Grad Student Check List

6:30 am Wake up 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 foreign 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.
Mutter racist comments to yourself about your officemate. 9:43 Curse your
officemate in a low tone he would not comprehend. Feel good about him not
grasping English well.
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 dont need and 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 minute 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 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 foreign
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 electronic mail, 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. Wonder why blonde girls are so pretty.
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 tonight. 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 won’t be loaded 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 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.
(repeat)