Scene 4: So Clayton, still a bit light-footed with traces of excitement, plunged in to his first week of PhD courses. Seminars in Micronesian History, Pacific History, and Historiography meant reading three books a week and writing papers on each. He also taught two courses in Hawaiian Studies; that's how he got a tuition waiver and could afford grad school. He would get his daughter Boodha Smurf to bed around 8 and then read and write till 2.

Scene 3: Clayton's second emotion upon finding out he was accepted to the PhD program in History was excitement! Apparently so was his girlfriend's. (She had this thing where she was always made randy beyond control by the site of achievement). They celebrated...

scene 2 - Clayton opens the long-awaited letter from the University of Hawaiʻi and reads of his acceptance to the History-PhD program. His first emotion is relief. The dismissive and biting familial voices of a past in which he was characterized as the useless and under-achieving Black Sheep are swept aside by the words "I am pleased to inform you that you have been admitted..."

scene 1 - Clayton decides to make the leap and apply to the doctoral program in Hawaiian History

Perhaps both nervous and a bit naive, our neurotic yet fatuously sweet protagonist moves on from his recent successful M.A. thesis defense to take on the life of a PhD student.