just briefly. the highlight of my trip was meeting michael seidel, the interview lasted 3 minutes total, and i don't remember how i walked out of his office. addy gave me a campus tour that led to the english department because i was curious to see what the offices look like and to peer at things on people's doors. the doors were mostly bare! which disturbs me i want doors to be arresting with personality. looked up michael seidel's name on the directory in the foyer but didn't expect to see him there (on leave according to notice on board) but his door was the only one in "mean-professored" columbia that was thrown wide open. the offices are long rather than wide, and his desk was deep within and i couldn't really see his face, but slowly i realised it had to be his office. then i walked past his office door about two dozen times with addy at my side urging me not to be a wimp and refusing to come in with me because she said it'd look even more spastic thatn i already was being, while i went "what if he told nohrnberg some idiot student of his came to see him?" drove her up the wall by making her rehearse saying hello another two dozen times before i knocked on the door, and messed up my lines immediately and he was staring at me in incomprehension becos I was a stuttering imbecile, until going faintly pink with desperation and mortification i brought up the homer to brecht and he said, ah! that book yes! you're the one it was for? and then an unstoppable torrent of praise for nohrnberg, about how he is an unbelievable genius and how he thought his dante essay was the best on the subject he'd ever read, finishing up with "we all think he [nohrnberg] is god". asked what classes i've taken with nohrnberg and when i was graduating and what plans i had, cautioned that nohrnberg is retiring very soon so not to place all eggs in one professor, then sent me away with two handshakes remembering himself to nohrnberg. addy, who was sitting outside his door, laughed at me all the way back :) it made me want to come back and kiss nohrnberg too, seidel telling me how he was running around the wedding looking for people to sign the book. how can we be this fortunate? i wonder how many years of yuan fen i've been accumulating in my past lives for the opportunity of being near someone like nohrnberg!!!!! probably some hundreds of years in the making.