Perplexity
March 4th, 2006I’ve spent a pretty exhausting amount of energy talking and writing about this to various people already, so forgive me if this is brief.
Last Wednesday, the instructor for my junior seminar very unexpectedly announced that the University would be paying for us to travel to Madagascar over Spring Break as part of the class. Only at Harvard is this kind of absolutely last-minute fabulosity even imaginable. Plane tickets to Madagascar easily top US2,000, and we are tentatively scheduled to leave in 17 days. We will be visiting various study sites, speaking with researchers and local scientists and also doing some field work ourselves.
The main problem is that I am supposed to be spending Spring Break in Bermuda with the Dins on our annual, very luxe, very enjoyable (and completely free) stay at the nicest hotel on the island, enjoying the beaches by day and singing to appreciative audiences by night.
Argh!! What am I supposed to do?? I’m loathe to give up the once-in-a-lifetime chance to travel to Madagascar, which is something I tried very hard to do last summer but couldn’t find the funding and organisational opportunities to accomplish. It’s also worrisome that not going to Madagascar may negatively impact my academic career and potential senior thesis work. At the same time, the standing commitement to the Dins and to their planned travel cannot be taken lightly, and there is a definite opportunity cost in missing Bermuda, especially in terms of social capital. And on top of that there are other, possibly even more important, conflicts created by going away for some 13 days and missing almost a week of classes.
Quandary.