by Marc Chun
Typically, superheroes carefully guard the secrets
of their deep, dark pasts, but I’ll let you in on my story. My
supposed superpowers do not come from the bite of a radioactive spider,
nor do they stem from the way the Earth’s sun differs from a
planet like Krypton. No, my reputed strength and stupendous mental
abilities came from a far more wondrous and mysterious source: The Fat
Letter.
Many moons ago, I was just mild-mannered Marc, mirthfully minding my manners like most mere mortals. (In those presuperhero days, I didn’t realize how annoying the overuse of alliteration could be.) But checking my mail one spring afternoon, everything changed! With a flash of light and a clap of thunder, it became clear to me that this sudden twist of fate would change my life forever: I had been admitted to a doctoral program at Stanford!
Faster than a speed-reader! More powerful than a 4.0 GPA! Able to leap the top percentiles on standardized tests with a single No. 2 pencil! Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a Stanford student!
Although I never intended to become a superhero, I soon found that this is something that is thrust upon you. When people heard I was heading off to the Farm, their impression of me jumped a quantum leap. Neighbors began to seek my opinions on ballot initiatives and foreign films. Colleagues at work deferred to me whenever talk turned to deconstruction or paradigm shifts. Friends I had known for years started to be more cautious in their use of who and whom. All of a sudden, I was expected to start using words like jejune and roman