the east

Back from a whirlwind tour of the East Coast. I feel like my post-college life has been a stretched-out accordion: all the feelings and thoughts dispersed over a long period of uneventful time and space. But during this trip someone or something decided to try and make a noise by compressing everything, and all things of the recent past and the near future came together in the small sliver of one week and a pocket of the country.

I flew from San Jose to Baltimore, and had a long conversation with the passenger next to me. I’m not good at starting talk with strangers, but lately I’ve encountered several very open strangers who have been easy and interesting to talk to. This stranger did aircraft maintenance for the Coast Guard, and because this entailed quite a bit of travel, he’d been all over the place, from Alaska to China (he showed me photos on his computer). We talked about cities and food, and he told me a bit about Baltimore since he’d been living there for a couple of years.

I had a very hazy idea of how I should get to campus after I got off the plane. All I knew was that I didn’t want to shell out $30 for a taxi, and that somehow the light rail plus some other form of public transportation would take me to Hopkins. Though no one knew exactly how I should do this, everyone was very nice and helpful. Practically every stranger I spoke to in Baltimore (and being directionless me, I spoke to many) was super nice to me, which gave me a warm impression of the city despite what people say. I got on the light rail and had another good conversation with a stranger, a middle-aged man commuting home from work, who seemed as proud of me for pursuing medicine as if I were his own daughter. His smile showed a genuine sense of gratitude and pride, something that I haven’t seen in such a pure form in awhile.

I was going to take the subway from one of the stops but was told I’d have to transfer light rails to do that, so I got off at a random stop near the symphony, was told that the school was six or seven blocks away but that they were long blocks and that I couldn’t walk it. So I took a taxi which didn’t cost me much at all and gave me a chance to converse with a down-to-earth cabbie who kindly, bluntly told me that I better be careful “cause this hospital is in the hood.” He also told me exactly which streets we were taking as we were driving, which I forgot instantly but still appreciated.

I hurried to drop off my things because I wanted to get dinner at the Inner Harbor before it got too late. Eugenie saw me at the front desk at Reed Hall and called out my name. She told me she and her roommate, who was hosting a friend who was also interviewing, were going to go to the Harbor and asked me to come along. We never spoke much in college, but she was so welcoming and sweet that it seemed natural to hang out. She showed me their suite in Reed, I met a lot of first-years, and got to use the subway that no one in Baltimore seemed to know about or use. Since it was late Thursday night, the Harbor was pretty deserted, and it was a nice way to quietly take in the city. I was grateful for having run into Eugenie, and it became a running theme of the weekend, having familiar people in unfamiliar, different places.

After my interview the next day, I took the train to DC. It was raining and wet and a bit of an ordeal to get to Baltimore’s Penn Station, but it felt nice to get there and sit for awhile to wait for the train. After the three train trips I took during this trek, I’ve developed a fondness for train stations. I used to think it was just NY’s Grand Central that I liked, having met and departed from Andrew there a few times over those years. But no, a lot of train stations are unexpectedly nice (the unexpected came from New Haven’s small but beautiful train station). I like the sense of old, how there’s no hassle to get on and off like there is with planes. I love the non-electronic signs they use to post times and platforms, where the letters and numbers turn and turn noisily until the right one is posted on the sign. I like having room on the train, the fact that I can move around, the scenery, and especially how I can feel the motion, unlike on a plane when you don’t feel like you’re moving at all.

Anyhow, it was a short trip to DC, where Frank picked me up and guided me through the subway back to his place. It was so good to see him again; he’s such a teddy bear, huggable and comforting. We had dinner and caught up, and back at his place I got him to watch the last half of Life is Beautiful with me despite his efforts to study. When he was showing me his movie collection, I shook my head at one after another as I didn’t recognize any of them. He said, “Yeah, these are black movies.” At the very end when I was thinking I probably wouldn’t watch anything, he showed me his last movie, Life is Beautiful, saying that he’d bought it because he saw that we’d had it in our room in college. But he never got through it because he didn’t want to read subtitles. So he wasn’t really watching as I was, but he got slowly sucked in and told me that he was choked up at the end. Haha.

Andrew drove from Virginia to meet me in DC, and I spent the rest of the weekend with him. We saw the World War II Memorial, and visited the other monuments in the National Mall since we were there, though we’d seen them before. It was interesting, to contrast the WWII Memorial to the Vietnam War Memorial, which is my favorite. We talked about how there is a different kind of loss that emanates from the Vietnam War Memorial and its veterans, how the Vietnam one focuses on lost lives. The whole memorial is just their names. Unlike the WWII one, which features quotes about the fight for liberty, and names of all the states and territories, and a whole host of other symbols and structures. It was much more elaborate and emphasized sacrifice in quite a different light.

After that we had dinner at the oldest restaurant in DC and got ready to celebrate Halloween. We didn’t have time or energy to get costumes, but we headed to a club his friend had recommended for a Halloween party. After realizing that we were the only people around those streets and clubs who was not black (whoa for being the minority among minorities), we decided to go to Georgetown instead. Which turned out to be a great decision. There were tons of people in costume, and the small streets were lined with bars and shops. It was a festive, cheery, fun atmosphere; it’s always invorigating when things seem to flow out of places into the open streets, back and forth. It was fun to dance with him again, and be silly as is our natural state. I got a bit more tipsy than I have been in a long time, and he took care of me well. It can be nice to let someone do that once in awhile.

The next day we went to DC’s tiny Chinatown, where a ten year old girl mixed me not-very-good bubble tea and he had not-so-good moon cakes. It was fun to see, though, and we always get so much from walking and observing together. Later in the afternoon I took the train (Washington Union Station in DC is also quite nice) to New Haven, where a med student (a recent Harvard alum) picked me up. Oddly enough, I could see myself there in that city that doesn’t get much credit. The mix of gritty and quaint reminded me of Cambridge.

How immensely happy I was to be back in Cambridge. There is no place I love more than Cambridge and the Square. Besides its concrete charms of people, quirks, nature, city, school, water, shops, food, subway, Adams...there is no place I've grown more. It's where I experienced my lowest lows and highest highs.

I got to Boston first, and felt at home when the skyline greeted me while driving through a small street in the dark. Then took that ever-familiar M2 shuttle ride from Longwood to the Square. I got off at the Adams-Lamont stop and walking by Westmorley Court, I was struck by the most incredible heart-choking sadness. The autumn was perfect and beautiful around me, crisp and sunny, and there I was in the midst of it, such a pathetic spectacle, a bundle of mess. To distract myself, I decided to look for our fern. I’d bought a fern from the plant sale at the beginning of senior year and hung it up in my room. Later I took it down and put it on my windowsill so that it would be easier to water, but it didn’t fare well. It was constantly shedding (like Gregor, remember girls?) and its typical coloring was a dry yellow, not the bright green that it had when I first got it. I thought I’d throw it away when I was moving out at the end of the year, but Andrew fought hard against this. He wanted to plant it somewhere and give it a chance. So we dug a hole in front of A-entry and plopped the fern there. We viewed it mostly as a false sense of hope, but when I was leaving for Cambridge during this trip, he asked me to look for it. So I did…and there it was: greener, fuller, and happier than it had ever been when I’d had it. Not only still there, but thriving. This erased all feelings of melancholy, and I felt the most sudden pang of happiness.

Later I ran into Lily and she said she thought of me every time she saw that fern, because she had seen us digging up dirt to plant it. At the time we were embarrassed that someone had witnessed our whimsy, but when she told me that, I was grateful. A part of me was still tangibly there. All of these things—they do still belong to me, perhaps even more so than to those who are still there. As I walked around and around along those brick sidewalks I am so tied to, along that river, around those buildings, near those stores, atop that grass—I knew I would still have all of this.

People are always trying to let go and move on at the same time, when really I need these to be distinct. Last June was so hurried, things built up so intensely atop of one another, there was no real time and space to say goodbye. He said that maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, that I wasn’t missing out on anything because this was the full experience: rushed, packed tight. I don’t regret it. But I am glad to have come back, after time and distance from it, to take the time to slowly bid farewell. And I think that’s how it was meant to happen, not right away, but after a little while and during a return.

moving through and on

My first summer in Cambridge is nearing its end. Trying to decide whether I had a good time is impossible, and I’ve concluded that such an experience can’t be narrowed down that way. I had a lot of good times. Summer here is incredibly beautiful. I was able to do many of the summer-in-Boston things I’ve always wanted to do. Sailing didn’t happen, nor did outdoor exercise, nor did Swan Boats, but I won’t give up on those for the future. Staying here was also difficult, and intense, for reasons that have more to do with my interaction with the environment, my relationship with this place, and my general state of mind as far as where I am in my life and how being here reminds me of it, doesn’t let me escape from it. It was hard. I can’t describe it in less vague terms because it’s all hazy to me too. I just know that I was often happy, often unhappy. I guess I’m still coming to terms with the fact that the proportion of my different emotions has changed, that the things that drive me and fulfill me are changing, becoming bigger and requiring more of me, which almost ironically makes it harder for me to make myself happy.

A lot of the superficial unsettledness stemmed from the fact that I was immersed in physics. I’m sorry to those of you who appreciate physics, but oh my God, I hate it. I know that it’s not arbitrary, I know that it explains many things, and I’ve always valued that about science, but honestly I can’t remember the last time I cared so little about a subject. Chemistry and biology have always offered so many analogies to concepts that mattered to me, but I couldn’t find anything in physics. I’m sure they’re there; I’m just not built to see them. It was a good course, well-taught and well-organized, but I’m glad it’s over. Also because I think being in a class I hated put me in a mode of thinking about other things that I didn’t like. Annoyances heightened, anxieties increased. I told Sarah recently that I write so much about things that I like; I should really mention that there are many things that I don’t like. Like when people are selectively nice, or don’t clean up after themselves, and especially when they’re inconsiderate. I know no one likes these things, but I think I get abnormally irritated by them. My biggest pet peeve has always been people kicking the back of my chair, on airplanes and in movie theaters for example. It’s that complete lack of awareness of another person’s presence other than your own that really gets me. Anyway, I think being in a general state of negativity made me have unnecessarily mean thoughts and made me forget that I like to believe in mean moments rather than mean people.

But like I mentioned, I had a lot of fun too. Dinner with the blockmates happened awhile ago, which was so much fun. Melkis, Courtney, Yonina and I met up with Jackie at Star Market to buy ingredients, and I was amazed by the wide array of bellpeppers. I love bellpeppers, the way they smell and look and taste and feel. They had orange, yellow, red and green…so bright and immediately appealing. They’re also so odd-looking, and have these various quirks and nooks and crannies about them, so that I can’t quite pinpoint exactly why they amuse me so much. They’re so shiny and smooth, and make such a crispy sound when you cut into them, and I really enjoy how the little seeds that had been neatly arranged spill out and stick to your fingers. I like how they look sliced, or diced, or in chunks. Whatever it is, I just like them, a lot. Back at Jackie’s we prepared everything, salad and chicken and tofu stir fry and rice (I mostly cut things, a process that I like in the same way that I like bellpeppers, and put things into pans when Jackie told me it was okay to). It’s very satisfying to eat a meal that you’ve prepared, and even more so to have it supplemented by wonderful people and funny conversation. It was very homey, and comfortable.

We also went to Shakespeare in the Park…specifically, Hamlet in Boston Common. Lara and I staked out spots really early so we had the best possible seats. Then she brought Vietnamese sandwiches and bubble tea from Chinatown, and by the time Rajan and Tim and Maciej and friends arrived there were about twenty of us piled and squished on two sheets and a blanket. The show was good. I’d forgotten how much I love Hamlet, how much I think I’m like Hamlet sometimes—indecisive, contradictory, moody, disconnected, overanalytical and overly emotional at once. The set was more elaborate than I’d expected, and the actors used the space really well—using the high stage, having people up and down the stairs, in the little pool of water in the front. For some reason Lara and I found the line “I find thee apt” really amusing and every few moments she would turn around and tell me that she found me apt. I discovered that that girl gets crazier as the night goes on, without any assistance from external agents…she burns some kind of inner fuel and makes you laugh harder and harder with every minute.

During the dramatic final scenes lightning occurred every few moments, and you could hear the distant rumble of thunder grumbling louder and louder, until it started pouring after Hamlet kills Polonius. A little at first, then a flood all of the sudden. It was cooling, and refreshing after soaking in the humidity. We walked-ran to the T station, and it was so fun to be out in the summer rain. I don’t care what anyone says about East Coast weather, I love it. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t experienced it long enough to become jaded, but I’ll take the illusion. The weather personifies the world, reveals its moods, and makes me feel connected to it and makes me feel a little less silly for being emotionally capricious. The thunder that’s so loud it sounds hungry and the sharp lightning that’s so quick it’s elusive at the same time that it’s so commanding, make it seem like something out there is demanding something from me and from us, and all of that is so crucial to not becoming stale and indifferent, which I suppose I fear sometimes.

Melkis and I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I really loved the first half hour, which probably sounds strange because it’s all removed from the factory itself, but I think that’s what I really liked about it. I liked how they took the actual legends of Willy Wonka from the book and set up this fantastical image of him before they actually showed the factory, and how they contrasted it with Charlie’s bleak but cozy life. I liked how content Charlie was with concepts, dreams and ideas, with his models of the real thing. I found the rest of the movie—the real thing, I suppose—entertaining but in that during-the-moment kind of way, rather than an enduring kind of way. I always envision the book coming to life as such an exciting prospect, but maybe it takes away a bit from the self-guided imagination that’s such a part of Dahl books.

Afterwards we went to the Cambridge city dance party. They basically cut off a couple blocks in Central, in front of City Hall, so that people could dance outside. It was the first dance I’d been to with fellow college students as well as little kids, high schoolers, famillies and senior couples. We found Rachel and Connie, and other Harvard people, and had a good time. It was a warm night, but not stifling and I’d never danced in the streets like that before.

I got to see Andrew relatively often this summer, which was nice. We tried catching the Swan Boats, but apparently it was too humid and the man-powered boats weren’t running. So we walked around the public gardens a bit; I wanted to show him the duckling statues from Make Way for Ducklings. While we were doing that we saw the cutest fuzziest littlest yellow duckling in the water, surrounded by other brownish ducks. Maybe it was because the day was becoming gray, and rain was nearing, but the image of that bright duck in the murky water is so distinct in my mind. It’s so easy to conjure, it doesn’t even seem like a memory. Before we could find the statues it started raining, and we were without umbrellas or any extra layers of clothing. For some reason we thought it would be all right to find cover under a tree and wait for the storm to pass, and this worked for all of two minutes before it began insanely pouring. After the initial shock it was pretty liberating to just get bombarded by the elements. We have so many little associations with the rain that it seemed fitting to get drenched like that together. We eventually made a run for the subway station, where much smarter people had already found cover. But they probably didn’t have as much fun in there.

I suppose that’s the most significant thing I did get from this summer—that sometimes it’s better for me to brave the outside instead of seeking shelter. It makes me feel good that I got through whatever it was that made this experience tough, that though I had to work harder, mentally and physically and emotionally, to achieve what I wanted to, it is probably meant to be that way. Keeping sight of my original goals in the midst of expected and unexpected worries and down moments became a new thing to work for, and to prove to myself that I could do. When I spoke to Stephen during anxious times, he’d say things like, “Of course you’ll get through it but it comes down to the fact that if you had to do it all over again, you wouldn’t stay there. You would’ve gone home.” And without even thinking about it, I said, “No, I wouldn’t have.” Seeing a lot of people close to me go through difficult things this summer again made me think again about how I’ve always romanticized struggles and pains because I see them as part of the full experience I want to have and think that I’ve either downplayed in my own life or really haven’t had. I know that I won’t feel that way when I actually go through them, but I have faith that I’ll see their value in retrospect as people always do. Completeness is just that, and I wouldn’t want to settle for the partial.

summer in cambridge

For various reasons I decided to stay in Cambridge for the month before summer school starts, instead of going home. It’s been busy, in a good way. The days have been completely full. I’ve had so many first-time experiences in the past month.

Week 1: Dorm Crew
Thrown into a pile of dust and grime, I was told to make it clean. Each day we took off another layer of dirt, moving from the top floor down. The complete procedure consisted of five steps: trashing, sweeping, damp dusting, dry mopping, wet mopping. There’s a lot of cleaning terminology, and whenever our team talked to one another about what we’d been doing or what we needed to do, the vocabulary made me feel like we were playing a game.

I liked the physical process of watching the dust bunnies disappear and making the wooden floors visibly shinier. There’s such gratification in being able to see quantifiable results. There’s almost a false sense of control. Scraping corners with hand brushes and attempting to scoop every last bit of dust made me think of what Steph says about the neverending fight against entropy. We collect dust so that dust could collect again, but somehow there’s slight pleasure in that.

Week 2: Day Counselor
Watching over a group of 9-10 year olds for a few full days was exhausting, but so much fun. I ended up with a group of all girls. Very different personalities, but they got along well together and, thankfully, with me. It surprises me how naturally and easily kids give their affection, and how nice it feels to be on the receiving end, when they hold your hand not because they have to cross the street but because they want to belong to you.

I liked the simple act of taking care of their basic needs. It reminded me of the talks Drew and I had during those five-hour chemistry labs, about that persistent question, why medicine? People never ask me that because there are so many common explanations, but I don’t think it’s at all a straightforward answer. One thing we talked about was how you’re taking care of people on such a basic level. I’m not sure why but it was so fulfilling to have a snack ready when the kids were hungry, and making sure they had enough water throughout the day, and putting on their jackets when they were cold. Not to downplay the frustration induced by constant pleas to repeatedly ride the teacups, inquiries about the time every two minutes, refusals to compromise, and the inability to get along with boys. Tired but not defeated, is how I would describe the counselors.

One of the best parts of the job was that I got to participate in all the kiddie activities. We went to Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire, saw the Lions of the Kalahari at the Museum of Science’s Omni Theater, Fenway, the Aquarium, the Museum of Natural History, and we had field day and a dance on campus.

Most of all I liked getting to know them. It made me think a lot about what I was like as a kid, and what really happens as you grow up.







Row 1: Lizzy, Grace, Annie
Row 2: Lindsay, Hope
Row 3: Anna, Weezie, Sarah

The girls in one word, and in some sentences:

Lizzy: Independent. She was the most difficult one to watch, because she’d always stray from the group, and wouldn’t understand why she couldn’t walk faster or slower than everyone else. She wouldn’t let me do anything for her. Whereas the other kids were always asking me to do things for them, she insisted on getting her own food and drinks, and she even wanted to walk home by herself. When she did need help—like when she got locked out of her room—she rarely admitted it. She would always say, it’s fine, when it clearly wasn’t, something that I do all the time without realizing how unproductive that is. I feel like she’s going to grow up to be Cora Munro, as played by Madeleine Stowe in The Last of the Mohicans, because she’s so strong-willed and smart. She also had a younger, blonde-haired sister named Daisy who was less mature and more innocent, just like Alice Munro. Anyway…she made me rethink the things people, myself included, do in the name of independence.

Grace: Delicate/fierce. The things I love the most seem to embody this dichotomy, so I have a soft spot for Grace. She had this amazingly sweet voice, as though she was giving you a gift every time she spoke. She told me she liked tunnels; she liked how it became dark and “how you went through them.” She was the smallest one and seemed the most fragile, but she was the only one brave enough to go on the big rollercoasters at the amusement park. She was quiet and reserved, but she was intense about things she cared about. She had a younger brother, and at one point he was wandering off. The other girls tried to get Grace’s attention, yelling her name over and over, but she was so intent on watching over her brother that she didn’t even hear them. The girls gave each other nicknames and Grace was “Shinny,” a combination of shy plus skinny. Needless to say, I empathized with her, not that she ever saw herself as being at a disadvantage, which made me love her even more.

Annie: Tough. She’d broken her arm a week before she got here, and her parents didn’t even know until they arrived in Boston. She was still up for all the games and was really athletic. She never complained when she was thirsty or hungry; she didn’t seem to like acknowledging vulnerability. But being an animal-lover and vegetarian, she was frightened by the images of lions hunting prey at the Museum of Science and clung to me during the entire hour. To feel safe enough to admit your fear—it’s a rare feeling, one that I was grateful she could have, and one that I’m only beginning to let myself experience.

Lindsay: Adorable. This girl must be the cutest thing that ever existed. She wasn’t even one of my kids, but every morning when she arrived at our meetingplace I would wish that she was in my group. I was lucky enough to get a chance to spend time with her at the dance because as I was trying to get some of my more relunctant kids to dance, she happily joined in. Don’t let the cute pixie face fool you—this girl can really move and was my favorite dance partner. Later, when she told the other girls that she lived in London, she consented to saying “cheerio” in a British accent, and I so wanted to take her home to keep.

Hope: Introspective. She lagged behind the others, because she kept stopping to look at a pile of rocks or a random stick or a bird underneath an obscure tree. When I asked her about it, she said she liked “being a tourist.” When we played MASH, she wanted to be a scientist, geographer or world explorer. She only stayed for a day, but the next few days I found myself accidentally stopping the group to look back for her, only to see little things she might have been looking at if she had actually been there.

Anna: Beautiful. She’s a halfie and the prettiest eight year old ever. I told her I could see Kristen Kreuk in her. Amy says the most beautiful thing about people is when they don’t know their own beauty, and I see that in most kids, because they haven’t come to the point of self-awareness yet. Even more so in Anna, because she was the messiest, most accident-prone one in our group. She kept spilling things on her clothes, and the first day at the amusement park she scraped her arm and legs and injured her foot (her nickname was Boo-Boo). She was entirely oblivious to these external blemishes, and she gave no thought whatsoever to preserving an outer appearance, which made her all the more beautiful. She also had really small hands that were wrinkled and looked like they had been burnt. When one of the other kids asked her what happened to them, she said, “Nothing happened. I was born that way,” and smiled. When I think of her beauty, I think of her hands before anything else.

Weezie: Spunky. A million personalities piled into one active body. Weezie was the first of my kids who I met, and she was wearing one blue sock and one green sock when I met her. She spoke a mile a minute, and you had to pay attention because amidst the usual nonsensical kid talk she would say the most insightful things. When I spoke to her, I never doubted that she understood what I was saying. She encouraged me to be a photographer because photographers capture what other people think are pretty but don’t think to capture, and she told me that college is about experiences, and that being a doctor is about being nice. When nine years of life can give me so much, it makes me wonder at how much she’s going to give the world in the future.

Sarah: Precocious. She would pick up on things that adults think children don’t notice, and that’s the thing with kids. They notice everything. Seeing and understanding are different. We think that just because they might not understand something, they’ll ignore it, when really, they’re just taking it in, storing it and unraveling it later.

Week 3: HMS Premedical Institute
So for five days we worked with a simulator named Stan (short for “Standard Patient”) whose heart beat and lungs breathed. Without much instruction they told us to take care of him. We had to figure out what was wrong, and then we had to fix it. It was both an intellectual process and an emotional endeavor. It sounds simplistic, and that’s the fault of my expression, but I’m not sure the mechanics of it would really convey what it was like.

We performed practice surgery (virtual reality), and the idea of having to navigate the human body was simultaneously familiar and foreign (we all thought: Magic School Bus!). It’s funny how little you know about your own physical self. Then I got an ultrasound. How weird and awesome is that, to be able to see your insides on a screen? The doctor confirmed that I didn’t have gallbladder or kidney stones. Then I saw my heart for the first time. I had to hold my breath in order for it to show up, and I almost forgot to start breathing again. It was beautiful, in the way that art is beautiful. You begin to see everything as organic creations and programmatic systems at the same time, and it’s mind-blowing.

The group of people also made it really fun. I got to know my blockmates in a different way, and other Harvard people better, and people outside of our school. Being pre-med means that you’re often categorized by certain mentalities, certain courses of study, certain manners of doing things. It was nice to get at more meaningful ways of connecting people interested in medicine—a particular passion for people, for solving things, for being challenged.

On the last day they gave us a book called “On Doctoring.” It’s a compilation of stories, poems and essays on medicine, patient care, illness, death. The first thing I read was the last paragraph of the introduction: “Henry David Thoreau wrote, ‘To affect the quality of the day—that is the highest of arts.’ Both medicine and literature have the capacity to affect the quality of the human day. Resonances between these two disciplines offer us a unique view of the human condition that neither one alone can provide.” Ever since freshman year, after that brief but significant interaction with Artichoke, I’ve been reading a lot by and about William Carlos Williams. The figurehead for the doctor poet. The book includes a lot by him and by so many other writers I love and admire, and I was touched by how fitting an ending to the week the book was.

WCW writes, “The physician enjoys a wonderful opportunity actually to witness the words being born. Their actual colors and shapes are laid before him carrying their tiny burdens which he is privileged to take into his care with their unspoiled newness. He may see the difficulty with which they have been born and what they are destined to do. No one else is present but the speaker and ourselves, we have been the words’ very parents. Nothing is more moving.”

It’s amazing how long it’s taken me to come to a very simple conclusion, or to jolt myself into consciously knowing what my fingertips have always sensed. I want to take care of people, and I want to write. The how part will come later.

Week 4: Project HEALTH
I moved into Eliot House on Saturday. What a difference a five minute walk makes. Living here feels different from Adams in so many ways. We have neighbors, other houses. My room looks into the courtyard, our common room looks out on the river. It gets so quiet as you walk down Dunster St. away from the bustle of the square toward the cove of river houses. It makes me feel like I’m sharing a secret—with who, I don’t know.

Organizing the Summer Policy Institute for Project HEALTH has been a lot of work, and I hope it goes well. Though a bit intimidated by the responsibility, I like having the control to shape an entire program. Just in preparing for the weekly speakers, I’ve learned so much. There are so many people out there working on ways to improve other people’s lives, and even though the sheer number and immensity of problems that exist is daunting, it makes people’s desire to help so admirable. A bit more on this later, coupled with a movie update (which actually do relate).

It’s nicely surprising how different your life can become even when you remain in the same physical space. Harvard in the summer is nothing like Harvard during the school year, and not just because my classes haven’t started yet. The long days induce warm laziness. With less students you notice a different flow of people through the square. There are so many trees here. I can’t stop looking at them. Of course we have a lot of trees in California, but they’re not clustered quite in the same way. The palm trees in front of my house are always there. Boston trees seem to revive, all at once; they make you aware of their presence, as light and airy as they are. It’s a sudden discovery, but quiet at the same time. I try to think of ways to describe them, but I can only fall back on the simple, familiar, stock adjectives. Green and leafy. The funny thing is, these generic words suffice. Every time a season starts I’m convinced it’s my favorite season, so right now I’m in love with summer. The beginnings are so sweet.