A Simple Twist of Fate; or, a BIG life update.

I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the ax just fell.
-Bob Dylan, Tangled Up in Blue

Dear friends, family, and other loved ones, I am writing this to inform you that in a few weeks I am headed East. However, due to a most unforeseen twist of fate, I am headed both farther East and farther North than previously presumed. I am returning to the place where I spent my formulative years (a.k.a. middle school). That place where the ocean sprays fresh on your face. That place where clam chowder is the thing to do. And, of course, that place where the Red Sox are all the rage.

Perhaps if I were a writer, I would have seen the foreshadowing on the night of Wednesday, July 28. Reading John Irving's latest, Last Night in Twisted River, I left the two main characters (a cook and his son) headed towards Boston. Having accidentally mistaken his father's lover for a grizzly bear and killing her with an eight-inch skillet, the 12-year old Danny, accompanied by his father flee the logging town in which they live in Coos County, New Hampshire. I closed the book that night with the two heading towards Boston, to track down the mother of another recently deceased logger.

Earlier this semester, I applied to four graduate schools for biophysics. I never heard back from Boston University (BU). This past Thursday, I received a call notifying me that my application had been lost and just recently found. The professor who called me asked if I would still like the admissions committee to review my application and (of course) I said yes.

The rest is melodramatic history worthy of an Almodovar film (ok, perhaps not), but in the end I have been generously offered a position as a graduate student, taking classes and doing research to one day receive a PhD. And the research at BUMC (The Medical School of BU, of which I will be a part, is quite fascinating). After much thinking and praying, I accepted this offer and am rather excited about this stage in my life. I realize that this path will be drastically different from the immediate path seminary would have laid out for me. The decision was hard, but for a smorgasbord of reasons, I ended up choosing BU. I am quite excited about this path and can always attend seminary later in life.

So in the next couple weeks I will be visiting BUMC and working on finding housing (any leads would be sweet!). And in the words of Tobias, Let the great experiment begin! Though admittedly, attending BU is quite different from having an open marriage...