First it was going to be a week ago.  Then last Friday.  Then today.  There would be a decision.  The team responsible for evaluating our performance on our comprehensive exams was to meet, and decide whether we would pass or pass with distinction.  The unsaid possibility was that someone might fail.  But in the nine-year history of the program, no-one had failed.

Until now, I find myself asking?  I mean, I know I totally blew calculus.  I certainly failed that part.  Is that enough to fail them all? Or does it depend how many sections were judged to be worthy of "with distinction"?  Were any of mine that good?

I realize, as I waited for the phone call that hasn't yet come, that it's been a long time since I was anxiously waiting for a decision that others would make that could have so much influence on my life.  The last time, it was Harvard: would I be admitted to the mid-career masters in public admin program?  But no-one knew I had applied.  At least not many people I knew. And if I wasn't accepted, I wouldn't have to explain to the world why I wasn't moving to Boston.  Besides, despite the 54th percentile ranking in the math scores of the Graduate Management Admissions Test, I was admitted.  And I did move to  Boston.

This time, if the news is "bad news", I'll be explaining it a lot.  Will I blame the school? Why didn't they require that I have the pre-reqs in math, if I was going to have to do calculus? Why do they still require such nonsense?  Or will I blame myself? Why didn't I know that I would be required to do this, and that I wasn't capable of it? Why couldn't I use the time I'd set aside to actually prepare for the comps? Why did I do this in the first place, when I was so unenthusiastic, and why didn't I drop out as I became even less enthusiastic as time went by?

It's always a relief, somehow, when someone else decides you won't be doing something that would take a remarkable amount of time and energy.   Heck, I still miss the days when I got sent to bed every night at nine, because someone else precluded my options, and made it easier to take care of myself.  In some ways, being told my academic career is over would be like being sent to bed before I was too exhausted to make that decision for myself.  But somehow, it seems immoral, or at least irresponsible to have someone else make these decisions for me. 

And, in some ways, I'd very much like to continue.  After all, the tough part is behind me, in some ways.  Taking courses I didn't choose, working with people who found me to be undisciplined and in some senses unworthy because I had another life in addition to being a student and scholar-in-training -- all that is behind me.  From here on in, I'd get to choose the content of my courses, and who teaches them.  I get to frame the doctoral research and do it.  Now, the intellecual fun begins.

Or does it?  Time will tell.  And in the meantime, I wait.

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