Essence of Grad School

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Should You Go to Graduate School?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: maybe...

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Recent things that I have to laugh at myself for

I got soap in my martini last night. Where do I start to explain this?

I've been feeling kinda icky recently in a low-energy, might be getting sick sort of way. I sat on the couch pretty much all day Saturday and so on Sunday I booted myself out of the house to go to Miranda's ballet and jazz class. That thoroughly kicked my ass, in a good way, but I was still exhausted afterwards. So I went home, prepped for my class this morning, and made myself a drink. Then I decided it would be a really good idea to take a bath and read the rest of my book. That went really well. I lit some candles and turned bright red cuz the water was a bit too hot.

Things that didn't happen:
I could have tipped over my martini, which was perched on the side of the tub.
I could have dropped the book in the water, though I'm a fairly experienced bath reader.
The cats could have tried to either get in the tub or drink the water, which would have been really bad since I put epsom salts in the tub, and apparently their primary therapeutic use is as a laxative (who knew?).
I could have lit my hair on fire, since I was sitting next to two lighted candles (in holders, but I'm clumsy).

But no, none of those things happened. I figured that since I'd been sweating a lot, both before and during my bath, I should probably wash off before going to bed. So I soap up the loofah, start soaping, and PLOP! I get a dollop of soap right in my half-drunk martini. I was so bummed, I even tried a sip but decided that it was disgusting. So much for that...



PS- A guy just popped his head into my office to ask if I wanted to buy books or something. I have no idea, never seen him before. But during the 5 seconds he was in my airspace he managed to stink up my entire office! I hate perfume! It's disgusting! Just don't wear it. Don't. Bathe more.

Who's not surprised?

Apparently there is a correlation between drinking diet soda and "metabolic syndrome — the collection of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes that include abdominal obesity, high cholesterol and blood glucose levels — and elevated blood pressure." Really. They do point out that these symptoms may just be the lifestyle associated with diet soda drinkers, and not something directly caused by diet soda.

I'm not surprised. Unless you drink it for the taste, in which case your taste buds need some adjustment, you have to be pretty naive to drink diet soda. It's not any better for you (apparently, it could be worse) than regular soda. In my rather limited experience, people who drink diet soda tend to have intensely unhealthy lifestyles, characterized by poor diet and a lack of exercise. So any of you diet drinkers reading this, please switch to water and start exercising. Actually, cutting soda or diet soda out of your diet is almost guaranteed to lose you 10 lbs.

What am I actually surprised about? I'm going to San Diego for a week in July. I am the only graduate student in the Tufts chapter of SIAM (society for industrial and applied mathematics) who is neither graduating nor getting married this summer. Since someone from the club should go, that makes me it. May I point out that I don't do industrial or applied mathematics? I'm not even particularly interested! (I went to the meeting for the pizza.) But I've never been to San Diego, the chapter will cover most of my expenses, and at the moment I have nothing better to do this summer. So what the hell...