Pretty decent field theory joke, yep. Make no mistake, that's exactly what you'll be doing, albeit indirectly. It'll be a just few more words than that. I'm not looking forward to my first proposal. Scratch that. Any proposal. Wrong! Some of my best friends are people that I used to work with. I miss them, but sometimes I get to visit briefly when I'm back there every few months. It's vastly preferable to treat professional relationships like friendships, not competitions. It's not just about who you know, it's what they think of you. That last big paragraph of yours is indeed undermined by the last sentence. You're one of the best, deal with it. Been there. pronoia Hey, lots of fish talk, you got a craving or what?I can clearly see myself with a sign "will tackle hard problems for food" in ten years from now.
In the end, I got a good friend out of it. But that's not how professional relations usually work, right?
Wanting me despite not applying there personally smells fishy, competencies be damned.