By Julie Fahnestock
A friend recently asked me why we decided to come to MIT. I think most MIT alumni will answer this question the same way: because I got an acceptance letter. (I often forget that I’m not the MIT student.)
Julie’s story continues below. She recently shared this story and other glimpses of her life at MIT with us at a Wednesday meeting. You can find more of Julie’s stories at the Wife Behind the Genius. Julie describes her new blog as “an ode to all of the unspoken heroes at MIT: the women who support their nerdy partners, and to all of us right-brained geniuses living in this left-brained world. Because nerdiness is always relevant.”
Back to the story:
“Oh, well I also got into University of North Florida (clearly, I’m a proud alum of UNF) and I’m really torn about where to go.”
No, that’s not the conversation you have with yourself when you get an acceptance letter from MIT. The conversation sounds either like this: “Oh, well how does one decide between Harvard, Yale and Stanford?”
OR this:
“I better ramp up my Rubik’s cube solving time so I can impress my dorm mates.”
Thomas’s decision started with the latter thought. He came to my mom’s house one afternoon in April of 2008 with a letter, a bottle of champagne and a new Rubik’s cube. We had only been engaged for a couple of months. I knew Ted had been applying to different colleges, but I didn’t know he was reaching for Ivy League caliber schools. When we were dating I’d given him an ultimatum.
“Ted, listen. I love you a lot. You’re great in so many ways. But you’re uneducated.
I will never marry you unless you go to college.”
I was a recent college grad with a B.A. in political science from the highly academic University of North Florida (renowned for its golf program) and I wanted to spend my life with someone of similar academic achievements. It was really a humble request on my part. I didn’t want Thomas to spend his life having to measure up to me. Some may call that intense. Some may label me a harsh, controlling bi-otch. I call that a harsh, controlling-intense bi-otch being really smart.
The joke was on me. I had no idea how smart the man I was getting to marry really was.
“Jules, sit down. I need to read you something.” My mom joins me on the couch.
With a perfectly solved Rubik’s cube on his lap, Ted takes the letter out of the envelope. Tears well up in his eyes.
Holy shit, I think. Did he win some kind of Rubik’s cube championship? Am I about to marry the winner of the international Rubik’s cube competition? (Yes, they exist. Read here.)
“Dear Thomas, upon review of your application, we are proud to offer you acceptance to MIT…..Welcome to the Class of 2012.”
“I GOT INTO MIT!!”
He jumps up and down. My mother smothers him with wet kisses and hugs.
“Thomas, I’m so proud of you,” she squeals. “That’s so exciting!!!”
Me on the other hand, I’m in complete shock. MIT- What does that stand for again? Massachusetts something….something to do with beavers and engineering. Somehow I know this is much bigger than winning an international Rubik’s cube competition.
“Jules, we’re moving to Boston!”
Hugging him, I say, “Ted, I don’t know what this means, but I think I just got told.”
Four months later, with wedding rings on our fingers, we are sitting in hard leather chairs, across from Donna Friedman, the Associate Dean of Advising and Academic Programming. She stares us, speaking very slowly, very methodically. I can tell she’s not sure about my dreaded husband.
“Why do you want to come here?,” she drills us. “You can get a great education in lots of other places. You don’t need to be at MIT to be successful.”
“Why is she grilling us?” I keep thinking. “Why is she being such a meanie? I think she needs someone to kill her with kindness.”
That’s how the Julie of 2008 operated. With southern sweetness. Trying to kill people with kindness. Trying to make the world a better place by smiling at strangers and making small talk with cashiers. Eight years of living in the sunshine transforms you. Happiness exuded from me, every single day. I usually smiled so much that by the end of the day my face hurt (or maybe that was my constant sunburn peeling off my face). I couldn’t help but turn the other cheek. Bring me some enemies, Jesus. I will show you up. I just spent eight hours in the sunshine today, hanging out with manatees and sea shells. I have sand in all kinds of orifices and I haven’t even noticed. Who needs peace? Sunshine, people. I got sunshine and I got all kinds of lovin’ to give.
That was me. That was a really nice me.
‘You want to cut in front of me in line? No problem. Go on ahead. In fact, go ahead and reach in my pocket and take that twenty dollar bill. I have no need for it. I have the sunshine.’
‘You want to jay walk in front of my car as I’m driving 40 miles an hour and then call me a mother-f*cking horror for almost killing you? Well you know what? I have a secret to tell you. You’re the best. And I love you. In fact, why don’t I give you my shoes. I bet your feet hurt from walking and you need better shoes. Actually, take my shoes and my car. I am a mother-f word- horror, you’re right. I’m a horrible sinner and a horrible driver. You’re probably a much better driver than me. And I’m pretty sure Jesus would want you to have my car.”
That Julie disappeared around the second week of September 2009, right after we moved to Cambridge. In two weeks, I realized that there aren’t nice people in Boston. It didn’t take long to figure out what happened to them all. They’re dead. They either died because they were being a nice pedestrian and got hit by a truck or they decided whatever eternal life looked like it must be nicer than this so they willingly jumped in front of the trucks. I decided I didn’t want to die so young, so I put aside the nice and brought out the bitch. I knew she was in there any way. Why not give her freedom to run? I knew she’d be fully welcomed here.
Enter Donna Friedman again.
“You’re not going to have a life,” Donna Friedman harps at Thomas. “You haven’t been a student in years. You’re a newlywed. You’re not sure what you want to do here. You don’t need to be here.”
Silence. No crickets… Just silence.
Thomas and I nervously looked back and forth at each other. Maybe we shouldn’t be coming here I could hear him thinking. Maybe it’s too much and we don’t know what we’re getting into. My palms started to sweat. When my palms sweat, righteous anger is about to take over. Wiping them on my skirt, I stand up, look her straight in the eyes and say,
“With all due respect Ms. Friedman, we are coming. We’re doing this. We already bought MIT sweat shirts. (Focus Julie, I tell myself. Wipe off your palms and get your mean on). Plus, you have no idea what he’s given up the last five years, what he’s been through. If anyone deserves this opportunity, it’s Thomas. You accepted him, so it’s too late to back out on your end of the deal. I don’t know why you’re asking him these questions. He’s coming to MIT because it’s a great institution. What kind of trick question is that any way? Do you know how far we drove to get here? Do you know that we left the land of happiness? Have you ever even been to Florida? Disney World doesn’t count. You need to get a bikini, Ms. Friedman, and spend a week on the beaches of Jupiter or Fort Lauderdale. Then you’ll know why… you’ll know why we are coming here.”
Sometimes I don’t know when to shut the hell up. That’s what Thomas told me in so many words later on. But my convincing argument was apparently convincing. She dropped the topic, thanked us for coming and told Thomas, ‘good luck.’ Looking back, I’m pretty sure she was offering luck to him for more than just his career at MIT. (A meanie and a smart-ass that Donna Friedman. Little did I know then that we were kindred souls.)
I bad-mouthed Donna Friedman to all of my friends in Florida.
‘You would not believe what this woman said to us,’ I said told them. “She was so out of line for telling us not to come. Some nerve.”
We shouldn’t have come. After the second week of Ted’s classes, I knew she was right. She was right so much that it hurt. I call my best friend Caroline in tears,
“Why didn’t she stop us?” I blubber between sobs. “It was her responsibility to stop us!”
“Jules, I mean this in total love. Did you get bat-shit crazy on her?” asked Caroline in her ever so best friend, southern-sweetly tone.
“No way, Line! I’ve matured,” I lied.
“Did you tell her to buy a bikini and go to Florida so that she could know the world you left behind?” she asks.
“Maybe.” Damn, she knows me well. “That is kinda-crazy, isn’t it?”
“Only kinda,” Line lies. I can hear her smiling across the phone line.
“Line, I can’t take this place. Ted never sleeps. I never see him. When we make plans to meet for lunch, I can’t find him because I can’t figure out the numbered buildings. They don’t even number them in order!”
“Pick me up at noon from Logan on Friday,” Line says. “You need an intervention. And you better pick me up wearing something other than your pajamas. Go get dressed Jules.”
This is why she’s my best friend.
Thomas showed me up again by getting straight A’s his freshman year. (I think he thinks we’re competing in a who- can- have- the- highest- college-GPA. He really needs to work through that insecurity of his.) One day, the last week of classes of his freshman year, he runs into Donna Friedman in an elevator. He hadn’t seen her since our lively conversation eight months earlier. But she’d heard about his straight A’s. To her credit, Donna Friedman offered Thomas one of the only apologies either of us has ever been given from a New Englander. A meanie, a smart-ass and an apologizer, all in one woman.
Who needs nice? (but sunshine, I still need that.)
If you enjoyed this story, check out thewifebehindthegenius.com for more laughs or to learn about everything you never wanted to know about MIT and it’s nerdhood.