:: league in transition ::

July is fading away quick, and so is my summer.

As I had mentioned in my previous blogs, I spent a little “vacation”, more like a social liberation, in Charlotte this past weekend. I was pleased to say the economic crisis was no longer the opening topic of all conversation at dinners; not that we were doing any better, there were just brighter topic to talk about.

“Are you excited about Cornell?” was my friends’ FAQ this weekend.

Am I excited? Sure, very much so; but I am scared simultaneously. You see, this is some competitive ground to step foot into.

Let me bring up an example from the international motor sports. Nelsinho Piquet Jr. was a frequent podium visitor back in his GP2 and Formula 3 days. He had been racing in those sectors for years under his father’s racing team; he was familiar with the machine, his technique was competitively challenged.

This, of course, opened the opportunity for him to enter the holy grail of international motor sports – Formula 1. Since Nelsinho joined Renault in 2007, he never performed outstandingly along his two-time world champion Fernando Alonso.

Return to the topic on my preparation to Cornell. Within the architectural academia, this is top notch stuff, one of the most prestigious architectural school a person can dreams of; just like Formula 1, this is the most competitive chamber of the entire field, the bloody red cherry on top of the cake.

I did well when I was in undergrad at the College of Architecture, or kids liked to call it School of Architecture no-a-day, at the University of North Carolina; and I would never fear to tell anybody that the faculties in this place had changed my life in this most stunting five year I had ever been through.

Now departing this familiar ground on a high note, joining the best from the world in an uncharted territory, I am scare sh*tless. I might very much end up like little Nelsinho failing miserably. My colleague from a different school might leave me in a cloud of tire smoke as I struggle to compete. Oh, yes, this is exactly what is happening to the Brazilian driver, because his GP2 colleague Lewis Hamilton turns out to be an overnight sensation in the first year with McLaren Mercedes.

Well, but these is another real fact, the second seat Renault driver, our boy Nelsinho, had to enable the driving instruction line on the most astonishing and technically advanced racing simulation - Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - behind his G25 racing wheel (shown on a recent twitter feed of his own); but I don’t have to do THAT, I pull decent track time with my MOMO with no instruction line and minimum traction control with professional physic, so maybe I can be survive, maybe I can be Lewis Hamilton instead.

* image was from Nelsinho Piquet twitter in this blog