{"id":1120,"date":"2024-09-11T18:45:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T01:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/?p=1120"},"modified":"2024-09-11T18:45:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T01:45:17","slug":"a-stroll-in-college-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/?p=1120","title":{"rendered":"A Stroll in College Town"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m back in the college town and some things just doesn\u2019t feel right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything is perfect, even the weather. A bit too perfect. Sunny Sunday afternoon, clusters of people hanging out in outdoor restaurants decorated with hanging plants and shiny tiles; bikers gathering and bbq in the park chatting and singing. Smiles on faces. I almost get excited when I saw a dead squirrel on the neatly cut grass. Yes I’m looking for the familiar foul smells and dirty corners. Familiarity, or is that something of an illusion from the past too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing the bikers, now I wonder where my bike is now. Bike never get killed. One summer I left my bike out for three months and later it’s still ridable. It was on that bike when I was robbed by gun point in this park. But I was never afraid of anything. In the late night darkness I almost felt I live with a special purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe that was just loneliness I didn’t want to accept, my therapist would say. That at some point you fit into the shape of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m sitting on this particularly nice bench next to the gigantic robotic library, in front of which I used to have a picture of me holding a stack of paper for my best dissertation award. The only thing I remember was that stack of papers meant so much to me. Everyone I knew from the old days have left, and the quad is empty in the summer. I remember this annoying pre-med Asian kid from my first year writing class, who told me that if I walk across the campus without people saying hi to me then I\u2019m a failure. On that very day, crossing this very patch of grass, I started to wave to people. And I have lost contact with all those people I waved at too. I don\u2019t even write in English any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The familiarity didn’t kick in until I saw a Chinese guy walking by. Head down fixed on his phone. This is what I was looking for. The past me. I walk pass monuments of my past, backtracking the exact time point I start to be this depressed, in a true Laconic fashion. Second year party? The Premed kid? I have to admit, no. I was happy. I was happier. I was enjoying what I later understood as the white people standard of freedom. I didn\u2019t appreciate it enough then. I\u2019ve lost it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now this is the block where a younger kid from my department got murdered. I lost two nights of sleep hearing the news. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a period of my life when I had no fear of anything, danger, harm, even loneliness. I wear my dad’s old jacket and stroll around midnight. Moon shine on the snow glowing yellowish under streetlights. I was, as a matter of fact, very young. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe something had already hit me back then. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m back in the college town and some things just doesn … <\/p>\n

\u7ee7\u7eed\u9605\u8bfb\u201cA Stroll in College Town\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1123,"href":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120\/revisions\/1123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cronopio.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}