A Day in the Life of a Grad Student
6:30am Wakeup and lie awake in bed
6:31 Realize you spent $18 on last night's dinner, means
no eating out for the next 6 weeks
6:32 Hit snooze button. Go back to sleep.
7:00 Wake up suddenly with heart in mouth when you realize
you didn't hit the snooze button--you turned it off.
7:01 fall asleep again.
7:44 Wake up with heart in mouth again.
7:45 Ready to go to school, will shave tommorrow, will eat
early brunch at (Denny's/Penny's/Lenny's/Dinko's
whatever cafeteria).
8:03 Arrive at school
Realize your officemate arrived earlier today
must have got more work done
8:04 Pass by Advisor's office, chat with Secretary to
find out if he is coming in today. He is, darn.
Need to start work on the draft due this afternoon.
8:15 Read electronic mail
8:20 Delete mail from students taking CMPSC201
regarding questions about the class.
Hate your TA job.
Depression: too much work to do today
9:00 For jumpstart: go to Pepsi machine.
9:05 Kick Pepsi machine; promise yourself to call up
the company and ask for your money back.
Wonder why they would beleive you.
9:33 Start printing out loads of stuff that may be
vaguely related to your work.
9:41 Early morning stupefaction.
9:58 Finger everyone in the department and most people
half way around the world (using the "finger"
command, of course)
10:19 Feel sleepy, should not have stayed late playing
tetris last night
10:31 momentary panic attack!!!!!!!!!!!!
10:43 edit .plan file. write a shell program to
edit .plan more easily
10:59 Drop in at advisor's office and borrow something
you don't need & and kinda make him aware you are
working hard on your project.
11:05 perverted daydreams
11:11 read electronic news
mid-morning yawn time
11:34 Start typing junk at a very high key-in rate to
pretend you are working hard as your advisor passes
by from outside.
11:35 Press the BackSpace key for one and a half minutes
until all the garbage you typed in is erased.
Realize that you can type more than 256 characters
per half minute
11:41 Flirt with the new girl/guy in the department
11:45 Print out some slides for afternoon's draft
+ presentation
11:47 Print them again, you forgot to change the date
from last presentation
11:49 Print another copy in case this one gets lost
11:51 Completely forget about sueing the coffee-machine
company
12:15 Hunger pangs:
12:20 BigMac/Fries time
Drink a not-so-cold generic can of cola from your desk.
Ch-Ching, you just saved 35 cents by buying bulk cola.
1:00 Group Meeting with advisor
1:14 Sudden awareness of one's shallowness
Resentment towards officemate for sucking up to
your advisor
Get reminded by your advisor that you need to do
some more work for your literature survey.
1:51 Advisor hands you the reddened copy of your draft
for corrections
1:51:02 The 49 second urge to murder advisor begins!!
1:51:52 Realize that he controls your assistantship/grade/
graduation possiblity/graduation date/all job
opportunities/ and the rest of your life.
1:52:53 Thank him
1:52:54 Thank yourself for not saying something stupid
to your advisor.
1:53:00 Splitting headache #1
1:59 Check email, don't reply though, you are too busy to do that
2:06 More generic cola
2:17 Oh No, it is my turn to cook tonite :-(
2:30 Sit through the class you were told to sit through
2:39 Look outside the window make unrealistic plans to
quit this degree program and take up a job.
2:48 More perverted day-dreams.
Close the office door and open a few .gif files.
Sharpen pencil
3:06 Worry about never graduating
Time to write a letter--NOT! no time for that.
Rearrange desk
Call up bank; see if you have any money
Fear of losing aid next Fall
Read latex manuals to figure out how to put &$%&%
in %$^% format
3:43 Watch the clock
Make plans to do a all-nighter tonite
Vow to watch only 2 TV programs
4:58 Notice Advisor leave
4:58:01 Sudden sense of freedom
Go home for quick, short dinner break.
9:00pm Come into the office
9:01pm The hard working grad student you are, you have
to come to the office late at night to "get the
work done"
9:03 Check electronic mail
Decide it would be a good time to attack those ftp
sites since network wont be loaded
Run into "since network wont be loaded" traffic
and get the pictures into your machine.
Compress all unwanted research/class directories to
make space.
Back up all your pictures
10:11 Admire pictures
Begin work; Realize you need references
Realize its too late today to go to the library
Sudden feeling of having wasted the day
10:49 Sudden feeling of possibly having to waste the night
Decide to turn in early and come back very early
tommorrow morning
Decide to play a Tetris on the system to put yourself
in a good mood.
11:15 Play game after game after game to improve your
score and get on the scoreboard.
Realize that your officemate is still at number 6,
two notches above you on the scoreboard.
12:20 Play until you beat your officemate into the 7th place.
A sense of achievment!! Yes, today was not wasted!!
Return home to find your roommate watching David
Letterman reruns on NBC. Tell him about the "hard
working grad student day you had"
Discuss philosophy with roommate
1:09 Think about becoming a philosopher and dining
with 4 others (The Dining Philosophers problem,
hee hee :-) (Comp Sci joke)
Argue with him about politics, why people prefer
Japanese cars and whether it is better to set the
heat to "hot" or "cold" to defrost the windshields
faster.
1:49 Realize neither of you have bought milk today
Get reminded of the "too much milk problem"
2:04 Forget about getting up early. Turn the phone ringer
off and go to sleep.
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