Rumors

Although I try my hardest not to participate in gossip, I am not so naive to think that gossip never happens. Gossip usually proves its existence to me when I hear some juicy rumors about myself. It never ceases to amaze me. You know, I would be a much more interesting person if some of this stuff was true!!

It didn't help that I've had many people who are close to me as well as folks I have not seen in years ask if these rumors were true. Thus, I've decided to set the record straight on the stuff that has reached my ears before any more of you jump to the wrong conclusions. I don't know how word gets out and frankly I don't care about who's been saying what - my goal is to provide you with the correct information. So here we go:

Rumor #1: I am moving to California.
Truth: While my division within the company has two major sites in California, I am not moving out there. I know I said in my Christmas cards that I would be heading out there, but shortly after I sent those out, my supervisor decided he was going to have me skip that portion of my training (sad, I know!). I am actually completing my field training in dear old Cleveland; we agreed that this would be the best arrangement since I started working part-time here while I was finishing up my degree at Case. How long will my training last? Could be anywhere from six months to a year. Will I travel during my training? Yes - I'll be running around to Texas and California intermittently, and other places are TBD. Where will I be placed after my training? Could be anywhere - all I know is that I will not be in Cleveland (company policy not to place you permanently in the same location as you did your training). When will I know for sure? Not until I am actually placed. Honestly, things change weekly (sometimes daily), so any information you have heard from either me or through the grapevine at any point in time is already out-of-date. I know that some of you find that hard to believe, but I'm not worried about it so you shouldn't be worried either. And rest assured - I'll be sure to let you know anything definitely once I am told. :-)

Rumor #2: I am getting married.
Truth: If you thought the explanation to Rumor #1 was long, you ain't seen nothin' yet. :-o To save your vision and your brain power, I'll give you the consolidated version. Basically, earlier this semester one of my classmates (we'll call him "X" for the purposes of this post) decided to create the rumor that he and I were a couple. This seemed to gather a lot of attention from my other classmates, thanks to their need for drama. So many of them would make jokes about the two of us, and "X" would egg them on. To be honest, I never thought it was funny, and I personally never joked about it because I had my reasons for not wanting to be involved (I'm not going to disclose those here; if you want to know you'll have to ask me). And then... it just so happened that I had to make a trip to Taiwan between the end of finals and the commencement ceremony, so I had to miss our program banquet. "X" took advantage of the fact that I was not in attendance to defend myself and made the announcement, with all of our classmates, professors, and adminstrative staff present, that he and I were getting married. Why did "X" do it? I have no clue. Ironically, "X" expected to keep me out of the loop about the whole thing until I returned to the U.S., but with my gossipy classmates, do you think that I could remain in the dark about it? Of course not. The news about the "announcement" was leaked to me almost immediately after the banquet had ended. I even received a congratulatory e-mail from a professor about our "upcoming event". So I showed up to graduation and naturally "X" had a whole lot of explaining to do... he had managed to thoroughly convince many people that we were an item. (I found out later that he was even going to introduce himself to my mother as her "future son-in-law." Thankfully, Mom was far too busy running around, but knowing Mom she probably would have asked him what food we'd be having at the wedding.) As far as I know, the situation has been resolved; but if our "engagement" shows up in the program newsletter, that'll be proof that the staff was never fully straightened out about the whole thing. All I can say is, if there is any man out in the world who wants to marry me, he had better ask ME first!!

Rumor #3: I am staying at Case to get a PhD.
Truth: I'll make this brief. For those of you who are getting PhD's, I am seriously happy for you and I am proud that you are willing to put in the hard work to get one. I myself have different career aspirations, and neither obtaining a PhD nor staying at Case are among my current goals.

So there you have it - that's my version of a press conference. Anything else you want to know that is not on here - ask me because other sources are obviously unreliable. And now that I've gotten it all off of my chest - I am heading to bed. :-)