what does this mean?

[nhyn]

So my POI sent an email that confused me, and I think either I'm dense or it's just my non-nativeness clouding my judgment. I speak English for only 1/3 of my life so I might have missed some nuances at play here.

Let me describe the context first: Back in Sept, I got in touch with a POI to check if he was accepting students, and asked for some descriptions of current projects, and he forwarded my email to his post-doc, who didn't get back to me. I didn't follow up.

So recently, I just submitted a publication, and emailed the POI to update him with this info. I said that I didn't receive any email from the post-doc (phrased more politely than this, of course), but I hope I understood their research and demonstrated it properly on my app. He got back quickly, said he would ask for my app (which freaked me out a bit cos i was afraid i sounded like i was pressuring him) and asked the post-doc to get back to me again, which she did. She asked me some questions about my app, I answered, all was fine, and before we ended our correspondence, I politely asked if she could give me a general time frame of when I would hear back from them. She said the POI should email me soon. A few days later, he emailed me, telling me about the interview day at his school, and "I can ask if you can be invited, if it's possible for you", and offered to check out about reimbursement, although he was sure the school didn't pay for applicants. So in general he was very, very nice.

...except, I don't understand. Why can't it be, "i would like to invite you...", but "I can ask if you can be invited"? Does this mean he's on the fence? I keep feeling my initiating communication has something to do with this, and I'd hate to know that he felt "pressured" to invite me (which is stupid of me, I know, because why would a prof humor me like that).

Well, anyway, I said I'd love to go, and half an hour later got an email from the chair with the official invitation. I guess I can gauge his interest once I'm there, but I'm still very much puzzled by this and would like to hear some opinions. Any thoughts?

[LJK]

The professor may have wanted to get an immediate idea of whether you were interested in attending the interview before involving anyone else in the department. Maybe there is some bit of hassle to getting a student invited which would only be worth it if you were going to come. I think you did yourself a favor by contacting him! He probably would not have actively looked for your application and would not have invited you to visit without your pro-activeness. I think that it is a good sign. Don't worry that you are pressuring him, it seems like you put the right amount of pressure on him (or better wording: drew the right amount of attention to yourself). Interviews don't mean acceptances but now you have a much better shot than the people who weren't invited for an interview!

PS: His wording is strange to a native English speaker too!

Edited January 28, 2011 by LJK

[nhyn]

oooh...that's a very good explanation. your logic describes the reality i want, haha and it's good to know that his wording is indeed rather unusual i kept reading it over and over, like a GRE reading comprehension question, even showed it to my 2 native friends, and none of us could make heads or tail of his email.

thanks!!