We all arrived at the conference room in NW12 for some free food while the faculty finished up their meeting to decide who passes and who doesn't. There was lots of nervous chatter, tight stomachs, and I beat the hell out of some other grads in a game of hearts.

When the faculty showed up, they all dispersed to their various offices and we went off to find out advisors so they could give us the results.

Otto poked his head into the room, found Ben, said "yeah," shook his hand, and that was it. Ben passed his generals.

So I walk into the office and there's Molvig, ready to tell me about how I did on the exam. I'm basically confident I passed so I'm not too worried. Still, you never know.

"Well, you didn't pass the exam." Don't beat around the bush, Molvig, just come out and say it.

The next 20 minutes was him telling me that I had done really well on the test, that all the other professors had said good things in my defense. I just didn't hear the part about why I failed.

Apparently, the test was an easy one, and all the scores were really high. Usually, they make a cutoff at 60% or so for passing. From what I understand, this year everyone but two people would have passed, so they moved the curve up a bit, putting 10 people right on the edge.

And, of course, they had to fail all 10 of those people as well. Twelve people didn't pass. Out of thirty. That's a lot.

But what I don't get is that Molvig seemed to be genuinely upset that I hadn't passed, and not with me. He was under the impression that I should have passed and he said the other proffessors were saying good things about me. I don't understand why I failed.

So the good news is that he was adamant about petitioning me to get another chance next year. I told him I intend to redo the test and he seemed really happy about that. Also, people who take the test a second time have a success rate of 80% rather than 40%. From what I understand, the faculty fails some people just to see if their hearts are in it. If they take it again, they'll pass. Molvig said that if I took it again and got the same score, I'd pass no questions asked.

The bad news is that I have to go through this whole process again. Even worse is that for the last week I've been telling people how confident I was about passing, and I have to go around telling them that I was wrong and I'm a failure.

That's pretty humiliating.

I don't mind taking it again. I'm confident in my ability, and I know I can do better than I did this time around. But I feel like I let everyone down. In particular John and Molvig, both of whom were counting on me to pass.

To all the friends who send reassuring messages of support during the last month, assuring me that I would pass because I'm a smart guy, I'm sorry to have let you down.

So, to get my mind off of it, I went hacking with Rob. 17, 24, 41, 68, E17, E18, E19, and Cogen! Quite a night; I had a lot of frustration to work off.

I've got diversions lined up for the next few nights as well. Tomorow: the pool, Friday: Hahvahd, Saturday: coffeehouse, Sunday: Morris Cave.

But first I have to deal with a research meeting with Molvig in the morning. And right now, that's about the most undesireable thing I can think of doing.