foo -> /var/foo
and
cs223 -> /home/classes/cs223/class/lai.min-ken.ml267
is that the former is a sym. link into another partition, and it considers
that subdirectory as part of your path, where as in the latter case is a
sym. link to another subdirectory within a main directory that you're
already in, so cd'ing will actually change your path.
But I could be making that up (and I'm sure someone will enlighten me
further...)
--Carp