So this happened

[settecorvi]

The Conservatory orchestra gave a concert at a prison, which I really need to write about because it was amazing, and on the way out I got ambushed by LB, the college's president and the orchestra's conductor. Even after four, nearly five years of playing for him, his intelligence and accomplishments are still intimidating; he's a bit of a modern Renaissance man and almost every project he touches succeeds. He's not a conventionally charismatic person, but he has a perverse sort of people skills born out of his unselfconscious eccentricity, and he's a compelling orator. In any case, as we were passing through the multiple checkpoints on the way out of the prison, he mentioned in his very serious, slightly odd way that my oboe teacher had told him I was applying to medical school. I expected him to move on to another student after I'd replied in the affirmative, or to ask me how I'd found the process so far, but instead he wanted a list of the schools I was applying to. Because he's friends with the deans at most top-tier universities and wants to contact them on my behalf so he can extol my many virtues.

Well color me gobsmacked. I had no idea how to react, so I tried to be appropriately polite and grateful for the (very, very generous) offer without, you know, flailing or staring open-mouthed or anything.

Sometimes life hands you lemons. Sometimes it hands you lemonade in a diamond-encrusted carafe.