I know I shouldn't be doing this, but right now I am feeling an incredible wave of regret. This past spring I was rejected from every graduate program I applied to, even though I worked really hard to make myself an attractive candidate. At the time I wasn't devastated by the news, but for some reason it's stinging now more than I thought it would.
I applied in science writing programs, one of them at UC Santa Cruz. Every year UCSC publishes the works of their grads, and for the most part they're all very good. Actually, they're all very good. The only fault I can find with them is in the inclusion of short biographies of the student writers at the bottom of their stories. If I ever want to feel inadequate as either a scientist or as a writer all I need to do is to read these bios.
I read one tonight for a guy who is a dead-ringer for Jason Schwartzman, and whose ego is unrivaled. He declared that it was Nobel laureate who told him he should be a writer, egging him on in a passion he'd carried since childhood. As if the endorsement of a Nobel winner makes him a certifiable genius, he at least assumes it gives him the liberty to take head shots wearing corduroy jackets and collared shirts, tilting his head as if to say, "Yeah, I'm smarter than you."
I hate this guy. I feel it deep down in a place I don't even like to think about and it really doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good when I'm struggling to find work and trying to go to school while trying to make new friends and get back into life. I hate this guy for his pretentious picture and his ability to succeed where I so blatantly failed.
Maybe that's what's pissing me off the most about it.
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