I’m at the Student Union, checking my e-mail. I have a message from a professor I really respect! I open the letter. My writing sample is attached, but it’s unmarked and barely read. The message is: “WTF?? We told you the last time that you weren’t good enough to go to grad school and this crap is how you try to convince us otherwise? This paper is crap, you’d be lucky to be accepted into a paper bag. It’s embarrassing, I can’t believe you thought this was any good.”
I stare at the machine and my heart drops. It’s bad enough to write something that’s not any good, but to have someone you really respect tell you that is just heart-wrenching. I panic. I’m already a recommendation short and I don’t want to lose him, I walk around, wondering what to do.
I’ll rewrite it, tell him I took his points and now my paper is wonderful. Or that I really am ready for grad school, I just need to get back up to speed in writing philosophy. Maybe I’ll just talk to him, maybe that will be enough. I’m at the airport parking lot, walking to my car, dreading Monday morning, when I’ll have to go see him. I hope he’s wrong, but forefront in my mind is the question… what if he’s right?
———
I wake up, my cousin jabbing me, saying I have to get ready. I panic, I need to plan what I’m going to say to my professor in the hopes that he will esteem me some more. I can’t focus on what my cousin says, but he goes away soon enough. I look around. I’m in home country, in my cousin’s house. I wonder what’s the quickest way to the Internet. I think. Wait. How did I get my professor’s e-mail in the middle of the night? Maybe I have to go back to sleep to find out.
… wait. What did I just say? Did I even get an e-mail? If I did, why did my professor use the “WTF” line? Did that really happen, or is my subconscious just trying to torture me? It… it didn’t happen. What? He didn’t hate it? …. oh my sweet, gooey-centered goodness! What luck! It wasn’t real!
I’m so happy! I’ve never been so happy to be in a real world! I’m so thankful for… reality.1
- True story. [↩]
Oh, good Lord! You had me thinking, ‘What the hell kind of professor says that?!’ Geez, you should warn people when it’s a dream sequence. Well, I guess the italics could have clued me in. Dur.
Glad he didn’t hate it!
Haha. Actually I think J-P HAS written “WTF?” on a paper before, I think it was one I was commenting on for conference. Although you’re right, your dream wasn’t realistic in the sense that he’s more likely to spell it out instead of using the acronym…lol
Have you gotten his comments back yet?
No, he said he’d get back to me with them soon. But you wanna know the crazy part of this dream?
… It wasn’t J-P. It was a professor we’ve had that I can’t imagine actually saying that. Isn’t that crazy?
😕
Dude….seriously. I bet you were freaking terrified. You kind of terrified me just writing about that.