Last we spoke, I was enjoying a smoothie in the tropics on a Sunday afternoon. Monday presented more of the same, plus a Makaha Sons concert with my brother which was really awesome. Tuesday was a whirlwind of training, packing, and grad school acceptance. I got into Columbia and Duke! Which, since this news was in my most popular facebook status to date, you may already know that.
Then I hopped on a plane from Honolulu to L.A. on Tuesday night, from L.A. to Denver on Wednesday morning, supershuttle to Boulder, and good lord it is freezing here. I went to Rory’s and Mojdeh’s apartment and hid indoors until Ben arrived with the winter clothes he brought me from Seattle.
After he got here I suited up for nuclear winter/ a short run. I was so bundled up and the other runners I saw all were wearing shorts (in 40 degrees? are you kidding?). The run was actually good, no signs of altitude suffering. Then on Thursday, Ben and I went to the Flatiron Athletic Club to check out the facilities and get some guest passes. We did a master’s swim class with Dave Scott. I hung on OK, come to find out I wasn’t even in the slowest lane (although I wouldn’t have minded switching to that slow slow lane, I was hustling!). Then my run was a failure – I felt so heavy, and at slow speeds it’s so easy to just ratchet down one notch and walk. My achilles hurt. It wouldn’t stop hurting. My achilles hasn’t hurt in ages. It stressed me out and I cried. I was freezing, the skies were gray gray gray, and Boulder sucked.
Which brings me to why I am even here. Last month, I was accepted into a graduate program in the Political Science Department at CU Boulder. They hosted a recruitment event this weekend, and here I am! I’ll be the first to admit that I arrived here with a bad attitude. Adjusting to the cold and gray was hard, as it usually is for me because snow does not mean “skiing!” to me, it means “trainer and treadmill”. Additionally, hearing about my acceptance at Columbia and Duke the morning before flying here was very distracting. I still feel incredibly confused about my graduate school process, about what will be the “right choice”, but on my way here I lapsed into Ivy League Hopefulness And Snobbery-mode and thought there was no way I would like Boulder.
Thursday afternoon marked the beginning of the recruitment events. I found the department building, met some current and prospective graduate students, met with one professor and worried she thought I was so stupid (she didn’t), and then headed to a welcome dinner with all the prospective and current students, no faculty. Dinner was at The Bombay Bistro, it was delicious. I started to have a lot of fun meeting everyone, some of my potential classmates have very interesting backgrounds, for example Stephen who wrote his 75-page undergraduate English Literature thesis on the presence of romantic aesthetic in modern music (he chose several underground bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor, and his thesis had a soundtrack which his panel had to listen to, and to this day three years later he still can’t listen to those bands!). Also they laughed at my jokes and stories and appeared interested in my non-scholarly life story.
Friday was a day full of interviews and being articulate and smart. I did start the day off with some mind-numbing activity in the form of another master’s swim workout. This one was ugly, even worse than the previous day’s “run”. I just could not breathe and had exactly 1 speed, “fairly slow”, as opposed to my usual three speeds of slow, moderately not-slow, and not-too-embarrassing-actually. Plus everyone in my lane seemed to want to go last, oh the politeness! “Go ahead!” “No you go, go ahead!” and so I’d go ahead and have someone hitting my feet as I just about died for the whole entire set. No really, you go ahead. I rationalized my early exit by saying my time would be much better spent showering and straightening my hair for the day’s interview sessions (Ben and Rory say I look less like a lesbian with straightened hair, so occasionally I’ll put out the effort).
Then, the day at campus. It was awesome. I did start out thinking “please no one talk to me” and sat way off in the corner for the morning information session, but soon I squeezed my chair in to be right across from the faculty members. I loved the program and was fully visualizing myself in school here for a full 5+ years. (I was accepted as an MA candidate, but after two days of hearing about nothing but PhD students and candidates, I asked the director of graduate studies what was up, she said I was the only MA candidate here this weekend but they thought “maybe she’ll want to stay for the PhD!” I’ll admit, it’s very actually appealing.) I met with some very interesting and motivated professors: Krister Anderssen, Steve Vanderheiden, and Sam Fitch. I think I talked a lot. After all the interviews and information, we had a reception (snacks! finally!) and did a lot more talking.
Basically now I am worried that I went about grad school all wrong. I applied only to master’s programs because I thought I didn’t have the academic nor work credentials for a PhD track. Also, I wasn’t sure about being in academia – I am doing this because I want my life to have some meaning, my work to make a difference and save the world. But now I’m not sure I took the right approach, maybe I am qualified for a PhD and probably I would excel in that kind of focused track, and being in academia is definitely a way to make a difference. Not to mention, you generally have to pay for a master’s and you get funded for a PhD. Doh. Dough. Lack thereof.
So that’s about it. I’m really REALLY glad I came here to visit, and I have a lot to figure out in these next months… I am of course still waiting to hear from 4 other schools, and I have to wait on financial aid info, and I have to come up with a life plan (teach? office? 80 hours a week in a giant city? where do i go? what do i do? how would i pay off a NINETY THOUSAND DOLLAR Columbia education? why didn’t i delve into this more in the fall? why didn’t i at least APPLY to Stanford or some other PhD programs that I was scared of?).
But yes, so glad I came here! Next up is a weekend of outside activities, I am borrowing Mojdeh’s bike for an attempted ride, where the high is 46 degrees today, I AM WEARING ALL MY CLOTHES. And I’ll attempt a run, and tomorrow I will bring a video camera for skiing, Nordic style 
!
