This is, wow, a little over three years ago now; time flies.
I only applied to three grad schools. (In retrospect this may have been a bad idea; I really should have applied to more.) I applied to Oregon State and Arizona, but I was most excited about San Diego State, so you can imagine my excitement when I got a call from SDSU inviting me to an in-person (!) interview. Add to this the fact that the interview was in February in San Diego, and that where I was in Utah it was probably like 20 degrees, and I was a pretty happy camper.
The interviews were on I think a Thursday, so I decided I was going to fly in Wednesday night and fly out Saturday mid-morning; that way I could get a feel for the city and see if I liked it beyond just the program. I got some recommendations for cool stuff to do from the graduate coordinator at the program, and I was all excited about having Friday to wander around downtown San Diego.
I got in lateish on Wednesday night and was famished from being in airplanes and airports forever, so after I checked in and dropped my bags off at my hotel, I went wandering to look for some food. I ended up at a little Italian grocery store with a sandwich deli, and got a sub. I don't remember what was on the sub, but I do remember it being a really good sandwich, on that nice crusty Italian bread that crackles when you bite into it. I enjoyed the hell out of that sub, which is a good thing, considering what is to come.
The first intimation I had that something might be wrong was when I woke up the next morning and (I'm trying to be as delicate as possible here, but this is going to get graphic, I'm sorry) unleashed fiery liquid fury on the hotel toilet. The worst part was not that it was burny but that it smelled sort of like peperoncini, but what peperoncini might smell like if they had been marinating for several hours in a stew made with rotten eggs. Somehow I brushed this off as a side-effect of the stress of the upcoming interview and went on my merry way.
The interviews went pretty well. There were two interviews, a content interview where they had you talk about your mathematical background knowledge, and a fit interview where they had you talk about career goals and things you think you might be interested in. I was feeling maybe a little bit queasy during the second one of these interviews, but I put it down to having orange juice and a banana for breakfast; for some reason these are foods that don't sit particularly well with me unless I eat them with something else. It wasn't until we started meeting with professors to discuss their research programs that I started feeling seriously ill. Finally, just as a meeting was about to start, I said to the professor, "I apologize, but could you tell me where the nearest restroom is?" She was very kind and directed me out the office and down the hall, second door on the right. I knelt before the porcelain throne, tucked my tie in my shirt, and disgorged with some force the contents of my stomach. Did you know that bananas have small black seeds that apparently digest slightly slower than the rest of the banana?
I put on a brave face and went back in to the meetings. I was sitting around a conference table talking with a particularly interesting professor with several other applicants when I started feeling like I was going to pass out. I did all the stereotypical things: I surreptitiously loosened my tie, pumped my legs, rubbed my face, but nothing was working. Finally, and rather embarrassed, I said, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but um, I'm going to pass out unless I lie down on the floor for a while." Everyone was very nice to me; one applicant's mother is a nurse, and she went into super-calm nurse mode and put wet paper towels on my head while I explained the situation further. It was decided that in lieu of lunch and the campus tour (on which I am fairly sure that I very well could have simply died) I would go to the graduate student office where there was a couch and a quickly-accessible restroom. I have only vague memories of the next several hours; I believe I alternated with some rapidity between sleeping the sleep of the virally besieged and dry-heaving into the toilet.
After the campus tour, the graduate coordinator sent me off with half a loaf of bread left over from the sandwiches they had for lunch, a kind graduate student offered to take me back to my hotel (but told me that if I was going to vomit, to be sure to roll down the window and get as much out the car as I could; this is his slightly morbid sense of humor). I was fine during the car ride but the instant I stepped out of the car I could tell that I was going to need a receptacle of some sort, right away. I got to the front desk of the hotel and asked where the nearest bathroom is; the clerk gave me directions, and I dropped my backpack and half-ran, half-staggered over there. I almost, but not quite, made it in time; fortunately, by this point, there was nothing in my stomach but water, most of which made it into the toilet.
The very first thing I did when I got back to my hotel room was to take the other half of the sub out of my mini-fridge and throw it away in a garbage can that wasn't in my room, because I knew that if I had to sit there and smell it, I would go crazy and murder something. I spent the entirety of Thursday night alternating between sleep, TV (fortunately there was a lot of college basketball on), and unpleasant trips to the bathroom. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Christlike aid of a local church leader whose number I found on the internet. He went to a 7-11 close by and got me a big cup of Sprite and prayed with me, after which I felt well enough to sleep more or less through the night.
Friday was boring as hell; although I enjoyed the lovely breeze and the sound of the fountain in the courtyard outside drifting through my window, there's only so much daytime TV you can watch. I finally started to feel a little bit better by Friday night, and, bored of eating nothing but ice cubes (I couldn't even keep water down unless it was delivered extremely slowly by melting ice), ventured down to the cafe on the corner and had a raspberry Italian soda. It was one of the most delicious things I think I have ever tasted, and I went on a big Italian soda kick when I got home. (Ever since then, I always keep a bottle of Torani raspberry syrup on hand.)
You'll be relieved, I'm sure, to know that my trip to San Diego wasn't entirely wasted. On Saturday mornings there is a farmer's market that occupies several blocks of a street in Little Italy; fortuitously, it is the very street that my hotel was on. I woke up Saturday morning feeling mostly human and decided to go wander around the farmer's market. It was a beautiful day, probably 70º, and I wore a t-shirt and enjoyed the sun and the fresh air and the not being in the hotel room.
You'll also be relieved to know that I got into the program. Maybe they just felt bad for me. And of course, we all joke about it to this day, especially when interview day rolls around and a bunch of new applicants show up. I tell them my story and say, "If I can get in after all that, you have nothing to worry about!"
For your further amusement, here are selected Facebook status updates I posted during this trip:
Weds 9:26pm: "is in San Diego right now, and is eating an incredible sub from a deli in Little Italy."
Thurs 5:42pm: "food poisoning."
Thurs 11:00pm "is feeling significantly better, thanks to a blessing from the kind and caring local bishop."
Fri 10:24am: "so, so bored."
Fri 6:30pm: "My intestines hurt."
Sat 11:38am: "went to a super cool farmer's market, now is sitting in the airport." |
