These are my ponderings, thoughts about life in graduate school, based on Aaron Karo's Ruminations. They're fictional entertainment and not criticism so don't sue me. - rani
Ponderings #3 - summer
Another month, and it's kind of dreary around here. Sure the sun is shining and the birds are singing (oh, no, maybe that's just people snoring till noon), but the place is rather...what's the word?...dead.
There are no students, which means we grad students can get a lot of work done. The operative word here is CAN. Do we? That's another issue. Between summer barbecues and late-night get-togethers, not to mention summer
traveling to see various summer-y places, I wonder at how we manage to fool our advisors that we're actually working. Instead, I'll sit down with a nice journal, something very profound and relevant to my research...say,
Calvin and Hobbes...and read late into the night. This is real study that prepares me for life.
Here I am, middle of summer. An ideal day: sleep till 11, wake up. Eat breakfast at noon. Putter around until I decide it's worth taking a shower. Hang out in the shower for an hour or two. Decide what to wear - this in itself could take half a day, except for the fact that most of my gazillion clothes need washing - and then finally venture out to check
email. By the time I sort through 500 million junk email messages, most of which promise fame, fortune, or sex within 24 hours, it's time to go home. And then I realize it's time for dinner.
You'll find people on campus wearing the strangest clothes - neon green pants and red tops with blue socks, and of course, a hat. These are the people who are technically and professionally titled - "BUMS" (That stands
for "best-work under midnight stress"). These people, of course, being the procrastinators that we all are, have not done their laundry, just like me. So we wear whatever's clean. Hey, genius is not concerned with fashion. But I must admit, some of us pull the look off better than others.
Then there are those not-so-ideal days, which somehow give us the adrenaline rush of athletes. We begin at the Start line: up at 6, take a shower, dress up, eat a power breakfast (i.e., powerbar), rush out the door, come back to grab keys, leave - sit in on a meeting, do lots of productive work, grab a bite to eat (coffee and a slice of cold pizza) in 102.5 seconds, rush back to lab, work more and more and more. Yes, yes,
yes! We are the best athletes with tape on our glasses in the world! Oh yeah, and then we come home - and realize it's so late the late-night bars have closed. Starts to sound like I might go for fortune in 24 hours after all.
But the best of all is pay day. If you're one of the lucky ones who actually gets paid for teaching and research, it's a real thrill. You stride in and sort through the pile of checks - look for your last name, and the anticipation, the suspense! Will my name be there or not? What if they lost it? What if they forgot? What if...they stopped paying me! ...
And then, there it is...a shining envelope with my name printed behind the see-through window in fuzzy black type. I rip open the top and pull out the check, paid to the order of ME - a whopping sum of $344.63! I am ecstatic! I am rich! I can build mountains! I can party! I can buy stuff!
I can ... pay ... off ... my ... debt ....
Sigh! Oh well. We still have the satisfaction of knowing we are
appreciated for our dedicated efforts to the University. Oh, sorry, that was meant for the faculty mailing list.
Just kidding!
Have a great Independence Day - if you drive, don't get drunk. And if you're stinking drunk, don't even think about breathing in my face.
Life as a Graduate Student - summer