A Rock and a Hard Place

i survived a harrowing interview last night. as you may know, i've been applying for fellowships to study philosophy in england next year, and this interview was with stanford's panel to determine whether to endorse my application. twenty minutes of lively, intellectually stimulating terror.

the panel (five former rhodes and marshall scholars in a variety of disciplines) had the good-cop-bad-cop thing going: the dramaturge on my right warmly admired my guts for raising a subject as taboo as religion in my personal statement; then the physician on my left demanded how belief in god could possibly be consistent with an event like Katrina. they also asked for my position on the intelligent design movement, my proposal to eradicate palo alto's homelessness, my evaluation of the ethics of "pay day loans" from an economic perspective, and when the devastation seemed complete they congratulated me on my grades and ushered me out of the room gasping for breath and clutching my chest. thank god that's done--unless of course i actually get endorsed and run the full gauntlet of three more of those.

but, as a sort of ironic reminder that i really do want to go to grad school, i started work today. at bosch i have truly gone corporate: not much use anymore for the gazillion t-shirts i acquired in the last year. on the plus side, there's a bike path that runs almost directly from my apartment to work, and we get free drinks. a frappuccino or two may heal the wounds left by the dress code.