New York, Columbia University. 09/09/2012. 10:30.
Today was the first day of orientation week in Columbia. It was usually the day were the students who were accepted in Columbia started arriving from all over the country and even the world. They were then welcomed by people to help them settle in their new Universities residence. It was a touching scene, watching young people saying goodbye to their loved ones and becoming independent.
As he was walking in the campus, he could see that it was packed with people. Compared to when he came last week, everything had changed. Huge stands and sheds had been erected everywhere with people walking between them. The principal role of the orientation week was to help the new students acclimate to their new university life.
It was also today that the university was giving them their student ID card, which is mandatory to enter the teaching building and the library. After that he had a series of compulsory meetings with teachers who were going to tell them what was expected of them. That was it for this morning. In the afternoon he was free to do as he pleased, visiting the number of stands that were recruiting for diverse clubs and activities.
Looking at the time, he realized that he needed to hurry as the meeting was starting soon. Quickening his pace he oriented himself to go to the main teaching building. Luckily, the staff of the university had put a number of directional signs so it was easy to find the room in question. The room in question was a huge theater lecture room that had at least 300 sitting places. Entering the room he could see that he was still early as roughly ⅔ of the seats were already taken.
Looking at the podium there were 8 teachers assembled here, sitting on chairs and talking among themselves. Nathaniel upon entering could see that the dean and Joshua were amongst those teachers. Locking eyes with the dean Nathaniel smiled lightly and performed a little, mocking bow. Seeing that, the dean start to frown while Joshua just turned his head hiding his smile. There were also a few students who had witnessed the scene and were dumbfounded about his action.
Finding the second row almost empty Nathaniel took the first seat on the right side of the room, close to the passageway and near the wall. It was his military experience which pushed him to pick that place as it was protecting his side and could provide him an escape route in case of an attack. There was little to no chance of that happening but he always liked to be ready constantly. Again, it was his soldier training at play here.
Coming back to what happened a few seconds ago people would think that he was crazy to taunt the dean before even the first class had started, but he was doing it because he had understood something about Richard. The meeting they had last week was originally planned by the dean to understand and examine Nathaniel but it turned out that the exact opposite happened. During the entire meeting Nathaniel choose his word carefully to elicit an answer from the dean, even the insult was carefully planned by him.
He needed to know who the dean was because his future would be highly impacted by him. He had of course investigated him before but nothing could replace a good face to face meeting. While they were talking Nathaniel realised that he respected people with character and intelligence the most. So he did show him exactly what he wanted. The taunt was maybe a little too much but that was only the playful nature of Nathaniel at play here.
"Excuse me, is this seat is taken?" Said a pleasant sounding voice with a little accent.
Looking at the girl in front of him Nathaniel could not help but feel his pulse quicken slightly. She was a stunning girl with long silky black hair going to the middle of her back. She had piercing grey eyes and a cute mouth. She looked like 5"5" but there was an aura of strength around her that Nathaniel could feel in his bones and made her seem taller than that.
She was wearing a white shirt, blue navy vest and a knee length black skirt with high boots that compliment her amazing figure beautifully. He could now understand her little accent when he saw that she was of Asian heritage. Looking attentively at her face he could determine that she was likely to come from Korea.
There were people saying that Asian people all look the same. It was false. The kind of people saying that were either trolls, idiots or racists, or all of the above. There was in fact a difference between the face of someone coming from Japan, Korea or China. If your were to comparate a Korean and a Chinese woman, you will usually see that Korean people had in fact a more square shaped jaw and thinner nose and mouth than their Chinese counterpart. You just needed good observation skills to see the difference, things that normal people lacked.
"No it's not, you can sit here if you want." Nathaniel said, moving to the side to make it easy for her to pass and sit down. She passed in front of him and sat herself down with grace and agility.
"Thank you. I'm Na-Yung by the way, nice to meet you." She said, extending her hand.
Suddenly, Nathaniel had an impression of deja vu. It was almost the same situation when he had met Taylor for the first time almost 6 months ago. He thought it was maybe a good presage so he shook her hand.
"Nathaniel Lyndon. Glad to meet you as well." Nathaniel looked at her with attention but she did not seem to react upon hearing his name so she shouldn't know him.
"I'm a law student here and you?"
"I am too. We all are here. You see those teacher on the stage? They teach law here and will hold a speech to welcome us and to tell us what is expected of us for the semestre." Nathaniel explained.
He had seen their faces on the university website and that's why he managed to recognize them. They all teached law but their domain varied as expected. Law was a huge domain with a lot of variety. There was for example corporate law, environmental law, criminal law, immigration law and the list continues.
"Now that you point that out, it make sense." She said, nodding.
Looking at his watch Nathaniel realized that the meeting was going to start soon and more and more people came inside. The empty places were getting rarer and in their row there were only two empty seats left next to Na Yung. Two men appeared to have seen them and stir themselves into their direction. They were both rather attractive, around 6 feet tall and had muscular bodies. When they were walking in his direction Nathaniel could see more than a couple of women eyeing them appreciatively. The one who seemed to be in charge apparently noticed that fact and a cocky smile appears on his lips.
Nathaniel could already sense trouble coming his way. The one in charge seated himself beside Na-Yung who did not even turn her head and kept looking at Nathaniel. He immediately wanted to start a conversation with her but she ignored him like he wasn't even there and kept talking with him.
"Where are you from?" She asked Nathaniel.
Seeing the incoming drama unfolding before his very eyes, he opt to act like nothing happened and he didn't hear any of it. Luckily, his acting was quite good by now.
"I'm from NY, lived and born here in this very city. You are from South Korea right?"
Seeing that he was being ignored, the guy who looks like he was a football player was dumbfounded. That was a first for him as usually the girls would be dazzled by his good looks and football prowess, but it did not seem to work this time. Looking at the guy who was talking to that hot chick he could see that he was attractive and that he didn't seem to have noticed his own attempt at a conversation. He was surprised as he was expecting a condescending smile but since nobody seemed to have noticed his failure, it was all good. After all, there were a lot of other sexy girls here and he realized that in just the row behind him there was one who was making eye contact with him. Smiling, he started talking with her and the whole incident was already forgotten.
"How did you know that I was Korean?" Na-Yung asked surprised.
"It was easy really, just your name is Korean. Even if I don't know the language I can tell. The second clue is your facial features, there are tell tell signs that you are Korean so I just made an assumption and went with it." Nathaniel explained humbly.
"I'm impressed, my parents always told me that americans could not tell the difference between Korean, Japanese and Chinese people."
"Your parents are right, we don't. It's just that I met asian people before and thus I notice the difference but yeah, it is not easy for us to do so."
"Okay it is time. I would like to welcome you all here in Columbia!" The voice of the dean suddenly exclaimed, cutting their conversation short.
New York, Columbia University. 09/09/2012. 10:30.
Today was the first day of orientation week in Columbia. It was usually the day were the students who were accepted in Columbia started arriving from all over the country and even the world. They were then welcomed by people to help them settle in their new Universities residence. It was a touching scene, watching young people saying goodbye to their loved ones and becoming independent.
As he was walking in the campus, he could see that it was packed with people. Compared to when he came last week, everything had changed. Huge stands and sheds had been erected everywhere with people walking between them. The principal role of the orientation week was to help the new students acclimate to their new university life.
It was also today that the university was giving them their student ID card, which is mandatory to enter the teaching building and the library. After that he had a series of compulsory meetings with teachers who were going to tell them what was expected of them. That was it for this morning. In the afternoon he was free to do as he pleased, visiting the number of stands that were recruiting for diverse clubs and activities.
Looking at the time, he realized that he needed to hurry as the meeting was starting soon. Quickening his pace he oriented himself to go to the main teaching building. Luckily, the staff of the university had put a number of directional signs so it was easy to find the room in question. The room in question was a huge theater lecture room that had at least 300 sitting places. Entering the room he could see that he was still early as roughly ⅔ of the seats were already taken.
Looking at the podium there were 8 teachers assembled here, sitting on chairs and talking among themselves. Nathaniel upon entering could see that the dean and Joshua were amongst those teachers. Locking eyes with the dean Nathaniel smiled lightly and performed a little, mocking bow. Seeing that, the dean start to frown while Joshua just turned his head hiding his smile. There were also a few students who had witnessed the scene and were dumbfounded about his action.
Finding the second row almost empty Nathaniel took the first seat on the right side of the room, close to the passageway and near the wall. It was his military experience which pushed him to pick that place as it was protecting his side and could provide him an escape route in case of an attack. There was little to no chance of that happening but he always liked to be ready constantly. Again, it was his soldier training at play here.
Coming back to what happened a few seconds ago people would think that he was crazy to taunt the dean before even the first class had started, but he was doing it because he had understood something about Richard. The meeting they had last week was originally planned by the dean to understand and examine Nathaniel but it turned out that the exact opposite happened. During the entire meeting Nathaniel choose his word carefully to elicit an answer from the dean, even the insult was carefully planned by him.
He needed to know who the dean was because his future would be highly impacted by him. He had of course investigated him before but nothing could replace a good face to face meeting. While they were talking Nathaniel realised that he respected people with character and intelligence the most. So he did show him exactly what he wanted. The taunt was maybe a little too much but that was only the playful nature of Nathaniel at play here.
"Excuse me, is this seat is taken?" Said a pleasant sounding voice with a little accent.
Looking at the girl in front of him Nathaniel could not help but feel his pulse quicken slightly. She was a stunning girl with long silky black hair going to the middle of her back. She had piercing grey eyes and a cute mouth. She looked like 5"5" but there was an aura of strength around her that Nathaniel could feel in his bones and made her seem taller than that.
She was wearing a white shirt, blue navy vest and a knee length black skirt with high boots that compliment her amazing figure beautifully. He could now understand her little accent when he saw that she was of Asian heritage. Looking attentively at her face he could determine that she was likely to come from Korea.
There were people saying that Asian people all look the same. It was false. The kind of people saying that were either trolls, idiots or racists, or all of the above. There was in fact a difference between the face of someone coming from Japan, Korea or China. If your were to comparate a Korean and a Chinese woman, you will usually see that Korean people had in fact a more square shaped jaw and thinner nose and mouth than their Chinese counterpart. You just needed good observation skills to see the difference, things that normal people lacked.
"No it's not, you can sit here if you want." Nathaniel said, moving to the side to make it easy for her to pass and sit down. She passed in front of him and sat herself down with grace and agility.
"Thank you. I'm Na-Yung by the way, nice to meet you." She said, extending her hand.
Suddenly, Nathaniel had an impression of deja vu. It was almost the same situation when he had met Taylor for the first time almost 6 months ago. He thought it was maybe a good presage so he shook her hand.
"Nathaniel Lyndon. Glad to meet you as well." Nathaniel looked at her with attention but she did not seem to react upon hearing his name so she shouldn't know him.
"I'm a law student here and you?"
"I am too. We all are here. You see those teacher on the stage? They teach law here and will hold a speech to welcome us and to tell us what is expected of us for the semestre." Nathaniel explained.
He had seen their faces on the university website and that's why he managed to recognize them. They all teached law but their domain varied as expected. Law was a huge domain with a lot of variety. There was for example corporate law, environmental law, criminal law, immigration law and the list continues.
"Now that you point that out, it make sense." She said, nodding.
Looking at his watch Nathaniel realized that the meeting was going to start soon and more and more people came inside. The empty places were getting rarer and in their row there were only two empty seats left next to Na Yung. Two men appeared to have seen them and stir themselves into their direction. They were both rather attractive, around 6 feet tall and had muscular bodies. When they were walking in his direction Nathaniel could see more than a couple of women eyeing them appreciatively. The one who seemed to be in charge apparently noticed that fact and a cocky smile appears on his lips.
Nathaniel could already sense trouble coming his way. The one in charge seated himself beside Na-Yung who did not even turn her head and kept looking at Nathaniel. He immediately wanted to start a conversation with her but she ignored him like he wasn't even there and kept talking with him.
"Where are you from?" She asked Nathaniel.
Seeing the incoming drama unfolding before his very eyes, he opt to act like nothing happened and he didn't hear any of it. Luckily, his acting was quite good by now.
"I'm from NY, lived and born here in this very city. You are from South Korea right?"
Seeing that he was being ignored, the guy who looks like he was a football player was dumbfounded. That was a first for him as usually the girls would be dazzled by his good looks and football prowess, but it did not seem to work this time. Looking at the guy who was talking to that hot chick he could see that he was attractive and that he didn't seem to have noticed his own attempt at a conversation. He was surprised as he was expecting a condescending smile but since nobody seemed to have noticed his failure, it was all good. After all, there were a lot of other sexy girls here and he realized that in just the row behind him there was one who was making eye contact with him. Smiling, he started talking with her and the whole incident was already forgotten.
"How did you know that I was Korean?" Na-Yung asked surprised.
"It was easy really, just your name is Korean. Even if I don't know the language I can tell. The second clue is your facial features, there are tell tell signs that you are Korean so I just made an assumption and went with it." Nathaniel explained humbly.
"I'm impressed, my parents always told me that americans could not tell the difference between Korean, Japanese and Chinese people."
"Your parents are right, we don't. It's just that I met asian people before and thus I notice the difference but yeah, it is not easy for us to do so."
"Okay it is time. I would like to welcome you all here in Columbia!" The voice of the dean suddenly exclaimed, cutting their conversation short.
