“Sometimes it’s hard to talk to my mother about what I’m doing at school and what’s going on here, because we’re speaking on two different levels now. If she asks, ‘How are you doing there?’ I can say, ‘Oh, great—I’m doing this or that in class, and I’m interested in applying to business school now,’ and the response I get is, ‘Okay. . . good, good.’ It’s like she can’t comment—‘How are you doing in this course? What about this course? Don’t forget the concept of this and the business school process. . . .’ So we keep it simple: ‘How are you doing, son?’ ‘Good. How’s everybody at home?’ ‘Good.’ ‘I’ll be home next week for break.’ ‘Okay.’ We can’t converse, really.”
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