Landmarks

There are two types of landmarks in Academics real and arbitrary.

There is only one real landmark and that is the final acceptance of your thesis into the library archives where it will never see the light of day again.

Meaningless landmarks are things other acadmics make you do because they had to do them. If you apply for a job as a professor, no one will ever even ask if you did comprehensive exams, what graduate courses you took or even if you got slaughtered in your defence. In reality, these are all hazing procedures to see if you are tough enough for the cuthroat world of academics.

On the plus side, arbitrary landmarks result in unprecedented spurts in productivity. Would we ever really do work if we didn't know that there was a giant deadline hanging over our sorry little heads? I sure wouldn't. While the productivity does seem to cluster around these deadlines, they are nonetheless examples of the endurances to which we can push the human body and still produce something moderately intelligent.

The trick is to not convince yourself of the meaninglessness of all the other landmarks. If you recognise these for what they really are, things that make sure you actually get a little work done each year so the dean doesn't have to kick you out, then you will likely become cynical with the system and get nothing done, instead of your usual almost nothing.

I prefer to take the time honoured route of denial. My next arbitrary deadline is at the beginning of April, I will promise not to procrastinate this time or put things off and do a little work every day. And as that resolve dies a slow death by distraction, boredom and youtube, I will just accept that I am a creature of habit and prepare myself for another test of extreme endurance in March.

Academic Bad Habits

I have a bad habit, and I have noticed that my grad school friends have it too.

As soon as I walk into someone's house for the first time, I make a beeline for their bookcase. I go through it meticulously, I look for what books and theemes we have in common, and I will grab any title that peaks my interest off the shelf without even asking.

I thought I was alone in this until a few of my friends came to my place for the first time. within minutes my shelf had been picked over and I became the Shelly public library.

I guess I could have worse habits. I do leave my friends medicine cabinets alone, And I rarely go into an underwear drawer without permission. I for one, know I am flattered when a friend looks over my bookshelf approvingly, I doubt they would feel the same way about their underwear.

Making Grad School Worthwhile

I love to learn, especially by experincing. I love history and I got to be a part of it last night. I watched a black man win the presidency of the USA. As an academic, while I feel this is a victory I can't help but think we still have far to go.

I cried last night out of pride for my neighbours, but we still have far to go. An LGTB president? An Hispanic or A Native American president? As a scholar I feel a responsibility not to let people think the war on racism is won. We are one more step up that ladder, but there are still many more rungs until we reach the top.

In the meantime, live in the moment. We were just part of history. There is a lot more history to make and I plan to have an active role in the history yet to come.

It's all about the Frosh

http://www.globecampus.ca/blogs/freshman-life/

Sigh, another blog about undergrad, OK, its fairly good, btu would love to see more about grad students in the media. Hmmm, maybe I can get a job with the globe and mail!

Lessons From Running

I am running a race this weekend, and according to my training schedule I should have run 8.5 kilometres this sunday, well Oktoberfest killed that idea. I kept feeling as though if I couldn't schedule the time for an 8.5K run, I shouldn't run at all. Well that was stupid, I am still going to do the race regardless of whether or not I get in this run, so I might as well do something. So I went for 4 K today and it felt great, it wasn't as far as I wanted to go, but at least I went. And I will go 4k Friday morning, it isn't 8K but it is enough.

So the lesson for my thesis, I often feel like a day is a failure if I don't work for 12 hours or get an entire chapter written, but the truth is even 15 minutes or one page or a few hours is better than nothing.

So my lesson, don't be a moron and say "If I can't do a lot than I'm not going to do any", I think that might be what gets us in this trouble in the first place.

Glad I'm not this fish

I thought writing a thesis was not a great life and planning a wedding was worse....then I realised I could be this fish, things seem a little better now.

This picture may have to be my desktop for a while, I will avoid shutting off MS word because I will get scared every time I do.

Thesis status: Mostly dead

Some of you know or may have heard about that little life event I have coming up called a wedding.

While it will not be the death of me it has relegated my thesis to the realm of "Mostly dead"

Talking to other grad students I have learned that major life events seem to send a thesis into stasis. Take for example, pregnancy. While this only affects about one half of grad students it is still a common problem. A women who thinks she has three months left to go on her thesis, has already defended and is really just tweaking the bibliography decides to get pregnant.

All of a sudden a thesis that should take three months to finish, now looks like it will not be done until the little one in her tummy is starting grad school herself. Mommy classes, making a nursery, nervous calls from soon to be grandparents, doctors visits, all of which should somehow take maybe 4-5 hours a week begin to take 16 hours a day.

Or say you cross the threshold of getting an academic job, sure it is just a part time position, but for some reason you are exhausted after your three hours of class, your two office hours and ten hours of marking, you aren't going to want to finish that thesis. The light at the end of your tunnel slowly begins to fade as you enter the "I need to make money, therefore I will work, which will help me pay the tuition so I can take one more term to do my thesis" state of perpetual quasi-death.

Returning to my original example, say my wedding finishes I return from my honeymoon. It ain't over and no chocolate covered pill is going to revive this undead tome. After the wedding you have thank you cards to send, gifts to return, a new place to move into. All of a sudden your working spouse expects you to work during the day, 9-5 like him or her, so you can spend "quality time" together. Impromptu beer nights (aka academic brainstorming sessions) with your friends are replaced by dinner parties with other married couples who ask "how long until your thesis is done again?". Pshaw, they never mentioned that in the pre-nup. I do my best work at 4:00 am and I study over beer how was that not obvious before marriage.

Well, death is another part of living, I am sure things will even out again soon after all, I do study religion and even my thesis deserves and afterlife (or is that what a post-doc is for?)

*Disclaimer* Any mention of annoying spouses is purely conjecture and in no way reflects my real life spouse as he has never worked 9-5, he's lucky if he gets to work 8-11(pm) **