COFFEE & BISCUITS

So I went to a speed-dating event, hosted by the medical school to raise money for charity, on Friday night.  (that’s a great excuse for going speed-dating!   For charitable causes!)  I speed-dated around 20 men, I think  (there were about 100 men and 100 women in the room, but you only get to speed-date the men with the numbers in multiple of 5 of your assigned number).  Here are two high points from my experience:

1.  Wierd Date

The moderator gave a question for each speed date to start off. I was rotated to this person wearing a 1920s kind of cap.  He said he is a medical student. The question was:  would you rather have your nose or your genital grow when you lie?  My speeddates thus far had ignored these question, but this particular speeddate insisted on answering this question. 

“This question is unfair to men,” he said.

I responded reluctantly:  but women don’t have genitals that can grow.

He said, well they have vagina.
But maybe breasts are better.

Then he launched into this analysis of how breasts can grow by stimulation. 

I stared at him, speechless.  He was still talking.

“Well, a vagina can sort of grow too.  But it will be wierd for the vagina to grow this big,”  he gestured.  “Imagine what that’ll be like.”

Then our 2.5 minutes were up.  But he continued.  I fled as quickly as I could.
 

2.  Coincidental Encounter

My brazilian classmate (A), American classmate (D), and I hang around the tables afterwards, while some people left and others stayed around to chat.  A suddenly had this flash of creativity.  He said I should pick one of the remaining males on the floor, and he would ask him to come talk to me.  I let him and D pick.  They targeted a dark, brunette male who was wearing green and white stripe sweater.  He was talking to another male.  So A went up, and came back momentarily, not accompanied by the target.

“He said he is dating somebody already.”  Why is he here then?  I wasn’t much hurt by this. 

Then it was my turn.  A targeted one of the organizer of the event, a fresh faced American girl, who has this air of efficiency and confidence about her.  Someone that I would very much like to befriend also.  I went up to the girl, and said, “Sorry for the interruption.  But there is a guy over there who REALLY wants to talk to you.”  She looked at A, a smile hinting on her face.  And then she walked over with me.

She sat across A and next to me, very comfortably and composed I thought.  Not a hint of flirtation.  Just pure, quiet confidence.

A started in his flamboyant and loud way.

The conversation came to what department we are in.  Economics, A, D, and I said. 

“Oh, my father got his Ph.D in economics here too.”

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“He is a professor at the GSB in Stanford.”

 A couple names appeared in my mind.

She then continued.

“His last name is Romer.”

“NOT PAUL ROMER!”  I screamed in disbelief, my hands on my head.  She nodded.

“HUMMER!!!!!!”  A screamed also.  The he searched around for a paper, and snatched one of the number cards on the table, and asked Amy (that’s her name).  “Please sign my card!!!!!”

“The creator of endogenous growth.  Like the biggest name in macroeconomics”  I said.

D said, “Think he’s gonna get the Nobel?”

A continued with a zealous exposition of “Hummer’s” academic achievements, “…(sorry I didn’t really listen due to my own excitment)…”

“I thought he is an old guy….”
So you see, those two are the high points of the night.  Other than that, I thought the speedates were too speedy at 2.5 minutes (though a couple times that’s a life saver). I was only able to ask my prepared one question to a couple people, for most of the time the date was initiated by questions about programs and background.  In the few time I asked the question, I was pleased by the reponses. 

My question was, “What makes you happy?”

At the end of the night, I had 5 numbers on my card.  One of them is an Alaskan, whom I told directly that I was writing his number down.  But at the end of the night, I had entirely forgotten how most of my 5 numbers look like.  If I were to bump into them on the street, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Love at first sight is an elusive animal.

But I still haven’t stated what was the epithany that occurred during that 30 minutes trapped in the elevator.

Look how easily I digress.  All I have ranted about was my mood going into that elevator–I was desperately needing some inspiration.

But why was that?  The short answer (that conceals much) is that I was not happy in a class I was taking.  And I had been trying to schedule a meeting with the TA of that class for three times, all unsuccessful (and I guiltlessly concede that the fault was entirely due to the TA), and at the fateful moments before entering the elevator to again reach the TA’s office, I decided that would be the last time I try.

Now you may ask:  if you are not happy with something, why don’t you quit that thing?

Good point!  Essentially, that is my epithany in the elevator.

The decision was made easier when I reemerged from the elevator and went to the TA office, and found that he again was gone.

But now it’s all in the past.

I know that epithanies try to trick us sometime.  But as of now, I am grateful to this epithany.

So it really hit home when I was trapped in the elevator for 30 minutes, waiting for the technicians to rescue me (after I pressed the red emergency button and scream at the phone HELPPPPPPPP MEEEEEEEE).

 ****

Snapshots from my past 

I don’t always look back at my past life.  But since last week, I have been searching through the memories in my mind, finding those scenes that had inspired me to get a PhD; these memories have been made obscured by inattention.  

I was an undergrad at Berkeley who was very research oriented, while my classmates just wanted to get a business job out of an economics undergraduate degree.  I liked to walk into the economics lounge, which overlooked the golden gate bridge and the Dole library, and I would always find relaxed grad students sitting the lounge, chatting.  On the tables would lie some extra copies of papers just presented.  I would pour over those papers, feeling very deeply that writing these papers are the kind of life that I want to lead.  It was the feeling of :  the world is this place constituted by these human beings interacting with each other in the same way over the course of history, yet leading to various patterns that are result of a possible explanable mix of human, weather, location, and resources factor.  Just allow your mind to wander along the lines of these question.  Think about books like The Wealth of Nations, and Guns Germs and Steel.  Amazing, isn’t it?

 And when I looked at the websites of the grad students, I imagined what I was seeing are  people who have the mandate to think like what I felt inspired by:  to think deeply, broadly, and innovatively.  Think about forces that underlies the makeup of our society.  A social science, yet scientific and precise.  To condense human complexity into formulas.  To imagine there exist this force that explain the seemingly unexplanable social phenomenons.  

When I worked as a research assistant in Washington DC, and witnessed how rewarding and stimulating the life of an economist could me, I was even more certain.

I wanted to get a PhD in Economics.

***

 I am now a grad student

Inspiration and perspectives were the two things that I needed most when I was stuck in the elevator. 

After a year of anxiety, extreme stress, and the constant feeling of inferiority, I passsed my 3 core exams.  At every moment of the year before, it was as if life would be happily ever after after passing the core exams.  But as my wiser friends pointed out, happiness was never around the corner!  I dared not complain now, that’s why I am writing on this blog what life was really like after passing the core exams.

You see, grad school, at least in my school, I was beginning to discover, is much like in private sector.  By that, I meant there is a clear, FOOD CHAIN, within the department.  The tenured and senior professors are at the top of the food chain.  Then comes the super stars selected by the faculty. (And the super stars’ egos are continuously fanned by the professors)  Then comes the non-super stars non selected by the faculty.  The academic department is no justice department.   There is no feelings of mushy mushy take my hand let me guide you kind of stuff.  There is an invisible yet always present ranking.  Hard work do not get you rewards; results do.   Moreover, encouragement is non-existent.  When you are feeling particularly down one day and talk to a classmate whom you deem a friend and confess your feelings of anxieties, very likely your friend, who probably is a star, would respond with a gleam in the eye and words that read:  some people just don’t belong in this world of academics.  You are one of these people, precisely because you are feeling so stressed.  Maybe you should leave. 

In this kind of world, surrounded by such kind of people, it is easy to forget why you are here in the first place.  But thanks to the information diffusion internet grants us, you can now easily find someone to commiserate with, and find that you are definitely not the only person who feels this way.  In fact, if you google “grad school burn out”, the first story that comes out is “a tale of grad school burn out” that is written by a person who dropped out of a PhD program.  It is a horrifying story.  While I can commiserate with some elements of that tale, I prompty felt grateful of my own situation.

And then you try to remember why you wanted this.  

At the end of the day, you take a deep breathe, cross your finger, and hope that your tenacity and determination will take you across the finish line.

It seems that my Mom’s tech skill has improved tremendously.  She was even able to scan (or ask other people to do it for her) her own artwork, and attach it onto an email, and send it off to the masses.  I am impressed.  (Considered that in Christmas, it took her 2 hours to send one e-card to her list of people).

Addendum:  Since some of you asked, here are my answers to your questions.

YES!  My Mom drew that! 

NO, she is not a professional artist.  In fact, she is a rookie who began learning to draw last last winter.  She was trained as a nurse. 

Well YES thank you, my family (2 brothers and both parents) is quite artistic.  I am the exception.

So I have been taking a creative writing class this quarter, for the purpose of recycling stress garbage from solving economic problems.  The course title is “Beginning Fiction Writing,” but in addition of writing stories, we have to read a couple books. So far I read James Joyce’s Dubliners and Ford Madox Ford’s “The Good Soldier” (By the way, this is a MUST READ, it is a shockingly well written book….on par or possibly more amazing than Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina)

Oops, I have digressed.  What I want to write in this post concerns this subtle little thing in our life call epithanies.

It was my first time reading James Joyce, and I found out that this guy likes to structure his stories around one central epithany — usually revealed at the end of the story, in a blunt manner.  I remember one day in class, the professor asked, “Did any of your have epithanies this week?”  ”Everday?”

Epithanies.  Sudden revelation about the world that surrounds us. 

But beware, James Joyce’s voice whispers, these seeming epithanies may be tricks.

Sorry, I have digressed again.  The point of this post is actually about MY epithany this week.  In fact, I think my epithany began to unfold last week……