Summary

The narrator continues tutoring. Her math student tells her about the girl he loves, who is studying geology in Antarctica. The narrator thinks about the sacrifices explorers have made to find the South Pole. She experiences physical heartache over Eric leaving. After a phone conversation with her father, who demands to know how much longer she will take to finish her PhD, she watches a cooking show and notices "that the Chinese American chef is always the one to say, I am here to make my parents proud ... When he loses he is the only one to say, Hopefully this does not make me a failure in life" (116). She continues to agonize over the sense that leaving her PhD program makes her a failure.

After a conversation with the best friend in which she admits she cannot figure out how to "have fun...