Patrick Lane is going to Harvard

Master's in Early American History, I start this fall so I can catch a breather and move on. I start working at Harvard soon so my ALM will only run me 40 a class (hopefully the $1,750 thesis fee is subsidized!!!). I'm really excited to begin this program and add The Credential to my resume. 2 or 3 years from now I go from an overly raw early entry to a polished, mature candidate. It's all or nothing again next time, and I just might shock and drop a few JD/PhD applications if I'm feeling I can make a G.  Right now, I'm just enjoying the final days of Boston College. If my kids don't end up going there, I could be the last of either family to attend BC, which makes me all the more glad that I followed my heart and came back home for school.  It was hard having to fall back on the Master's and not even leave 128, but the Greater Boston area really is my home, and I just move from place to place without really losing my identity.

For some perspective: 10 years ago I was a malcontent at Xaverian High. 7 years ago I was down and out at Trinity High. 6 years ago I drop out of UMass with a hazy plan and a 2.0. 5 years ago I'm in Boot Camp. 

 In 6 weeks I become a college graduate, and about 4 months later I become an Ivy League grad student. Wow.

0 for grad school applications forced me to think outside the box and return to that ancient idea of a safety program at a world class university, so Harvard it is.

BTW, as much as I fretted that the ALM wouldn't be accepted as a "real" Harvard degree by the snobs, it IS a Harvard degree and it HAS gotten people into Ivy League PhD and professional programs, so I'd say I'm making a smart choice while moving 1 step closer to my ultimate goal.

In 2010 I will send out my applications again, early list includes Georgetown, Harvard, Yale, and a few Chesapeake regional programs.

Grad School Massacre and the Greatest Defeat in Human History

Patrick Lane is an utter absolute failure, according to the advisory committees at 7 of the 8 grad schools I applied to. I heard back from Texas, Brown, and Vanderbilt within 2 days of each other, which prompted me into a near-catatonic depression. But that isn't even the worst thing to happen to me that week.

The Patriots, who I predicted to win Super Bowl XLII 55-19 in a glorious blowout....lost.

Yup. 17-14. Worst game of football I've ever seen. The Giants defensive line got after Brady much as the Soviet Third Army plundered the young female population of East Prussia during the 1945 drive toward Berlin. I don't want to live in a world where there the Manning Brothers are back-to-back Super Bowl MVPs at the expense of New England offensive miscues, but that is the lot I have been given.

BC basketball made me want to enter one of those crazy religious orders where you can't talk, masturbate, or watch TV, just so I could perhaps learn to let go of the pain of mediocre ACC hoops in a sequestered monastic prison of the self. Bloody awful. Tyrese Rice isn't as good as he thinks he is but that UNC game was a beauty.

BC hockey has the worst home season this decade but makes the 2 seed in Worcester with a Red Sox-esque run through the Hockey East Tournament, which happened to be perhaps the least magnetic post-season tournament I've ever seen. There was little to no crowd vitality and I found myself not so much enraptured by the BC-UNH triple overtime classic as I was chained to it like a 90-lb. crackwhore to a Mattapan radiator.

The Red Sox won this morning in Japan. I turned on the TV to Manny's 2-run double in the 6th and was mighty pleased. If I could start every morning like that I wouldn't need to run this graduate school gauntlet to make myself feel halfway decent everyday.

I don't really smoke anymore but the drinking has maintained itself nicely. A few beers, perhaps some wine, but I try not to delve into semi-inebriated self parody.

The NCAA tournament sucks. All this "OMG COLLEGE BASKETBALL IS THE BESTEST THING EVR!!!!!!!!11111!" is a big steaming truckload of malarkey. There is a reason half these teams play before empty arenas on ESPN during the regular season, and its because baseball and football are infinitely more cerebral than a game any college dropout with good genes can master at 19.