Friday, May 07, 2004
Lee
I met Lee my freshman year simply as somebody to work on physics and calculus homework with. Many of his acquaintances knew him as "the complex analysis guy", because he had worked through most of the standard curriculum for math and physics majors in lieu of high school, before he ever started college here at Cornell. I remember that, unlike Galwang, I was never very impressed by his academic resume, maybe because of my natural skepticism. I was impressed, however, by Lee's attitude: his appreciation for scholarship, and his desire to learn and to grow.
From the beginning, it seemed to me that Lee had been something of an academic badass in the past, but that he was completely unable to fulfill his potential as a student here. And by that, I don't mean the grades and the GPA's, as those are not so important to Lee, but that he found it impossible to learn here in the face of the pretentious distantness of the faculty and the insecure defensiveness of his boujii-fied fellow students. I think that he was much more sensitive to the institutional and industrial atmosphere of this Ivy-League college than I was (see Nov. 1, 2003 entry), perhaps because unlike me, he had seen first hand what the alternatives were.
I watched him get burnt out by the ceaseless march of industrial education, and the endless academic hoops that we were asked to jump through. I watched him grow more and more disillusioned by his experience at Cornell until I don't think it was worth it for him to stay. And I was glad when he found some happiness in his Claire, as well as an excuse to get away from this place for a while.
I went to lunch at a quaint little cafe in downtown Ithaca with Panna today. Our conversation strayed to the topic of Lee, and she mentioned with some bitterness that he had never bothered to contact her since going to study abroad in Ireland. Of course, I too have not heard from him at all, but I told Panna that I didn't mind. I think that what Lee needs now is to competely forget about this place for a while, and if that means cutting his ties with all of us, then that's what he needs. I hope that he is finding a chance in Ireland to simply be, along with his Claire, and that his thoughts do not stray back to Cornell, along with all its scholastic disappointments as well as its Pannas and Galwangs and Lostins. And I am optimistic, as after all, no news is generally good news.
And of course, as Lee would insist, all this is merely a snapshot in time of what is essensially a dynamic creature.
I met Lee my freshman year simply as somebody to work on physics and calculus homework with. Many of his acquaintances knew him as "the complex analysis guy", because he had worked through most of the standard curriculum for math and physics majors in lieu of high school, before he ever started college here at Cornell. I remember that, unlike Galwang, I was never very impressed by his academic resume, maybe because of my natural skepticism. I was impressed, however, by Lee's attitude: his appreciation for scholarship, and his desire to learn and to grow.
From the beginning, it seemed to me that Lee had been something of an academic badass in the past, but that he was completely unable to fulfill his potential as a student here. And by that, I don't mean the grades and the GPA's, as those are not so important to Lee, but that he found it impossible to learn here in the face of the pretentious distantness of the faculty and the insecure defensiveness of his boujii-fied fellow students. I think that he was much more sensitive to the institutional and industrial atmosphere of this Ivy-League college than I was (see Nov. 1, 2003 entry), perhaps because unlike me, he had seen first hand what the alternatives were.
I watched him get burnt out by the ceaseless march of industrial education, and the endless academic hoops that we were asked to jump through. I watched him grow more and more disillusioned by his experience at Cornell until I don't think it was worth it for him to stay. And I was glad when he found some happiness in his Claire, as well as an excuse to get away from this place for a while.
I went to lunch at a quaint little cafe in downtown Ithaca with Panna today. Our conversation strayed to the topic of Lee, and she mentioned with some bitterness that he had never bothered to contact her since going to study abroad in Ireland. Of course, I too have not heard from him at all, but I told Panna that I didn't mind. I think that what Lee needs now is to competely forget about this place for a while, and if that means cutting his ties with all of us, then that's what he needs. I hope that he is finding a chance in Ireland to simply be, along with his Claire, and that his thoughts do not stray back to Cornell, along with all its scholastic disappointments as well as its Pannas and Galwangs and Lostins. And I am optimistic, as after all, no news is generally good news.
And of course, as Lee would insist, all this is merely a snapshot in time of what is essensially a dynamic creature.
