I was 15.

The reason I applied to the summer camp? Having an crush on a scholar-class girl I met by chance, who had participated in the camp previously and encouraged me to apply. Admission to the program was not very competitive, but it self-selected on the basis of English language ability, upper-middle-class cultural tastes, and personal initiative – all of which are relatively good indicators of academic success. It was there that a boy from a mediocre public school entered the social circles of the gifted program and special assistance plan students – the cream of Singapore’s highly stratified education system. It was a fun summer camp. I enjoyed it very much, and the friends I made there now attend every top university I can think of.

I worked hard at O-levels for their acceptance and respect, not my own career prospects. I knew then that Huntsman and Harvard and Oxbridge were the aspirations of the scholar-class kids, even though I had only a faint understanding what Huntsman et al were at the time. I didn’t even know what Goldman Sachs was until after A-levels. But that aspiration made all the difference.

On a side note: that summer camp is called the Creative Arts Program, and is organized by the Gifted Education branch of the Singapore Education Ministry every year. While in Singapore, I met one of the program administrators, and we discussed how to evaluate the performance of the program. While I am skeptical of whether the program has a significant causal impact on professional literary development, I do believe it has a powerful socialization effect on upward mobility in general, and I hope they will focus their study on that, as they will probably find more significant results than if they concentrate solely on ‘publishing literary work’ as the dependent variable of interest. Though I think it would be difficult to control for the self-selecting bias in the sample, I would also include other measures of upward mobility as possible dependent variables.

Thus in retrospect, I should have encouraged my little cousin to participate in social activities that would have surrounded her with highly-motivated kids, and thus acculturate her in their values of upward mobility. If I hadn’t attended that summer camp back then (or if I hadn’t met that girl), I might have instead adopted the values of my middle school and the culture of entitlement and mediocrity that poisons it. While she wasn’t suited for the summer camp I attended, there are probably many other social activities that would have had the same effect. My advice on college admissions would have been better received at a more mature age, when she is self-motivated to succeed. But by then, it would have been too late. It really sucks to have to learn this the hard way, but I guess some people have to.

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

It was the precise moment the universe shattered. Time and space stop, past and present tense have no meaning now.

An hour before – a lifetime ago? – my roommate says. She’s having a get-together at midnight at the usual place. She wants to know if we’d like to come. I smile. It would be the second time today I meet the one who I see forever in.

T-minus five. We’re already at ground zero. All her friends are here. I am glad to finally be part of the core group. She arrives and sits across from me. I say something. She doesn’t meet my eyes. I suppose I should’ve known something was up then.

T-minus one. The bubbling of conversation, people laughing. I wonder if this is what it means to have friends. I listen quietly, but for the life of me I can’t remember what was said. And then she casually mentions that she has chosen another.

That was the precise moment my universe shattered.

Pulse races out of control. Heartbeats seem deafening, I wonder if other people can hear it. I wonder what she sees sitting across from me, what the precise moment of heartbreak looks like, because I can’t let it be more than a moment. All her friends are here. It takes every ounce of sheer willpower to keep smiling, laughing, talking. Anything will do, as long as it keeps the silence away, as long as it distracts from the fact that my voice is beginning to crack.

There is a growing itch behind my eyelids. It burns to keep from blinking too fast. Don’t you dare cry now. Don’t you fucking dare.

T-plus five. I excuse myself from the table to get a drink, and duck into a corner out of sight. Deep breaths now, slowly. Think, boy, think. I desperately want to go home, but I can’t just up and leave for no reason. I can’t let them think that anything is wrong. I have to stay, and find the right opportunity to make my exit.

Paranoia sets in when I return to the table, trembling fingers can barely open my snapple, I don’t think I could look anyone in the eye now, because the eyes are the window to the soul and then they might see that I have retreated into that tiny space within it that nothing can touch. I fear also that I might see mocking glances, as if the world laughs at my folly, the itch behind my eyes is intolerable, I have no mouth but I must scream, and it feels like I. am. about. to. burst. I make up some stupid excuse about early classes and make my getaway.

The spring air is cold, so cold. As the door closes, I feel empty. Nothing at all. My feet are on autopilot, one step after another, up the steps and across campus to my favorite place. The view from the bridge always calms me. You can look down the hill onto a line of lights that stretch away for miles. I imagine this to be a perfect place for confessions, when the wind is gentle and a fresh layer of snow covers the stones, and all the lights have turned green as if to tell you to go ahead. But now all the lights are red.

In the precise moment the universe shattered, all is chaos. Nothing has logic or meaning. Hours pass, but I am no closer to finding the answer why. Reason and rationality fail me as the trail of inquiry leads down a path of self-recrimination. It is why they call it falling in love, a force of attraction as strong as gravity. And like gravity, what was once the star whose light lit my way collapses into a void that feeds upon itself. How could you do this to me becomes how could I have done this to myself. All my inadequacies become apparent. I have never felt so worthless before.

Menu-star. I scroll down through the address book to find someone who can give me the answers. It is 2AM and none of my friends are awake. I’m not even sure what to tell them. Hi there, the world is ending, save me. It is at that point that I realize that there is no one in this world I can count on for my happiness. Then the moment matters not, and I do not mourn the shattering of a universe indifferent to my existence.

I return to the room hoping that roommate is already asleep, but light still creeps out from under the door. I open it and sit at my desk as if nothing has happened, and roommate is kind enough to play along. Before he turns out the light, he says. She called just now. And then the lights go out and he crawls into bed.

I sit in the dark staring at the screen. It stares back and says. So she cares. At least enough to call. And I ask, did she really call? Or did he lie to make me feel better? It doesn’t reply, but I already know the answer. And then finally the tears come all at once. I am thankful for their tardiness, since no one can see them drown me now.

It was the precise moment the universe shattered. Time and space cease to exist, and past, present and future are one. I relive it every minute of every day of every month of every year, trapped in the moment.

It was the precise moment the universe shattered.

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

It was the precise moment the universe shattered. Time and space stop, past and present tense have no meaning now.

In 2000, I was an aspiring poet and novelist.
In 2001, I was an aspiring playwright and screenwriter.
In 2002, I was an essayist and an Oxford applicant.
In 2003, I was a resume engineer and a Wharton applicant.
In 2004, I was a slave and a Harvard applicant.
In 2005, I was an aspiring investment banker/PE financier.
In 2006, I was an aspiring management consultant.
In 2007, I was an aspiring economist and policy wonk.
In 2008, I’m not sure who I am or who I’ll be.

As I grow out of 2007 into 2008, I become more distant from the selves of 2006 and 2005 and wonder what they were thinking. The 2003 and 2004 mes seem so young, so naive. 2000 and 2001 I can barely recognize. Projecting this trend forward worries me. It’s hard to figure out what the optimal decisions are to maximize my utility when I have no idea what the me of 2009 or 2019 or 2029 will be like. (At the rate things are going, I’m not sure if that person will even exist) What will he value, treasure, cherish? Will he blame me for not doing enough for his happiness? Regret is so painful because there’s nothing I can do to change the past. But I can do something today to save my future self tears. The question is what I should do.

So I turn to my peers, the people around me, like Geoffrey and friends. Although there are some truly incredible people here at Columbia, they are few and far between. Even so, I look to them, because their achievements are both humbling and empowering. Humbling, because I see how far behind I am, and how much less talent I have and/or how much less hardworking I have been. Empowering, because the range of the potentially achievable has increased that much. Some are brilliant geniuses in their fields, others have incredible life experiences to share, and some have achieved so much already. But not everyone’s talents are quantified that way. All of these people inspire me, and I treasure them. I only hope that one day I will be able to inspire others too.

I can do no better than to quote the Fountainhead on this kind of inspiration:

He was a very young man. He had just graduated from college — in this spring of the year 1935 — and he wanted to decide whether life was worth living. He did not know that this was the question in his mind. He did not think of dying. He thought only that he wished to find joy and reason and meaning in life — and that none had been offered to him anywhere.

He had not liked the things taught to him in college. He had been taught a great deal about social responsibility, about a life of service and self-sacrifice. Everybody had said it was beautiful and inspiring. Only he had not felt inspired. He had felt nothing at all.

He could not name the thing he wanted of life. He felt it here, in this wild loneliness. But he did not face nature with the joy of a healthy animal — as a proper and final setting; he faced it with the joy of a healthy man — as a challenge; as tools, means and material. So he felt anger that he should find exultation only in the wilderness, that this great sense of hope had to be lost when he would return to men and men’s work. He thought that this was not right; that man’s work should be a higher step, an improvement on nature, not a degradation. He did not want to despise men; he wanted to love and admire them. But he dreaded the sight of the first house, poolroom and movie poster he would encounter on his way.

He had always wanted to write music, and he could give no other identity to the thing he sought. If you want to know what it is, he told himself, listen to the first phrases of Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto — or the last movement of Rachmaninoff’s Second. Men have not found the words for it nor the deed nor the thought, but they have found the music. Let me see that in one single act of man on earth. Let me see it made real. Let me see the answer to the promise of that music. Not servants nor those served; not altars and immolations; but the final, the fulfilled, innocent of pain. Don’t help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don’t work for my happiness, my brothers — show me yours — show me that it is possible — show me your achievement — and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.

[...] Roark looked after him. He had never seen that boy before and he would never see him again. He did not know that he had given someone the courage to face a lifetime.

You have given me the courage to face a lifetime.

I participated in a pilot career guidance program run by to b-school alums now at Mckinsey, and one of the program requirements was to do a self-assessment to describe myself in five adjectives from a list, and to compare that assessment to what a select group of 3-5 close friends picked. The point is to 1) externally validate identified strengths and 2) work on identified problem areas and 2) any discrepancy between self-image and the one that people see. But the problem was that I couldn’t really come up with five adjectives on my own, because it was very difficult to mentally separate who I am, who I would like to think I am, and who I want to be. Also, I couldn’t think of anyone who could do this assessment – I have few close friends on campus and the people from home who used to be my close friends haven’t seen me for ages. So I asked both.

First, let’s tabulate the results, separated by “past/home” and “present/school”.
Past/Home: Ambitious (2), Analytical, Cold, Cerebral, Creative, Critical, Deep-thinking, Driven, Diligent, Intellectual (2), Introverted, Self-centered, Rational, Resourceful
Present/School: Ambitious (3), Calculating, Conscientious, Confident, Committed, Dependable, Disciplined, Genuine (2), Inspired, Intelligent, Introspective, Introverted, Imaginative, Original, Outgoing, Perceptive, Prudent, Rational, Spontaneous
How should I interpret the results?

Probable selection bias
Given that I don’t really have close friends in school, I solicited answers from a larger sample of people who I interact with semi-regularly. But the sample is biased by reporting. Those who were willing to take a couple minutes to reply are more likely to 1) like me or 2) wish to appear to like me. This biases their descriptions towards saying nice things, whether they mean it or not. This bias does not exist with my close friends from home, where they can say whatever they want and not feel like it would jeopardize our relationship. As for the ones who did not reply… well I guess now I know who doesn’t really give a damn. Which hurts, but it’s so much better to know.

Consistent results
In both groups, ‘ambitious’-related words appeared many times, as did ‘creativity’-related words, ‘intellectual’-related words, and ‘cold/rational’-related words, as well as ‘introverted’. If this is how I am perceived, I should be worried indeed – ambition is not necessarily a good character trait, especially if paired with a perceived lack of empathy. If this is truly me, I don’t want it to be true, and if it is not, then I must work on shedding that image.

Inconsistent results
Even though the variance is necessarily greater in a broader sample, the difference within the second group between perceptions of sociability and individualistic traits is marked. Apparently some people think I’m genuine while others think I’m calculating, while others think I’m either outgoing or introverted. Individualistic traits are much stronger in the first group than the second.

The first thought that comes to mind is change. If this is true, then things are changing, and I am not the person I was before. I am slowly becoming the ideal person I want to be. The next thought that comes to mind is deception. Perhaps I haven’t really changed at all, and the variance in the second group just means that I can trick some people into thinking I’m a good person but I can’t fool everyone. If this is true, then all I am getting better at is acting.

Whether the results reflect real change matter to me a lot. It is the difference between things getting better, and things staying the same.

ALADDIN: Well, it’s not much, (he pulls back the curtain and exposes the palace) but it’s got a great view. Palace looks pretty amazing, huh?
JASMINE: Oh, it’s wonderful.
ALADDIN: I wonder what it would be like to live there, to have servants and valets…
JASMINE: Oh, sure. People who tell you where to go and how to dress.
ALADDIN: It’s better than here. Always scraping for food and ducking the guards.
JASMINE: You’re not free to make your own choices.
ALADDIN: Sometimes you feel so–
JASMINE: You’re just–
BOTH: (in unison) –trapped.

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Big Sis: “So what do you like about her?”
Lil Bro: “Everything. It’s hard to explain.”
Big Sis: “If you can’t even explain it to me, how are you going to explain it to her?”

Perhaps the reasons for my affection can be explicated by turning to my twin philosophies, economics and liberty. Economics considers it perfectly rational to love someone who maximizes my utility across the indifference curves of life. ‘Why’ is thus merely a complex cost-benefit analysis of tradeoffs and compensating differentials. But economics says nothing about what that someone is loved for. To economists, de gustibus non est disputandum – tastes are usually exogenous to the models and taken as a given. If economics has no answers here, neither does libertarianism which has its highest expression in Rand’s novels, who writes of D’Anconia’s love for Dagny in Atlas Shrugged: “He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself.” However, Rand’s description of that vision is her own, and to give the standard libertarian answer derived from John Stuart Mill about individual conceptions of our visions is to say nothing about what mine should be.

When I messed up the elementary school leaving examinations, all my friends went on to the elite prep schools, and my parents were so disappointed I actually felt they loved me a little less. I spent all my time and energy trying to match up to the ‘gifted’ kids, and never learned to relate to the people around me. I was in such a hurry to accelerate my education that along the way I neglected to develop some elementary but crucial social skills. My best friends were the only people I could talk to. They were princes among men, so popular and charismatic enough to get away with anything in high school. My social life was lived vicariously through theirs, and I always wondered why they deigned to share their time with me when they had so many more who wanted it. Keenly aware of the disparity between us, I wondered when it would be my turn, and wished that I could be part of that world. Somehow I naively believed that all I had to do was do what I had always done, and catch up to where the ‘gifted’ kids were, and when numbered in their company I too would be a prince. All I had to do was make it there, and everything would change.

That dream to break into OxBridge and the Ivy League, especially that most selective of elite programs at Penn I wanted, consumed me completely, but it also made the lonely high school years more bearable – rather than feel bad that I didn’t have a lot of friends I could tell myself I didn’t need any. I buried myself in work and stopped having a social life altogether outside of extracurriculars. That continued even through the army years, when my closest friends were those as obsessed with success as I was. But when I finally achieved that success, and held the acceptance letters in my hands, nothing had really changed. I was just as socially invisible as before, and gradually the realization that I was no different began to sink in. I was still the same old brand new me, with more on the resume but much less personality. That realization was the beginning of the bildungsroman, the quest to change everything wrong with me. Nowhere was this clearer than in Columbia, where I am just as lonely, without even the petty consolation of relative distinction.

It was then that I started to notice her. It was impossible not to, with her bright eyes and winsome smile, and friends in every corner of campus. She makes it look so easy, the way she gently enters the hearts of students and faculty alike. What I have always wanted comes so naturally to her, and I found myself more than a little envious. Then envy became admiration, and admiration became affection, and affection became what it is now. She does not like to be called princess, but there is no other word that could begin to express the sublimity of her free spirit, the quiet elegance of her intellect, the grace of her benevolence, the dignity of her ceaseless industry, and (of course) the great distance between us. Yet I have always wondered what exactly it is in her nature that makes her so wonderful, because in knowing I might learn what is so lacking in myself. It cannot simply be her beauty, because there are many pretty girls on campus, but none command the adulation that she does. So I have long studied her mystery, hoping to learn what makes her a princess.

Perhaps the answer is far simpler than I thought it was. Perhaps she is so loved because she loves so much, universally and unconditionally. Her genuine interest in and concern for others is what they respond to, and as Tyler Cowen’s symmetry thesis suggests, reciprocate in a virtuous cycle of affection, not unlike Shakespeare’s Juliet: “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.” She is filios embodied, almost agape.

Yet that answer is also the one that frightens me the most, for by implication it is something deficient in my character that is the problem. Perhaps I am unloved because I love no one except myself, and people see right through all my artifice and insincerity to the selfish me. Perhaps that is why I respond so strongly to the utilitarian concept of man and the celebration of individualism in economics, libertarianism, and Rand. Perhaps it really is all my own fault, but worse because I just don’t know how to fix it.

To return to Rand’s concept of love as the reflection of one’s deepest vision of the self in another, I thus love the one who best embodies my values and ideals. Perhaps in becoming closer to her, I can become closer to that ideal person I want myself to be. But I also return to the economics of love and its market structure of old, the barter economy, which requires a double coincidence of wants: we spend our lives searching for that special someone, who not only possesses all the qualities we want, but wants the qualities we possess. It is here that I see the asymmetry most clearly.

Yet if I cannot be her prince, then I can at least be her errant knight, wandering the wide world in search of wonders to accomplish, all for an unconditional love that gives everything and asks nothing in return. Not even her presence, not even her caring, not even her knowing. I only pray for the courage and strength to keep my distance, because the very sight of her would shatter what little resolve I have to walk away, and then I would never be that knight but merely some fool squire following her around forever in willful self-deception and false hope. Surely I have more self-respect than that.

But I don’t, so I truly am trapped of my own device. Trapped, because although your presence is painful, your absence is far more so, and you could never be absent from my mind. Trapped, because I feel so guilty for ruining our friendship, if it was ever even a friendship to you. Trapped, because you’re both too cruel to be kind and too kind to be cruel. Trapped, because the last rose petal has withered, and I am cursed with a destiny I can’t seem to ever change. Trapped, because the hardest lesson you taught is how much more I still have to learn.

But he did not understand the price. Mortals never do. They only see the prize, their hearts desire, their dreams… But the price of getting what you want, is getting what you once wanted.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

So the results for the regular decision round have been released, and some have rejoiced while others did not, as an article in yesterday’s Times reports. (The headline “For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, too” is very irritating, as if it’s somehow any different for guys) I had advised one of the girls I met at APEC Korea on her college applications, and she did get in, though it is likely not to be to my credit at all. Yet she seems reticent to come to what is clearly not her first choice. I know others who had applied, and had their hearts set on the idea of coming here, yet were not accepted – perhaps they should have asked for my advice, or perhaps not – some factors simply cannot be changed within that timeframe. It could well be a simple case of sample bias, where people who care more about their college applications, and thus more likely to be stronger candidates, are also more likely to seek advice than others who don’t care enough to, which says more about the individual than about the quality of my advice. I had written earlier on college admissions strategy, but did not focus on the actual decision to choose a particular school. Here is some advice for everyone regardless of their admissions offers, from someone who learned the hard way.

Two years ago, I was disappointed by the college admissions process. I did not get my first choice college, or even my top choices… Instead I had to decide between my third-choice program at my dream school, Penn, and Columbia. I did not give the decision the serious thought it deserved. Even though I believe I made the right choice despite that, I had severely undervalued Columbia in my thought process – I considered the difference between them very marginal. I now know that is false. At the time I made the decision, I wrote a little essay for my friends to explain why I had made my decision the way I did, and perhaps also to justify it to myself as well. I wrote it on the topic I knew so well, having obsessed about its meaning throughout high school. I had written so many drafts, so many approaches to this cruelly vague topic that is a perennial feature of the Penn application.

Q5a. You have just completed your 300-page autobiography. Please submit page 217.
When I first started writing bad poetry at 15, I was fortunate to be mentored by a girl who would become Singapore’s greatest poet. At the time, she was in love with another poet, and would often tell me about him. He was everything most young men here aim to become: a scholar, an officer, and a gentleman, rising to the top of the education system and civil service. He had just been admitted to the Huntsman program, IS&B, though I had no idea what Wharton was at the time. Being a little jealous, he became a sort of role model by proxy, his profile setting the benchmark for achievement. Though at the time I was merely a mediocre student from a 2nd tier middle school, and it was inconceivable that I dare aspire to what the elite are groomed for from birth, and my parents had no idea about any of this. Nonetheless, for this and other reasons I joined the marathon for upward mobility somewhat late in the race, chasing the shadow of someone I never met.

As the years passed, I began to find my own voice as a writer, and student and mentor grew oceans apart. Yet the race went on, and what was once a fantasy became a growing possibility, and with that possibility came hope and the construction of an imagined future that would sustain me through the Byzantine game that is characteristic of the top public schools. I dreamed about it every day. That dream consumed me completely, but it also kept me sane through the A-level years – there was a kind of comfort in knowing what I wanted and working to achieve it, that made the lonely high school years more bearable. So I clung tightly to these preconceived notions of self-worth through external affirmation, refusing to go beyond my comfort zone or change my point of view.

Thus there was no scholarship but the bureaucrat’s bond, no conscript vocation but the officer’s commission, and no college but Penn’s IS&B – so sure of getting in that it did not even occur to me to apply anywhere else. And one by one I found that each was not to be. With the first rejection in 2004, I wondered if I had made a huge mistake from the start. My answer then was no, at least not where Penn was concerned. I applied again, this time to Penn SAS, with an internal Wharton dual/transfer in mind – it would’ve been the same thing. Almost.

On April 1st, a fitting day for self-deception and cosmic jokes, I checked my college decisions, Penn first. I checked it online in the office and when I found out that I got in, people were wondering why I had a smile on my face all day. Sure, I had Columbia in the bag too, but after giving it some consideration, I had already decided on what I had always wanted. Then the acceptance letter from IS&B came a week later. I knew it was most likely a mistake, so I wrote to the department to confirm it. However, when my friends duly checked the IS&B office that day and said I was on the RD list, Christmas had come early, wishes had been granted, prayers had been answered, dreams had come true. We had not one, but two parties. The feeling was pleasant while it lasted. Then the reply from the department came a few days later, and broke my heart once more.

Nothing and everything had changed. I told myself that it didn’t make a difference, but it did. What was the only choice before was now a pale shadow of what could have been. I went home that day with a vision of myself there, bound by stubborn obstinacy and ruthless ambition to sacrifice everything for Success. What a terrible way to live, and what a terrible person I would be, I thought. To go to Penn would be to let that person take over my life. In fact, he already did. I now realize that chasing my hero’s shadow only made it easier to avoid finding my own path in life.

I have never been very good at letting go, and giving up Penn is to let go of years of hopes and dreams. So I have chosen to close this chapter in my life and start anew. Perhaps I have made the wrong decision (a part of me screams it every day). But this time, it’s my decision and mine alone.

As much as I would like to think I made a rational decision based on a cost-benefit analysis of compensating differentials between the two colleges, a lot of it was emotional and thus irrational, and after you correct for emotional baggage the disparity should be much larger in Penn’s favor. Now I know how horribly wrong my decision process was. Coming to Columbia has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I had undervalued the personal utility of living in the city, of taking the core, of meeting wonderful people who didn’t necessarily want to become investment bankers or management consultants. In short, I had underestimated the fact that I might change, that how what I wanted might become what I once wanted. I can never know how things would have been like if I had chosen otherwise, but even if I could I wouldn’t want to find out.

For the ones who did get in, I cannot stress enough the importance of privileging one’s education over one’s schooling. Part of the Columbia education is living in the city, learning its ways, experiencing its culture. My life is so much richer because of it, and I want yours to be too. To be fair, not everything about Columbia is good, and I’ll be happy to elaborate more on those aspects, but overall I’ve found it absolutely wonderful.

For the ones who didn’t, take heart in the fact that even though you may not always get what you want, what you do get might be so much better for you. It took me so long to figure this out, and the year between committing myself to coming to Columbia and actually being here was so much more painful because of it – especially when meeting Junyoung at APEC and after dear Geoffrey had got in. I can’t think of anyone I know who isn’t happy that they chose the college they did, and I know you will be as happy too. Keep an open mind, and also an open heart.