(revised)

"so ... are we related?"

i was picking up a key to my friend's apartment where i'm staying in new york from the front desk. the doorman was tickled. coincidentally, or not, his name was also ... rosenbaum.

now i know there are a handful of rosenbaums in this world, but really, i've only met two or three in my lifetime. but here i was chatting away in some city i don't live in with some doorman i don't know who was determined to figure out if and how we were related.

only in new york city.

let's be honest. if there are rosenbaums anywhere in this world they're only in a couple places:

1. poland.
2. colombia.
3. (5 from miami)
4. new york city.

during this new york rendevous, i realized that the prospect of grad school is more and more intriguing and yet, more and more ... terrifying. i attended a business school marketing class and a law school trusts & estates classes.

as i was sitting there, i inhaled deeply.

::sigh::

the sound of pounding keyboards.

the sight of nervous answers.

the smell of fierce competition, high-strung students and over-achieving smarty-pants.

damn i love it. i don't mind being a professional, but this, this, is where i belong.

being surrounded by twenty-somethings grad students instead of twenty-something professionals gave me the opportunity to survey a new subject pool to test my twenty-something hypotheses. (namely frustration, mating, identity development, maturation, masterbation, and a whole lot of growing up and growing down).

turns out that for the most part, i'm right: being in your twenties sucks.

the major difference i can identify is that as a student, one's an active student for a dozen or so hours a week, but is committed to being a student, nonetheless, 24-hours a day. as a professional, we work 3 to 4 times that, but when we leave at 5:30(ish), the only committment i have is to jack bauer, donald trump, and jon stewart.

having to go back to school, however, is honestly a terrifying prospect.

you mean i have to be on-my-game 24-hours a day for the next four years?

i'm going to leave grad school and be almost thiry and most likely, gray.

you think i bitch a lot now, just wait until i go back to school. you can damn-well bet i'm going to kick and scream my way through grad school. can't wait.

by the way, mr. rosenbaum and i aren't related. he doesn't have a jose rosenbaum, pedro rosenbaum and felipe in his familia.