Lunch with a genius

Annie, my good friend from university, was in town. We had a nice, Chinese lunch together at the Grand Hotel. The last time I saw her was at her wedding a year and half ago. She married her boyfriend from university.


Annie and I became friends during our freshman year. She always effortlessly obtained the best marks. Once, I asked her why she didn't choose to go to a more challenging school. She said that UC Irvine was quite good and that it was close to home. She lived ten minutes away with her older sisters and mother and drove to school in a comfortable German import every day. As UCLA, USC and some other good schools were within reasonable commuting distance, I was quite puzzled.


One day during our first or second year, on the long walk through Aldrich Park to Japanese class, I asked her what she had planned after graduation. Graduation seemed light years away and I had no idea what I wanted to do, but since she always seemed to have the answers, I thought I'd ask.

M: What do you think you're going to do after graduation?
A: Get married.
M: Get married? To whom?
A: Someone, maybe Daniel (her then boyfriend, now husband).
M: Oh. You seem awfully sure of it.
A: Yeah.
M: And then what?
A: Go shopping, watch Taiwanese and Japanese TV shows, trade stocks. Ho ho ho!

M: Where are you going to work?
A: At home.
M: You want to work out of your house?
A: Yeah.
M: WHAT are you going to do?
A: Housework.

M: I thought college was about teaching us how to work and helping us figure out what we want to do. Why did you come to college if you're just going to get married and not work?
A: I came to find a good husband.

While I was trying to figure out how to take over the world with less than an average head on my shoulders, this academic elite that I thought would become a professor or a Fortune 500 CEO was telling me that she wants to be a housewife.

Well, she is now a housewife; watching dramas, trading stock and shopping while happily waiting for Daniel to come home every day. She is an amazing girl, in every sense. She's so clever that she knows what will make her happiest using the least amount of effort. Absolute genius.





My mother treated us all to the lunch.