Confessions of a Cat-holic (171)

I was pretty sure it was the first semester of freshman year, which was the sophomore year for Eddie and Jason. We had an excursion event for Sounds of China, where we might have headed to BINY (Best In New York) or a karaoke bar in Korean town to look for the KTV machines for our annual event. Jason and I were walking in the streets of New York City, it might have been upper west side or near Korean town. Of course, we were accompanied by other people at the time as well.

It was a chilling night out, the streets were packed with people. The lights in the streets were never out in New York City. It could be a romantic night but too bad Jason and I were not a couple. New York City could have been a romantic city for lovers.

Jason asked me how I was doing as a freshman, well, you know, the usual questions such as checking to see if I settled in alright. I told him I was doing alright, I even said to him I had a crush on a Korean in his year, also from the engineering school.

At the time, I was not thinking about Eddie. Eddie was just a friend of Jason who caught my eye, but I rarely saw him in person on campus. Eddie was so secretive. The only times I saw him from afar was when he worked out in the gym at Dodge Center.

Because I was engaged in the engineering student council most of the time, the guy I was having on my mind was DJ Park, whom I had seen day in and out after class almost every day. Even though we were both students of the engineering school, the fact that he was older than me for a year, we rarely saw each other at John Jay dining hall or my usual freshman classes because the core curriculum placed almost all freshman into mandatory classes with strictly our co-year students. That was why I usually chose to eat at Ferris, not just for the sushi, but also for the chances that I might run into him other than the times we spent at the Engineering Student Council meetings.

DJ Park was tall, about 6 feet and more. He was skinny and polite. From what I knew, he was a computer engineering major at Columbia. I figured there were a lot of computer savvy guys in the engineering school. I was a complete outsider when it came to coding. I still used my floppy disk reader embedded in my desktop at home.

DJ Park was not just about programming. He had a bit of artistic talents too. He designed the engineering student council sponsored t-shirt for the engineering school students and I loved the design. It was a blue t-shirt with black and white logo in the right fonts and sizes. I heard he also played violin for the Columbia Orchestra, even though Columbia was not too big on classical music. The fact that DJ Park liked to play violin was a bit of a turn off for me. The guy I would fall for would be someone in between Aaron Kwok and Alex To.

I knew for a fact from Ed's constant bragging that Yale had a big celebration for Halloween every year where they showcased their talents of orchestral music and live glee performances. But rather than classical concerts, Columbia was better known for its broadway shows, accapella (such as Uptown Vocal) performances, and break dance teams such as Onyx and Raw Elements.

I told you the two schools were in direct conflicts of each other in terms of ideologies and cultures. All I could say was that I was glad I was in the right school. Great minds did think alike.

DJ Park had a girlfriend at the time but she was not his current wife. From what I knew through his Facebook posts and all that, he married a Korean girl from outside of Columbia. The girlfriend he dated during his time at Columbia was half American and half Asian (could very likely be Korean). They were seen together on campus most of the times, which prompted me to not consider confessing to him my secret admiration for him at the time.

Jason thought that I was talking about Eddie. He asked me if I had a crush on Eddie. I didn't say I liked DJ Park because confessing my love and telling everyone about my crush was not so much a thing of mine. It was more like Sharon's style. I didn't respond to Jason's pressing questions.