Myspace Re-Post #15: Getting Caught Up, Part 2

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on July 30th, 2007.

Ok, I wasn't so happy with the strictly chronological approach I took in my last post - it was tedious to create, and I don't think it reads very well. So I'll pick up where I left off last time, but I'll use a more standard narrative stream...

Pesach was a major milestone, because it coincided very closely with the completion of my thesis and the emergence of a greater level of freedom in my life. However, there were still a fair number of things in the air when I got back to Cambridge after the first nights (at aproximately 3 AM, incidentally). To begin with, the thesis process wasn't technically finished. A mandatory poster session worth 20% of my grade was scheduled for later in the month. I also had to get back to class work that I had been neglecting for about a month - since the appendicitis, likely. In fact, I had a paper due almost immediately, although in the end it turned out that my TA was more than willing to give me an open-ended extension on that. Finally, I still needed to find a job, and in fact had already scheduled a job interview.

Meanwhile, events in the real world weren't slowing down so I could catch up. My friend Avi intimated that he was very close to proposing to his girlfriend Shifra. This event, which occured shortly, was to have a far more significant impact on my life over the next few months than I ever stopped to realize.

So things unfolded like this: When I got back to school, I first had to work on writing a paper - I technically had like 3 days to do this. I also set about planning a trip to Washington, D.C.

One of my prospective employers was the NIH - well, not exactly, but they have a centralized program that allows you to apply to multiple NIH labs simultaneously. However, I had to arrange interviews with each different lab simultaneously. For the next two weeks, I was constantly juggling several different gmail "conversations" to try to work out who would meet with me and when. I decided to fly down for a Thursday and Friday, spend Shabbos with my recently-married friends Ari and Miki in Dupont Circle, and then take the train (don't ask) back to Boston on Sunday. Also, the poster session mentioned above would happen that Tuesday, meaning that most likely I would have to work on it while visiting in D.C. Sounds like a good plan, right? That is, until you stop to think about it and realize how totally stupid it is. sigh. whatever...

In the midst of all the school work and elaborate planning, Avi and Shifra announced their engagement on April 15th. He proposed to her on their plane flight back from Oklahoma (that's where her parents live). At like 7 in the morning. I guess he couldn't wait. I had the profoud honor of being the first to greet the newly engaged at the airport, whence I served as their chauffeur for a short while.

Now the announcement was sure to make a splash for the following reason: Avi was the "Campus Rabbi" of Harvard Hillel. And he had kept his relationship with Shifra a secret from almost everyone on campus. So you can imagine...one day, the Rabbi suddenly announces that he's engaged, with absolutely no prolouge! He also announced, in the same message (or one sent shortly thereafter? I don't recall), that he would step down at the end of the school year. hilarity ensues.

The engagement party was on a Sunday night. The next day, I took an Acela express to the heartland of New Jersey, to interview for a position with Daniel Kahneman at Princeton. Instead of putting me up in a hotel, the people at the lab offered to have me stay with Carey. Carey was my contact at Princeton - he'd receive his PhD from Harvard the previous year, and had once TA'd a course that I was in. This ended up being a really cool experience - we went out for drinks with his girlfriend (or maybe they weren't dating yet? hard for me to remember...) and later we watched the Daily Show. Had to turn in - interviews were bright and early the next day!

Those interviews went well enough, and I got a tour of Princeton. It's amazing how similar and yet how different two places can be! Princeton is very Ivy League, in many of the ways that Harvard is. And yet, there's all this, like, space, and, like, fresh air. Who knew? on the down side, there's also very little to do...

After my interview and tour, I packed up and took an Acela back to Boston. The next day, I flew out to D.C.

The D.C. experience was pretty cool. It'd been years since I was last there - briefly in senior year of high school for the bit Israel rally, and only once for a real tourist extravaganza, with my class in eighth grade. It was fun to stay with Ari and Miki...I'd get up in the morning and spend all day wandering around the NIH (enormous campus), interviewing and meeting people and all that, and then I would go back to their place and relax. Shabbos was nice but relatively uneventful. We went out for both meals, and ran into a couple of Harvard people, almost at random. I even got some work done on my poster, though as it turned out, not quite enough...

On the train back to Boston, I really felt the effects of not owning a laptop (I still use a desktop, and trust me, there are many advantages), as I could have been working on my poster, but instead I mostly just wasted time. The session was on Tuesday, and after calling around, I determined that I really needed to get the poster in to Kinko's 48 hours before I wanted the poster. After getting back to my room, I worked on the stupid thing for something like five hours, and then took it down to Kinko's. See, in Cambridge (are you listening, Princeton Township?), Kinko's is actually open all night! And the guy working there was really cool, and set it up so that I would be able to pick up my poster as early as two hours before I needed to present.

Nerve-racking though it was, the whole poster production thing ended up working out quite well (once again, I get by on the skin of my teeth...). My poster was well received, and I got fairly tipsy at the post-poster thesis party, the highlight of which was the opportunity to go out on the balcony of the fifteenth floor of William James Hall.

Actually, I delivered my actual defense the next day, at 10:00 A.M., but that went fine as well, and I was given my grade - magna - on the spot. And what did I do after my defense? Why, of course I hit up the first day of a three-day sale of all of the Psych library's books. Then I had class, and then a meeting with my advisor, Wendy.

Thursday, I had a meeting with another prospective employer, but she no-showed. She forgot the date of our meeting - whoops! I then went back to the book sale, and hung out with Austin - the rest of the day was a relaxing bit of nothingness.

Friday, April 27th, I spoke with Talya, one of my prospective employers at Princeton. She had some last minute questions, and apparently I gave the right answers, because later that day she offered me the job, and I almost immediately accepted.

That's pretty much it for April - every bit as eventful a month as March. May, I can't really remember much of what happened...I did have finals at the end of the month, and the random senior events started happening. I played some Hillel softball...I do know that by this point Avi had pretty much dropped off the face of the earth. Of course, I hadn't noticed at first, because of how busy I was, but in May, I had lots of free time...and the conspicuous absence of one of my best friends in the Boston area was, well, conspicuous. Fancy that.

There were still a few things for me to worry about: I needed to find a place to live in Princeton, and I needed to start a-packin. As it turned out, I did a pretty poor job on both points. But hey, life is for learning! Isn't it?

And so instead of getting into the saga that is June, I think I'll hold things here for the time being. Oh, and FYI, I assure you I'll return to more random and interesting posts, with less blah-blah autobiographical details, after my next post or two. Once you're all caught up, you know...that is, if you're still reading this. Soldier on!

SSB