The Inferno

At Dante's Coffee, online after navigating a series of menus in Mandarin to purchase a pre-paid "HiNet card." Dante's is Starbucks with smaller portions and sides of pasta. Sipping a white chocolate mocha for energy.

My new residence for the next two days until I finish the thesis, my taxes and a brochure, then fly home (though I seem to be homeless--over the weekend my landlord gave away my apartment and my parents sold their house): the Leader Hotel. I can't imagine a much more fittingly-named place to finish a thesis for a program on Political Leadership, except for maybe "Procrastinator's Lodge" or "Thesis Inn and Suites."

Nor, looking back at these last few days, could I have asked for a much more appropriate way to end my college career. I gave my last oral presentations, recited sonnets and posed as the Head TF for a pseudo-course on American Education (in which capacity I messed up the "professor's" PowerPoint presentation, much as I used to Dr. Hurlbut's.) I slept about three hours a night, if that, all week long--and lived in a quad again, with two Taiwanese delegates and a fellow Harvard student named Edward who was simply fabulous and reminded me of C3PO. I spoke on the steps of the Taiwanese legislature--and doing so realized how much I really had learned at the Kennedy School. I saw echoes of Stanford in the palm trees, felt hints of past and future everywhere. I helped mill rumors, and exercised discretion at a train station. Basically, I was in a sleep-deprived, hypercharged, mosquito-bitten and cheerful haze.

And among the Taiwanese delegates and staff I met so many amazing individuals, from Buddy (future Stanford grad, I just know it) and Stanley (a seventh-year undergrad, soon-to-be-second-lieutenant of the Taiwanese army, nicknamed "the Socrates of NTU") to Carol (who observed that Edward and I were the two most Asian members of the Harvard group--an honor, since Edward's from Hong Kong), Victor (whose English we understood everyday but April Fool's) and Tina (online auctioneer with a swift dribble.) I won't list them all--won't describe Nancy of the shaved ice and limitless energy or Amy of the erratic appearances and knowing smile--but suffice it to say that I feel as if I've now had the chance to experience three colleges in my life, and the third is almost as extraordinary as the students who inhabit it.

* * *

Two aspects of Taiwan took my breath away.

The first was, of course, the library.

The second was not, however, the talking toilet.

Nor was it the shower at my new hotel, which offers a control panel more sophisticated than an Airbus 319. You can shoot the jets vertically, horizontally or through a hand-held massage unit. If you've never tried a horizontal shower, I recommend it. Taiwan wins an award for the best water pressure on Earth.

* * *

If that was my last spring break, at least it was also my most memorable. And, as I close this quick entry and dive back into my thesis (on page 21 of 50, 20 hours to go) I send wishes for a smooth flight and decent airplane food to LiQuen, Neha, Jon, David, Sarah, Whitney, Edward and Ben, who are somewhere over the Pacific by now. They're a great group, and one more reason (or, I suppose, eight) that I'll look back at Harvard very differently the second time out.