Saturday, December 29, 2007

Holiday Forgiveness

I was unexpectedly forgiven twice this Christmas.

Among the list of people I thought I could never face, the one that tops the list would be college mentor. This woman put up with all my failed experiments in college, my pleas for recommendation letters, and several drafts of my thesis since I was around 19 years old. I was supposed to do cancer research, you guys, not go on this odyssey of, ugh, “soul-searching.” (I hate this term.)

The despair of letting a mentor down is just incomparable. Parents will forgive their children because they only passed on their genes, but mentors, I believe, transmit their ideology and beliefs. The thought of showing my face at her doorstep with a black belt in taekwondo instead of a Ph.D. in neuroscience was turning into an ugly (although potentially hilarious) scene in my head.

You can imagine the confusion in my head when, instead of a note of disappointment, I got this e-mail from her in my inbox:

“I'm soooooo happy for you because you finally did it. I'm equally proud of you for having the guts to do it …and do exactly what you like. That's my girl!!!!!”



“That’s my girl?” Wait a second. You’re OK with this? Wow. Yet another thing I didn’t see coming at all.

On a lighter note, I finally discovered why the Mexican delivery boys at my favorite restaurant in New York, Gobo, have been snubbing me for months. I hang out with their waiters, chat with their cashiers, high-five the chefs, and learn Polish from their manager, but this group of Latinos, alas!, I’ve never gotten close to, which is strange because I usually get along with Hispanics. I was always under the impression that they thought my Spanish was bad, but hey, I’ve only gotten through Spanish 2. I think it’s safe to say that I speak the language like a four-year-old, but I curse like a native without meaning to.

Christmas day, the answer finally came to me. Looking at my account when I paid, there, in my account, was the reason for my scarlet letter:

Catherine Young
Delivery Notes: horrible tipper

Oh God. The cashier was mortified, and so was I, but frankly I was relieved that it all became clear. To be honest, this is the only place in the US where I’ve had food delivered, and I remember some medical student telling me that tipping for delivery is “only a dollar.” I knew the 15% rule applied to all services, but I thought that I could, as a poor grad student, can get away with this if people usually did it. Or so I thought.

Suffice it to say that they’re talking to me again. In espanol. It’s good to start 2008 clean.

No comments: