Last time, I told you about how to talk to a graduate student, the questions to avoid asking and why. Now, we talk about the world through the eyes of a graduate student. Grad students are not normal people in the strictest sense; the ones in the sciences and engineering gave up lucrative careers in a variety of fields to live just above the poverty line, and the ones in the humanities made a long string of poor life decisions that string back to high school when they decided a philosophy degree would be kinda neat.

So how exactly does a graduate student view the world? Typically what must be remembered is that graduate students are very similar to East Asian mystics that would go into seclusion on a mountain to meditate about the deepest meanings of existence. If you go to them, don’t expect conversation about current events or some sort of help with your taxes. The graduate student has no time for this. He is too busy exploring the subtle, dark niches of the intellectual universe, and really his taxes are pretty easy to do because he doesn’t make shit. Read more »

Posted: February 27th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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    It turns out that if I had actually “liveblogged” through the whole thing, it would have read something like this:

“Grading is terribly boring. The people on the college radio station lack the basic level of professionalism I would expect from a Dunkin’ Donuts employee, but at least at some point I can distill that the university had no clear instructions on what students should do, which is stupid. Jesus grading is boring.”

Yeah, that would’ve been about it. Threats over, watched a talk by Anand Sivaramakrishnan about adaptive optics, and now back to the daily routine.

Posted: February 25th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1

So apparently there is a roaming gunman on Stony Brook’s campus who, according to the college radio station, used a gun to steal a slice of pizza. The official notice is as follows:

University Police received a report that a young male fled the Student Activity Center Cafeteria and later displayed what was reported as a handgun. The individual was reported to be an African American male, approximately 25 years of age, wearing a black coat and black wool hat. He fled in the direction of Harriman Hall. University Police are searching the area and investigating the report. Remain alert, proceed with caution and notify University Police if you see anyone fitting the description of the individual or anything unusual. You can reach University Police by callling 911 from any campus phone or XXX-XXXX.

The stoned idiots on WUSB are keeping me updated with their inane babble, but every once in a while they ha ve a good nugget. To be clear, the campus appears to be relatively normal, the campus is not locked down, and there are just people wandering around campus.

I’m hiding out in my office while the university puts together an official thing that describes what, exactly, is going on. The police have failed to actually lock down the campus, but certain bigger buildings on campus have been locked. I have no idea what’s actually going on, but since I’m basically hiding in a hardened bunker in the basement of the physics building grading, I’ll keep the internets posted on what I hear on the radio station that isn’t just white noise.

Posted: February 25th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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    I am getting into the regime where I need to start thinking about the writing process of my dissertation. Yes, there’s still the oral exam, and that small issue of having a secure funding source, but the point is, I will be writing something ten times longer than anything I’ve ever put together in my entire life. Read more »

Posted: February 18th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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At some point after the comps, I settled into this general malaise with regards to graduate school. I was expecting to have to take the bull by the horns, wrestle it to the ground, and put the rapier between its shoulder blades. What I got did not require that at all. After all that emotional build-up for the comps, it was horribly anti-climactic and I guess I just wasted all my energy on something unimportant and invigorating.

Posted: February 3rd, 2008 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1

Here’s what I did to the comps:

Now I just have to pass those pesky orals and write that silly dissertation

Posted: February 2nd, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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