And here we have Amin Ghadimi.  To make your nomination, fill out the form.

Name, Hometown, School: Amin Ghadimi; Kobe, Japan; Columbia College

Claim to Fame: The ones from the 1950s who “sent their children to international schools and used shops that sold imported goods” were my grandparents.

Where are you going? Who really knows?  Wherever it is, I hope I actually do get there someday.  For now, though, grad school.

Three things you learned at Columbia:

  1. The bells of Gion Shoja toll the impermanence of all things. –The Tales of the Heike
  2. “But what is to be done, then? What is to be done in such a case? Should one fall into despair?” “No, for it enough that you are distressed by it. Do what you can, and it will be reckoned unto you.” -Madame Khokhlakov and Zosima, in The Brothers Karamazov
  3. The perfect man has no self. –The Zhuangzi

“Back in my day…” I really hope my day isn’t over yet. Please?

Justify your existence in 30 words or less: My mom loves me.

Is the War on Fun over? Who won? Any war stories?  The questions assume the epistemological possibility of identifying a definitive end-point and victor in the war, but we must problematize such war-postwar, winner-loser binaries, thereby complicating the received historiography in the field and moving toward a subtler, more nuanced narrative that rescues the silenced stories of victims from the hegemonic war discourse produced by ostensible and self-proclaimed winners and that acknowledges the trans-temporal or even atemporal aspects of a war more imagined than physical. (Is that the correct answer?)

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? I love it when professors let you choose a question on the exam to skip.

Advice for the class of 2016? None. I’m not sure there’s any one-size-fits-all advice that can apply without distinction or qualification to every incoming first-year. But congratulations!

Regrets? So many, but we smile and move on.