My Amazing Adventure in Philadelphia, Part 2
Friday was the actual official day of Important Stuff. I rose bright and early and headed toward Williams Hall for an orientation breakfast--everyone did their best to balance coffee cups and plates of bagels and fruit on their knees while simultaneously looking at their schedules for the day and listening to Prof. Romero explain how things were going to work. The faculty members who were there introduced themselves and talked about their research and interests a little, and then the prospective students did the same.
Let me say, first, that meeting the other prospective students was DEFINITELY intimidating. I don't know what I was expecting, but as I heard people talking amongst themselves, it hit me: "Holy crap, these people are all brilliant." And- yeah, it was a little scary. (They were all very East Coast-y, too. Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, NYU. God.) I mean, everyone was nice, I wasn't too scared to talk to people or anything, it was just- I realized that of the 20+ students there, probably fewer than half would get offers, and I had no idea how they were possibly going to pick from among such a frighteningly smart group of people. Which, yeah. Kind of jarring.
Anyway, the first thing I attended was a short historical syntax talk by Anthony Kroch on "Statistical Evidence for Split INFL." It was really interesting; I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to talk with him personally during the weekend. Next I had two interviews: the first with Gillian Sankoff and the second with Bill Labov (who are MARRIED, omg; I didn't know that!). The interviews often hardly felt like interviews--at times I thought, bewildered, "Aren't they supposed to ask me questions?" and "They're talking more than I am!" Prof. Labov enthused at me about Chinese for at least ten of our thirty minutes--it was so incredibly geeky! Prof. Romero, too, spent most of our interview later that afternoon telling me about an L2-acquisition experiment she thought someone needed to do on her and her Spanish-speaking friends. So...OK!
After that I picked up a catered box lunch (after that first cab, I seriously didn't pay for anything the entire weekend) and went with the group to listen to some guy with a delightful British accent give a talk on some cognitive science topic that was largely over my head, but interesting nonetheless. Maybe if we hadn't missed the first few minutes, I would have been clearer on what the main topic was; I have the title here--"Category-specificity reflects not only the location but type of damage: Evidence from a direct comparison of HSVE, SD and an associated computational model of semantic memory"--but, wow. That doesn't actually help much. Basically, he was looking at and comparing the damage done to the brain in patients with herpes simplex encephalitis and patients with semantic dementia. Mmm, aphasiology!
Next was Prof. Labov's Speech Community class, then a snack break (Tastykakes!), then I had two more interviews: one with David Embick, and one with Maribel Romero. Prof. Embick was really nice.
At the end of the day, some of the faculty members took all the prospectives to dinner at a Thai restaurant. The food was all right, but what I really enjoyed was the (at times bizarre) conversation. I sat next to Rolf Noyer and ended up talking to him a lot; topics that were touched on at our corner of the table included nutria invasions, exploding whales, and nowhere towns in Washington and Oregon. Er, yeah.
Afterwards, the faculty members left and the prospectives all trudged through the white and drifted snow to the apartment of one of the grad students--which, damn, if I can live in an apartment like that as a grad student, I'll be sitting pretty--for a grads & prospectives party. I talked with people. It was cool. I was wilting within an hour or so, though, what with the long day and my leftover travel exhaustion, so I hitched a ride back to my host's place as soon as possible. End day two.
On Saturday, those of us who were still around did a bit of sightseeing with some current grad students. I probably saw more of the sidewalk than anything else over the whole weekend, as I spent most of time hunched over and staring at my shoes to keep from a) freezing my face off, and b) falling on my ass onto the treacherous snow and ice. And I mostly don't know where we actually went. But, uh. I rode the train-subway-thing! And a trolley and a bus. And we went to a farmer's market, where I failed to have a Philly cheesesteak because of the incredibly long lines. I did buy licorice-y things from some Pennsylvania Dutch, though! There was also some jam labeled with the name "Bauman." I really wanted to buy a jar and show it to my family, but alas, I couldn't take it through security, so I didn't.
We went some other places. I'll upload the few pictures I took later.
Later that night, Profs. Sankoff and Labov had their annual potluck dinner at their house, which-- it was kind of amazing just to be there. (As a fellow prospective said, "I'm hanging out in Bill Labov's house.") I was kind of awkward and not as social as I would have liked to be, but that's nothing new. I had to hint pretty heavily to my host that maybe he should take me back sooner rather than later, seeing as I had to get to the airport at 5:30 the next morning...in the end, we only left once they started kicking people out. I collapsed into bed yet again, only to get up like four hours later to take a cab to the airport. Fortunately, this time I was able to use my credit card and get a receipt. Unfortunately, I didn't realize until too late that it was the wrong one, for a fare less than half of what I actually paid. (ARGH.)
The flight back was much smoother, though there was a blip in the middle that could have turned much worse: the flight leaving Philadelphia boarded only a little bit late, but we then sat there for almost an hour while they de-iced the wings, and the whole time I was glancing at my watch anxiously as I watched my chances of making my connection get smaller and smaller. We finally landed in Atlanta, and I emerged onto Concourse E--with ten minutes before my plane took off from, where else? Concourse A. I tore across the airport, arriving, breathless, just before the airplane door was closed. Whew.
Once back in Seattle, I immediately fell to my knees and kissed the ground. Then I had a latte.
Despite the latte, I fell asleep almost immediately upon arriving home; I woke up about twelve hours later, in the early morning, and my head was stuffed full of angry bees and everything hurt. Really, considering the combination of stress, long hours in airports and planes, no sleep, trudging through the snow in freezing cold weather and inadequate winter clothing, and being on my period, it was probably inevitable that I get sick. So that knocked me out for a few days, which of course added to my stress about catching up, which was no fun.
The irony being, of course, that this trip--though a worthy and enjoyable experience--ultimately kind of wrecked me, and in the end I have absolutely no confidence that I stand a chance of being accepted.
That sounds pessimistic, but it's not. It's just--as I said above--everyone there was so smart and so driven that I realized there was no way any decision was going to be made without an element of arbitrariness. I know I'd do great in the program, but so would all the other students! In the end, what it comes down to is one or two faculty members saying, "I want this student." I don't know if I succeeded in making enough of an impression on any of the faculty--I didn't walk away from any of my interviews thinking, "Yeah, I nailed that!" because there wasn't anything to nail--with any luck, my clumsy attempts at talking about my interests succeeded in conveying how passionate I am about this stuff; but I just don't know. If I could do it again, I would definitely feel more confident for having had some practice.
Bottom line: I have no idea what response to expect from Penn. I'd be disappointed not to be accepted, obviously, but I'm pretty sure I'd get over it sooner rather than later, because I know, on the basis of my visit, that it wouldn't mean I'm unworthy--it's just that the odds are small to start with, the competition is incredible, and it does take a somewhat lucky combination of factors. And if I haven't found mine yet, well. Try, try again.
*crosses fingers*