Such Sweet Sorrow

As a child, I was inculcated with this mantra: “Study hard, go to a good school, and get a good job; then you’ll be able to afford nice things.” Whenever my parents took me to the toy store, the ice cream shop, or the mall, my wide-eyed entreaties were sure to meet this ready reply. Sometimes it seemed as though such excursions served more as exercises in indoctrination than as trips for the purpose of purchasing anything. Although my parents intended me to view education as a stepping stone on the path toward financial prosperity, I came to see it as a valuable end in itself. This attitude persisted and burgeoned throughout high school, where my interest in literature and its role in society began.

Notwithstanding my interest in the English arts, I tentatively decided (read: my parents forced me) to pursue a degree that would prepare me for a career as a health care professional (read: doctor). Despite the earnestness with which I approached the life sciences, classes like organic chemistry and behavioral neuroscience failed to arouse my interest, and by my junior year I could suffer the thought of a career in medicine no longer. Interest in English literature led me to enroll in a few classes; my intent to study English was solidified after being nominated for the English department writing award for my work in the undergraduate survey courses. After completing the survey series and sampling each literary era, I found myself drawn to one particular period in British literature: Romanticism.

So began the first draft to my personal statement for English literature graduate school. (Subsequent drafts had to omit the first paragraph and all its humorous glory in order to bow to the draconian page limits of the graduate programs.) More than just an attempt to ingratiate myself with the Illuminati of British literature, those two paragraphs express a very real (and substantial) truth about my childhood and adolescent years.

But this essay isn't about my going to graduate school, nor is it purely about the seductive power that the world of academia has on me; this essay is about my struggle to choose between pursuing my scholastic goals and following Christ. [Aside: I considered those two gerund phrases, "pursuing..." and "following...," very carefully, because I in no way wanted to intimate a mutual exclusivity between them. On the contrary, I know plenty of dedicated Christians who have also received higher degrees. In my particular case, between the particular choices that were laid before me, I felt as though the two were incompatible.]

Perhaps this is a good place for a recapituation of the recent developments in my life for those unfortunate enough to be out of the loop:

Feb 12: UCLA rejection. (ouch, my own alma mater.)
Feb 16: Cornell rejection.
Feb 23: Princeton rejection.
Feb 23: Yale rejection.
Feb 25: Stanford rejection. (ouch, my dream school.)
Feb 27: Berkeley rejection.
Mar 1: Columbia rejection. (ouch, my other dream school.)
Mar 3: Chicago rejection.
Mar 9: USCB March 9 rejection. (triple ouch, my backup school.)
Mar 16 Virginia WINNER! WINNER!*
Apr 7: NYU WINNER AGAIN!*
Apr 9: UPenn rejection. (but who cares, I had gotten into two other schools at this point.)

*I was accepted into the University of Virginia (U.Va), a great institution of higher learning, which was founded by none other than Thomas Jefferson himself. Accordingly, the architecture of the school is Jeffersonian, and from every account I have heard, the campus is absolutely spectacular, with a beautiful view of the Appalachian Mountains. Even more elating than my admission into U.Va, however, was the letter of acceptance to NYU, which has two major advantages over Virginia: a) prestige/name recognition; and b) location. Since beginning the Best American Essays series, I've noticed that many, many essays are written with a consummate familiarity of New York City; this has led me to believe that every great American essayist should live in New York at some time in his lifetime.

I replied in the affirmtive to the invitations from both UVa and NYU, and resolved to decide later which school I would attend. Some time in May, my undergraduate professors unanimously affirmed the superiority of the NYU English department, and I made my choice accordingly. Then, I began to reconsider grad school altogether, which brings us back to the present narrative.

And after consultation with many friends, serious deliberation, and considerable prayer, I felt my options were "pursuing my scholastic goals" and "following Christ." I could have broken the choice down into any number of other dichotomies: getting a masters/not getting a masters; living in New York (the Mecca of modern American writers)/forgoing New York; going $100,000 in debt for two years of schooling/staying debt free; rejoining university life and preparing for a future in acadmia/staying in Cerritos and considering other career opportunities.

The allure of pursuing a masters degree, living in the writers' Mecca, immersing myself in a world of scholarship, and being 100K in debt notwithstanding, the thought of leaving my Christian community here in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan/Orange County area proved a large obstacle on the road to graduate school. As I continued to pray about it, and weighed my options carefully, I came to see that for me, graduate school was exclusively "for me," a dream that I wanted to pursue because of my early childhood socialization; whereas staying would be "for God and His people," a sacrifice (of sorts) that would serve purposes other than just my own.

New York is seductive because it's metropolitan, fast-paced and 热热闹闹 (a Chinese term that most nearly translates into "bustling.") It's seductive because not having lived there and not being part of the New York illuminati is so odious; quite often I've read essays mentioning "Mad Avenue" or "5th and such-and-such" so casually that I felt ashamed of my ignorance of New York geography. Yet the appeal of New York is the very thing which has repelled me: I was bent on going only to relish the city and the ego boost I would enjoy from another degree, and these, to me, seem like illegitimate reasons to attend NYU.

Eventually, I turned to Scripture. Luke 18:28-30 says, " Then Peter said, 'Lo, we have left all, and followed thee.' And He said unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.'"

Before my ordeal with the grad school decision, I had assumed "leaving" houses, parents, brethren, and children entailed a physical departure: going to China to teach English for the summer, traveling to Africa to tend children orphaned by AIDS, walking down the street to share the gospel with a neighbor. But through my current plight (if I may use that term to describe this situation), I have seen that "leaving" something can simply mean forsaking it, and "following" Christ can mean "staying put." And in my case, I think "leaving" grad school by remaining here is harder than a physical removal from a place or person. Yet through prayer, I am finding that the Spirit is asking whether I will sacrifice graduate school and higher education to play an active role in my church community.

So, after having made the aforementioned deliberations, and having cautiously adumbrated the ends of the two roads diverging in the yellow wood before me, I decided to put off my romatic views of Romanticm (at least for now), and abide a while longer here.