It's been a lot of euphoria and excitement in the past week after getting my offer, and it's been somewhat expensive as well, as I've had to buy dinner for my friends....but there's been something more sobering as well.

In September last year, Prof Miller, one of my favourite professors, suffered a stroke. I didn't realise this, apart from the fact that he wasn't replying to my emails (he is a baritone, and I was supposed to accompany him sometime in the future). I was later emailed by another supervisor about this bad news.

I called him soon after, and I was pleasantly surprised that he could still manage to pick up his phone, which I couldn't take for granted considering that he's recovering from a stroke. He was talking quite slowly, but was still lucid and conversant. I was very happy to talk to him again, and he was still very concerned about my PhD applications, and was endeavouring to fill in an online reference letter form which I had requested him to do before I knew he'd had a stroke. He told me he was having difficulty with filling in the form from his impairment, but he was determined to fill it in for me.

I later saw him at the chamber music club recital where I was performing. He was more stiff and expressionless than before, and he mentioned that functioning with half a brain wasn't as good as functioning with a full brain. At the time, I was rushing to prepare for my recital, so I didn't get to talk much to him (I played terribly, by the way...). I was observing him listening to the other performers, and it was to my great relief that he still seemed to be able to enjoy the music.

In a later phone conversation, I learned that he had partial loss of motor function to the left side of his body, and that he was suffering from short-term memory loss. He was still very eager to talk about music, and he could still talk about the Bach that I played at the recital. He's trying to regain his singing ability which he'd momentarily lost after the stroke, and he asked me when we could next rehearse the songs.

It's quite a busy time for me these days, with my project and studies, but I think I will find some time to learn the music to accompany him.

On Wednesday evening, I was doing the telephone rota at my residence, trying to read a mathematics textbook to while away the time. Suddenly, the phone rang, and when I picked it up a man speaking in a Spanish accent asked, 'May I speak to Alvaro Tintore?'. Our telephone system involves the person on rota transferring the calls to the telephones in each floor, and if the person isn't expecting the call or isn't in his room, it can be rather of a needle-in-haystack affair to find the person in question.

I couldn't Alvaro after ringing his room and office (he's the hall secretary), so I wandered over to the chapel to see if he was there. As I was walking over, my mobile rang. The screen said 'Unknown caller'. This usually only happens when people call me from abroad, and it was very early morning back home in Malaysia, so I was wondering if there was some urgency back home.

I picked up a phone, and a distinctively American voice asked 'Is this Khee Gan Lee?' . Still wandering about the basement of Netherhall trying to look for Alvaro with (presumably) his father on the line at the reception, my heart stopped. 'This is Professor Jeremy Goodman at Princeton University, and I'm pleased to tell you that we have voted to nominate you to receive a PhD offer'. I was speechless as I listened to him tell me this, and I was still pacing up and down the hall ostensibly in search of Alvaro. He spoke to me for a couple of minutes, and all the while my faculties for speech have been reduced to stuttering 'Yes'. After he put down the phone, I walked back to the reception and picked up the caller from Spain, and told him to call back later as I couldn't get Alvaro.

I was in total shock after this. I had expected to get a few offers from the 7 universities I'm applying for, but Princeton was always 'for the heck of it', as they are the absolute elite with such a tiny department that they take only about 5 students worldwide each year. Even my supervisor had told me that he thought it was unlikely that I would be able to get into Princeton. In addition, I wasn't expecting to get any of my offers until at least late February or early March, so to get an offer from Princeton in early February was beyond stunning.

The next day, I opened my email and got an email from Chicago. 'I'm pleased to tell you that we are offering you admission into the Astronomy & Astrophysics department of the University of
Chicago. You are one of our very top candidates this year and hope you will accept this offer'. I had only submitted my Chicago application about 3 weeks ago, so they must really mean the bit about me being a top candidate to give me an offer with such haste.

One of friends commented that the past week must have been the happiest week of my life. That's probably exaggerating it a little, but nevertheless it definitely is a very happy culmination of the hard work of the past few years. These events have sparked off a lot of excitement in me, and I've been just been boiling with anticipation instead of doing my work.

I need to calm down and get back into my routine. If I'm going to go to somewhere like Princeton, I'll need to ensure that I'm adequately prepared before I start.