[OT] Nation of Loosahhs

Let me say first that I do not hate the Boston Red Sox team. I find them quite likeable, actually. However, their overzealous fans known as Red Sox Nation, are a different story. Their team down 2-0 in the American League Championship Series, RSN find it appropriate to turn to the supreme being for help in what apparently is their God-given right: a World Series Championship. I'm not kidding. See here.

Lord, it has been 86 years. Hear our prayers. Make us world champions.
--- Boston Mayor Thomas Menino

That's right. Good thing they don't waste God's time with more trivial matters, like, say, hunger, unemployment, access to health care, hatred and intolerance, war, or perhaps even the genocide occurring in Sudan.

Here's hoping that the supreme being rewards RSN with at LEAST another 86 years of futility. GET A LIFE, YOU RETAHHDS!!!

What's that smell?

I'd like to share a quote that encompasses my feeling about graduate school thus far. While the character that uttered these words wasn't necessarily talking about graduate school, he might as well have been:

I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.

Repulsive, isn't it? I must get out of here. I must get free....
---- Agent Smith, from The Matrix

Yep, graduate school has a smell, too. You know what it is? It's the stench of cardigan sweaters stored in mothballs all summer mixed with the waft of moldy Birkenstocks every time one of these academics walks by. THESE PEOPLE ARE FREAKING DORKS.

Get me the heck out of here.

Advisor Arithmetic

I think one bonus of this blog will be to chronicle general advisor behavior. Today, I'd like to discuss the concept of graduate student work hours, 'real' versus 'as perceived by the advisor. ' Ask any graduate student, and they'll most likely tell you that they work (at minimum) 12-hour days, 7 days of the week. We can put that to rest - graduate students work hard, yes, but it's not like you're working for eternity - it only feels like it, because, if you're like me, you take it home with you.

Perhaps more important is how much the advisor thinks the student is actually working. This could be a very complex calculation, subtracting time for various non-working activities:

Perceived working time = Total time at school - (time spent): at lab meeting, journal clubs, seminars, eating lunch, or surfing the internet.

An easier equation follows:

Perceived working time = cumulative time advisor actually sees student at lab bench.

So, everytime your advisor steps out of the office and passes by the bench, add 10 seconds of perceived work time to your total. Time in the tissue culture hood DOES NOT COUNT.

There are several bonuses and penalties that must be considered. For example:

• Positive data: 20 minute bonus
• Negative data: 1 week penalty - add a week to your expected date of graduation
• Advisor sees you reading a paper: 30 minute bonus
• Advisor sees ESPN.com on your computer screen: 1 hour penalty
• Student arrives in lab before advisor: sorry, no bonus. Get over yourself.
• Student leaves for the night before advisor: 3 hour penalty.

Sample calculation for 1 week: Let's assume I arrive in lab at 8 AM and leave at 6 PM. That's a 10-hour workday, good for 50 hours a week. Seminars and journal clubs cost me about 3 hours a week. Lab meeting another hour. Lunch, 5 hours for the week. Non-lab internet surfing, 30 hours. Okay, now let's look at the bonuses - nothing there. I had four experiments last week that produced absolutely nothing, and my advisor leaves at 7 PM everyday. Crap - I owe Barb 8 hours of work.

I'm never going to graduate.