Thank you, Kip Thorne!

Job interviews and in-laws really stress me out. Unfortunately, I have this problem where the more nervous I am about something, the more I procrastinate. Last year, this got me into trouble. I was engaged to a Russian man, which was wonderful, but then he wanted me to meet his family in Moscow, which was scary. I was so nervous they would take one look at me and say “nyet,” so of course I put off applying for the visa. The day I finally made it to the consulate was the last possible day I could apply to get the visa in time for the flight my fiance had already bought.

On top of that, I had a job interview the next day for a science teaching position that required a demo lesson. I hadn’t practiced mine yet.

I was nervous about the in-laws and the interview, but when I looked at the two people working at the consulate office, I didn’t even have much hope about getting the visa at all. One lady looked like a Barbie Doll in terms of her proportions and mascara. She had been looking at her phone for the last 15 minutes. Anytime an applicant would approach the window, she would wave them away saying “nyet, nyet!” Eventually she became frustrated with the audacity of applicants wanting her to do her job. She let out a loud sigh, grabbed her cigarettes, and left.

With Barbie gone there was only one worker remaining, an older lady, a grumpy old Babushka, and she was soon overwhelmed. A man came in with a huge bag and all of us waiting watched in horror as he took out one stack of passports, then another, then another, then another, and then another.  He must have been applying for at least 50 passports!

It was getting closer to closing time and I was feeling increasingly nervous. And when I’m nervous, I get chatty. There was an older fellow wearing a leather jacket sitting next to me, he looked like a biker grandpa. I turned to him and said, “Hi! This might sound a little nutty, but I have a job interview for a science teaching job tomorrow: would you mind if I practiced my demo lesson on you?”

He seemed keen on the idea, so I went into my lesson. It was about CRISPR a gene sequence originally from bacteria, which is being used in a new way to edit DNA. It could maybe someday edit cancer out of living cells! And HIV! Biker grandpa listened respectfully and asked a bunch of intelligent questions. His questions were so intelligent, I began to get suspicious of what his background was.

But just then, Barbie returned, so I needed to get my things back together for the visa. And that’s when I noticed it: the sign that read cash only. Cash only? But visas were 160 bucks each. That’s way too much money for a teacher to be carrying around. I told grumpy grandpa: “Oh no! I don’t think I have enough money!”

And he said, “No worries! I’ll loan you some, how much do you need?”

I said, “That is so nice of you, I don’t even know your name.”

He shook my hand, “Kip, Kip Thorne.”

That sounded familiar, but I didn’t have any time to ask follow up questions because Barbie pointed at me and said, “you, now!”

I went up to Barbie with my paperwork, and found out that you actually pay when you come back to pick up the visa, not when you drop off the forms. So I didn’t need to borrow any money from Kip Thorne, whoever he was. Everything went fine with my drop off. When I turned to leave I wanted to thank him, but he was busy with Babushka.

That night, I went home and looked him up on Wikipedia. It turns out he is one of the most important physicists of our time! He was one of the leaders of the project that confirmed the existence of gravitational waves. He is friends and colleagues with folks such as Stephen Hawking and the late Carl Sagan. Did you see the movie Interstellar? He helped write it. The wormhole time travel thing was all his idea.

And this is the guy who patiently and respectfully listened to my 8th grade science lesson! And offered to pay for my visa! What a generous and kind man.

In the end, I ended up getting that job I interviewed for. I’m not sure if my demo was impressive, but I could say to the interviewers, “well, Kip Thorne liked it!”

His approval was a bit less helpful with my Russian in-laws, but I think they appreciated that I was employed. In the end I just want to say, Thank you, Kip Thorne!