Crucifixion Cruise

I realize that I've gone silent on this for what is, for me, the rather long interval of a week. The truth is, a few hours after posting the last entry about Belieu, I received a letter from UCSF saying they'd decided after the first-date wining and dining they didn't like me much after all. I am trying to make light of the situation, but at the time it sent me into a mood so impenetrably black I could barely think about it, much less write--it's easier to be cathartic about the small things, at least for me. And just when I'd psyched myself up for the program and mentally prepared myself to move out to San Francisco, too. I guess I should have known better than to count on the public schools to come through for an international student.

This leaves me in the unenviable--both for my career and for my ego--predicament of having been rejected from every single school, except my "safety" (Vanderbilt, where I was accepted with full ride and stipend). Three are still hanging--MIT CSB, Harvard Systems, and University of Chicago Biophysics--but since those are as or more competitive than the schools which have rejected me so far, I don't take much comfort in the uncertainty. Advice to all prospective Ph. D. applicants out there: the only real safe bets you have are the ones you're overqualified for. Beyond that, everything is a crapshoot, regardless of your actual ability.

Despite the practical bleakness of the situation, there's an even greater problem at stake here, and that's the fact that I was not only disappointed, but devastated, by being rejected from a school that ranked in the top 10 nationally in my field, when really I should've known better than to be so shocked. That's the trauma of 7 years' snobby, private school education: an inability to accept anything but the best. They only ever train you to get what you want; they never train you to not get what you want, or more accurately, to be able to deal with it when you don't. The latter, as I'm slowly coming around to realize, is just as important as the former, perhaps even more so, depending on what one's ambitions are.

I've essentially spent the last week rethinking my entire approach to life. I'm used to thinking of life as a constant evolution, an incessant upward scramble for progress and self-improvement, without ever considering life's too long to never tread water or backstep. This is probably a side-effect from having been in school too long.

It's probably just as well that I'm forced to deal with this now. Suppose I'd gotten into UCSF, and gotten through it with astounding success--what then? I'll only accept postdoc positions at Harvard or Stanford? The breakdown was going to happen sooner or later, and it was probably going to be catalyzed by something related to science. As far as my creative pursuits go, especially my music, there's usually a skewed prestige associated with being the underdog--rejection can as much as acceptance be a signal that one is on to something. Academics is really the only thing I participate in for which what Jess terms "institutional approval" is necessary, but even as far as that goes, I've had my ass kissed for quite some time now--from my straight As last spring, to the rapid progress of my research project last summer and my PI's comment that I could get a Ph. D. in four years, to my advisor's seeming confidence that sure! I should go ahead and apply to Harvard and Yale! (I ran into him the other day; he seemed genuinely surprised that I've only been accepted to one program so far.) I'd forgotten one had to be damn lucky in this life to receive rewards equal to one's abilities, and that despite this fact, one had to find some form way of accepting this reality to be happy at all.

I'm still undecided on what I'll do about this. Maybe I will go to Vanderbilt, try to get to like Nashville the best I can. Maybe I'll take out the one-year optional practical training on my student visa and try to get hired by a lab here for a year, and reapply--the upshot is that I'll get to stay in Baltimore, which I continue to be enamored with; the downside is that if I get massacred a second time, I'll get sent home for sure. Josh offered the thought-provoking proposition that it didn't matter where you went to grad school, as long as you made a name for yourself there, which I'm certain I could do at Vanderbilt, in the Meiler lab perhaps, or anywhere--that much confidence I do retain.

On the bright side, maybe it's for the best that I won't end up going to grad school in the city where this was filmed.

In more amusing news, my friend John saw fit last Friday to post, on an anonymous discussion board for students at my school (for the record, immature college students should not be allowed anonymous discussion boards; to think these are the same people who will be operating on our vital organs in a decade or two) a joking group personals ad for himself, me, and three of our friends. We were only referred to by numbers 1 through 5. This is the paragraph he wrote about me:

"#3. Seeks romantic female interested in shoegaze and ambient, poetry, biophysics, sz. small black band t-shirts, lolcatz, intimate venue indie rock shows, remixes; a dark sense of humor and gentle sensibility are necessary; ability to cope with awkwardness also necessary; ear plugs recommended"

Although he hadn't consulted any of us prior to writing this, we all found it hilarious; in particular, I thought the above paragraph was actually many times better than any personals ad I could ever write for myself. In fact, I thought it was so good, I came back drunk from the Lithuanian dance hall later that night and decided it would be a fantastic idea to copy the paragraph wholesale and post it on Craigslist m4w personals.

I did not expect anyone would actually respond. I can now honestly claim to have received unsolicited cleavage photos from a total stranger (which, by the way, is sort of not classy, especially when the email contained zero textual content). I don't know what I'll do about it, but I haven't deleted the ad yet, so we'll wait and see what sort of catastrophe this wreaks upon my already disassembled life.