Roads Not Taken

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I was already a modestly experienced traveller when I arrived in Seattle for the first time for my graduate school recruitment visit. I had previously visited half a dozen cities on the Atlantic side of the United States. But never had I seen an urban airport surrounded by so many trees. Seattle looked like a veritable mountain forest. I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest before my plane even touched the ground. There is a reason Seattle is known as the Emerald City. Everything was green. The sun was bright above Mt Rainier, an iconic view from Maldweaver Fountain in front of the university's old chemistry building. Kenny, one of the chemistry grad students, had volunteered to take me on a tour of campus. I had already been accepted to a stipended PhD program and this was the recruitment tour. The students and faculty of my future department showed me great hospitality, but it was the sun and the <<linkappend "green">><<script>>document.body.style.setProperty('--seattleColor','palegreen');<</script>><<replace #output>>Kenny provided my itenerary. <<include "itenerary">><</replace>><</linkappend>> that sealed the deal.

Several options were available to me: <<if not hasVisited("McClure's office")>>[[Visit Dr. McClure|McClure's office]], his students investigate protein structure.<<else>>==Visit Dr. McClure==<</if>> <<if not hasVisited("Browery's office")>>[[Visit Dr. Browery|Browery's office]], her lab studies interactions between surface membrane proteins.<<else>>==Visit Dr. Browery==<</if>> <<if not hasVisited("Mohamed's office")>>[[Visit Dr. Mohamed|Mohamed's office]], his group uses transgenic animals to model human diseases.<<else>>==Visit Dr. Mohamed==<</if>> <<if not hasVisited("Chan's office")>>[[Visit Dr. Chan|Chan's office]], his lab dabbles in a little bit of everything.<<else>>==Visit Dr. Chan==<</if>> <<if not hasVisited("Yusef's office")>>[[Visit Dr. Yusef|Yusef's office]], he's a well established geneticist.<<else>>==Visit Dr. Yusef==<</if>> <<if hasVisited("Browery's office")>>\ <<if not hasVisited("Vegetarian restaurant")>>[[Have lunch with Kenny|Vegetarian restaurant]]<<else>>==Have lunch with Kenny==<</if>> <<if not hasVisited("downtown")>>[[I could leave campus altogether and catch a bus downtown|downtown]]<<else>>==Go Downtown==<</if>>\ <</if>> <<if hasVisited("Vegetarian restaurant") and not hasVisited("Campus theatre") and hasVisited("long time")>>[[Although not on my official itenerary, I noticed a poster advertising an interesting play being shown up campus.|Campus theatre]]<</if>> <<if hasVisited("Campus theatre")>>[[Fly home|fly home]]<</if>>\ <<if hasVisited("normal again") and not hasVisited("long time")>>[[Remember being stuck in a body cast|long time]]<</if>>\

Professor McClure sat across from me, a massive steel desk between us. Asbestos-wrapped steam pipes criss-crossed the ceiling above us. I was sweating in the over-heated basement office, but McClure seemed unaffected, dressed in an academic’s tweed jacket and patches which he wore like it was an extension of his own skin. McClure looked over my resume which had been distributed to him from the department secretary a week earlier. It was evident he hadn’t opened it prior to my arrival in his office just a moment before. I had already been offered a stipended position as a biochemistry graduate student. This was my recruitment visit, not a job interview. I opened the conversation "This is a beautiful campus." McClure blew his nose into a white cotton hankie. "Tell me why you're here." "You can see in my cover letter, I’m interested in protein structure. I read the paper that your lab published last month. I want to be a coauthor on your next paper." McClure asked "Do you know anything about proteins?" <<linkappend "<q>My undergraduate degree is biochemistry. My Senior work was on a novel protein kinase inhibitor.</q>">> Do you know anything about nuclear magnetic resonance? <<linkappend "I described my experience with that physical technique.">> Do you know anything about computer modeling? <<linkappend "I described my experience with the current software.">> "Do you know anything about peroxidases?" Knowing this was McClure’s field, I had read extensively prior to my visit. "Do you know anything about Yeast peroxidase C?" I expounded upon the topic. "Have you ever done a high resolution structural analysis of the beta subunit of yeast peroxidase C, with and without a bound substrate?" "But sir, you’re the only person in the entire world whose lab has done that. That’s why I am interested in talking to you." "McClure sniffed, "I hope I haven't wasted your time. I really need a graduate student who has already done high resolution structural analysis of yeast peroxidase C."<<replace #output>>As I turned around, McClure called after me, "Come back to see me in the fall. I may have a place for you anyway, but you'll need to write your own grant."<<set $mcclure.admit=1>><</replace>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>> [[Run away.|itenerary]]

Dr. Browery was an ambitious young assistant professor, a recent graduate of Stanford. She had looked over my resume prior to my visit and seemed genuinely excited to speak with me. We spent at least twenty minutes discussing Dr. Browery's <<linkappend "research.">> She studied the interactions between surface membrane proteins. It wasn't exactly what I was interested in, but perhaps close enough.<</linkappend>> Then we spent another twenty talking about my <<linkappend "interests and experience.">> My undergraduate research had been more industrial than academic, interning with a pharmaceutical company.<</linkappend>> I hoped that Dr. Browery could find a place for me in her lab. Dr. Browery was duly impressed with my past accomplishments. "I would certainly welcome you in my lab and I could afford to support you through graduate school. Talk to me when you return in the fall." She scanned my resume one more time and chuckled softly when she reached a mention, near the bottom, that I'd been an <<linkreplace "Eagle Scout">><<replace #output>> (In that moment, I sort of bashfully agreed with her. Scouts had just been a pastime, a thing I'd done as a kid. What did it matter to my future success?) I should have actually paid more attention to her comment. It was a bad omen. [[Memory|kid]]<</replace>>Eagle Scout<</linkreplace>> . "That experience won't be much use to you in graduate school."

Following a pattern which might foretell my failure in graduate school if I allowed it to continue, I slipped away from the cold confines of the medical complex and went up campus to enjoy the humanities. That evening I attended a college [[theatre production|theatre]] at a small playhouse on campus. It was about American pioneer families building a nineteenth century [[intentional community|cubscouts]] on the frontier. The dialogue and themes reflected a free-thinking West coast liberalism I'd rarely seen in my conservative Midwestern upbringing. More "Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman" than "John Wayne." During the show, I felt a blossoming sense that I had found my people. <<if hasVisited("cubscouts")>>I may have fallen asleep during the show. The auditorium was already empty when I was [[nudged awake]] by a man whose face was painted in beige theatrical make-up.<</if>>

Kenny was the grad student who had volunteered to escort me around campus during my visit. For lunch he took me to a vegetarian restaurant off campus. He asked, "Do you mind vegetarian or would you rather eat somewhere else?" <<link "I love vegetarian food. I can't stand the thought of killing animals">> <<replace #output>>"I love vegetarian food. I can't stand the thought of killing animals" Kenny grinned "In that case you'd better be careful which research lab you join. Some of the research is on animals. But you could always work in cell culture. For me, I just became a vegetarian because I can't afford to eat meat while I'm in graduate school." <<include "lunch conversation">><</replace>><</link>> <<link "I love vegetarian food. I think it's better for my health.">> <<replace #output>>"I love vegetarian food. I think it's better for my health." Kenny affirmed "It probably is better for your health. I just became vegetarian because I can't afford to buy meat while I'm in graduate school." <<include "lunch conversation">><</replace>><</link>> <<link "I'm sorry, I'm on the Atkins diet. I have to eat flesh.">><<replace #output>>"I'm sorry, I'm on the Atkins diet. I have to eat flesh." Kenny laughed "Well, I'll take you somewhere else then. I wasn't always a vegetarian. I became vegetarian to save money while I'm in graduate school. But this meal is paid for by the department, so I guess I can splurge." <<include "lunch conversation">><</replace>><</link>>

All my life I’ve cherished the outdoors. One recurring theme of my life has been the transformative power of camping. But this story begins with an affliction that kept me indoors. !Affliction The <<linkappend "affliction">><<replace #output2>> A dull pain radiating from the hip which increased in intensity at night.<</replace>><</linkappend>> began when I was in fourth grade. Since the cause could not be determined, early treatment was aimed at pain management. My pediatrician, Dr. Groland, recommended <<linkappend "a cold compress">> When that treatment failed he changed his recommendation to a hot compress. When neither worked, he referred me to an orthopedic specialist several suburbs closer to Chicago. But the pain just grew worse. "Give the joint a rest," said the orthopedic specialist, who gave me a waiver out of gym class. The waiver didn’t help the leg though it did isolate me from my classmates, which was a different kind of pain. When resting the joint didn't help, the orthopedist referred me to a physical therapist who taught me some special exercises that were supposed to alleviate the pain. But the pain just grew worse.<</linkappend>>. My father, a clinical psychologist, had recently attended a seminar on hypnosis. He believed that technique might be useful. He sat at my bedside during an episode of increasing pain and taught me self-hypnotic exercises for pain management. They didn’t help, but I appreciated my father’s caring effort. <<linkappend "Aspirin">><<replace #output3>>That was in the days before pediatricians recommended against aspirin use by children. Neither aspirin nor Tylenol, nor heat pads, nor exercise could lessen the feeling something was wrong with me.<</replace>><</linkappend>> helped, but only for a brief while. [[Next memory|while]]

My Mom was afraid to drive in downtown Chicago so the first time we visited Children’s Memorial Hospital she had the idea that we should take public transportation. This involved a series of train and bus transfers through urban neighborhoods all completely foreign to my experience as a middle class suburban kid. We transferred to the wrong bus, possibly more than once, resulting in a trip that took five hours to go forty miles. We could have gotten there faster on horseback and wouldn’t have looked any less out of place galloping past the West Side Jheri Curls Salon or Pierogi Heaven Diner. [[return|normal again]]

The operation was scheduled at [[Children’s Memorial Hospital]] in Chicago. My Mom was afraid to drive in downtown Chicago. So the first time we travelled there together, it was by [[public bus|a8]]. I was put through the [[cat scan|a9]] again to see if the growth had changed. When I arrived for my first inpatient admission, a day before the scheduled operation, my parents were kind enough to drive me. Even at that age, I was already one of the older patients in the orthopedic unit. Many of the children housed there were still in preschool. Some of them would never learn to walk. I was assigned to a corner room with the other “[[older boys|a10]]” of the unit. The nurses were a surly crew. I can’t say if they disliked us because we were older, because we misbehaved, or whether they just hated all children. I specifically remember one nurse threatening the boy across the room from me, “If you don’t shape up, I’ll tie you to your bed so you can’t move.” I went into surgery early the next day. They gave me an injection of muscle relaxant, which made me groggy. Then they rolled me into the operating room. Someone put a bag of anesthetic over my face and told me to count backwards from ten. I didn’t get below five. The next thing I knew, I was back in a standard hospital bed, unable to move. The nurse’s words came back to me: “If you don’t shape up, I’ll tie you down.” <<linkreplace"cry">>"Please untie me." Somebody nearby said "He's waking up." "Untie me." I whimpered. "Shhh..." the nurse quieted me. "Where are my parents?" I asked, the fog of anesthetic just beginning to lift. "You're in the recovery room. You're just waking up." "I can't move." "You're in a body cast. You won't be able to move for a long time." [[Previous memory|while]] [[Return to present|itenerary]] <</linkreplace>>

They set up a bed for me in the basement where I could watch TV. However, not having a TV remote in those days, I was stuck on one channel. Dad built a special desk that would sit over me so when I was propped up on pillows I could read or write. Mom sewed a collection of crotch bibs from delightfully patterned fabrics to cover my privates. [[return|long time]]

The hospital seemed ancient to me, perhaps medieval: a place of bloodletting and demonic exorcisms. If I were going to do a horror movie set in a Children’s Hospital, I would find one that looked like Children’s Memorial. Some of the elevators were so old that they still required a human operator to protect passenger’s fingers from being crushed by the accordion style steel door and to land the travelling compartment on the correct level. There is still a children’s hospital near that location in downtown Chicago but the one I knew was demolished in 2016, after a hundred and thirty years in use. [[return|normal again]]

I lay on the cold metal plank in the Victorian era clinic while an X-ray tomography camera mounted on a robot arm swung wildly above me. The contrast of these features might be described in modern terms as “steam punk.” [[return|normal again]]

In that room, I was the youngest, easily shocked by their rough language and baudy stories they told after lights out. There were five beds in the room. One of them rotated frequently but the other three patients had been there for weeks. Some of my roommates had more serious medical problems than mine. At least one of them would never walk again. [[return|normal again]]

The [[plaster cast|a11]] encased me from the top of my chest to the bottom of my left foot. My parents had to borrow a neighbor’s station wagon in order to drive me home. I couldn’t fit in the regular seat of the family’s Dodge Dart. I can’t imagine what they would do for me now that station wagons with wide back areas are no longer manufactured. Rent a box truck, perhaps. Or secure me to the roof rack, like Mitt Romney’s dog. Back home my parents had made a bed for me in the windowless basement. I would remain confined there for the <<linkappend "next month.">> I could watch TV from my bed. However, not having a TV remote in those days, I was stuck on one channel. Dad built a special desk that would sit over me so when I was propped up on pillows I could read or write. Mom sewed a collection of crotch bibs from delightfully patterned fabrics to cover my privates.<</linkappend>> Also, a [[teacher|a13]] from the school would visit me several times a week so I could keep up with my studies. Neighbors volunteered to sit with me on Sundays so my family could get out and attend church. Classmates would send cards or visit after school...but with progressively less frequency over time. Three neighbor girls collected extra candy for me when I missed Halloween, so I actually ended up with a larger stash of treats than anyone in the neighborhood. The body cast was on for a month, then a year later for another month after a follow up operation. I missed a birthday, a Thanksgiving, and two Halloweens. But the worst was yet to come. [[Next memory|rehab memory]]

I could just wiggle my toes. On the right side the cast extended down to my knee. I could bend my knee and later with practice I learned to roll over from back to front. I never learned to roll in the other direction. My skin always itched beneath the plaster, but I was told not to reach into the cast to scratch it. There was a hole cut in my crotch area which allowed me to use the urinal or a bedpan. I needed help even to do that. [[return|long time]]

Thank God they didn’t think this would be an ideal time to try the bus system again. I can just imagine the trouble they would have had maneuvering me through coin operated turnstiles. It was trouble enough just getting me up the stairs, three adults hauling me out to the car like so much plaster luggage. [[return|rehab memory]]

My at home tutor (Mrs. O'Brien) remains in my memory as one of my greatest teachers. I had her again for English class in seventh and eighth grade. She also planned and chaperoned most of our middle school dances. More than anyone else at that school, she really cared about her students. While I was bedridden and during my subsequent recovery I read and studied with great enthusiasm. I also watched an awful lot of TV. There were no computers nor videogames in our house. Not even a VCR. I watched the Iran Hostage crisis from my bed, a lot of 50s and 60s reruns, the infamous Star Wars holiday special, and many un-colorized classic movies. It didn’t matter that they were in black and white. So was our television. [[return|long time]]

<<set $chan.admit=1>> Dr Chan was surely the most famous scientist on campus. His earlier research had eradicated nine forms of cancer and now he no longer needed to go to the pharmaceutical industry for grant money--they came to him. Chan's current research interests, according to the department catalogue, included changing the course of future evolution and disrupting the fabric of space time. Chan's lab was not a mere cluster of graduate student desks, but a sprawling sub-terranean complex located through a secret entrance beneath Maldweaver fountain. It took me a while of wandering through a labyrinth of electrophoresis gels, a menagerie of caged research animals, a fully operational particle accelerator and a protype time-travel machine, before I could find anyone who would speak with me. The post-doc addressed me warily "Are you lost?" <<linkappend "I want to work for Dr. Chan.">> "I'm sorry, he's not here right now. He's currently in residence on board the Mir space station, scheduled to come back in five years." <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "Are you happy working here?">> The post-doc's expression was emotionless, neither love nor hate. "That's a funny question. Not a scientific question, though. I guess if you pressed me, I'd have to say I've never really given it any thought." <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "Yes, I am totally lost. Please help me find my way out.">> The post-doc nodded sympathetically, "Let me try this." He attached together two wires on some kind of magic paddle he had been engineering at his lab bench. "I don't know if this will actually work. I've never tried it before." He aimed the [[paddle|itenerary]] at my face. <</linkappend>> <<linkreplace "(Try to find my own way back to the surface without any help)">>After wandering around Chan's research complex lost and ignored for a few hours, I ended up back talking to the same post-doc.<</linkreplace>>

Dr. Yusef was a well established professor who reportedly had grant money still coming in. His primary research interest was genetics. Dr. Yusef was out of his office the day I visited campus, but one of his graduate students agreed to meet with me. <<linkappend "<q>Are you happy working here?</q>">> "Genetics is the best job in the world." He answered in robotic monotone. <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>What do you do exactly?</q>">> "I study genetics. I'm sorry. English isn't my first language. I'd have trouble explaining it." <</linkappend>> [[Run Away|itenerary]]

All my life I’ve cherished the outdoors. My earliest memories of camping were with my family. !Family Camping Many of our early family vacations were <<linkappend "car camping">><<replace #campoutput>>My parents style of car camping provided us with a cheap form of travel in the 1970s. Back then you could pull up in almost any small town and get a campsite for a few bucks. It wasn’t wilderness camping by any means. Often the next campsite was eight meters away and some of the places I remember parking didn’t even have trees. My sister remembers camping outside the Illinois State Fair grounds right adjacent to the campsite of a cotton candy vendor. There wasn’t much that set our family apart from the carnies.<</replace>><</linkappend>> adventures, packing our food from home in the same odiferous [[Coleman cooler|b2]] every trip. We moved to Illinois in 1976 and took our first prolonged family vacation in 1977, car camping our way from [[Chicago to Montreal|b3]] by way of Southern Ontario. Mom was in charge of buying groceries and supervising individual packing. The first time she trusted me to pack independently in 3rd grade or so, I forgot to bring any underwear. I wasn’t allowed to pack my own stuff again until late middle school. Dad packed the car. The <<linkappend "tent">><<replace #tentoutput>>Years later, long after my parents discovered the luxury and convenience of the roadside motel, Dad hauled our tent out of the garage and discovered it had lost considerable weight. The old thing had been eaten by mice.<</replace>><</linkappend>> alone took up half the trunk even with Dad arranging the rest of the gear for maximum density. When the trunk was full he’d start shoving stuff in the car top carrier, a wind catching container that bolted to the roof rack and reduced fuel efficiency by a hundred and ninety percent. We carried duffels and sleeping bags and suitcases, coolers and campstoves and lanterns, toiletries, games and every item of kitchen gear we might need to recreate our comfortable suburban life in the outdoors. I used to make fun of people in the RVs who kept their portable TVs burning all night. But the truth is we were scarcely roughing it ourselves. [[Return to present|b7]]

[["How did you get chosen to take me out to lunch?"|why lunch]] <<linkappend "<q>Are you happy working here?</q>">> "Where, at the university? Grad school is just like any other job. You come in, work nine or ten hours a day, then go home and do the stuff you really enjoy." "But you get paid to go to school." I said. "The pay isn't that much and graduate school is much more like working at a job than it is like being in college. Then after six or eight years, maybe you get a PhD. Then you lose your funding and have to go find another job. But aside from the job, I really enjoy living in the Pacific Northwest. Do you enjoy <<linkappend "outdoor sports?\"">> "mountain biking, [[camping|family camping]], backpacking, hiking or skiing?"\ <</linkappend>>\ <</linkappend>>\ <<linkappend "<q>What's your research project?</q>">> "I work in Dr. McClure's lab. He's kind of jerk. But on the upside, he almost never comes out of his office. Are you interested in <<linkappend "protein structure?\"">> "That's what I've come here to study." I said. "That's what we do in Dr. McClure's lab. But if you're interested in protein science, you're probably better off working for Dr. Browery. I wish I had chosen her lab." <</linkappend>> <</linkappend>>

Grad school is just like any other job. You come in, work nine or ten hours a day, then go home and do the stuff you really enjoy." "But you get paid to go to school." I said. "The pay isn't that much and graduate school is much more like working at a job than it is like being in college. Then after six or eight years, maybe you get a PhD. Then you lose your funding and have to go find another job.

Kenny shrugged and answered in between bites of falafel, “I volunteered to take you around campus. Why not? It’s a free meal for me. And I like meeting new people. Do you like meeting people?” <<link "Yes">> <<replace #output>> Kenny finished his bite “If you’re a people person, you probably won’t enjoy lab work very much.” [[return|lunch conversation]]<</replace>> <</link>> <<link "No">> <<replace #output>>“In that case, you’ll probably enjoy graduate research.” [[return|lunch conversation]]<</replace>> <</link>> [[Ignore Kenny's question|lunch conversation]]

My parents style of car camping provided us with a cheap form of travel in the 1970s. Back then you could pull up in almost any small town and get a campsite for a few bucks. It wasn’t wilderness camping by any means. Often the next campsite was eight meters away and some of the places I remember parking didn’t even have trees. My sister remembers camping outside the Illinois State Fair grounds right adjacent to the campsite of a cotton candy vendor. There wasn’t much that set our family apart from the carnies. [[return|family camping]]

To this day I dislike dry cured meats, cold cereal and breakfast bars. But I do still love the outdoors. When I think about the jobs I’ve most enjoyed contrasted to the ones where I failed, the difference had less to do with the specific tasks and more to do with access to a large bay window, sunlight and fresh air. Camping has transformed my life more than once. But my style of camping has also changed over the decades. [[return|family camping]]

Along the trail to Montreal we stopped and camped in many places. The family tent was a chore to erect and dismantle, especially as we were often setting it up in the rain and after dark. The tent was nothing like my contemporary 21st century model. My current family tent is designed like a spring action umbrella. I flip a switch and the lightweight nylon shelter practically erects itself. The big canvas tents of the sixties and seventies weighed as much as a grown man and were engineered for permanency more than mobility. It took two of us on each side to raise the main poles. Mom would time us on her wrist watch to report if we were making any gains on speed since the previous campsite. When we were camped in a suspected high crime area (like the Illinois state fairgrounds) we’d pack up all the rest of gear and lock it in the trunk during the day. But that tent we’d always leave standing. Nobody in the world would trouble themselves to steal that unholy beast. Driving across the north coast of Lake Erie then along the St Laurence Seaway we stopped to see Laura Secord Homestead (Secord was the Canadian Paul Revere), Black Creek Village (the Canadian Colonial Williamsburg) and Niagra Falls (which has no US equivalent. The view from Buffalo is depressing). “Ontario Place” was an entertainment complex with theatres and water parks and the most amazing playground I’ve ever experienced, full of climbing nets and play towers and labyrinths. [[return|family camping]]

"I mean, you can do some real honest back-country survivalist camping out on the Olympic Penninsula." Kenny interupted my reverie by talking through his food. "You seem a little distracted. Maybe it's time to take you back to campus." [[Previous memory|family camping]] [[Return to itenerary|itenerary]]

I had been an active member of my highschool drama club for four years, performing such memorable roles as the donkey in “Bremen Town Musicians” and “Superman” in a comic take on the character which represented him as a helpless neurotic. [[return|Campus theatre]]

Kenny (the grad student assigned to handle me during my recruitment visit) stopped briefly for a latte at one of the eighty-seven espresso carts located on campus. While his back was turned, I jumped on a city bus to [[Pioneer Square]]. This sort of escapist behavior might get me in trouble if it continued once I became a graduate student.

"Dude, are you OK? Theatre is closed. You'll have to [[leave now]] unless you want to [[join us]] for the after party."

As much as I liked these theatre people, it seemed like a bad idea to join a bunch of strangers at their party (and I wasn't entirely sure the invitation was sincere). I went back to my hotel room, got as much sleep as I could manage with the street noises just outside my window, then returned to my [[itenerary]] the next day.

It was kind of exciting showing up for a party where I didn’t know anyone. I wasn’t a smoker, but the air inside was so dense and stale one could get stoned just from the contact. Eventually I migrated out to the balcony, a rickety structure which jutted precipitously over interstate five. I stayed up all night with people I’d just met talking about everything from marijuana legalization to Johnny Carson’s impending retirement. I met Darcy at the party. She attended a performing arts school across town, studying technical theatre. Darcy was a driven individual, but on a much different track than my own. We hit it off right away. Darcy made me promise I'd give her a call when I came back to campus in the fall.<<set $darcymet=true>> I was so hungover the next morning I had to cancel the rest of my recruitment interviews at the university. Yet somehow, miraculously, they didn’t rescind my scholarship offer. [[return|fly home]]

The in-flight time from Seattle to Chicago can be more than four hours. During my first trip home I felt elated and exhausted. I was naively eager to spend the next four to eight years doing PhD research at the university. But was I really making my own choices, or was I letting other people influence my decisions? At age twenty-two, I'm not sure I understand the difference. Still, a four hour flight is a long time to day-dream and [[reflect|dr brinclhof]].

!Intentional Community I started Cub Scouts in second grade because that's what my friends were doing. We'd meet at the den-mother's home after school and make crafts or learn about nature. My first Scout Camp experience was a long weekend at <<linkreplace "Makajawan">>"Makajawan"<<replace #output>>Makajawan Scout Reservation was a large property in Northern Wisconsin, many hours drive from the Chicago suburbs. We were there for only two nights and surely spent as much time in the car as we spent awake in our campsite. Yet it was a memorable experience. <</replace>><</linkreplace>> with my father and other father-son pairs from our local pack and council. Still in elementary school at the time, I learned to shoot a rifle, explored the lake by canoe, ate in the dining hall, and after dark was introduced to Makajawan’s traditional campfire [[horror story]]. When I graduated from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts, I received the Arrow of Light award; the highest honor bestowed upon a Cub Scout. I was on crutches during the awards ceremony, just recovering from my first surgery. My parents have a photo of me leaning forward on my crutches while the scoutmaster pins the award to my left breast pocket. What was I thinking when that photo was taken? What did I expect from the future? I enjoyed science. I was already saying I wanted to be a scientist when I grew up. But I also had a passion for story-telling, theatre and the [[arts|Campus theatre]]. Or maybe I would always be held back by my crutches.

Pioneer Square has an interesting history. Seattle is home of the original “skid row,” an inclined track used in pioneer days to push cut timber down to the portside mill. The term is now used to mean any urban neighborhood with high vagrancy and low esteem. In Seattle, Pioneer Square was the neighborhood built on top of the old skid row but the moniker still applied. Pioneer Square was a seedy district dense with hard liquor bars, homelessness and street crime. [[return|itenerary]]

Just a year earlier I hadn't even decided yet that I wanted to go to graduate school. I had been working at the time as a chemistry intern at VanDyke Pharmaceuticals, where I had been happily employed through summers and semester breaks since my sophomore year of college. "VanDyke Pharmaceuticals: purveyor of patent medicines since 1885. Inventor of VanDyke's consumption tonic." The internship paid well and offered a promise of full-time employment once I graduated. My mentor there was Dr. Brinclhof, an esteemed scientist with a passion for organic synthesis. He must have seen some potential in me and asked often about my future plans. <<link "Answer: I'd like to keep working here at VanDyke, as a research associate.">><<replace #output>> "I'd like to keep working here at VanDyke, as a research associate." "You'd quickly get bored as a research associate. You'd be miserable. You need to go to graduate school." <<include "second refuse">> <</replace>><</link>> <<link "Answer: You've been pestering me since I started working here about going to graduate school, so I guess I'll apply for graduate school.">>"<<replace #output>> "You've been pestering me since I started working here about going to graduate school, so I guess I'll apply to graduate school." "Pestering you? Don't be disrespectful. That attitude won't get you far in any work environment." <<include "second refuse">><</replace>><</link>>

Brinclhof asked, "What do you really want to do?" <<linkappend "<q>I'd like to be a patent attorney.</q>">><<if $realpassion=="0">><<set $realpassion="att">><<append #noway>><<include "ifihaveto">><</append>><</if>> "Bah, there are too many lawyers in the world already."\ <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>There is some new technology called the World Wide Web being introduced. I think I'd like to be a developer for that.</q>">><<if $realpassion=="0">><<set $realpassion="www">><<append #noway>><<include "ifihaveto">><</append>><</if>> "World Wide Web? Ha ha. I doubt that technology will ever take off. Besides, you're completely unqualified. You'd need to have a computer science degree to do that."\ <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>There is an animation studio opening up called Pixar. I'd like to write stories and code for them.</q>">><<if $realpassion=="0">><<set $realpassion="pix">><<append #noway>><<include "ifihaveto">><</append>><</if>> "You want to be a cartoonist? Be serious."\ <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>I'd like to be a professional chef and open a restaurant.</q>">><<if $realpassion=="0">><<set $realpassion="chef">><<append #noway>><<include "ifihaveto">><</append>><</if>> "It has often been said that good chemists make good cooks. But a culinary profession? There's really no money in that."\ <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>I'd like to be an adventurer and travel the world.</q>">><<if $realpassion=="0">><<set $realpassion="adv">><<append #noway>><<include "ifihaveto">><</append>><</if>> "That's a wonderful goal. But you'll have to have money first. Earn a PhD, then the world will open up to you."\ <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>I'd like to work as a forest ranger.</q>">><<if $realpassion=="0">><<set $realpassion="ran">><<append #noway>><<include "ifihaveto">><</append>><</if>> "You might get a job at a fire watch station. But if you want to be a real forest scientist you'll need a PhD."\ <</linkappend>>

!Year <<print setup.getyear($timeserved)+1>> <<set $timeserved+=1>>\ Little did I know that the sun I had seen over Seattle during my recruitment visit had been a deception, that this great city Seattle would be cloudy through most of the year. My perfect view of Mt Rainier from campus on that first visit was as rare as a research program completed in three years. The immediate goal of a new graduate student is to choose a thesis advisor. Never had I felt so lost and unconfident of my own choices as I felt in this matter. Never had I been so fearful that the wrong choice might spoil my future. [[Call Dr. Brinclhof]] [[Call my parents]] <<link "Ask others for advice">><<replace #output_ask>><<event-check>><<set $timeserved+=1>><<include "Ask others for advice">><</replace>><</link>>\ [[Choose a thesis advisor]] [[Review my research notes|analyze my use of time]]

<<set $timedoubting+=1>>\ <<if visited("Call Dr. Brinclhof") == 1>>\ I called Dr. Brinclhof. "I'm in graduate school, but I'm feeling sort of lost." He was delighted to hear from me. "What research topic interests you?" <<linkappend "<q>I'm interested in studying protein structure.</q>">> "That's pretty specialized. You should study something broader like genetics instead." <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>I'm interested in studying protein chemistry.</q>">> "You'll be able to learn many different things while you're in graduate school, but you should specialize in genetics." <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>I'm interested in medicinal chemistry.</q>">> "Chemistry is a mature field. You should study genetics instead."<</linkappend>> <<elseif visited("Call Dr. Brinclhof") == 2>>\ Dr Brinclhof was again pleased to hear from me. "Are you studying genetics like I recommended?" <<linkappend "<q>I've already taken genetics as an undergraduate.</q>">> "As an undergraduate you may have dabbled in genetics, but you haven't really learned it yet." <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>I'm not interested in genetics.</q>">> "You're too inexperienced to know what you're interested in right now." <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>Are you kidding me? I could train a monkey to run DNA sequencing gels.</q>">> "I'm a chemist, not a geneticist. I really don't know the details of what you would be doing in a genetics lab, but I know it's a hot field right now. We hired a geneticist last month. Fresh out of graduate school. No need for a post-doc." <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>I'd really like to study protein chemistry.</q>">> "You can always study that as a post-doc. As a graduate student, you should study genetics instead." <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>I really want to come back to VanDyke as a research associate.</q>">> "You’re too talented to be stuck here as a research associate. You'd be miserable." "But I'm already miserable."<</linkappend>> <<elseif visited("Call Dr. Brinclhof") == 3>>\ Brinclhof asked "What do you really want to do?" <<linkappend "<q>I want to quit, but my father says graduate school will be good for me in the long term.</q>">> "What field does he want you to specialize in?" "He doesn't care. He has a PhD himself and just wants me to get one also. Actually, he advised me to quit my internship at VanDyke. He thought it would just slow down my applications to a PhD program." <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>I think I'd like to teach.</q>">> "You need a PhD to teach." "No you don't. I have friends teaching in highschools already." "You'll need a PhD to teach at the college level. You'll need a PhD to teach what you want to teach." "I don't want to teach genetics." <</linkappend>> <<linkappend "<q>Not everyone is meant to go to graduate school.</q>">> "You are."<</linkappend>> <<elseif visited("Call Dr. Brinclhof") == 4>>\ Dr. Brinclhof advised, "If I were in your shoes, I would study genetics. Have you met with Dr. Chan?" "He’s on sabbatical this year. You do realize he’s not a geneticist, right?" "You’re too inexperienced to understand what he studies or not. You really ought to work for him." "I’m not interested in genetics." "I don't envy you, forced to make so many critical choices at an age when you’re not yet capable of making them on your own. It's no wonder you’re such an emotional wreck." <<elseif visited("Call Dr. Brinclhof") == 5>>\ Desperate to steel myself against my own anxiety, I called Dr B. for encouragement. “I’m worried about my employability. Some of my peers are already talking about dropping out.” "You're not thinking about dropping out, are you?" Dr. B asked, a cold fear in his voice. "If you do, mark my words, you'll regret it for the rest of your life." "I'm not thinking of dropping out yet." “Are you still interested in the protein thing? You’ll have a lot of trouble getting a job doing that. You //should// be worried about employability if you insist on studying something so specialized. Isn’t anyone in your department doing genetics?” “Everybody does genetics, including the protein groups. Pure genetics is not my field of interest.” “I can't tell you what to do. Just study genetics with Dr. Chan and don't drop out.” <<else>>\ Dr. B was out of the office when I called. <<link "I left a desperate voicemail instead.">><<replace #output>>"Please call me back. I'm so miserable here in graduate school." I cried piteously into the vacant phone receiver. A few weeks later I received a message on my own answering machine in Dr. B's distinctive Eastern European accent, "Hang in there, boy. Just whatever you do, don't quit."<</replace>><</link>> <<link "I left an angry message.">><<replace #output>>"I'm sick of letting you tell me what to do. You've been a jerk every time I've called." I said into the vacant phone then hung up. Later I felt embarassed about it and wished I hadn't. My choices were my choices to make. Blaming someone else for my negative feelings gave them too much power.<</replace>><</link>> <<link "I hung up without leaving a voicemail.">><<replace #output>>I quietly placed the phone back on its cradle.<</replace>><</link>> <</if>>\ [[Hang up.|grad school simulator]]

<<set $timedoubting+=1>>\ I called my parents to tell them how unhappy I was in graduate school. <<switch visited()>>\ <<case 1>>My father advised that nobody really enjoys graduate school, but we do it to improve our future job security. <<case 2>>My father advised me to wait until after I finished graduate school to look for work I enjoyed. <<case 3>>My father advised me that sometimes the best choice is to just keep pushing forward. <<case 4>>My father recounted stories about his own struggles in graduate school. <<case 5>>My father told another story about his own graduate school experience. When I explained that his story had no relevance to my situation, he clammed up. <<case 6>>My father asked if I had considered speaking to a professional counselor about my growing sense of despair. <<default>>They both listened politely without saying much. <</switch>> [[return to main menu|grad school simulator]]

Dr. Chan was a legend on campus, a scientist with expertise in every branch and tributary of human knowledge. I had never met him personally. Few people ever had. There was a note in the department newsletter inviting recent Nobel Prize winners to apply for a dishwashing fellowship in the Chan research center. Chan himself lived onboard the Mir space station, leaving no way for me to contact him to ask if he wanted to be my graduate advisor. [[Choose a different thesis advisor|Choose a thesis advisor]]

<<set $timeresearching+=1>>\ <<set $piname=$browery>>\ Dr. Browery remembered me from our interview several months earlier and was enthusiastic when I asked to join her lab. Right away she put me on a project with one of the post-docs, investigating interactions between surface membrane proteins. And yet the work was not as I had expected it. The goals of academic research were less well defined than they had been in the commercial research environment. The research questions lacked the pragmatic urgency I had felt when researching pharmaceuticals. I toiled each day for hours in a windowless lab growing cells, running protein gels and recording the results of rote assays. [[return to main menu|grad school simulator]]

<<if hasVisited("join us")>>\ Professor Mohamed spoke in a rapid cadence, his buggy eyes darting back and forth, never fixing on anything concrete. "I heard that you were too hungover to show up for the second day of your recruitment visit. Do you think that was a good choice? I haven't the patience to mentor a student like you." <<elseif not hasVisited("Mohamed's office")>>\ Professor Mohamed said, "I don't remember meeting you during the recruitment visit. If you were genuinely interested in working in my lab, I think you would have arranged to meet me then. I'm sure you can find another lab that would be a better fit for you." <<elseif $mohamed.accept==0>>\ Professor Mohamed said, "I remember we spoke during your recruitment visit. I don't think you belong in graduate school. I know you wouldn't be a good fit for my lab." <<else>>\ Professor Mohamed greeted me enthusiastically. "I //do// remember you from the recruitment visit. Rarely have a met a visiting graduate student who understands at the outset what a huge time commitment it takes to become a PhD. I would gladly bring you into my lab, as long as you never waiver from that commitment."<<set $mohamed.accept=1>> <</if>>\ <<if $mohamed.accept==1>>\ Five minutes later I was assigned a desk, and given some assays to complete by the end of the day. Initially, it seemed like an exciting area to work. Dr. Mohamed and his students were so energetic and brimming with ideas. Over time, though, that work environment became overwhelming. Dr. Mohamed's earlier estimate that a graduate student should spend seventy to ninety hours in the lab fell short of his true expectations. My lab-mates, graduate students and post-docs both, typically spent more than a hundred hours a week in the lab. Several of them didn’t even own apartments. They kept a bedroll behind their desk and ate meals out of the microwave. One of the post-docs developed a vitamin D deficiency, due to his lack of sun exposure and was summarily dismissed from the lab. We never heard from him again. Lab members whispered stories of past grad students and post-docs who were dismissed with similar ignominy. I was beginning to regret my choice. <<set $timeresearching+=1>>\ <<set $piname=$mohamed>>\ [[return to main menu|grad school simulator]] <<else>>\ [[Choose a different thesis advisor|Choose a thesis advisor]] <</if>>

<<set $timeresearching+=1>>\ <<set $piname=$yusef>>\ Dr. Yusef greeted me with a wide smile. "I was out with my daughter on the day of your recruitment visit and missed seeing you<<if hasVisited("Yusef's office")>> but I gather you met some of the other people in my lab<</if>>. So you are interested in my research?" I couldn't bring myself to tell him that I wasn't interested in his research, but I did admit that I was struggling to make a choice. He appeared sympathetic. "Choosing a thesis advisor is one of the most stressful choices you'll ever be asked to make. So much of your future career will depend on what you decide now." "Well a person can always change their career later, right?" "Of course you can. Many people do. But if you make a change at mid-life, it often comes with a pay cut. I have space available in my lab, if you want to join us." I joined Dr. Yusef's lab. I wasn't at all interested in genetics, but Dr. Brinclhof had advised me that genetics was a secure choice and my father had advised me that security is the only thing that matters. Almost immediately I regretted my decission. [[return to main menu|grad school simulator]]

<<if not hasVisited("McClure's office")>> Professor McClure sat across from me, a massive steel desk between us. Asbestos-wrapped steam pipes criss-crossed the ceiling above us. I was sweating in the over-heated basement office, but McClure seemed unaffected, dressed in an academic’s tweed jacket and patches which he wore like it was an extension of his own skin. Dr. McClure looked at me and sniffled, "I don't have room for new graduate students. Besides, if you had any real interest in working with me, you would have made some time to see me during your recruitment visit." [[Choose a different thesis advisor|Choose a thesis advisor]] <<elseif $mcclure.admit==0>> Dr. McClure looked at me and sniffled, "Didn't you come in here once before already? I don't want you as a PhD student." [[Choose a different thesis advisor|Choose a thesis advisor]] <<else>> Dr. McClure sniffled, "I have grave doubts that you are qualified to work in my lab. But since you keep pestering me so insistently, I suppose that I can let you work at the desk at the back of the chemical storage closet. You'll need to secure your own funding." <<set $timeresearching+=1>>\ <<set $piname=$mcclure>>\ Almost immediately I regretted my choice of labs. [[return to main menu|grad school simulator]] <</if>>

<<if not hasVisited("Eagle story")>><<set $ending="quit3">><<goto "Eagle story">><</if>>\ The most important lesson I learned in Scouting was the courage to follow my own path; to be true to my own spirit. When I told Dr. Prasad that I'd be quitting, his advice was kind and simple, "There is no point continuing what you don't enjoy. Better to leave now." When I called my parents, my father's chief concern was that I would "end up homeless." But he eventually came around and accepted that I was making the right choice The last night of employment I stayed up until midnight labeling my reagents. I don't know why. Nobody was ever going to follow up on my project. Then from midnight until six I sat at my desk writing my personal bucket list; imagining all the goals I wanted to accomplish for the life I had ahead of me. At six in the morning I dropped my lab key in the secretary's mailbox and walked out to Maldweaver fountain. Giddy from my lack of sleep, I danced around Maldweaver Fountain while enjoying the sunrise. I had my whole life ahead of me and that life was mine. @@color:blue; >"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself." >>(Alan Alda) @@ !!!Ending: The Bucket List @@color:blue; >//Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference. >>Robert Frost @@

<<set $timedoubting+=1>>\ <<if visited("Change labs")==1>>\ Changing research advisors after the initial commitment was unusual but not unprecedented. Legendary were the stories of Freddy Lane, a past department member who had taken twelve years to complete his science degree then went on to pursue a second PhD in Eritrean literature. I skulked around the department looking for another advisor. <<set $timeofftask=$timeofftask + $timecollecting + $timewriting + $timeresearching>>\ <<set $timeresearching=0>>\ <<set $timecollecting=0>>\ <<set $timewriting=0>><<set $thiscount.collection=1>>\ <<set $originalPIname = $piname>>\ <<include "Choose a thesis advisor">> <<else>>\ Changing labs multiple times was not a possibility. I was known throughout the department as a flight risk, a flake. None of the other professors would speak to me. My own advisor $piname.name caught wind that I was trolling the faculty to find a replacement and counseled me "$piname.staytext" Dr. Prasad (a specialist in disorders of the spleen) pulled me in and tried to bolster my resolve. I told him I felt like I had let other people influence my choice of labs. I had sacrificed something I wanted in favor of something I didn’t. He answered, “Is there anything you learned from that?” “Not to let other people influence my decisions. To have confidence in my own choices.” He nodded, “That’s a big one. Probably the most important lesson you can learn. I’d say you’re lucky you learned that so early in your career. Other people don’t figure it out until later.” He then asked me about the project I was working on presently. We discussed my research goals. He thought the work had promise, both in terms of scientific merit and in terms of being an appropriate challenge. I left feeling like my project had potential. Potential for someone. I still wasn’t convinced it had any potential for me. [[return|grad school simulator]] <<endif>>

<<switch $thiscount.research>> <<case 1>>I spent a week in the library drinking coffee. <<case 2>>I spent a week in the library picking gum off the underside of the desks in the study carrels. <<case 3>>I spent a week trying to translate a research paper from German. <<case 4>>I studied a journal article close to my field, then later realized it had been retracted as a fraud. <<case 5>>I studied something close to my field. <<case 6>>I studied something further from my field. <<case 7>>I studied something completely unrelated to my field. <<case 8>>I kept reading wider and wider circles of journals, desperately trying to rekindle my sense of curiosity. <<case 9>>I studied photos of human cadavers in a medical journal. <<case 10>>I read a study that was obviously flawed. <<case 11>>I read a study that was clearly plagiarized from something else I'd read. <<case 12>>I contributed something to an electronic newsgroup in my field. Then I subscribed to the Beverly Hills 90210 newsgroup and spent the rest of the day trolling that. <<case 13>>I wondered how much I should trust an article about lung cancer, which had been sponsored by Phillip Morris. <<case 14>>I played Nethack on the computer. <<case 15>>I read one erudite study after another, trying to find just one of them that had any value to society. <<case 16>>I spent a week wishing the library had windows. <</switch>><<set $thiscount.research+=1>><<if $thiscount.research gt 16>><<set $thiscount.research=1>><</if>>\ <<set $timeresearching+=1>>\ <<print $piname.researchtext>> [[return|grad school simulator]]

<<switch $thiscount.collection>> <<case 1>>I spent the week preparing radioactively labeled reagents. This week's batch was a failure: hot enough to kill a small mammal but not hot enough for my research purposes. <<case 2>>I spent the week transferring drops of radioactive biosludge from one microfuge tube to another. <<case 3>>I spent the week watching tissue culture cells die. The culture room smelled yeasty in a way that made me crave a beer. <<case 4>>My experiments failed and I had to start all over. <<case 5>>I spent the week pouring acrylamide gels. The gel boxes all leaked, spilling neurotoxic acrylamide on my lab bench. <<case 6>>I spent the week filing incident reports with OSHA. <<case 7>>I spent the week running the same tedious assay over and over again. <<case 8>>I spent the week doing work that I was pretty sure would be outsourced to the robots in nine months. <<case 9>>I spilled ethidium bromide on myself. I spent the week watching my skin for signs of tumor growth. <<case 10>>I did some rote computer modelling. After a week in front of the computer screen, I felt like the back of my eyes were sunburned. <<case 11>>I spent a week waiting for my turn to use the ultracentrifuge. <<case 12>>I spent a week cleaning up radiation spills. <<case 13>>I spent another week in the tissue culture lab. After accidentally sneezing on my sample, I started over. <<case 14>>I spent a week trying to figure out why my enzymes were no longer active. <<case 15>>I spent a week regretting my choices so far. <<case 16>>I spent a week wishing I worked in a lab with windows. <<case 17>>I spent a week cleaning out the cages of our lab mice. <<case 18>>For the first time ever I got a perfect gel. Then I realized I had forgotten to record which samples were poured in each lane. <<case 19>>I spent the week cleaning yeast out of the tissue culture cabinet. <<case 20>>I visited a neighboring lab and learned why my experiments had been going wrong. <<case 21>>I made a startling observation that pushed my research in a slightly more promising direction. <<case 22>>I repeated some earlier experiments and was excited that they actually worked this time. <<case 23>>Several independent experiments were now pointing at the same conclusion. <<case 24>>I felt like I might actually be close to having enough data to finish a thesis. <</switch>><<set $thiscount.collection+=1>><<if $thiscount.collection gt 24>><<set $thiscount.collection=1>><</if>>\ <<set $timecollecting+=1>>\ <<print $piname.collecttext>> [[return|grad school simulator]]

<> <<switch $thiscount.goof>> <<case 1>>I wandered off campus to a sushi place where I tried sushi for the first time. <<if $darcymet is true>>I called Darcy to join me. She was delighted to come along.<</if>> <<case 2>>I volunteered with service agency, preparing meals to feed homeless teens. <<if $darcymet is false>>There I met Darcy, one of the other volunteers. Afterwards Darcy and I went out for coffee. She attended a performing arts school across town, studying technical theatre. Darcy was a driven individual, but on a much different track than my own.<<set $darcymet=true>><</if>> <<case 3>>I rode my bike around Lake Washington, sixty miles or just under a hundred kilometers. <<case 4>>I went out for drinks with Kenny and his friends. <<case 5>>Darcy and I met again and sang karaoke together at a local karaoke bar. We couldn't stop laughing. <<case 6>>I went to the Seattle Center and took an elevator up to the top of the Space Needle. <<case 7>>I practiced my juggling. Balls and clubs. <<case 8>>Watching Darcy at work, attending theatre performances she helped produce, I was reminded of all the passions I had left behind when I started my graduate program. <<case 9>>Darcy and I tried cross country skiing. <<case 10>>I continued to practice my juggling, three then four items at a time. <<case 11>>I began writing a novel. <<case 12>>Kenny invited me out to climb Mt Ranier. We only made it as far as basecamp. <<case 13>>I went to a Mariners baseball game. <<case 14>>Darcy and I attended the Bumbershoot Festival. <<case 15>>I rode my bike to Vashon Island and spent the night at a hostel. <<case 16>>Darcy and rented boats on Lake Washington. <<case 17>>I spent an afternoon at the video arcade, mastering "Smash TV." <<case 18>>I went to a bar and watched some TV. <<case 19>>Darcy and I attended the Seattle Folklife Festival. One of the acts was a man claiming to be the Guiness Book of Worlds Records "Limbo Champion". He was good at what he did and it made me think, a person really could make a living doing //anything//. <<case 20>>I visited the Pike Place Market and bought some salmon. The fishmongers at the Pike Place Market entertain visitors by throwing fish from one end of their stall to the other. Afterwards I brought it home to Darcy's apartment and spent the night with her. <<case 21>>Kenny and I tried to swim across Lake Washington. We were almost run over by a speedboat. <<case 22>>I volunteered at the hospital <<case 23>>I visited Chinatown and had Dim Sum for the first time. <<case 24>>Darcy and I went downtown to the Seattle Aquarium to commune with the octopus. <<case 25>>I took a Greyhound bus to Mt. Shasta in northern California for the weekend, not telling anyone where I was going before I left. I was seated on the bus next to a young woman who was clearly in the manic phase of her bipolar disorder. She entertained me for hours with her rambling stories. Later, when I got off the bus, I recorded as many of her stories as I could remember in my writer's journal. <<case 26>>I spent an afternoon watching the fish climbing the fish ladder at the Ballard locks. <<case 27>>I spent another day riding my bike around Lake Washington. It took me twice as long this time because I had John Irving's latest novel with me and I kept stopping to read. <<case 28>>I visited another favorite arcade where I mastered "Doctor Mario." <<case 29>>I volunteered at a tutoring center off campus. <<case 30>>I visited the campus art museum. <<case 31>>I heckled a street preacher downtown. <<case 32>>I mixed up glycerin and dish soap then went to a park and blew bubbles. <<case 33>>I joined an acapella group. <<case 34>>I bought a book on mastering HTML <<case 35>>Darcy and I watched a production of "Hamlet" on stage. <<case 36>>I started practicing guitar. <<case 37>>I visited the law school on campus, and asked people there if they were excited about the future. <<case 38>>I campaigned for a politician I supported. <<case 39>>Kenny and I ran a marathon. He sprained an ankle and we never made it to the end. <<case 40>>I watched a football game on campus. <<case 41>>I bought a pasta maker at a garage sale for five dollars and began making my own noodles. <<case 42>>Darcy and I joined a non-competitive softball league. <<case 43>>I took a bus to Tacoma and saw the capitol building. <<case 44>>I started reading the Wall Street Journal everyday. I found free copies available at one of Seattle's ten thousand coffee shops. <<case 45>>I started writing poetry, then reading it at an open mike night. <<case 46>>Darcy and I watched a stage production of "Oklahoma". <<case 47>>I got a job at a coffee shop. Then later had to quit when Kenny reminded me that my research grant prohibitted me from working a second job. <<case 48>>I played chess with some strangers I met in the park. <<case 49>>I bought the "Lost Treasures of Infocom" boxed set. <<case 50>>After buying the "Lost Treasures of Infocom," I wasn't going to be coming back to campus for weeks. <<case 51>>Darcy and I played Frisbee. <</switch>><<set $thiscount.goof+=1>><<if $thiscount.goof gt 51>><<set $thiscount.goof=1>><</if>> <<set $timeofftask+=1>><> <<print $piname.gooftext>>

<<switch $thiscount.goof>> <<case 1>>I stayed in bed all day. <<case 2>>I lay in the bathtub all day with the lights out. <<case 3>>I slept restlessly at night, troubled by nerves. <<case 4>>I knew I should be getting out more. <</switch>><<set $thiscount.goof+=1>><<if $thiscount.goof gt 4>><<set $thiscount.goof=1>><</if>>\ <<set $timeofftask+=1>>\ <<print $piname.gooftext>> [[return|grad school simulator]]

<<set $timedoubting=0>> <<set $timeresearching=0>> <<set $timecollecting=0>> <<set $timewriting=0>> <<set $timesocializing=0>> <<set $timeneurotic=0>> <<set $timeofftask=0>> <<set $thiscount={collection:1,research:1,goof:1}>> <<set $timeserved=0>> <<set $piname="0">> <<set $originalPIname="0">> <<set $quitoption=0>> <<set $realpassion="0">> <<set $darcymet=false>> <<set $browery={name:"Dr. Browery",admit:0,denytext:"You never even visited me during the recruitment visit.",staytext:"I hear you're looking for a another lab. I think you're making a big mistake.",collecttext:"Dr. Browery held lab meetings once a week, encouraging active collaboration between her own group members. On the other hand, her interactions with faculty and students outside our group were chilly at best.",researchtext:"My research in Dr. Browery's labs involved a study of interactions between membrane proteins. The grant said we were doing it to fight cancer. That's what every grant says.",gooftext:"Dr. Browery didn't like her students to be absent from lab and politely told me so when I returned."}>> <<set $mcclure={name:"Dr. McClure",admit:0,denytext:"You didn't impress me during the recruitment visit.",staytext:"I was wondering it how long it would take you before you decided to quit my group.",collecttext:"Dr. McClure paid no attention to my lab work, or any of his other students for that matter. It was rare to ever see him leave his office.",researchtext:"Dr. McClure never held lab meetings, so it made little difference whether I stayed current with the literature. Much of my time was spent writing grants, since McClure did not have the resources nor willingness to support us with his own grants.",gooftext:"Dr. McClure didn't notice if we didn't show up for lab. As far as I could tell, he didn't care."}>> <<set $mohamed={name:"Dr. Mohamed",admit:0,denytext:"You don't strike me as quite ambitious enough. I doubt you'd be a good fit for my lab.",staytext:"So you want to quit my lab group? Don't be such a loser.",collecttext:"Dr. Mohamed was almost always hovering over his students during our labwork, cursing when the results weren't what he wanted. He was one of the few professors who still actively ran his own experiments as well.",researchtext:"Dr. Mohamed expected us to conduct our library research between the hours of midnight and seven am, since the other seventeen hours we were required to be at the lab bench.",gooftext:"When a student was absent or tardy from Dr. Mohamed's lab, he issued a swift reprimand <q>Your place is here. Don't even think about leaving for the next eight years.</q>"}>> <<set $chan={name:"Dr. Chan",admit:1}>> <<set $yusef={name:"Dr. Yusef",admit:1,staytext:"I heard you were looking for another mentor. Haven't you switched around enough already?",collecttext:"Dr. Yusef had lab meetings once a month to present our results. Several of our lab members were just learning English, so it served as a helpful language tutorial as well.",researchtext:"No matter how much reading I did on the topic of genetics, it didn't make the field any more interesting to me.",gooftext:"Dr. Yusef never said anything right away if his students didn't show up in lab. But then weeks later he would point out politely that you weren't making any progress on your research."}>> <<script>> setup.getyear = function getyear(months) {return Math.floor(months/12);} setup.gettimepercent = function gettimepercent(timespent,timeserved) {return Math.round(timespent/timeserved*100);} <</script>> <<set $delivery={assigned:false,completed:false,mc:false,ox:false,schmidt:false}>> <<set $positions = ["an undergraduate","a graduate student","a post-doc","an assistant professor","a tenured professor","a professor emeritus","a random stranger","my minister","my accountant","my banker","a grocery store clerk","the driver of the number five bus","the driver of the number seventy bus","a panhandler","my uncle","my aunt","my cousin","my pet gold fish","my pet dog","my high school math teacher","my chiropractor","my ex-girlfriend","my brother-in-law","my barber","someone I just met","my spiritualist","a police officer"]>> <<set $names=["John", "William", "James", "George", "Charles", "Robert", "Joseph", "Frank", "Edward", "Thomas", "Henry", "Walter", "Harry", "Willie", "Arthur", "Albert", "Clarence", "Fred", "Harold", "Paul", "Raymond", "Richard", "Roy", "Joe", "Louis", "Carl", "Ralph", "Earl", "Jack", "Ernest", "David", "Samuel", "Howard", "Charlie", "Francis", "Herbert", "Lawrence", "Theodore", "Alfred", "Andrew", "Elmer", "Sam", "Eugene", "Leo", "Michael", "Lee", "Herman", "Anthony", "Daniel", "Leonard", "Floyd", "Donald", "Kenneth", "Jesse", "Russell", "Clyde", "Oscar", "Peter", "Lester", "Leroy", "Ray", "Stanley", "Clifford", "Lewis", "Benjamin", "Edwin", "Frederick", "Chester", "Claude", "Eddie", "Cecil", "Lloyd", "Jessie", "Martin", "Bernard", "Tom", "Will", "Norman", "Edgar", "Harvey", "Ben", "Homer", "Luther", "Leon", "Melvin", "Philip", "Johnnie", "Jim", "Milton", "Everett", "Allen", "Leslie", "Alvin", "Victor", "Marvin", "Stephen", "Alexander", "Jacob", "Hugh", "Patrick", "Virgil", "Horace", "Glenn", "Oliver", "Morris", "Vernon", "Archie", "Julius", "Gerald", "Maurice", "Sidney", "Marion", "Otis", "Vincent", "Guy", "Earnest", "Wilbur", "Gilbert", "Willard", "Ed", "Roosevelt", "Hubert", "Manuel", "Warren", "Otto", "Alex", "Ira", "Wesley", "Curtis", "Wallace", "Lonnie", "Gordon", "Isaac", "Jerry", "Charley", "Jose", "Nathan", "Max", "Mack", "Rufus", "Arnold", "Irving", "Percy", "Bill", "Dan", "Willis", "Bennie", "Jimmie", "Orville", "Sylvester", "Rudolph", "Glen", "Nicholas", "Dewey", "Emil", "Roland", "Steve", "Calvin", "Mike", "Johnie", "Bert", "August", "Clifton", "Franklin", "Matthew", "Emmett", "Phillip", "Wayne", "Edmund", "Abraham", "Nathaniel", "Marshall", "Dave", "Elbert", "Clinton", "Felix", "Alton", "Ellis", "Nelson", "Amos", "Clayton", "Aaron", "Perry", "Adam", "Tony", "Irvin", "Jake", "Dennis", "Jerome", "Mark", "Cornelius", "Ollie", "Douglas", "Pete", "Ted", "Adolph", "Roger", "Jay", "Roscoe", "Juan", "Mary", "Helen", "Margaret", "Anna", "Ruth", "Elizabeth", "Dorothy", "Marie", "Florence", "Mildred", "Alice", "Ethel", "Lillian", "Gladys", "Edna", "Frances", "Rose", "Annie", "Grace", "Bertha", "Emma", "Bessie", "Clara", "Hazel", "Irene", "Gertrude", "Louise", "Catherine", "Martha", "Mabel", "Pearl", "Edith", "Esther", "Minnie", "Myrtle", "Ida", "Josephine", "Evelyn", "Elsie", "Eva", "Thelma", "Ruby", "Agnes", "Sarah", "Viola", "Nellie", "Beatrice", "Julia", "Laura", "Lillie", "Lucille", "Ella", "Virginia", "Mattie", "Pauline", "Carrie", "Alma", "Jessie", "Mae", "Lena", "Willie", "Katherine", "Blanche", "Hattie", "Marion", "Lucy", "Stella", "Mamie", "Vera", "Cora", "Fannie", "Eleanor", "Bernice", "Jennie", "Ann", "Leona", "Beulah", "Lula", "Rosa", "Ada", "Ellen", "Kathryn", "Maggie", "Doris", "Dora", "Betty", "Marguerite", "Violet", "Lois", "Daisy", "Anne", "Sadie", "Susie", "Nora", "Georgia", "Maude", "Marjorie", "Opal", "Hilda", "Velma", "Emily", "Theresa", "Charlotte", "Inez", "Olive", "Flora", "Della", "Lola", "Jean", "Effie", "Nancy", "Nettie", "Sylvia", "May", "Lottie", "Alberta", "Eunice", "Sallie", "Katie", "Genevieve", "Estelle", "Lydia", "Loretta", "Mable", "Goldie", "Eula", "Rosie", "Lizzie", "Vivian", "Verna", "Ollie", "Harriet", "Lucile", "Addie", "Marian", "Henrietta", "Jane", "Lela", "Essie", "Caroline", "Ora", "Iva", "Sara", "Maria", "Madeline", "Rebecca", "Wilma", "Etta", "Barbara", "Rachel", "Kathleen", "Irma", "Christine", "Geneva", "Sophie", "Juanita", "Nina", "Naomi", "Victoria", "Amelia", "Erma", "Mollie", "Susan", "Flossie", "Ola", "Nannie", "Norma", "Sally", "Olga", "Alta", "Estella", "Celia", "Freda", "Isabel", "Amanda", "Frieda", "Luella", "Matilda", "Janie", "Fern", "Cecelia", "Audrey", "Winifred", "Elva", "Ina", "Adeline", "Leola", "Hannah", "Geraldine", "Amy", "Allie", "Miriam", "Isabelle", "Bonnie", "Virgie", "Sophia", "Cleo", "Jeanette", "Nell", "Eliza"]>> <<set $advice = ["choose a lab based on a research question which interests you","do what you love and the money will follow","do what offers the greatest future financial rewards","do what offers long term security","work with an untenured professor, they have more drive","work with a tenured professor, they have more prestige","work with a professor who can afford to support you","work in a large lab with lots of post-docs","work in a small lab without many post-docs","you can always change what you do in the future","make the right choice, or you'll always regret it","work in a lab that studies proteins","work in a lab that studies nucleic acids","work in a lab that mostly studies small molecules","let your research question determine what techniques you learn","it doesn't matter which lab you choose, you'll be miserable in all of them","it doesn't matter which lab you choose, you'll be happy in any of them","pick a challenging research project, so you can show what you're made of","pick an easy research project, so you can get through it quickly","it doesn't matter what you choose, graduate school is just a series of hoops to jump through","this is the most important decision of your life","pick a research project that will have value to the pharma industry","pick a research project that will have value to the agriculture industry","you won't need to study the same thing as a post-doc","everybody has to do a post-doc","once graduate school is over, then you can do what you really want","you'll never get a job with a PhD","you'll never get a job without a PhD", "become a specialist", "become a generalist", "don't worry about being happy until after you finish your degree"]>>

According to the department catalogue, Dr. Mohamed used transgenic marmots as a model to study an exceedingly rare form of urinary tract infection. Professor Mohamed spoke in a rapid cadence, his buggy eyes darting back and forth, never fixing on anything concrete. "If science is what you really want to do, you'll have to commit yourself to it two hundred percent. Are you willing to work seventy to ninety hours a week?" <<link "Yes">><<replace #output>>"If the project is interesting, I'll work my ass off." "In that case, I do have funds available to support you through graduate school. Come back and talk to me again when you're officially a student here."<<set $mohamed.admit=1>><</replace>><</link>> <<link "No">><<replace #output>>"My god that's a lot of hours." "In that case, you're really not a good fit for my lab. You'd best be on your way." <</replace>><</link>> [[return|itenerary]]

<<set $timeneurotic +=1>>\ Since beginning graduate school, I have spent: <<print setup.gettimepercent($timedoubting,$timeserved)>>% of my time soliciting advice from others. <<print setup.gettimepercent($timeresearching,$timeserved)>>% of my time conducting library research. <<print setup.gettimepercent($timecollecting,$timeserved)>>% of my time collecting lab data. <<print setup.gettimepercent($timewriting,$timeserved)>>% of my time writing my thesis. <<print setup.gettimepercent($timeneurotic,$timeserved)>>% of my time neurotically analyzing my time management skills. <<print setup.gettimepercent($timeofftask,$timeserved)>>% of my time otherwise off task. [[return to main menu|grad school simulator]]

<<if $timedoubting<6>><<set $timeofftask+=1>> I still didn't feel confident to commit myself to one particular lab. [[Return|grad school simulator]] <<else>> <<if not hasVisited("Ask to work for Dr. McClure")>>[[Ask to work for Dr. McClure]]<<else>>==Ask to work for Dr. McClure==<</if>> <<if not hasVisited("Ask to work for Dr. Browery")>>[[Ask to work for Dr. Browery]]<<else>>==Ask to work for Dr. Browery==<</if>> <<if not hasVisited("Ask to work for Dr. Mohamed")>>[[Ask to work for Dr. Mohamed]]<<else>>==Ask to work for Dr. Mohamed==<</if>> <<if not hasVisited("Ask to work for Dr. Chan")>>[[Ask to work for Dr. Chan]]<<else>>==Ask to work for Dr. Chan==<</if>> <<if not hasVisited("Ask to work for Dr. Yusef")>>[[Ask to work for Dr. Yusef]]<<else>>==Ask to work for Dr. Yusef==<</if>> <</if>>

<<if $timewriting gte ($timecollecting/2)>>\ I hadn't collected enough data to write anything original. <<set $timeofftask+=1>>\ <<elseif $timewriting gte $timeresearching>>\ I hadn't completed enough background reading to write coherently. <<set $timeofftask+=1>>\ <<else>>\ I scratched out a few paragraphs describing my progress to date. <<set $timewriting+=1>>\ <</if>>\ [[return|grad school simulator]]

!DEJH commons The school foyer was painted black, making it unusually dark for a school entrance lobby. Remember, there were also essentially no windows in the building. There was a small sunken classroom in the lobby, down only two steps but without a handrail. We called this recessed space the commons. Students would hang out in the commons before the school day to play grab ass or extort money from one another without much faculty oversight. <<if $delivery.completed==true>> Once I was off crutches, I was able to play in the commons also.<</if>> <<linkreplace "Descend into the commons">><<if $delivery.completed==true>><<goto "DE commons">><<else>>Although open classrooms were trendy in the late midcentury, access for students with disabilities was not yet in vogue. It was unsafe for me to enter the commons without assistance.<</if>><</linkreplace>> [[Exit to the administrative wing|DE administrative]] [[Exit to lunch room]] [[Exit to the bus entrance and grounds|DE grounds]]

Adorning the length of the administrative hallway were a series of cartoon line drawings extolling the virtues of good character: honesty, kindness, respect, cooperation. If students had paid any attention to those posters, Dutch Elm Junior High would have been a lovely place. But it takes more than a set of posters to create a culture of caring. It takes faculty and students who model those virtues themselves. <<if $delivery.assigned==false>>The vice principal was standing nearby. "Hey kid, if you're not going to be in gym class today--well, I assume you're not going to be in gym class today--could you deliver some mail for me around the school?" She stuffed a number of envelopes in the backpack I wore to carry my books while I was on crutches. "Deliver this to Mr. Schmidt. Then report back to me right here."<<set $delivery.assigned=true>> <</if>>\ <<if $delivery.schmidt==true and $delivery.completed==false>> Although I had completed my message deliveries, the vice principal was no longer in the corridor. Mrs. O'Brien was monitoring the hall instead. Mrs. O'Brien had always been my favorite teacher. She could tell I had been crying recently. She said, "I know what happened in lunchroom with Mr. Schmidt." "Oh." I answered, ashamed. "You were given an impossible task. You are not a lunchroom supervisor. You are not a teacher. You don’t have any authority in front of the lunchroom. The other students know that. Some of us on the faculty, including me, think the punishment Mr. Schmidt assigned to you was not appropriate. Teachers shouldn’t subject students to discipline in such a public way." Mrs O'Brien paused, letting me process this. Then she continued, "But you also did something wrong. You were disrespectful in what you wrote in your essay. You made Mr. Schmidt feel hurt and he reacted. You can’t write things like that about a teacher. Not in that way. I hope you’ll use better judgement in the future." I nodded. She finished, "Be strong. Life isn't always going to be like this. You will heal." She was right. After months of rehab excercises, I could walk again without the crutches.<<set $delivery.completed=true>><</if>>\ [[Return to foyer|DE foyer]]

(Standing on crutches near the Dutch Elm Junior High bus entrance) !DEJH parking lot and grounds Dutch Elm Junior High was located in a field at the edge of town, easy walking distance from the Dutch Mill Tavern, a low income trailer park, and an adult bookstore. The building was an isolated brick fortress with only a few narrow windows spaced wide apart. The grounds included an expansive cement exercise yard but no playground equipment of any sort. One might compare its exterior design to a county prison or work farm. [[Enter the school|DE foyer]] <<linkreplace "Walk home">><<if $delivery.completed==false>>My house was a half mile close to DEJH but separated from it by a busy highway with a narrow gravel shoulder. There were drunk drivers coming out of the tavern even at mid-day. My parents would allow me to walk but not bike along the highway, reminding me to step carefully through the tavern parking lot. Of course I wasn’t able to walk at all until I was off the crutches.<<else>>Once I was off cructches, I was free to walk for miles. But right now, I should really be reporting to the commons.<</if>><</linkreplace>>

!DE lunch room <<if hasVisited("following day")>>The lunchroom was a wasteland of spilled milk, thrown food and upturned chairs. [[DE foyer]] <<if $delivery.assigned==true and $delivery.schmidt==false>><<set $delivery.schmidt=true>>Through tears, I completed my assigned package delivery to Mr. Schmidt.<</if>><<else>> The lunchroom stank of spoiled milk. The student-teacher ratio was about a hundred to one. No one would envy our lunchroom supervisor, Mr Schmidt. By midyear Mr. Schmidt had endured just about his limit of that responsibility. After a bad day of students not cleaning up their spaghettios or popsicles he meted out an unusual punishment to the students in my corner of the room. About sixteen of us were to write a one page essay explaining why we should be more responsible and behave properly in the cafeteria. I enjoyed writing in seventh grade, as much as I do now. Being punished with writing was like being told “You didn’t eat your peas? Naughty, naughty. Now go eat your ice cream as a consequence.” I took great delight in writing my punishment essay, but what I wrote was perhaps inappropriate. I wrote that Mr. Schmidt was a shitty lunchroom supervisor, then developed that theme over several pages. I did not address the importance of cleaning my table or recognize the janitors for their hard work and service. I can’t believe Mr. Schmidt actually read our sixteen essays. I’ve read student handwritten work since then. Much of it is indecipherable. Given the prompt Mr Schmidt had assigned, it would have been difficult to distinguish between earnest apology and obsequious parody. However, my writing sample must have been uniquely insulting because I was the only one called out of class the [[following day]]. <</if>>

I didn’t act on stage until I got to highschool but I did take a drama class as an elective when I was in eighth grade. There was a bench around the perimeter of the commons so it could be used as a theatre in the round. The surrounding black walls furthered the real theatre experience. The class tended to focus on improv, rather than scripted acting. My friends Dan and Squeaky always stole the show with their dramatized reenactment of some horror movie they’d watched together on VCR the preceding weekend. Their staged vignettes involved imaginary chainsaws and frequent beheadings. I am struck by how school standards have <<linkappend "changed">><<replace #output>> Dan and Squeaky’s murder plays would certainly trigger a psychiatric referral in the modern school. But they were really just harmless kids. They were best friends to each other in a healthy way that immunizes kids from real degeneracy. They were kind enough to me as well, sitting near me at lunch where we’d chew apart the meaning of the dialogue in the latest Star Wars installment.<</replace>><</linkappend>> in the last forty years. The commons was also where Dan and Squeaky invited me to [[join|new troop]] their Scout troop. [[Return to the foyer|DE foyer]]

<<event-check>><<if $piname=="0">><<include "Year 1">><<else>><<include "Year 2">><</if>>

!Year <<print setup.getyear($timeserved)+1>> <<set $timeserved+=1>>\ <<if $originalPIname != "0">>\ I had changed labs, quitting <<print $originalPIname.name>>’s group to join <<print $piname.name>>’s instead. What a mistake that had been. <</if>>\ <<link "Wander off campus">><<replace #output_wander>><<event-check>><<set $timeserved+=1>><<include "wander off campus">><</replace>><</link>>\ [[Stay home|stay home]] [[Call Dr. Brinclhof]] [[Call my parents]] <<link "Ask others for advice">><<replace #output_ask>><<event-check>><<set $timeserved+=1>><<include "Ask others for advice">><</replace>><</link>>\ [[Ask to change labs|Change labs]] [[Research for thesis proposal|research for thesis proposal]] [[Collect data for thesis proposal|collect data for thesis proposal]] [[Write thesis|write thesis]] [[Review my research notes|analyze my use of time]] <<if hasVisited("thesis proposal") and not hasVisited("quit1")>> Something inside me had changed. I finally felt like I had the freedom to [[quit graduate school|quit1]], if I wanted to. <<elseif hasVisited("quit1") and setup.getyear($timeserved) gt 2 and not hasVisited("quit2")>>[[Quit graduate school. This time I really mean it|quit2]] <<elseif hasVisited("quit2") and not hasVisited("quit3") and hasVisited("walk by the lakeshore")>> [[Burn some bridges!|quit3]] (metaphorically, of course) <<elseif hasVisited("quit2") and not hasVisited("quit3") and hasVisited("k1")>> [[I feel suddenly free to live!|quit3]] <</if>>

Looking back, I find it strange how burdened I felt by the opinions of everyone else: parents, mentors, friends, strangers. I told Dr Prasad "I just feel stuck." Prasad kindly recommended, "It can be hard to make a commitment. But sometimes that's what you have to do in order to move forward. You're in a good place. You're a talented individual. You don't have to worry what other people think about your choices." <<include "Choose a thesis advisor">>

<<if not hasVisited("Eagle story")>><<set $ending="Ending: Pile it higher and deeper">><<goto "Eagle story">><</if>>\ The most important lessons I learned from Scouting was time management and perseverance. I never thought the day would arrive when I would finish my PhD, but it did eventually. My parents attended my dissertation lecture. They didn't understand a thing I said, but they were proud of me just the same. I felt proud of myself as well. I'd written a hundred and twenty pages of original research. I'd gotten that much closer to understanding the universe, if only a very obscure corner of it. Later in the day, while I was eating the traditional wine and cheese trying not to drop crumbs in my cowl, a friend casually asked, "I know you were pretty miserable when you first started the program. Where did you find the strength to get through it? I told him I didn't believe in quitting. Even though that wasn't quite true. "What are you doing next?" "Before I started graduate school I really wanted to be <<switch $realpassion>> <<case "att">>a patent attorney. I'm going to see if I can get a loan for law school." <<case "www">>a web developer. I'm going to spend the summer learning HTML, and then hit the streets to find clients." <<case "pix">>a computer animator. I'm going to spend the summer putting together a digital portfolio, then try to get a job at Pixar." <<case "chef">>a professional chef. I'm going to get a job in a restaurant, then maybe someday open up my own place." <<case "adv">>a world traveller. I'm going to update my passport and travel the world, finding work wherever I can." <<case "ran">>a forest ranger. I've applied for a job with the National Park Service, monitoring the environmental health of public lands." <</switch>> "Wow! That's quite a change from what you've been doing." I shrugged. Then I tossed my copy of the dissertation speaker's notes in the wastebasket with the rest of my crackers and walked out toward my future. !!!Ending: A New Beginning /* achieve if finish degree*/ @@color:blue; >//Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference. >>Robert Frost @@

When I began Scouting, the path to Eagle had not been my end goal. I started Cub Scouts because that's what the other boys in my neighborhood were doing. Most of them dropped out before the fifth grade. When I advanced to the Boy Scouts, I was still on crutches. The Tenderfoot rank was my first board of review. An adult leader asked me to define my scouting goals. “I guess I want to earn my second class rank.” I said, without giving it much thought. Second class was the next rank above Tenderfoot, typically only taking about three months to earn. My reviewer paused before asking, “Don’t you want anything more than that? A higher aspiration?” “No. Just Second Class.” “Maybe you want to be an Eagle someday?” “That would be a long time from now.” “Maybe you’ll think about it?” “No, for now I just want to work on second class.” That conversation has been typical of me throughout my life, resistant to doing much long-term planning. Yet the scoutmaster who asked me that question made an impression. It was one of only two boards of review that I remember vividly: the [[first and the last]].

At the end of the second year my thesis committee convened to grill me on my proposal and to review my progress so far. The interrogation lasted three hours, during which time I felt like I was trying to convince myself that my research was worthwhile as much as I was trying to convince the committee. After three hours of interogation, <<print $piname.name>> asked me to leave the room. Their private meeting lasted only fifteen minutes. Then I was called to return. I wiped sweat off my brow. <<print $piname.name>> said <<if $timeresearching lt 3>>“The committee felt there was something missing from your background knowledge. We’re asking you to remedy that and report back to us.” <<elseif $timecollecting lt 6>>“The committee felt that your proposal seemed fanciful without some additional lab data. Collect more data then report back to us.” <<elseif $timewriting lt 3>>“The committee would like to see you keeping up more with your written reports. Publish or perish, as you know.” <<else>> “Don’t sweat it. You’ve passed your preliminaries. Congratulations. Keep moving forward.” <</if>> Then after the institutional backslapping and small talk, we all went back to our labs. I don't know why it had not occured to me sooner. I could simply walk out and [[quit|canoe trip]] graduate school.

<<if not hasVisited("Eagle story")>><<set $ending="kicked out">><<goto "Eagle story">><</if>>\ The most important lesson I learned in Scouting was resilience. After eight years in graduate school without publishing a written thesis, <<print $piname.name>> called me in and said, "I'm sorry your research wasn't more productive. Your grant just expired. Time to pack it up." I looked for work right away. VanDyke Pharmaceuticals had been bought up by some European company. Dr. Brinclhoff had retired and everyone else I knew at the company had been laid off. I didn't want to go back to that life anyway. I would have felt mildly disgraced returning to commercial chemistry without having completing my PhD. I accepted a summer job as an assistant director at a children's wilderness camp. I hoped that I could eventually find a full time work in outdoor education. !!!Ending: Kicked Out /*achieve if kicked out*/ @@color:blue; >//Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference. >>Robert Frost @@

Once I had typed over a hundred and twenty pages of my own erudite thoughts, I was able to send it out to the publisher. A month later they sent back a bound manuscript, suitable for displaying in one's private office or in the bowels of any esteemed research library. I had met the requirements for graduation. [[continue|Ending: Pile it higher and deeper]]

Over time, Darcy and I became inseperable. During the summer Darcy worked at a Methodist Camp across the Puget Sound. It was a short ferry ride from Seattle so I was able to visit her regularly. Darcy lived in a small dorm room on the camp property and worked as a kitchen assistant. I felt a thread of peace and happiness in that place. Walking hand in hand <<if hasVisited("abandoned")>>with her through the wooded retreat I got an inkling there was something larger missing from my life. I had a series of flashbacks to my childhood. Carrying boats across the Ontario wilderness when I had only just learned to walk; that was what a meaningful achievement felt like. Taking over as the senior patrol leader of my scout troop when our provisional scoutmaster abandoned us; that was what an authentic learning experience felt like. Planning to complete my Eagle service project; that’s what a meaningful goal felt like. [[Return to present|grad school simulator]] @@color:blue; >//Life is an adventure of passion, risk, danger, laughter, beauty, love; a burning curiosity to go with the action to see what it is all about, to go search for a pattern of meaning, to burn one's bridges because you're never going to go back anyway, and to live to the end.// >>-Saul Alinsky @@ <<else>>I told her the story about my first experience [[leading|abandoned]] an entire Scout Troop.<</if>>

Kenny, the graduate student who had shown me around campus during my recruitment visit, was approaching the end of his thesis project. To celebrate, he planned a backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon with several of his friends. Recalling that I also enjoyed camping, Kenny invited me along. I [[accepted|k1]] Kenny's invitation. I [[declined|grad school simulator]] his invitation.

I agreed to join Kenny and his friends on their backpacking expedition, though I was out of shape for backpacking and I’d been walking on a sore ankle for months. Without a lot of preparation or planning, we loaded up the back of the car and four of us drove through the night. Trying to keep the driver awake, we told stories about our past camping adventures. I told about my <<if hasVisited("abandoned")>>Scouting experiences. The early experiences: portaging my first canoe, being elevated to senior patrol leader when our provisional Scoutmaster abandoned us. The later experiences: advancing to the senior patrol when I got to high school. Planning service projects to enhance my community. [[Continue|k5]]<<else>>my first experience [[leading|abandoned]] an entire Scout Troop.<</if>>

Makajawan is a wilderness Scout reservation serving the Northeast Illinois council. My Troop didn’t go to there every year, partly because it was five hours by bus and mostly because our Scoutmaster preferred to have the troop cook its own meals. But I went in eighth grade with about five other boys I knew from our community to join the “provisional troop”. The provisional troop is boys gathered from suburbs as far apart as Antioch and Zion, who come to camp without any adult leaders and usually without many friends. We were assigned a volunteer adult leader; an ill-tempered middle age man who appointed his son and his son’s best friend as the provisional youth leadership corps. We also had a provisional Assistant Scout Master who was only nineteen, and someone the Scoutmaster largely ignored. The weather was miserable that week, torrential rains beating down our canvas tents and soaking all our gear. The food was awful. At least one of the tent platforms was infested by brown recluse spiders. Then on day five of fourteen, the provisional Scoutmaster had an emotional meltdown and just quit. He took his son and his son’s best friend with him, walked out of the campsite and never spoke to us again. The nineteen year-old ASM remained but was a complete nebbish. That left us boys in a potential Lord of the Flies situation. At thirteen, just out of eighth grade, I was the oldest and most senior ranking Scout. I was suddenly elevated to Senior Patrol Leader in a troop with fourteen boys and no adult leadership. During the second week the sun came out and dried the ground. The spider infected tents were fumigated. I hoped I could be a better leader than the family who had just abandoned us. I had to be. The younger scouts followed my lead to meals and campfires. I solicited their interests for other troop activities and signed us up at the designated locations: evening swim, canoe swamp, private campfires. The troop did not descend into Lord of the Flies chaos. Nobody quit my troop and I didn’t lose a single scout to arachnids or dysentery. During my private time I found a remote spot in the woods to write about nature and complete the environmental science badge. I returned to my own troop in the fall, where I was elevated to the troop's senior leadership corp. <<link "Return to present" $return>><</link>>

We had breakfast in Boise then reached Salt Lake City by noon. Didn't stay there long. I took the driver’s seat after lunch. We were still four hundred miles north of the Grand Canyon. The sun was blazing that afternoon. The central Utah desert was mostly featureless scrub. My passengers fell asleep. I continued to drive. The radio played nothing but static. <<timed 5s>><<shakescreen 4s>><<timed 2s>> I felt the steering wheel jerk out of my hands. I opened my eyes. I must have fallen asleep also. Our car had drifted off the road. I yanked the steering wheel in the other direction. Too much force. My world began to spin. After the third roll, our car came to a stop upside down at the side of the highway. All of us, except the car, somehow survived. We took a bus back to Salt Lake City, then a plane to Seattle. Given how ill-prepared we were for backpacking the Grand Canyon, I’ve since wondered if driving off the road saved us from perishing on the hike. In any case, the accident changed me. [[Return to present|grad school simulator]] @@color:blue; >//Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in.// >>-Saul Alinsky @@ <</timed>><</timed>>

Quitting my original Scout Troop to join the Catholic troop across town was life changing. A few months later I joined some of them for a paddling expedition in the Canadian Boundary Waters. !Boundary Waters Canoe Trip There were about eighteen of us on the Boundary Waters trip; three middle school students, the rest high school age and adult. We took the train to St. Paul, and a bus from St Paul to Ely, where we stayed for one night in a bunk room in the basement of the outfitting company. We crossed the border into Canada at a remote wilderness checkpoint. There were customs agents stationed there from both countries, but only boats crossing the border, no cars. During the trip we fell into a routine. In the morning we’d cook a hot breakfast and get back on the lake. There was a rotating duty roster for who cooked, who cleaned, and who took other jobs. We had an enormous cast iron fry pan, which was the primary cookware at almost every meal. That fry pan went in the Duluth pack we called the “Monster Pack” because it was twice as heavy as every other pack; probably up around seventy pounds (thirty kilos). Portages varied in distance from a few yards, to almost a mile. We took turns carrying the monster pack during portages, so that no one individual would get stuck with that labor over every portage. I was assigned to a tent with two other boys, one exactly my age and the other a high school senior. Grover, the senior, regaled us with stories of his alleged sexual exploits. I'd taken some sex ed already, in fifth grade, from a Registered Nurse. She’d spoken to us in clinical terms, separating the boys from the girls, focusing on the magic changes of puberty which we would all experience in a couple of years. She begged off a question from one mischievous classmate who asked what a blow job meant. Grover was more lurid in his description of sexual intercourse, speaking from personal experience (at least he claimed). I was embarrassed by the whole discussion. But the third kid in the tent, who was my age, was enchanted by the topic and asked a lot of good clarifying questions. He was a parochial school boy who may not have had the same background of clinical instruction from a school nurse. Sometime midweek we got lost, took a wrong portage at one of the lakes and paddled several hours off course. This was long before GPS or cell phones but we did have a detailed topographic map. Our team applied its collective orientation skill to find our way back on course. We arrived at camp after dusk, pitched tents hastily on a steep ridge, scrapped for cold food from the monster pack, then fell asleep exhausted. We woke the next morning to realize our tent entrance was just a few feet away from a precipitous cliff. One night time mis-step and we would have been taking a swim. I didn’t carry a canoe during a portage until the last day. I was too weak for one man portage and the team had judged it was a poor allocation of man-power to assign two people to carry the same boat. I kept trying and on the last day I did manage to heft a boat over my head then carry it across a short distance. Later that fall, the scoutmaster promoted me to patrol leader. That was my first leadership position. [[return|grad school simulator]]

I applied for a job outside the university, something similar to the work I had enjoyed previously during my internship at VanDyke Pharmaceuticals. When I told my Dad that I was looking for other work, he recounted a story that he had once almost made the same mistake while he was a <<linkappend "grad student">>, but that his research advisor had called him back to campus and set him on the right path<</linkappend>>. [[Wait to be hired|failed interview]]

!First Jobs Most of my friends in the high school [[honors classes]] worked at McDonalds in 1985. They recruited me also. Day shifts were run by grown-up adult managers. During one of these shifts, the manager in charge (a frumpy middle aged dude) pulled me off the grill station to ask if my car was available. He needed someone to purchase a mechanical part from the hardware store. I regretted to tell him that I did not have a car with me. I’d ridden my bike that day. His eyes scanned across the kitchen at the other slouching crew members then back to me. He handed me twenty dollars from the petty cash account and a card with a description of the thing he needed. “Ride your bike and get this for me. Bring back the change. I’ll keep your time card open. You’re still on the clock.” I was the only one he trusted with that task. I figure he somehow knew that everyone else on the floor that day had been involved in the parking lot [[sauce war]], but my record was so far clean. It was exciting to me to know I was trusted. I was thrilled to be pulled off the hot grill and paid to work as a bike courier. <<linkreplace "My father was wrong to dismiss first jobs as insignificant.">>A first job teaches the fundamental skills of resilience and accountability in a way that dilettante hobbies can’t deliver. A first job teaches specific skills such as work-place safety, phone etiquette and operation of common equipment. A first job prepares us for the periods of our career when we won’t be reaching Maslov’s highest order of needs (self-actualization). Early jobs motivate one to work harder toward that elusive professional career as well as providing contacts and experience to get there. [[Previous memory|quit1b]] [[Next memory|quit VanDyke]] <</linkreplace>>

McDonalds was my earliest regular employment and the longest lasting of a series of part time work in eleventh and twelfth grade. The crew that summer must have had the highest average IQ for any team of burger flippers in America. Our valedictorian and salutatorian worked the cash registers. Four of the other top ten worked behind the grills. When the team started agitating that we would all quit on the same day, soon after there was a twelve cents an hour increase above miniimum wage added to our paychecks. Management might tell their own story but most of us on crew attributed that pay increase to the cleverness of our non-union collective bargaining strategies. [[return|contradictory advice]]

During peak service the McDonald’s kitchen is a buzzing hive of activity. Dozens of burgers on the grill, multiple fry baskets cycled up and down through the hot oil, one basket for potatoes, one for chicken one for fish. Buzzers and bells rang incessantly, setting the pace to turn the burgers, toast the buns, pull the fries, sauce and wrap the sandwiches, throw them in the service chute then look for the next order. At closing time the bells and timers went off and the race against the clock became an internal challenge. How fast could you get out of that stinking place? Change the fry oil, empty the grease trap, wash the equipment, mop the floor, clean the lobby, take out the trash. Closing shift was run by junior managers, most of them recent high school graduates. They tried to make it fun. I heard legendary tales of a sauce gun fight that took place in the parking lot just before I was hired with the crew. Cooks and cashiers and junior managers chasing each other around the darkened lot spraying mac sauce and ketchup. The sauce guns operate like a caulking gun. A spring pushes small measured servings of sauce through a tube under low pressure. The “guns” aren’t designed for great range or soaking power. I’m guessing that the infamous sauce wars were more fun in the telling than they had been in the clean-up. [[return|contradictory advice]]

Between age eighteen and twenty one I worked a variety of jobs, mostly part time and low pay. I worked in food service, building maintenance, computer programming and then as a teaching assistant. My parents were ambivalent about this use of my time. My father, in particular, thought I ought to spend more time studying calculus. I once asked my father why he didn't //require// me to work through high school and college, as so many of my friend's parents demanded. He described proudly how he had saved enough money for our college that I didn't have to work, like he had done when he was young. He went on to dismiss the employment opportunities available to young people as insignificant, claiming those jobs had no lasting professional value. I am grateful that my father was a good provider. My sister and I were fortunate recipients of a middle class privileged upbringing. [[Next memory|contradictory advice]]

By Junior year of college, I had enough practical experience to apply for competitive professional internships. I interviewed and was selected for a job with VanDyke Pharmaceuticals. The director of veterinary medicine offered me a well paid research position lasting six months, with opportunity to be rehired the following summers until I graduated. I was elated, as were my friends and mentors at the university. My father, though, was a <<linkappend "basket case.">> Two months into the experience he advised me that I ought to quit, to terminate my six month contract and any promise of future employment there. He told me this internship would slow down my progress toward graduate school and marriage (neither of which I had ever mentioned as a goal of my own at the time). He went further and tried to convince me that a professional internship could actually damage my long term career. He suggested it would leave a big empty space on my resume that I would have trouble explaining to future employers, the way one might have trouble explaining a gap left by a year travelling abroad, or a prison sentence. Then he reminded me again that I wasn't the child of a poor person like he had been growing up. Quit, he said, and sign up for my fall classes. There was nothing I could possibly learn from a paid research internship that I wouldn't learn more efficiently sitting in a large lecture hall. I told my father he was being ridiculous and I stayed in the job without his approval. My father and I had both been hobbled by childhood traumas. [[Previous memory|contradictory advice]] [[Return to present|quit1return]] <</linkappend>>

When my father heard that I was considering leaving graduate school he advised against it. He counseled that it would be better to finish what I started. To me, his advice felt more manipulative than sincere. I had not really asked for his opinion. Also, he had given exactly [[contradictory advice|quit1b]] when I began working at VanDyke Pharmaceuticals a few years earlier.

My off-campus interview with the pharma company in Seattle went poorly. I wasn't in the same mental space I had been when I worked at VanDyke. I didn't interview well. I didn't get the job. I guess I'd be in grad school for a little while longer. [[Return|grad school simulator]]

According to the legend, in the early years of Makajawan’s history the campers were troubled by frequent bear attacks. One bear in particular closed down the camp for a season because it had mauled so many campers and staff. It must have been a hungry bear. Since everyone wanted to reopen the camp as quickly as possible, local huntsmen formed a party to track and kill the out-sized predator. Everyone but the camp director participated in the hunt. The director had been mysteriously missing during each of the preceding bear attacks and some feared that he had been taken by the bear during its most recent feeding. From early morning till late night the men hunted that bear. Tired, dehydrated and malnourished they eventually spotted their target sometime after midnight on the second day. The bear stood thirty feet tall (forty or fifty feet tall, I heard when I attended the same camp two years later). The hunters fired dozens of bullets (hundreds or thousands of volleys it became during subsequent retellings). When they finally felled the great beast, it took 30 strong men and horses to drag it back to the dining hall. I wondered then, why did they bother to take it back to the dining hall, tired and exhausted as they all were? But this is not the end of the story. When the huntsmen woke again, many hours later, they were horrified to realize that it was not the bear’s skin they had nailed above the fireplace, but the [[naked and flayed skin]] of the camp director.

I may be embellishing. I don’t remember if I was told at age ten that the camp director’s flayed skin was naked. But the rest of my account I’ve told as accurately as I remember it from the various tellings I attended. At the conclusion of that campfire, hearing the Makajawan Bear story for the first time, we still had to find our way back to our campsite. Everyone in camp was trying to spook out everyone else. Some kid on the South corner of the lawn would let out a roar, then someone from another pack on the East side would respond with a fearsome growl. Even the fathers were joining, bellowing out their own ursine impersonations. I don’t know if anyone was actually scared by those noises. Mostly I heard hoots of laughter between the growls. It seemed to have all settled down by the next morning. Our group was working side by side to pack up the campsite. My father had been stricken by some unexpected hay fever during the trip and had been sneezing often. Being outdoors and uncouth he didn’t bother to cover his morning sneeze. He bellowed out quite loudly “harumphh!” while expectorating. Not two second passed before we heard someone answer from a distance campsite. “Roarrr. Back at you!” That was the last campout I remember taking with my father. Even though I remained active with the Boy Scouts for another nine years, he chose not to join me on any of those later trips. [[return|Campus theatre]]

In childhood, before the surgeries, I was content. In high school and college, I learned to make friends. Curiously, there were only two periods of my life when I felt a lasting sense of unhappiness. Spaced a decade apart, age [[twelve|DE grounds]] and age twenty two.

Mr Schmidt was livid. "You think you can manage the lunchroom better than me? Why don’t you try. You’re going to have to eat quickly today because after you’re finished I’ll bring you up to the stage and you’ll get to be the lunchroom supervisor for a day. You show me what you’ve got." That sounded like a threat. <<linkappend "Suddenly I lost my appetite.">> About fifteen minutes before lunch dismissal Mr. Schmidt pulled me off my table, told me to throw away my lunch and brought me up on stage. It took quite a lot of effort to hoist myself up there on my gimp legs and I must have slipped back a couple of times. Schmidt wasn't giving me any help. He gave me a brief introduction. "This young man is going to be your lunchroom teacher today. He thinks he can do a better job of it. Let’s see if he does." He handed me the microphone. The entire lunchroom was jeering me, my friends as well as my enemies. I was on stage. Mr. Schmidt stood nearby, egging it on. He told me to take control of the situation. "Go on. Tell the students to throw away their garbage. Tell them to keep the noise down. Do you still think this is such an easy job?" Some food was thrown. A cupcake maybe. I was elevated, an easy target for these missiles. I followed Schmidt’s commands, speaking timidly into the microphone. "Would everyone please throw away your garbage." Schmidt needled me. "Tell them to keep their voices down." <<linkappend "<q>Would everyone please keep your voices down.</q>">> "Tell them to stop throwing food." Schmidt managed me like a ventriloquist dummy. I repeated his words, <<linkappend "<q>Would everyone stop throwing food.</q>">> A roar of derisive laughter rose up from the student body. Nobody was minding my instructions. A PBJ sandwich hit my chest with enough force to knock me back a step. I had not a single true friend in the lunchroom that day. Schmidt hissed so only I could hear, "Do you still think this is such an easy job? Do you?" Finally he pulled me off the stage, where I could wipe some applesauce off my shirt. Mr. Schmidt once again took control of the microphone, "OK, we’ve had enough fun today. Let our guest lunch supervisor go back to his table. Now the rest of you clear your tables and wait for the bell to ring." [[Go back to the foyer.|DE foyer]] <<if $delivery.assigned==true and $delivery.schmidt==false>><<set $delivery.schmidt=true>>Through tears, I completed my assigned package delivery to Mr. Schmidt.<</if>> <</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>>

[[Start applying for graduate school|grad school simulator]]

The orthopedist referred me to a radiology clinic located even greater distance from my home. After a year of diagnostic failures the doctors were able to see something in the CAT scan and <<linkreplace "give it a name">>called it "osteoid osteoma." In layman's terms, a tumor which causes thickening of the bone<</linkreplace>>. The recommended treatment was a surgery in which the hip would be opened and some of the bone physically <<linkappend "scraped away">>. In the modern operating room I imagine that might be done laparoscopically, but in the late 1970s it was a traumatic and physically debilitating operation. That procedure, together with a follow up operation, left me physically weakened for two full years<</linkappend>>. I am sure the orthopedist told me what would be involved in the recovery process. Indeed, I remember him talking about several of the possible outcomes. I might be on crutches, or a small cast, or a full body cast. I might need to have a metal pin inserted in the hip, that could later be removed, or I could possibly be crippled for life. But regardless of these outcomes, I was promised an end to my pain. I didn’t process any of this information about adverse outcomes when it was given to me, only later when I was actually in recovery. My parents agreed to the surgery. I didn’t feel much agency in the decision myself. I was only ten. I just wanted to be normal again. [[Previous memory|kid]] [[Next memory|normal again]]

Doug Egan

[[Story Notes]]

Thanks to Ryan Tan and Agnieszka T for their play-testing and editorial advice. Thanks to Ryan Veeder for previewing a very early copy of this work and encouraging me to continue. The photo used in the cover art for this game belongs to the author and should not be reproduced except for the purpose of promoting this game. The cover art has been processed using "Photopea" a free online photo editor. The font used in the cover art is "Ink Free". This is a work of fiction. If it were a film, it might be PG-13. This game was written with Twine version 2.3.2, Sugarcube 2.28.2. Thanks to Chris Klimas and other developers for making these tools available. The author's website is http://dougegan2.blogspot.com/ The author's email is dougegan2@gmail.com Search for other interactive fiction at https://ifdb.tads.org/ <<link "Escape" $return>><</link>>

!Changing Troops I transferred Scout troops in seventh grade. It was because of one bad experience during a camp out. I don’t even remember the details about what made it bad. I have no bad memories of Scouting leading up to that camp out. I had joined in the fifth grade after graduating from Cub Scouts. The troop met in the basement of the Community Protestant Church. They drew scouts from all over town, so it was not just my school friends I was meeting there. There were boys in the troop whom I reconnected with in Highschool who became close friends. There were others I met in the troop whom I saw again in highschool and instinctively wanted to avoid. That may have had something to do with my transfer. I attended several Eagle ceremonies for members of the Community Protestant troop. At the time I had no vision of advancing to Eagle myself but the troop provided those sorts of role models. The community Protestant troop had active members and a strong program. I learned lashing and semaphore code, first aid and camping skills. I earned my ranks through First Class and event travelled out of the country to an International Jamboree in Toronto. Regardless of my motive for abandoning the Community Protestant troop, I have Dan and Squeaky to thank that I did not quit Scouts altogether. When Dan heard I was unhappy with my current troop, he jumped to the plate to recruit me into his. Dan told me that his troop had “cooler” people and a better camping program. Dan’s troop was planning a high adventure canoe trip to the Canadian Boundary Waters wilderness area. The two of us would just meet the age requirement for participation. Only just old enough. Also, I was only just off crutches and still doing rehab exercises twice a day. Dan and I in the Boundary Waters together? It was an audacious plan. [[Return|grad school simulator]]

I could certainly quit graduate school whenever I wanted. I had quit my original Boy Scout troop. But then I transferred to a better troop. I had not really quit at all. Some part of me agreed with my father, that it was best to stay in graduate school. I had already sunk so much effort into getting this far. Some part of me didn’t want to quit. Some part of me was just afraid. I could still go either way. [[Continue|grad school simulator]]

<<set $timedoubting+=1>><<set $timeserved+=1>><><<include "event checker">> <<set $adverb=["exactly","nearly","precisely","at all","close to"]>> <<print $names.random()>>, <<print $positions.random()>>, advised: <<print $advice.random()>>. <><<if $timedoubting lt 6>> That advice wasn't <<print $adverb.random()>> what I wanted to hear. So I kept asking other people for advice.<</if>>

I had been in graduate school a full year already. My class peers had already selected their advisors and were writing thesis proposals. Yet I was still floundering. Dr. Prasad, the graduate program general advisor, was a young untenured professor who specialized in disorders of the spleen. Soon after the end of the first year he called me in to discuss why I hadn’t committed to a research program yet. Answer: [[I feel conflicted between doing what I want to do, and doing what my father says is good for my future.|forced choice]] [[I feel conflicted between doing what I want to do, and doing what my undergraduate mentor says will save me from a lifetime of failure.|forced choice]] [[When I talk about the research I find most compelling, my peers say they're not interested in the same thing.|forced choice]]

<<set $timedoubting+=1>><<set $adverb=["exactly","nearly","precisely","at all","close to"]>><<print $names.random()>>, <<print $positions.random()>>, advised: <<print $advice.random()>>. <<if $timedoubting lt 6>>\ That advice wasn't <<print $adverb.random()>> what I wanted to hear. So I kept asking other people for advice.<</if>>

<<widget "event-check">><> <<if setup.getyear($timeserved) gte 1 and $piname=="0">><<goto "forced choice setup">><</if>> <<if setup.getyear($timeserved) gte 1 and not hasVisited("DEJH intro")>><<goto "DEJH intro">><</if>> <<if setup.getyear($timeserved) gte 2 and not hasVisited("thesis proposal")>><<set $quitoption=1>><<goto "thesis proposal">><</if>> <<if setup.getyear($timeserved) gte 3 and not hasVisited("near death")>><<set $quitoption=1>><<goto "near death">><</if>> <<if setup.getyear($timeserved) gte 4 and not hasVisited("walk by the lakeshore") and $darcymet==true>><<goto "walk by the lakeshore">><</if>> <<if setup.getyear($timeserved)==8>><<goto "kicked out">><</if>> <<if $timewriting gt 12>><<goto "graduated">><</if>> <> <</widget>>

I advanced through scouting step by step. Early in my Sophomore year of high school I finished my Boy Scout “Life” service project, one step below Eagle. Back home after the project I looked in the mirror and realized I could go all the way. I calculated the time line. I needed to earn the remaining merit badges for Life Scout, then start planning my Eagle service project. It wasn’t something I could finish immediately. I calculated at least two more years. Eagle service projects are not meant to be simple. They should provide a meaningful lasting benefit to some nonprofit interest. They should involve the coordinated leadership of other participants. I chose to provide service to a Methodist church camp in southern Wisconsin, a place that had some special meaning to me. I contacted the camp director, who asked me to paint the interior walls of two family cabins on the property. I called local paint stores and obtained donated supplies, including probably hundreds of dollars of donated white paint. It was unusual in our troop to schedule a service project location so far from home base. I arranged to have scouts stay overnight in one of the camp lodges. I coordinated food for the troop and recruited two project co-captains to supervise the work in the individual cabins. We arrived on Friday night, started first thing Saturday, and drove home [[Saturday night]].

@@font-size:large;<<script>>document.body.style.setProperty('--seattleColor','lightyellow');<</script>> //Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;// >>Robert Frost ("[[The Road Not Taken|Stepping off the plane]]" 1916) @@

A few weeks later I received a thank you letter from the director of the Methodist camp. Compared to other groups completing similar work, he wrote, our team had been spectacularly well organized. There were a few other hoops to jump through to finish the Eagle requirements, but I completed them and finally received the award in autumn of 1985. There are only two boards of review I remember vividly in my Scouting career. The first, when the Scoutmaster asked if I aspired to becoming an Eagle and I said no. The last when I became an Eagle. <<link "Return" $ending>><</link>>

At the end of a month, my parents [[borrowed the station wagon|a12]] again to get me back to Children’s Memorial. The weather had turned colder since I had last seen sunlight or breathed fresh air. Those small pleasures were not lost to me either. I remember fixating on the gray November clouds as if I were seeing them for the first time. The saw they use to cut off a cast is loud and a little frightening. Cutting off a cast that large takes several minutes. When they lifted off the top half, I felt the cool air against my prickly skin for the first time in weeks. “But I still can’t move. What’s wrong?” I asked. “Your muscles have atrophied. You’ll need to do some exercises to get your strength back. You’ll be in the hospital a little longer this time than you were during the surgery, so you can go through rehab. When you’re able to walk on crutches, then you can go home.” The nursing staff was a little <<linkappend "nicer this stay.">> They would bring juice and snap-together model airplane kits to keep me hydrated and entertained. I had a TV remote and color television, so I could watch more than one station. Indeed, it was fun just flipping through the stations continuously without watching anything at all. I would do this all evening, until the nurses made us turn out the lights.<</linkappend>> But rehab was <<linkappend "painful.">> Just the act of bending my knee or allowing a therapist to bend it for me caused me to scream. I was an unhelpful patient. But when I came back a year later for rehab after my sequel surgery I knew what to expect. I bore the pain more easily the second time through and recovered more quickly. The therapist taught me to sit up on my own then to walk, first on parallel bars and later with crutches.<</linkappend>> Also, every four to six hours a nurse would poke my finger with a lancet and chart my other vital statistics. This protocol just reinforced my sense that Children’s Memorial was a place of torture. When the TV was off (and when I wasn’t being poked by a lancet) <<linkappend "I’d read">> mystery novels, or the “Great Brain” series of children’s books. I read “The Hobbit” around that time and “Wrinkle in Time.” I discovered John Callahan’s morbid cartoons. I was transitioning from children’s literature to more adult themes<</linkappend>>. [[Previous memory|long time]] [[Return to present|itenerary]]

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