Too many whats
I hadn’t seen my friend Michael in nearly a decade. We used to hang out in college. Rather, I used to hang out at his and Din’s lab in the UP Chemistry department while they worked on their graduate research project. As far as I could tell there wasn’t much work going on: I just assumed they were distilling liquor, but then I barely passed high school chem. (My lab partner Alec, whose chem grades were probably worse than mine, is now a partner at a big architectural firm in New York, so take that, periodic table of elements.) The one tangible result of my loitering in a lab was a short story that ended up in my first book, Manananggal Terrorizes Manila. It’s a fairly awful story, but I enjoyed writing it, and I used Michael’s and Din’s real names. (You cannot sue me, you haven’t copyrighted your names, haha.)
The last time I saw Michael he was teaching at a state university in North Carolina. “What are you doing now?” I said.
“I live in New York, I teach at NYU.”
“What!”
“I’m the Dorothy Schiff Professor of Genomics.”
“What! Who’s the most famous scientist you’ve ever met?”
“I met James Watson at a party.”
“The poor man.”
“And Francis Crick, and Jared Diamond who wrote Guns, Germs, and Steel.”
“Have you written any popular science books?”
“No, but I have a publisher. I have a groupie in New Zealand.”
“Whatever.”
“I got a Guggenheim fellowship.”
“What!” (Must break news to Vince, who used to be the only Pinoy Guggenheim fellow we knew of.)
Michael said he wanted to see I Am Legend because it was shot near his apartment. Filming took place in mid-2006. The special effects team torched a line of cars in Washington Square Park. When the cars were set on fire, giant rats the size of basketballs burst out of the bushes, hundreds of them, and they all ran to the south end of the park. In the morning the tourists would see the burnt automotive wreckage and wonder why the riot wasn’t in the news.
I said, “Are you insane enough to keep a car in New York?”
“Well I have my midlife crisis car, I can’t get rid of it.”
“What!”
“It’s a silver Mercedes roadster.”
“What!”
“I got it before my divorce.”
“What!” This is what happens when you don’t keep in touch with old friends: they overachieve and have midlife crises. This only reinforces my commitment to underachievement and immaturity.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
January 4th, 2008 at 11:42
This is what happens when you don’t keep in touch with old friends: they overachieve and have midlife crises. This only strengthens my commitment to underachievement and immaturity.
Amen!
January 4th, 2008 at 12:13
Anyone, what’s Guggenheim fellowship?
January 4th, 2008 at 13:07
Roreru24, it’s a grant like the MacArthur Fellowship. The grant simply means the Guggenheim foundation giving money to deserving people so they can pursue their lofty goals, which, in Dr. Purugganan’s case is to do research on plant genomics and that, like any laboratory work, takes a lot of money. It’s prestigious because they trust you so much that they’re giving you the money just based on a promise that you’ll end up with satisfactory, if not outstanding, results or work.
January 4th, 2008 at 13:55
“The poor man.â€
Indeed. James Watson’s findings shouldve been refuted by science and not by political correctness. Let him present his findings and then blast it out of the water with scientific arguments instead of gagging or firing him.
Scientists. Pfsh. And Dr. Watson apologized. What a wimp.
January 8th, 2008 at 13:30
Thanks, Dr. Feelgood. One reason why I keep on reading this blogspot is that I feel like I’m with genius people. hehe. By the way, do you have your own blog too?