people part one: classmates

Back in college, my roommates and I ate frozen yogurt in cake cones voraciously. I love cake cokes and defend their superiority over sugar cones (which I do like but are just not the same) every chance I get. The yogurt or ice cream softens the cone as you eat; you still get the crunch, but it's molded into the texture of the ice cream so that you get everything in one bite. The flat bottom of the cone is divided into squares, so the ice cream fills the space between and it amplifies the effect of the upper cone and gives it something new too. As we ate our cones with each other and in contentment, and got to the bottom, we'd say, this is the best part. Without ever saying it explicitly, we adopted this as a mantra for what was the best part of college--each other. In thinking about the first year of medical school, it's true again that the bottom of my cake cone is the people, on several levels, one of them again being my classmates.

A woman with schizophrenia came to talk to us in one of our classes who made me think about my friendships. When asked if she had friends or people close to her, she said that she'd never had many and currently she had one. When then asked how that was for her--to have just one friend--she said, "I feel really lucky to have the one, because it's so hard to find people who really care about you, who want the best for you." It took one friend--and maybe because it was just one--for her to so sincerely feel the value of friendship. It made me feel overwhelmingly lucky, to have met and gotten to know and become friends with the people in my life.

I don't become close to people or let them get to know me very easily. It took me a year and a half in high school before finding the people who were my friends at the end, and I was no good at the orientation thing in college. So coming here I was a little worried, because I didn't know if med school would give me the luxury of time to cultivate closeness amidst my shyness and introversion. I was doubly surprised. Early on, I found kindness and openness and humor. As the year went on, after the usual threshold when comfort sets in and you stop seeking, I found more.

My friends here are wonderful. No matter how I'm feeling, they make me laugh without fail. For this reason I've gotten a reputation for laughing at everything. As I've explained to them, I laugh at things that aren't really funny but that are characteristically them, things that make them endearing and amusing and there's so much of that. They pay attention and they really care. They come to my room when I look upset in the elevator, ask how much sleep I've gotten when I look awful, patiently listen to me ramble and overthink and overfeel, bring me notes when they notice I'm not in class and food when I don't want to go out for dinner. I go to class and linger at the worst cafeteria in the world for their company and any time spent in conversation with them feels full. And beyond and independent of what they do for me, they are just good people, the kind that don't have to do anything for you in particular to make you feel that you're glad to know them.

One night I was telling Jen that I can remember exactly how I met most people in our class. I can see clearly in my mind where I was and what was said. During SAY (pre-orientation), we sat in a circle for one of those icebreakers where we had to repeat the names of the people sitting next to us. I remember thinking it was just my luck to be phonetically challenged...and have Prathap on my left and Bibhav on my right. Looking back, how lucky I was to have met my good friends on my first day at Yale. Bibhav was always smiling, and Prathap became part of my PCC group though for a long time I was intimidated by how nice he was. I also met the rest of my PCC group, and Henry and Nupur at SAY. I met Macdale at the barbecue right before the icebreaker and remember feeling that maybe he didn't find me very interesting but he would always say hello to me after that so I got over it. I met Don that first day too, sitting across from him at a blue table next to Harkness lawn, one of the ones in the middle. I remember not knowing whether he was a first or second year because he exuded a sort of laid-back quality and didn't force his presence as a newcomer. My next interactions with him over the coming weeks centered around being Vietnamese. I remember standing outside the Harkness door in a halter top on a warm night to go out and talking to him about going to Vietnam, how we both wanted to go there next summer. Then I remember him turning from his row in front of me during White Coat to tell me that his parents asked him about the one other Vietnamese person in our class, and then how his dad saw me afterwards and asked me in Vietnamese whether I was Vietnamese.

I remember meeting Allison at another blue table, this time in the corner close to the walkway, on a later day of orientation and how she told me about her California/Northwest road trip and how she ate a lot of food in the Sunset district and how we found out we'd both be orphans for the white coat ceremony and would be going to the orphan dinner together. And she came up to me after the ceremony and said, Hi orphan, and I remember feeling glad she remembered. Narae, I knew about beforehand from Albert, and when I saw her walk by (while sitting on yet another blue table), I was excited to have something automatically in common to bring up with a stranger. Haha, I remember she said, Oh yeah, I know about you, then went on her way, and we didn't have a real conversation until the next semester. I sat next to Jen during a talk for SAY, in Marigold's, where we discovered I was from the same town as her then boyfriend. She came with me and Allison to Ikea the next weekend and later told me she found it awkward because she didn't know how to talk to girls. She told me this post-Indian-food-debacle in the winter, which is when we actually became friends. I don't know how long these images will stay with me so it's nice to write them down.

I am grateful to those small moments that have grown, for the people. For one who supports his friends in so many ways, offering help in the endeavors we undertake like going through all his pictures for the sake of my magazine, is so passionate about the well-being of other people, who perceives so much from afar and comes close only when he thinks it will help, never for his own reasons. And who never gets tired of the same joke. Another who I can call when I'm sick on Saturday morning and will go out of his way to get me medicine, but who above all is fair and gives everyone the benefit of the doubt and listens to anything and everything you have to say. I'm glad for the friend who checked out all the coffeeshops in New Haven, asks me questions, doesn't judge me for my foolish choices, never makes me feel that our conversations are cutting into her time because it's genuinely what she cares about, who always reminds me of not school but life. And for the friend who values honesty and straightforwardness and rationale but still loves me for the complications and emotions, and who sees the immensity of small things and small gestures. And the one who makes me smile just by the way she answers the phone, who is fiercely loyal and tells it as it is without qualms, who tells me when I did something right and when I did something wrong. I'm glad for the one who's made me grow and be more patient, more accepting, who wears everything on his sleeve and makes it natural to ask things of people, who surprises me with what he remembers and how he tries.

We'd say, this is the best part, often, because once you get to the bottom there's still more.