Williamstown, MA

Warmest greetings, dearest readers.

I hope you are all doing well and fine :) A lot of things has happened but it's slightly difficult for me to express them through prose (I guess since they're not that comical.. hahaha) so allow me to start with the lighter touches first.

A few weeks ago I took a zipcar to visit my (only) Williams friend, Jaeho, whom I met during my summer in Beijing. Public Service Announcement: If any of you readers are looking for a boyfriend, I strongly recommend Jaeho: He is one of the nicest, unassuming, and well-meaning people I've ever met in my life. He's smart, a hard worker, and also a serious but fun guy. And he's pretty cute too <3. Anyways, before you guys start suspecting my sexual preferences (I am attracted to women and women only) I'll proceed to the story, then.

By the time my GPS announced that I have arrived in Williams, I reached out my phone to call Jaeho. It's only then I realized that my mobile does not have reception there. And you've guessed it, I haven't agreed with Jaeho where exactly in Williams we were meeting. I grew pretty desperate and considered to step out of the car and asking random Williams kids if they knew Jaeho and if they could connect me with him, but there were two things holding me back: a) Williams had way way more kids in the Summer than Amherst, what are the odds that I'd pick somebody who knew him? b) I was wearing an Amherst College T-shirt. I was kinda scared that I would end up being tackled by a bunch of Williams footballers due to our schools' rivalry.

Being a super rational person as myself, the genius but desperate me decided to be innovative. I parked my car near a quad full of students sitting down on the grass, chatting, and enjoying the waning summer sunshine (which, I later learned, was right in front of the campus center). As I walked out of the car toward the building, I took off my purple Amherst T-shirt and I charged toward these people, while repeatedly yelling "Jaeho Jaeho Jaeho!!!" and wildly swinging my T-shirt in the air. I was expecting Jaeho to pop out and save me from the embarrassment but instead three young buff lads quickly stood up and tackled me. Next thing I knew I was being interrogated in the Williams' campus police.. Whew, I thought they were going to send me to a mental asylum or something. Fortunately, the folks there were nice enough to call Jaeho up and let me off scotch-free..

Just kidding, I actually managed to get ahold of him without shaming myself to death like above. One of his friends actually told me that I made a rookie mistake of not knowing that T-mobile doesn't work in Williams at all. (Thanks for the late warning, sir...) But I really had fun in the quaint place. Yes, Williams only had a street as their downtown, and zero Chinese restaurants (Amherst has an intersection as our downtown, and we have three Chinese restaurants within walking distance) but it's fair to say that Williams College has a more beautiful architecture and environment. Jaeho took me to see a Van Gogh exhibition in the Clark museum, which was stellar, and the next morning we drove and had a breakfast in an American diner in Vermont. It was my first American diner experience despite having studied here for 1.5 years, and food was superb. The best part was catching up with him and learning what's up from him, though.

I guess that's it for now. Thanks for having me, Jaeho, and you're very certain that I'll be back again!

The gorgeous chapel in Williams College 

The Blue Benn Diner in Vermont, a ten-minute drive from Williams