The Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes

I might not leave. Harvard Systems Biology sent word and they don't want me. That leaves MIT and Chicago, both of which I more or less consider forgone conclusions at this point (not in a good way).

Additionally, the more I think about Vanderbilt and Nashville, the less enthusiastic I feel about going there--and I don't think I should commit the next five years of my life (not to mention the next definitive phase of my professional career) to something I'm not at least a little excited for. It's hard to explain, but when I recall my weekend in Nashville a month ago, I remember a distinct lack of pushing-the-limits, whether in the program and faculty, the interviewees, or the city itself. There's always new data to be found as long as one is doing research, but the philosophy is conservative, and I've little interest in applying old ways of thought to new things. New perspectives are much more thrilling to me than new data. And then there's Nashville, which I've discussed already; to briefly recap, I'm not sure it's eccentric enough for my tastes, and also it's famous for a style of music that was established nearly a century ago. Finally, the kicker: I'm a Yank. A fair-trade-coffee-drinking, organic-produce-buying, Marx-and-Sartre-reading, left-wing-liberal-ranting, irony-addicted Yank. Forgive me if I feel apprehension toward settling in what is, regardless of how you spin it, The South (capital T, capital S) on a semi-long-term basis.

I realize I sound ambitious for a guy who just got rejected from 6 out of 9 graduate schools, but if I weren't, this wouldn't be an issue, either because I wouldn't worry about enrolling in traditionalist programs or because I wouldn't have spent my time applying to Harvard and Yale in the first place.

I'm drawing up plans for another year in Baltimore. I have a few options, involving either a lab tech job or a master's degree, all of which would likely improve--to whatever degree--my chances of getting into a grad school I actually want to go to in a second round, none of which I feel inclined to discuss in detail before the specifics solidify. There's a biotech startup company in Hampden (of all places) Kyle F., formerly of J-Mag, works at; I ran into him at Danielle's party on Saturday, and he gave me his card and told me to email him my resumé to pass on. Of course, we were both drunk at the time, so I'm not sure it'll come to anything. Also, if I stay, I'll be smarter about the list of schools I reapply to, and make sure I apply to at least a few schools between UCSF and Vanderbilt in the hierarchy in cities I actually wouldn't mind ending up in--Michigan-Ann Arbor, Washington-Seattle, Columbia, Northwestern, and Cornell-Weill come to mind. At least in Seattle I could wear flannel, and in Detroit I could listen to techno for five years even if there's nothing better to do. I'd also reapply to the schools I got rejected from, of course; I'll have the list drawn up in the beginning of summer, spend the next few months corresponding, and hopefully have a better arsenal by the fall. It's a real shame I'm learning all these things about grad school applications only after I've been kicked in the face by them; you can't blame me for being overconfident the first time around, though. Everyone else was, too.

O, Baltimore! Will you keep me, when Boston and San Francisco and Chicago have all turned me away from their frigid bosoms? You love no-one and no-one loves me: we are a match made in heaven.

Alright, so that was a bit of self-indulgent dramatizing--everyone's out of town on spring break and I must amuse myself somehow--but I actually started feeling a lot happier the moment I turned my thoughts from spending the next five years at Vanderbilt to spending the next year in Baltimore, and I think that means something. I'll have to put up with the EA crowd and our particular brand of enforced unity another year, but maybe if I'm forced to, I will grow to like them more.

My life continues to be defined by chronic contradiction and an inability to compromise. I want everything, and what could be more ambitious than that? I want a grad school, and I want a city. I want the meticulous subtlety of day-by-day living, and I want the purposeful coherence of participating in a grander career. I want to spend my late afternoons reading poetry, listening to Guided by Voices, and watching the sun set from my window, and I want to do research on the cutting edge of the field. I want to spend all day in a well-funded lab with brilliant crazy people, and I want to spend all night tapping into the city's shadowy mainlines. And all these desires are genuine; I've been thinking a lot recently about how one of my main devices in pursuing happiness is eliminating superfluous wants, but I feel I'm approaching a bare, abstracted minimum. (Which appears to be "I desire all things"--not much of a bare minimum, perhaps.) Now that my big ideas have been derailed, I'm forced to consider the near future in more of a day-by-day capacity, and it seems that involves more insistence on detail, not less.

The Confucianists are cut-and-dry about this sort of thing. Mencius said millenia ago: "I love fish, and I love bear's paw; but if I cannot possess both, I must abandon the fish for the bear's paw. [They ate some exotic things back in the day, apparently.] I love life, and I love virtue; but if I cannot possess both, I must abandon life for virtue." Priorities. So when it comes down to compromising one thing for the other, one will not have any doubt as to what is the first to go. On the other hand, I have always had more of a Taoist inclination, and as Lao Zi said, one cannot say Tao is one thing or another, because if one calls Tao one thing, then it cannot be the other thing, and Tao is all things--hence, Tao is incapable of being defined. Going Taoist at too early an age is probably a trademark of young failure.

On a different note, I went to the inaugural Sonadors show last night at Joe Squared. The three members were in Hymnen, whom I was a fan of, before that band's breakup, and I was eager to see what they would do next. I ended up meeting two of the band members' parents--Andy and Matt are brothers--and all their wives/fiancées (yes, all three of them), who'd all come to have dinner and see them perform. It turns out Pat's wife Chelsea is the best friend of Rachel from Thrushes, and is going to be her maid of honor at Rachel and Casey's wedding--how is it all these people are connected to each other? About half an hour after I met Andy and Matt's parents they made me have some of their pizza and salad. I know I'm a pretty skinny guy, but this is ridiculous. Joe Squared makes a mean salad, though.