I Sometimes Lose, Sometimes Really

In a surprising turn of events, my grad school winning streak couldn't last forever after all. (Yes, "surprising" was meant to be sarcastic.) Yale Biological and Biomedical Sciences sent me a rejection email today; or, more accurately, they sent me an email, which linked to my application page, which I had to login to, whereupon I had to click on a third link that finally opened a popup window telling me I'd been rejected. The nerve. If Yale admin were trying to make things easier for the rejectee by making them really annoyed at the institution just before they read their rejection, they did a fine job.

Besides being the first rejection letter I've received, thereby reminding me of the crapshoot reality of grad school admissions, this didn't actually faze me too much; Yale was about on the same level as UCSF, who seem to be responding favorably, on my list, and San Francisco definitely trumps New Haven in most aspects, cost of living and distance from familiar faces notwithstanding. However, it does make me a little more anxious to hear from MIT and Harvard. I care about those schools about as much as I do the rest of them combined, and Boston has been hyped up to me so much as some kind of promised land I fear I'll actually be really upset if I don't get into one of my two Boston schools.

Regardless, all was redeemed mere hours later when I received this message in my Myspace account:

"We get a TON of requests from bands on Myspace doing Noise/Drone/whatever you wanna call it. I'd say over 99% is shite.

Your track that you have up on the page right now is ace! good work.

best,
belong "

Wait, what? Belong? Crafters of October Language? The left-field ambient power duo from New Orleans? The American counterpart to master glitchscapers such as Europe's Fennesz and Canada's Hecker? The people who make the kind of music I want to make, only good? They like? My track? That I made in my bedroom with a guitar, $150 worth of pedals, Audiomulch, a pirated copy of Ableton Live 5, and a few free VSTs? This is insane! This is massive! This is like if Auden came back from the dead and showed up at my door tomorrow to tell me my rhymes was ill! (Though I don't often write rhyming poetry, but we'll overlook that for the sake of anachronistic simile.) Well, maybe not Auden, but one of the more cult-favorite, acquired-taste, obscure poets, none of which I can immediately think of right now.

I should really stop being so underachieving with my music. Probably my poetry too. Being amateur is easy; it's when other people like your stuff that things get complicated. Hmm...

This entry gets an "eff" label for the Yale affair. However, it also gets a newly-minted "w00t" label for the Belong message. This evening has seen a few ups and downs. And a cupcake.