so i'm on central campus again, looking for a seriously quiet spot to accomplish some math [fourier series stuff] thats giving me trouble. i head for the grad library, since that place is truely like a tomb, and i go for one of the upper floors, just to be sure. this lands me in the reference section of the aisian studies library, and just like i want, it is dead quiet, and i get to work. after putting in a couple hours of study time, i need to stretch my legs [and back]. i get up and begin to look around this place i'm in. there's a small office that looks like the somebody who was working there had also just gotten up for a break. i turn to look down the aisle, and there he is, hurrying towards me, and asking how can he help me. its the reference librarian, a very nice man, and its his mission to help me. even though very nearly every book and periodical in this library is written in one asian language or another, and i cannot read one character of it. i have no real reason to be here, looking in his office. i tell him as much, that i was just taking advantage of the quiet to study, and was giving myself a break. i figured this would end the interaction, but he asks me what am i studying. i tell him, and by was of being conversational, i tell him that if i could read chinese, i would love to read lao tzu's original work, and other taoist works. this fires him up. he takes me to where these books are, he pulls a few of them off the shelves, and opens them up to the relevant sections. i still cannot read even one character of it. some of the books have pictures, though. i am told that my university has a marvelous aisian studies program, should i be so inclined. he treats me to a disertation on the nuanced differences between zen buddhism and taoism. i actually find this interesting, as i am attracted to these schools of thought, and he is well educated. wrapping things up, he shows me one of the few books there written in english, and says i should skim them and see if there is anything interesting. i would like to, but i need to get back to fourier. after another couple hours, i am again stretching my legs when he pops out of his office to ask me how is that an engineering student should be interested in eastern thought. i tell him that in a previous life, i studied philosophy and history. this really fires him up: so did he! the next thing i know i am sitting down in his office, he is making me a cup of tea, and telling me about the jesuit education he received back in japan, his hypertension, and his plans to retire soon from his job here at the university. i tell him about my previous undergraduate experience, that i studied mainly the existentialists, and ancient history, and that thomas cleary is my favorite translater of ancient chinese. he studied the helenistics and medival philosophy. this makes me smile, since one of my absolute favorite professors from that life had specialized in the same thing. i finish my tea while he tells me about the differences between judaism, christianity, and islam. we shake hands, and i leave to go to a physics review sesion.