PhD Ponderings

Ponderings #2 - thoughts on the first year Life as a Graduate Student - the year ends

All right the year's getting over. I suppose it would be inhumane of me not to mention the new Star Wars movie so I'll do that. I saw it in Hollywood opening day. Yay. On to other things.

We have this thing called Ditch Day where seniors build these zany things and the undergrads have to get out of it. We got to break down a wall. What a great idea - get off campus for a day and have other people clean up your mess! Any senior caught on campus is - appropriately - duct-taped to a tree. How nice. It would make a nice statement to randomly grab freshmen and duct-tape them to the trees. It'd be a great initiation ritual for them, and we could instill some fear and respect - we are, after all, graduate students. And, hey, it's all in the spirit of more grad-undergrad interaction, right?

Here we are, no finals to take (or very few), getting ready for brilliant lovely summer, while everyone else is busy studying and taking finals and then getting ready to go to SUMMER SCHOOL! Ha! We have no summer school! We have no classes! Ha! We merely have to do research all summer in a basement! Ha! Oh wait...never mind...

I guess we get to be hidden in some dungeon somewhere. Hmm. Not a good front to put up against China: "You quit your human rights violations, NOW!" And they reply, "Oh, yeah, well you unchain your grad students from the dungeon!" What can the government say to that?

One consolation is teaching classes. I say consolation because it's not like you get first prize. I mean, sure, you get paid, but it's more like saying, hey, you're not good enough to actually TEACH the class, but we need you to our dirty work, like correct our mistakes and account for the brains of senile professors. Oh, and you don't have a choice. I think it would be more apt to say it's like getting a really ugly shirt from your grandmother (who, of course, insists you wear it whenever she's around).

Isn't it great that students in classes you teach are so brilliant? We get questions like, "You mean I can't change my answer after you told me what it's supposed to be?" or "Hi, I looked at this and I don't get it. What's the answer?" Okay, how about this, I'll just write the answers down and you can look over my shoulder.

Speaking of cheating though, I find it interesting that students refuse to come to office hours but complain your'e never around. Was I like this as an undergrad? No, I emailed the heck out of my tas and profs (and then, of course, they made a point to never be around ME). Instead, the students show up 5 minutes after class is over and wonder where you were, if they show up at all. Yeah, sure, my life revolves around you.

My life, actually, does revolve around a few things. Sleep, food, and research. Oh and email. That's a big one. But what it does NOT revolve around is street corners. At the risk of alienating many, I will say that I do not like stupid people. Forgive me for being so blunt. I do not like the stupid people who stand at the corner and ask you to take piece of paper which you are going to throw into the recycling bin two minutes later. Don't they know I have no time to read it and if I did, I wouldn't care? Maybe it's a huge scam - we pass out this paper and you do the recycling for us. Shock treatment, please!

Other stupid people are those who think they are really smart. Like those guys on the telephone asking you to take a credit card. What, you actually trust a grad student who makes pennies a day with CREDIT? And pre-approved too! AND you're GIVING me a t-shirt for free too? What did you do, dare someone you could lose your job faster than him?

And these people on the phone, they talk for hours and hours. Hello, I'm not interested. "Yes, but please let me finish." No, I'm really not interested. "Yes, just a little more." Okay, listen, I'll buy your newspaper if you shut up. "Okay, but let me finish talking." I said I'd BUY your stupid newspaper. "Yes ma'am but just let me finish here." CLICK.

Well, anyway, at least I stopped getting those phone calls with random orchestral music or asking for AZ Power company.

So, to finish off, I am looking forward to 90 degree weather. It doesn't make any difference anyhow because undergrads are gone and it'll be a good change from the sub-Arctic temperatures in the lab. Who knows, this summer I might even be able to wear shorts (yeah and a spaceship will land at my door)! But before I get a head, I should thank some funding agency for the greatest ship of all - Graduate-ship.