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I Wear My Sunglasses in the Subway

Dear Diary:

I wear my sunglasses in the subways, yes. There is nothing personal about the underground trains, save to subtly note particularly audacious articles of clothing.

I step off two stops late, intentionally, insistent on walking down 125th Street toward class. Three steps into the university is taking three steps into another world. Harlem’s ill-fitting denim is replaced with Columbia’s ill-fitting slacks. It is as much of a juxtaposition as I am as a student: a fashion enthusiast studying engineering.

The trees are almost too evenly spaced and the grass is almost too evenly cut. The urban school must take great pride in its square fields, considered huge for Manhattan yet puny in comparison to those of the rest of the world.

I have yet to enter a building in which there is not a cafe, in addition to the numerous coffee shops surrounding the campus. I wonder what students would do if Colombia ran out of coffee, and I’m not referring to the school.

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