Nurse the Hate: MW Exam Day

 

I’m traveling to Napa to take the long anticipated S1 Master of Wine exam.  I have no idea if I am prepared enough to pass the exam.  I have a vague feeling that I know much more about things like viticulture and winemaking than I did a year ago, but I don’t have a grasp of how much more.  There was a feeling of dots connecting that I had about six months ago where I realized how certain puzzle pieces of this shit fit together.  I have a sneaking suspicion that I have finally hit the level of understanding of the nuts and bolts of winemaking that the Institute assumed I had initially going into this thing.  I suppose I will find out on Monday when I take the exam.  This is when the gap between the “basic knowledge” that I have now and “mastery” will become evident.  

I woke up early for my flight.  There are two direct flights from Cleveland to SFO.  The options are “Leave Really Fucking Early” or “Arrive Really Fucking Late” making this trip always inconvenient.  The early flight allowed me to get gas at the Speedway near my house, the epicenter of the Lorain County hillbilly world.  Sickly women in pajama pants blankly gas up beaten down SUVs.  Enormous pickup trucks pull up and identical goatee guys wearing baseball hats and confrontational patriotic t-shirts pop inside the store to buy energy drinks and cigarettes, the Lorain County Breakfast of Champions.  I consider going in to buy a Cliff Bar or other emergency food item I can store in my backpack, but resign myself to purchasing one in the airport for roughly the cost of a new iPhone.  One of the little bulldog goatee America First guys glares at me as he climbs up into his gleaming $70,000 pickup like Quasimodo, likely trying to assess if by driving my used Audi I am somehow in favor of drag shows, Bud Light or dangerous independent thinking.  He makes multiple three point turns with his symbolic macho chariot to exit the gas station as I finish filling my tank.    

The airport is filled with Vacation Dads ushering their bewildered families around the various airport processes.  They have combined expressions on their face of “stern unquestioned leadership” and “exasperation”.  They do not let their inexperience in air travel sway their position as Alpha Dogs of their clans.  I weave around open mouthed teenagers and stressed Moms, the injured gazelle of the airport world.  The Cheetah slips through Premier Bag Drop and the Clear security portal to nestle into the United Club and a half assed espresso.  My goal is to spend the next two days in full college finals cram mode.  I have no clue if this will help me in taking this test, but I do have a successful track record with this method, so I am going to stick with it.  I spend about two hours a day, six days a week either reading about, writing about, or tasting wine.  It’s an enormous amount of headspace devoted to the topic.  I am consistently running through facts and concepts in my head while seemingly doing something else.  More than anything else, I am looking forward to taking this exam so I can give my brain a break.  The feeling of “falling behind unless you are reading in the shower” is taxing after two straight years.  

I have taken an attitude about this test that no matter what happens, I am ambivalent.  There are three possible results.  Result one is that I pass, which means my reward is to be able to take “The Big Test” sometime in the near future.  Result two is I almost pass and the Institute says “Almost Boy-o!  Whattya say you repeat the Year One course and we give you another crack at it?”.  Result three is I fail the test and get excommunicated from The Program, and can only reapply two years later to start at square one again.  I feel as if any of these results are very much in play.  Anything can happen.  Yet, I am oddly unstressed by the outcome.  One would think that after the massive effort I have expended that the only thing I would be surrounded by is a swirling cloud of anxiety about passing the exam at all costs.  However, I realized that no matter what happens, nobody cares and nothing will change except the specifics of what I am preparing to tackle next.  

I am 100% committed to climbing this mountain.  There is nothing that is going to stop me.  Now, don’t let this give you the false assumption that I am overbrimming with confidence in my ability to execute this daunting task.  There is a bit of The Charge of the Light Brigade going on here.  I am as filled with imposter syndrome as anyone, perhaps not nearly enough as I am witnessing head winemakers for numerous luxury wine labels deferring taking the test as they “aren’t ready”.  They have been successfully employed and lauded in their skills in a craft I am going to try to pick up in a six week college course.  It’s sort of absurd.  It’s like I competed in a karaoke contest at a sports bar and now I’m going to play a quick set at Coachella’s main stage.  Still, the experience of playing that set is going to be great even if someone from Pitchfork writes that I suck.  At least I got up on that stage Fuck-O.   

The whole thing sort of distills down to that cliché of “the journey is the best part anyways” (insert Miley Cyrus meme).  I am not trying to do this for any other real reason than the intellectual challenge.  I spend my workdays in an environment where critical thinking is aggressively stamped out like it was dangerous bacteria.  It’s exhausting and not a rewarding way to live.  Let’s be honest.  The Population walks around with devices in their hands that have the accumulated information of the world, and most people blissfully don’t know anything about anything.  It’s refreshing to be in a little tribe of people with their heads down pushing to try to achieve something meaningless while the scrum of also meaningless bullshit whirls around them like a garbage hurricane.  This Master of Wine thing satisfies my intellectual curiosity, competitive nature and relentless drive.  It doesn’t matter what happens on Monday.  I am going to try my best.  Don’t make any mistake, I hope I pass.  Let’s keep perspective though.  Win, lose, or tie, I’m still starting a winemaking course next week.  I’ve got to get ready for the next push after whatever this near term result is.  Onward I trudge.