Nuff Said

Letter

Dear HT,

I assure you I have no idea how you do it.

Did I ever tell you that when I approached you at that conference the first time, I was looking for the other guy? Probably not.  You wouldn't like to hear that you were not my first choice. You wouldn't say anything. But you would feel disappointed a bit.  So here's something nice for you.  There's a line in this book I'm reading. It's about destiny and how you have to let it run its natural course over time with all it's twists and turns.  The many events that led to me approaching that poster seem random. But then again, they don't. They seemed planned and very reassuring just like the time with you has been.

I know that I had a big chip on my shoulder in the beginning.  If I had known what I know now, I would have been less of a pretend know-it-all prick. Or tried harder to learn at least.  It took your immense simplicity and your brilliant creativity to blow me away. This is true for all your students. So don't ever change.  And your kindness? I still have the email you send me when my quals didn't go too well. You said you were proud of me and that you had no doubt I would make an independent researcher one day.

So here I am, the independent researcher, wishing you were here. The security over the past 5 years was in knowing that all answers were a walk and a knock away.  An email away. Even in the darkest hours of 2012, there was still hope mostly cause I trusted your brain and your heart.  And here I am on my own. No HT.

Fuck.

Did I really think I could do the same things that you did? I did, but I don't know why I thought that.  I was deluded to think that I have a single fraction of the intelligence you possess.  So I will quit this here and now and come back to you. Maybe I can enroll again, this time go over it the right way, whatever that is.  Am sure we can work this out.

Sigh.

Just kidding.

Bird.