point of interest...hmm

10:00 am. monday. class is as boring as ever, and we're about to start another lecture. I'm sitting in the 4th row from the front, along side Ron and Tim. Ron wispered to me:

" Pss, phil, look over there!" He points to the 1st row, on the left side of the auditorium.
"Who? oh, yes. he's cute...very cute." I concurred.
"No, not him! the other one!"
"Oh okay, yeah, but that doctor is definitely cute." Tall, dark hair, medium complexion with a chiseled jawline you can probably grate cheese with--this was one hot doctor.
I noticed his perfectly fitted suit beneath the white coat, impecable shoes, and neatly trimmed hair. "He's a neurosurgeon!" I exclaimed to Ron.
"And he's also married," Tim chimed, "Notice the ring?"
"Lucky wife. Damn!" I sighed.
"No, no, not necessarily." Ron adamantly protested. "First of all, it's Massachusetts, so it may not be a wife. And second of all, plenty of gay guys wear wedding rings."
"You mean because they're in the closet?" I asked.
"Not exactly, they wear it so people won't question their private lives. " Ron patiently explained to me," This single gay guy I know from my gym says he wears a wedding ring because he works at a school, and he doesn't want people to ask questions."

"Really! That just makes it even more confusing! You know there was a Dean at Harvard who dressed impecably like the doctor over there, and it took me 2 years to figure out that he was gay." I exclaimed.

"Was it because he wore a ring?" Ron asked.
"No. Well, he had shirtless pictures of himself in his office though...very sporty, and he wore really nice shoes." I responded.
Ron sighed, and responded: "And it took you 2 years? In that case, Phil, your gaydar needs a tune up."

tipping point

It is simply not fair for parents to use their childrens' love as a bargaining chip in order to get what they want. In my case, they're saying: "If you love us, then don't live your life." Fucking great. I think it's time for another brutal re-coming out party to remind them of their denial. I'll beat this issue to a bloody pulp if I have to. I don't think they know how cruel I can be, but they're forcing my hands.

Uncomfortable

"Um, hello?"
"It's mom."
"Oh hi mom!"
"How are you? How was the test?"
"Oh, it was okay. Nothing too bad."
"You always say it's 'okay'. hm. [slight chuckle; pause]. So grandma and grandpa, and Uncle S is coming to boston this weekend....they want a copy of the CD to take back to France."
"Oh really? Well I'm flattered..."
"I know you left the one copy we had back in Vietnam though...I didn't know if you could get another copy soon enough..."
"Oh well, yeah [pause]. Mike can get it for me."
"[silence.] Right, Mike. I don't think I'm comfortable with that Mike helping out or anything..."
"He's still my boyfriend."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"[pause] Of course not."
"And remember that we're not talking about it infront of your grandparents, you understand?"
"[long silence]. The only reason I'm coming home is because you asked me to."
"[pause]. Well, I don't want you to bring it up."
"Of course, why would I ever want to share my life with them, right?"
"[silence]. Call your dad when you get home."
"Will do. bye."
"Bye."

just because

H

Do you ever get the feeling that the people you meet in life are not due to accidental happenings? Yes, that sounds cliche, but perhaps only because the question has been so frequently asked and dismissed at the same time. This past weekend was great: complete avoidance of all work, just hanging out with friends, catching up on their lives. I could say that about the WOFIGO retreat too, but this was different. It wasn't so much a time to shore up existing friendships, but to start them anew. I met someone. We said 'hi' in the elevator, and I mispronounced his name. He and I share a mutual friend, and her revelation about him has stayed with me. It is changing my life outlook in a way I have not thought possible.

At school the focus has turned to neurology, and case presentations invariably expose us students to strange and terrifying disease states, such as tumors and strokes. Brain tumors are especially hard cases to deal with, not in terms of their pathology, but their progression and outcome. Tumors in the frontal cortex change personalities, while in other areas obliterate memory, speech, and awareness--eating away at everything that makes an individual himself. To think, the prospect of loosing ones self is terrifying enough at any age, but to see cases in children and young adults in the prime of their lives...

I have tremendous respect for him, and admiration for what he is going through. The caregiver within me wants to leap out and help in some way, not out of pity, but out of sheer hope and a desire to learn from him. That, and he seems like a really cool guy. I hope I get the chance to become his friend.

Harvard: no more early admissions. Um...yay?

Apparently this is a shocking news flash on CNN, and as I was eating my dinner--home-made bean and lettuce wrap, refreshingly cold from my fridge with at least 94% of my recommended daily intake of fiber, mind you--numerous thoughts of What Would I Have Done (WWIHD) raced through my head.

So yes, I got in early action, as did most people I know at Harvard. I applied to Harvard as a wager with some friends that I'd never get in (I still owe those guys the dinner I promised). Early action seemed logical. Figured I'd get the fanciful application out of the way, and get ready to deal with 'real' apps for school like Tufts and BU and UMass. Early action had other sweet advantages: if I did get in, it's straight to senioritis-ville for the second semester. Sweet cruising, no real learning. yep. Life would be good. If I didn't, well, I never expected I'd get in anyway, so life would go on as planned. Sweet.

I feel the need for a medal now when I think about how I schemed all by myself, since the CNN article made it sounds like it was only the advantaged prepschool kids with in-the-know counselors/$20,000 consultants who can deviously scheme such a cost-benefit analysis and execute said plans. To be fair, it appears that in general more advantaged kids are the real recipients of the benefits of early action at the expense of more disadvantaged applicants. Hopefully abolishing the system will encourage a more diverse application pool, as Harvard thinks it will, and create a fairer process. I'm still skeptical about making the process less stressful, however. If anything, now one has one more school to apply to, at the same time as plenty of other ones, to add to the innevitable 'ball of stress' come senior year.

I was scheming, and calculating, but on my own. Whatever. Without early action, I don't think I would have applied to Harvard, and the bet with my friends would have remained just another lunch time conversation in the cafeteria. I'm so glad I applied early though, especially since senior spring was awesome once my brain check out in January. Ahhh, those were the days......

Hipocrisy in the Harvard CSA

pic taken from here

This, on the surface, is not my issue. I am not a member of the Catholic Church, and as an outsider, I am rightfully myopic in my view of internal matters of the Church. Harvard student organizations, however, have a duty to serve students, and the Harvard Catholic Church, a duty to minister to all those who consider themselves among the faithful. This Harvard church is about to lose 1 more soul.

It is heart-breaking to see someone loses his faith in an organization where he once had so much faith and love. I see it as a slow death, a choking, stifling suffocation that rots from the core but leaves the gilded exterior unmarred. M. loves the church. He is a devout member and goes to church every Sunday. He also happens to be gay. The greater Catholic Church at the moment isn't exactly welcoming to gays. Still, M. runs a student support group within the Catholic Student Association for GBLTQ name Cornerstone, helping to fulfill a central mission of the CSA, a mission that is supposed to bring the faithful into communion, regardless of their differences, to celebrate the miracle of Christ's love. The CSA in the past has been a welcoming haven to people like M. Tiptoeing the line between loving the individual and hating the 'sin', the CSA has managed to strike a seemingly impossible pose of tolerance and doctrinal coherency in supporting an organization like Cornerstone. I once strongly respected them for this. I now realize my respect is misguided.

Recently, Cornerstone's fliers were banned from the CSA table at the Harvard Freshmen Activities Fair. There is no explanation, other than a previous lie told to M. by the President of the CSA that because no other group had advertising, Cornerstone couldn't advertise. But M. found plenty of fliers and buttons and advertisements from other CSA groups on the table at the fair. When he again inquired the President and the Priest advising the organization about whether he could put his innocuous fliers (devoid of gay pride flags or 'celebrations of the lifestyle' or 'activist/leftist propaganda'; it's a simple notice for the group's first event), at the CSA table, all he got was a stern 'no.' This maybe the first instance of direct opposition, but M. has been sensing support for his organization waning in recent years, support for an inane organization that holds weekly meetings with a chaplain of the Church, in a small room at the Catholic Student Center, to talk about current events, watch a movie, or discuss Catholic life within the greater Harvard community. In his own words, he thinks they want Cornerstone to die.

A dark pessimist would conclude that perhaps the CSA wants Cornerstone to exist in name only, to claim the title of tolerance as sword and shield with which to beat back criticism and trump dissent, without any true effort. But why this false-face hypocrisy? Is it because the trick has worked so well throughout the history of the Church? I see something deeper, more intrinsic, more sinister still. I can imagine why the current CSA would not want a group like Cornerstone to survive, to advertise to incoming Freshmen who may be grappling with issues of faith and homosexuality, to offer support and pastoral leadership to those who would seek it. In effect, the spirits of old Judeo purity laws from the times of the New Testament come into mind. From the outside looking in, it is as if those who are less than perfect need not taint the purity of the Church and the CSA, these afflicted sinners who seek fellowship, and communion, and God's grace. But if the gays are to be treated like lepers of the New Testament, then surely the CSA and its Church could remember Jesus and his lessons about purity and true compassion. At a time when Catholicism is losing its flock, at a place like Harvard and a student organization like the CSA, is there any room left for such lessons of Jesus to be truly contemplated?

What the CSA is doing is hypocritical and antithetical to the very meaning of Christian faith and fellowship. On a personally level, it is hurtful and devastating to M. I feel vicariously the silent erosion of his faith, and I refuse to let such withering go unnoticed. We shall see how this calamity progresses, but I am obliged to cry foul, if only for M. who loves the organization still, and doesn't want to see it falter in the eyes of the public. However, when so many in the Church have remained silent in the face of injustice and hypocrisy, and they themselves perpetuate the disease, sometimes it takes an outsider to act. I am that outsider.

Food Club

It's not like fight club. You can talk about it. And as much as I thought bravado might be involved, I was pleasantly surprised. Food club is our medical students' version of pearls and slinky black dresses, of canapes and martinis and petit amuse bouche on a quiet evening with friends. We have pot luck dinners together, and until recently, I've shunned the club, fearing a reprise of the Harvard cocktail hour I've grown to both desire and dread. I was wrong.

It was Italian night. Pasta puttanesca. Tiramisu. We were swamped with delectable food. The president of the class offered up his recently redecorated spectacular downtown loft, which he shares with his gorgeous wife and two years-old daughter. I spent a good amount of time taking in the black granite kitchen counters, the tasteful chocolate colored wall and red exposed bricks, admiring the smartly designed space with bursts of color and beautifully placed art. It was a real home, a young, hip home, which made the event felt more like a gathering of twenty-something professionals and less like a college dorm party. People I hadn't thought of as existing outside the classroom came. They were cordial, interesting, and the conversations finally buzzed about something other than school. Ben's girlfriend was studying at the Cordon Blue in Paris. Eikero traded recipes with Elana for flour-less molten chocolate cake. We talked about the news, and news of friends dating, having kids. We talked about Mike. Suddenly, these personalities that irked me in class became interesting, human, and fresh. I finally realized that my impressions of them were incomplete, and I stand very much corrected.

In the end, I also realized this: I really should get out more.

Hushed

Mona Kuhn

So much has changed in the past couple of weeks. I feel different, not necessarily more content, just--cleansed. The parents were informed. Much was left to be desired in our conversations, but life is all about desire, isn't it? Desire is, afterall, the cog-wheels of dreams, the potential for newness. For now, they live in silence, hoping, desiring change. We do talk, but the words are largely meaningless; I can see them melt away, the way ice cubes slip into non-existence on the hot pavement, silently, without protest.

There is an inescapable sense of stillness within me, one that I cannot shake, and it scares me to think that the stillness should remain for good. I, too, see all around me a marked change in my classmates; the second year has imparted upon us a sense of reckoning, the realization that this is the true calm before the storm. We are quieted by the fear of the unknown, and I feel the overwhelming silence encroaching on all sides. It hushes us all.

So much has changed in the past couple of weeks. And I'm waiting for the storm.