Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be graduate students
People always seem to think that graduate school is the same as any other school: you get summers off, there are ample week-long breaks, and national holidays are actually observed. I love it when people ask me things like, "How long is your program?" and "What are you doing this summer?" I'm working as a lifeguard at Jones Beach...I'm spending July in the Hamptons...I'm going to backpack through Europe...what do you think I'm doing, asshole?! I'm in GRADUATE SCHOOL! I'll be in lab. The agricultural academic calendar that gives you summers off for the harvest/some pointless internship does not apply here.
I think that many people reflect back to their undergraduate days and assume that my schooling now proceeds the same way. Believe me, I WISH it did. However, my undergraduate years seem like Pleasure Island in terms of the potential for sloth inherent in the curriculum. As an undergrad, skipping class is cool, drunken and uncouth behavior is laughed off, and the lowest standards for effort apply. However, if you are foolish enough to continue on to graduate school, you've grown a pair of donkey ears and are on a one-way trip to the motherfucking salt mines. Since many people seem to be confused about the differences between the undergraduate experience and my situation as a fake doctor-in training, let me clarify. Compare my average day as an undergraduate with my average day now:
*7:00 a.m.*
Undergrad: I hit the snooze button, the first of many times.
Grad: I struggle out of bed and turn on NY1 and/or last night's "Sportscenter."
*8:00 a.m.*
Undergrad: I finally turn off the alarm and immediately flip on the TV and switch to the FX Network, where the first of four "Beverly Hills, 90210" reruns is beginning. My boyfriend tries to steal the remote, and I tell him to get dressed, so he can drive me to my 9:00 a.m. physics class. Then we probably have sex.
Grad: I walk the dogs, indisputably the highlight of my morning.
*8:30 a.m.*
Undergrad: I smoke a cigarette, run downstairs to the Jordan House kitchen for a cup of coffee, and probably take a bong hit or two. I decide to earn that D and not attend physics class, and tell my boyfriend to have a nice day as he gets dressed to leave. I stay on my righteously uncomfortable futon and watch "90210," because Donna's virginity is being threatened by the campus rapist, David Silver is playing backup keyboards for Babyface, Brandon is having a moral dilemma and/or affair, Steve Sanders is wreaking good-natured havoc with his brothers at the KEG house, Valerie is faking pregnancies and extorting money out of sleazy businessmen, Dylan's back on the bottle, Nat might lose the Peach Pit, Better Than Ezra is playing a gig at the After Dark, and Kelly is getting raped/joining a cult/getting burned in a fire/doing mountains of cocaine/being stalked by a crack-addled lesbian/dodging unwanted sexual advances from her boss/deciding between Brandon and Dylan. In other words, way more compelling material than deriving Maxwell's equations.
Grad: I am on my way to lab. I grab a newspaper on my way into the subway station, leap a puddle of urine, and dodge an aggressive mob of Jehovah's Witnesses in my attempts to reach the A train uptown platform.
*9:00 a.m.*
Undergrad: The second episode of "90210" is beginning. I am wholly enthralled, without a worry in the world about the possibility of missing class. In fact, I might just skip whatever bullshit humanities class comes after physics. "Philosophy of Religion"?? That has "winging the final paper" written all over it!
Grad: I arrive at 168th Street, and purchase a muffin, juice, and coffee. I then walk to work, wearing an angry face while darting hordes of homeless people, ambulance drivers, and uptight medical students.
*10.00 a.m.*
Undergrad: I take a leisurely shower.
Grad: I finish my covert breakfast in lab (eating at the bench is discouraged for safety reasons, but whatever...I've had my polio vaccine). I've spent the last hour reading the "eTOCs" (e-mailed table of contents) from such riveting publications as The Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, Journal of Virology, Cell, Journal of Immunology, and Nature Reviews in Microbiology. I then pull on my latex gloves and get to work. Today is an extra special, super fantastic, overwhelmingly fun day of mouse killing. I prepare my bench for the massacre of Mus musculus.
*11:00 a.m.*
Undergrad: I wander downstairs for a leisurely brunch.
Grad: I anesthetize my first mouse. Today I am seeing if their serum (the liquid component of blood) inhibits rhinovirus replication in the mouse respiratory tract, which might explain why my mice haven't gotten the cold yet and I haven't graduated. To collect serum, I have to exsanguinate the mice by a technique called "terminal cardiac puncture." This is one of my least favorite mouse-killing procedures. I have to deeply anesthetize the mice, which is tricky. There's a reason why anesthesiologists are the highest-paid doctors. It's tough to figure out how to knock them fully out without killing them by overdose. Once I have them unconscious, I have to palpate them (feel their chest for their heartbeat), and blindly try to stick a 26-gauge needle into their left ventricle to suck out as much blood as possible before either they die of blood loss, my needle slips out of the heart chamber, or their cardiovascular system decides to collapse entirely. I've actually gotten pretty good at doing this efficiently, but there's really not much blood to get out of a mouse, and I have to kill several to get enough serum for my experiment. This is because, as I just stated, anesthesia is a fine art. If the mice O.D., they are useless to me because their hearts stop beating. I rely on the mouse's systolic pressure to pump my syringe full of mouse blood, so I unfortunately tend to err on the side of not killing them. That means I get a mouse waking up in the middle of bleeding it to death via cardiac puncture, so in the interest of being humane, I have to flip the mouse over rapidly, and kill it by cervical dislocation (breaking its neck). I feel really bad when this happens. Even though I hate mice and as far as I'm concerned they are almost on par with cockroaches, I would hate to wake up with a fucking needle being clumsily jabbed at my heart, and I feel some compassion towards them. Plus, when they wake up, they jerk, I lose the sweet spot for blood collection, and I end up with way less serum.
*12:45 p.m.*
Undergrad: I go to my afternoon class, "Literary Anti-Semitism," because my friends LL Cool Jew and Wmania are also in it, and the professor is a frightening German man who once shouted at me for passing notes in class. We make classless jokes about Hitler's sanguine love for Richard Wagner and get a vigorous scolding for disrespectful cracks about the dialogue in Parsifal.
Grad: I've finally finished bleeding all the mice, which took extra long, because I'm also extracting their tibias. I am using these mice for two different experiments, so I'm taking their bone marrow as well as their serum. You would think that a big leg bone like the tibia would just pop right out, but it's really like trying to extract a splinter out of a chewed up piece of gum. There's tendons, muscles, and sticky shit everywhere. It takes forever, and it annoys me.
*2:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: I finally go to the lab that I'm doing my "special studies" project in. I turn off my advisor's Alternapop radio station and listen to a Guns 'n' Roses CD. I dick around on the computer for awhile, then streak out a few plates of bacteria. Then I dick around on the computer some more, and boss the underclassmen in lab around because I can. I mean, I'm lazy, but I'm still Razzy, and they are mousey Smith girls hesitant to contradict my iron will.
Grad: I run to the gym because otherwise I don't know when I will have time to go. The bone marrow extraction can wait an hour, and I have to wait for the blood to clot in order to get the serum. I sweat my tits off on the Gauntlet, because it's approximately 100 degrees in the non-air conditioned gym.
*2:30 p.m.*
Undergrad: I throw some shit into the autoclave and get ready to T.A. the immunology class. That involves walking around and showing people how pipets work and teaching them to multiply by a factor of 10. I shoot my mouth off about antibody agglutination or some bullshit and impress anal-retentive Smith bitches who would otherwise hate me. I secretly hope the labrats taking immunology finish early, so I can get back to Jordan House for afternoon "90210" and Pabst Blue Ribbon with the girls on my floor.
Grad: I return from the gym, spin my serum for 20 minutes in a centrifuge to remove clotted blood cells and other solid debris, and prepare the tissue culture hood for a big serum-incubating, cell-extracting-stravaganza.
*4:15 p.m.*
Undergrad: I arrive back at Jordan House, grab beer from my minifridge, and head to watch "90210" with Martindale, a neighbor who actually attends less class than me. She is an English major, and has mastered the fine art of writing a solid C-worthy paper about The Canterbury Tales the night before it is due. She can't be bothered with class because much of her time is spent drinking, fucking, and fighting. I like her style. Usually when I get to her place for afternoon 9-er, she is just waking up. Today is no exception. She rolls a joint and we make fun of Tori Spelling's hair color, then debate the eternal question: who was a bigger bitch, Shannen Doherty/Brenda or Tiffani-Amber Thiessen/Valerie? I always go with Valerie...that girl was conniving!
Grad: I finish diluting serum and begin pipetting virus into it. The ultra cold freezer where we keep frozen cells begins to alarm incessantly. I go check it out and realize that this is because the liquid nitrogen tank connected to it is empty. I leave my experiments for 20 minutes to embark on a fruitless quest to tell my boss (because he might be able to fix the problem), but he has disappeared. I finally give up the hunt and return to my experiments. I'm pissed because I have to get up periodically to silence the alarm, which is an incredibly loud, high-pitched beep that makes me murderously irritated.
*6:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: "90210" is finally over for the day, so Martindale and I go downstairs to get dinner.
Grad: I finally get my serum/virus set up and leave it to incubate. Now I start extracting bone marrow from mouse tibias. This isn't that hard, but you have to be careful or you'll wind up with a pathetic cell yield, or contaminating your culture with yeast, mold, and/or bacteria. So I have to sterilize scissors and tweezers (or forceps, to use their science name) with alcohol, hold the tibia with the tweezers, clip off the ends of the bone (the epiphyses), insert a needle, and flush out the marrow with a few mLs of culture medium. Bits of bone fragment and remaining connective tissue fly everywhere as I clip off the epiphyses, and as usual I manage to spray RPMI 1640 medium all over the tissue culture hood. I snap a bone in half by grabbing it too forcefully with the tweezers, and curse mice for evolving such pitiful tiny limbs in the first place. Then I curse Charles Darwin, for discovering evolution. Then I curse God, for inventing all of the above. Then I wallow in grad school hatred for several minutes.
*7:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: Dinner is over and I am sitting in the hallway of my dorm, smoking cigarettes with my neighbors in the bay window at the end of the hall. We aren't supposed to smoke in public spaces, but we do anyway, and tell the uptight girl who moved in at the end of the hall to fuck off when she asks us to stop. Several of us then go off to my room to smoke more pot. We realize there is some sort of feminist rally happening in the Quad outside. (I never understood the point of these demonstrations at Smith, since obviously most people are pro-woman at a women's college, but it happened all the time). I put my speakers up to the window and blast "Bitches Ain't Shit but Hos and Tricks", "Ain't No Fun (if the Homies Can't Have None)" and/or any Too $hort song. The demonstrators shake their fists angrily at us and shout at us to be quiet. We turn the volume up. My friends and I all have a laugh at their expense. Stupid Smith girls!
Grad: I finish with the bone marrow and get back to my virus/serum experiment. I set up plaque assays, annoyed because they will take at least another hour. I am starving and cranky, and it occurs to me that I'm missing "Jeopardy!" Fuck!
*8:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: My boyfriend picks me up and we go to Packard's for drinks. Benzo tells me his latest theory on why this is the year the Red Sox will finally win the World Series (always a variation of the "Two words: Pedro Martinez" theme), and his similar theories on why his rotisserie baseball league team, Chin Music, will triumph as well. Then we gossip, argue good-naturedly about politics, and make fun of people.
Grad: I'm really starving now but I have to wait for the agar to harden on my plaque assays before I can go home. I remember that I can't go right home, because I have to go to the bank and grocery store first. I reflect on how pissed the dogs must be that they haven't been walked yet.
*9:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: I'm still drinking at Packard's and having a grand time.
Grad: I am finally heading into the subway to go home. As I'm going down the stairs to the turnstile, I can hear the sound of a train pulling into the station. Despite running, I am burdened with groceries and my gym bag. I fumble with my MetroCard trying to get through the turnstile, clamor through, and run to the downtown platform, only to see the tail lights of a departing A train, mocking me as they disappear down the subway tunnel. FUCK! I wait for the next train and try to calm down by reading my book about football.
*10:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: Still drinking.
Grad: After changing into comfortable clothes, walking the dogs, and eating, I finally open my first sweet Heineken. Then I remember with alarm that I forgot to take care of a few e-mail and supply ordering issues at lab, so I sit down at my computer and get back into science mode. I realize as I'm shopping for protein gels at the Invitrogen website that I missed tonight's all-new episode of "Deadliest Catch." Dammit! Someone was supposed to get injured this episode, and the Cornelia Marie's Opilio crab quotas could be in jeopardy if they are a deckhand short! I wonder what happened. I curse graduate school for interrupting my eminently important television routine.
*11:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: Still drinking, and possibly ordering nachos before the kitchen closes.
Grad: I realize that I haven't caught up with my parents in awhile, so I call my mother. She sends me to voicemail! Are you kidding, Mom? Voicemail?! I'm your fucking firstborn!
*12:00 a.m.*
Undergrad: Since bars in Assachussetts close at 1 (goddamned Puritan blue laws), Benzo and I settle our bar tab and go back to my crib at Jordan House, where we have sex. Then I smoke a cigarette, we watch a little "Sportscenter," and we go to sleep.
Grad: I attempt a blog entry chronicling the pitiful exercise in tedium that is my life. I decide I feel too exhausted to be inspired, and go to bed. I'm too tired to even masturbate. You know things have hit rock bottom when you can't summon the mental energy or concentration required to rub one off. I then try to read several passages from my Fagles translation of The Iliad, but the words blur together. I resign myself to just sleep without thrilling tales of war heroics, fickle Olympian god drama, and the bastardly ways of Agamemnon.
I hope this makes the distinction between the workloads and general atmosphere of undergraduate education versus grad school. Better put, this is why graduate school SUCKS a thousand times harder. Sure, I had to go to classes back in the day at Smith, but they were pretty much optional. I did about three hours of "work" each day, as opposed to the backbreaking 10-12 hour days I pull now. I enjoyed regular breaks, and three months off each summer. Granted, I usually did some kind of bogus internship or research fellowship during the summer months, but that was when I actually thought benchwork was fun and I'd spend the summer working on experiment that now I'm expected to do in two days. Also due to my intern status, there would always be someone else in charge of killing mice, working with radiation, or otherwise performing thankless and dangerous tasks for me. If you can avoid it, don't go to graduate school. It's not the keg parties, the daily routine of sleeping late, or the regular hanging out/loitering you remember. It's (given our meager stipend) very nearly slave labor. Save yourself and just get a job, because that's WAY more fun, the pay is much better, and it's way less work.
I think that many people reflect back to their undergraduate days and assume that my schooling now proceeds the same way. Believe me, I WISH it did. However, my undergraduate years seem like Pleasure Island in terms of the potential for sloth inherent in the curriculum. As an undergrad, skipping class is cool, drunken and uncouth behavior is laughed off, and the lowest standards for effort apply. However, if you are foolish enough to continue on to graduate school, you've grown a pair of donkey ears and are on a one-way trip to the motherfucking salt mines. Since many people seem to be confused about the differences between the undergraduate experience and my situation as a fake doctor-in training, let me clarify. Compare my average day as an undergraduate with my average day now:
*7:00 a.m.*
Undergrad: I hit the snooze button, the first of many times.
Grad: I struggle out of bed and turn on NY1 and/or last night's "Sportscenter."
*8:00 a.m.*
Undergrad: I finally turn off the alarm and immediately flip on the TV and switch to the FX Network, where the first of four "Beverly Hills, 90210" reruns is beginning. My boyfriend tries to steal the remote, and I tell him to get dressed, so he can drive me to my 9:00 a.m. physics class. Then we probably have sex.
Grad: I walk the dogs, indisputably the highlight of my morning.
*8:30 a.m.*
Undergrad: I smoke a cigarette, run downstairs to the Jordan House kitchen for a cup of coffee, and probably take a bong hit or two. I decide to earn that D and not attend physics class, and tell my boyfriend to have a nice day as he gets dressed to leave. I stay on my righteously uncomfortable futon and watch "90210," because Donna's virginity is being threatened by the campus rapist, David Silver is playing backup keyboards for Babyface, Brandon is having a moral dilemma and/or affair, Steve Sanders is wreaking good-natured havoc with his brothers at the KEG house, Valerie is faking pregnancies and extorting money out of sleazy businessmen, Dylan's back on the bottle, Nat might lose the Peach Pit, Better Than Ezra is playing a gig at the After Dark, and Kelly is getting raped/joining a cult/getting burned in a fire/doing mountains of cocaine/being stalked by a crack-addled lesbian/dodging unwanted sexual advances from her boss/deciding between Brandon and Dylan. In other words, way more compelling material than deriving Maxwell's equations.
Grad: I am on my way to lab. I grab a newspaper on my way into the subway station, leap a puddle of urine, and dodge an aggressive mob of Jehovah's Witnesses in my attempts to reach the A train uptown platform.
*9:00 a.m.*
Undergrad: The second episode of "90210" is beginning. I am wholly enthralled, without a worry in the world about the possibility of missing class. In fact, I might just skip whatever bullshit humanities class comes after physics. "Philosophy of Religion"?? That has "winging the final paper" written all over it!
Grad: I arrive at 168th Street, and purchase a muffin, juice, and coffee. I then walk to work, wearing an angry face while darting hordes of homeless people, ambulance drivers, and uptight medical students.
*10.00 a.m.*
Undergrad: I take a leisurely shower.
Grad: I finish my covert breakfast in lab (eating at the bench is discouraged for safety reasons, but whatever...I've had my polio vaccine). I've spent the last hour reading the "eTOCs" (e-mailed table of contents) from such riveting publications as The Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, Journal of Virology, Cell, Journal of Immunology, and Nature Reviews in Microbiology. I then pull on my latex gloves and get to work. Today is an extra special, super fantastic, overwhelmingly fun day of mouse killing. I prepare my bench for the massacre of Mus musculus.
*11:00 a.m.*
Undergrad: I wander downstairs for a leisurely brunch.
Grad: I anesthetize my first mouse. Today I am seeing if their serum (the liquid component of blood) inhibits rhinovirus replication in the mouse respiratory tract, which might explain why my mice haven't gotten the cold yet and I haven't graduated. To collect serum, I have to exsanguinate the mice by a technique called "terminal cardiac puncture." This is one of my least favorite mouse-killing procedures. I have to deeply anesthetize the mice, which is tricky. There's a reason why anesthesiologists are the highest-paid doctors. It's tough to figure out how to knock them fully out without killing them by overdose. Once I have them unconscious, I have to palpate them (feel their chest for their heartbeat), and blindly try to stick a 26-gauge needle into their left ventricle to suck out as much blood as possible before either they die of blood loss, my needle slips out of the heart chamber, or their cardiovascular system decides to collapse entirely. I've actually gotten pretty good at doing this efficiently, but there's really not much blood to get out of a mouse, and I have to kill several to get enough serum for my experiment. This is because, as I just stated, anesthesia is a fine art. If the mice O.D., they are useless to me because their hearts stop beating. I rely on the mouse's systolic pressure to pump my syringe full of mouse blood, so I unfortunately tend to err on the side of not killing them. That means I get a mouse waking up in the middle of bleeding it to death via cardiac puncture, so in the interest of being humane, I have to flip the mouse over rapidly, and kill it by cervical dislocation (breaking its neck). I feel really bad when this happens. Even though I hate mice and as far as I'm concerned they are almost on par with cockroaches, I would hate to wake up with a fucking needle being clumsily jabbed at my heart, and I feel some compassion towards them. Plus, when they wake up, they jerk, I lose the sweet spot for blood collection, and I end up with way less serum.
*12:45 p.m.*
Undergrad: I go to my afternoon class, "Literary Anti-Semitism," because my friends LL Cool Jew and Wmania are also in it, and the professor is a frightening German man who once shouted at me for passing notes in class. We make classless jokes about Hitler's sanguine love for Richard Wagner and get a vigorous scolding for disrespectful cracks about the dialogue in Parsifal.
Grad: I've finally finished bleeding all the mice, which took extra long, because I'm also extracting their tibias. I am using these mice for two different experiments, so I'm taking their bone marrow as well as their serum. You would think that a big leg bone like the tibia would just pop right out, but it's really like trying to extract a splinter out of a chewed up piece of gum. There's tendons, muscles, and sticky shit everywhere. It takes forever, and it annoys me.
*2:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: I finally go to the lab that I'm doing my "special studies" project in. I turn off my advisor's Alternapop radio station and listen to a Guns 'n' Roses CD. I dick around on the computer for awhile, then streak out a few plates of bacteria. Then I dick around on the computer some more, and boss the underclassmen in lab around because I can. I mean, I'm lazy, but I'm still Razzy, and they are mousey Smith girls hesitant to contradict my iron will.
Grad: I run to the gym because otherwise I don't know when I will have time to go. The bone marrow extraction can wait an hour, and I have to wait for the blood to clot in order to get the serum. I sweat my tits off on the Gauntlet, because it's approximately 100 degrees in the non-air conditioned gym.
*2:30 p.m.*
Undergrad: I throw some shit into the autoclave and get ready to T.A. the immunology class. That involves walking around and showing people how pipets work and teaching them to multiply by a factor of 10. I shoot my mouth off about antibody agglutination or some bullshit and impress anal-retentive Smith bitches who would otherwise hate me. I secretly hope the labrats taking immunology finish early, so I can get back to Jordan House for afternoon "90210" and Pabst Blue Ribbon with the girls on my floor.
Grad: I return from the gym, spin my serum for 20 minutes in a centrifuge to remove clotted blood cells and other solid debris, and prepare the tissue culture hood for a big serum-incubating, cell-extracting-stravaganza.
*4:15 p.m.*
Undergrad: I arrive back at Jordan House, grab beer from my minifridge, and head to watch "90210" with Martindale, a neighbor who actually attends less class than me. She is an English major, and has mastered the fine art of writing a solid C-worthy paper about The Canterbury Tales the night before it is due. She can't be bothered with class because much of her time is spent drinking, fucking, and fighting. I like her style. Usually when I get to her place for afternoon 9-er, she is just waking up. Today is no exception. She rolls a joint and we make fun of Tori Spelling's hair color, then debate the eternal question: who was a bigger bitch, Shannen Doherty/Brenda or Tiffani-Amber Thiessen/Valerie? I always go with Valerie...that girl was conniving!
Grad: I finish diluting serum and begin pipetting virus into it. The ultra cold freezer where we keep frozen cells begins to alarm incessantly. I go check it out and realize that this is because the liquid nitrogen tank connected to it is empty. I leave my experiments for 20 minutes to embark on a fruitless quest to tell my boss (because he might be able to fix the problem), but he has disappeared. I finally give up the hunt and return to my experiments. I'm pissed because I have to get up periodically to silence the alarm, which is an incredibly loud, high-pitched beep that makes me murderously irritated.
*6:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: "90210" is finally over for the day, so Martindale and I go downstairs to get dinner.
Grad: I finally get my serum/virus set up and leave it to incubate. Now I start extracting bone marrow from mouse tibias. This isn't that hard, but you have to be careful or you'll wind up with a pathetic cell yield, or contaminating your culture with yeast, mold, and/or bacteria. So I have to sterilize scissors and tweezers (or forceps, to use their science name) with alcohol, hold the tibia with the tweezers, clip off the ends of the bone (the epiphyses), insert a needle, and flush out the marrow with a few mLs of culture medium. Bits of bone fragment and remaining connective tissue fly everywhere as I clip off the epiphyses, and as usual I manage to spray RPMI 1640 medium all over the tissue culture hood. I snap a bone in half by grabbing it too forcefully with the tweezers, and curse mice for evolving such pitiful tiny limbs in the first place. Then I curse Charles Darwin, for discovering evolution. Then I curse God, for inventing all of the above. Then I wallow in grad school hatred for several minutes.
*7:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: Dinner is over and I am sitting in the hallway of my dorm, smoking cigarettes with my neighbors in the bay window at the end of the hall. We aren't supposed to smoke in public spaces, but we do anyway, and tell the uptight girl who moved in at the end of the hall to fuck off when she asks us to stop. Several of us then go off to my room to smoke more pot. We realize there is some sort of feminist rally happening in the Quad outside. (I never understood the point of these demonstrations at Smith, since obviously most people are pro-woman at a women's college, but it happened all the time). I put my speakers up to the window and blast "Bitches Ain't Shit but Hos and Tricks", "Ain't No Fun (if the Homies Can't Have None)" and/or any Too $hort song. The demonstrators shake their fists angrily at us and shout at us to be quiet. We turn the volume up. My friends and I all have a laugh at their expense. Stupid Smith girls!
Grad: I finish with the bone marrow and get back to my virus/serum experiment. I set up plaque assays, annoyed because they will take at least another hour. I am starving and cranky, and it occurs to me that I'm missing "Jeopardy!" Fuck!
*8:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: My boyfriend picks me up and we go to Packard's for drinks. Benzo tells me his latest theory on why this is the year the Red Sox will finally win the World Series (always a variation of the "Two words: Pedro Martinez" theme), and his similar theories on why his rotisserie baseball league team, Chin Music, will triumph as well. Then we gossip, argue good-naturedly about politics, and make fun of people.
Grad: I'm really starving now but I have to wait for the agar to harden on my plaque assays before I can go home. I remember that I can't go right home, because I have to go to the bank and grocery store first. I reflect on how pissed the dogs must be that they haven't been walked yet.
*9:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: I'm still drinking at Packard's and having a grand time.
Grad: I am finally heading into the subway to go home. As I'm going down the stairs to the turnstile, I can hear the sound of a train pulling into the station. Despite running, I am burdened with groceries and my gym bag. I fumble with my MetroCard trying to get through the turnstile, clamor through, and run to the downtown platform, only to see the tail lights of a departing A train, mocking me as they disappear down the subway tunnel. FUCK! I wait for the next train and try to calm down by reading my book about football.
*10:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: Still drinking.
Grad: After changing into comfortable clothes, walking the dogs, and eating, I finally open my first sweet Heineken. Then I remember with alarm that I forgot to take care of a few e-mail and supply ordering issues at lab, so I sit down at my computer and get back into science mode. I realize as I'm shopping for protein gels at the Invitrogen website that I missed tonight's all-new episode of "Deadliest Catch." Dammit! Someone was supposed to get injured this episode, and the Cornelia Marie's Opilio crab quotas could be in jeopardy if they are a deckhand short! I wonder what happened. I curse graduate school for interrupting my eminently important television routine.
*11:00 p.m.*
Undergrad: Still drinking, and possibly ordering nachos before the kitchen closes.
Grad: I realize that I haven't caught up with my parents in awhile, so I call my mother. She sends me to voicemail! Are you kidding, Mom? Voicemail?! I'm your fucking firstborn!
*12:00 a.m.*
Undergrad: Since bars in Assachussetts close at 1 (goddamned Puritan blue laws), Benzo and I settle our bar tab and go back to my crib at Jordan House, where we have sex. Then I smoke a cigarette, we watch a little "Sportscenter," and we go to sleep.
Grad: I attempt a blog entry chronicling the pitiful exercise in tedium that is my life. I decide I feel too exhausted to be inspired, and go to bed. I'm too tired to even masturbate. You know things have hit rock bottom when you can't summon the mental energy or concentration required to rub one off. I then try to read several passages from my Fagles translation of The Iliad, but the words blur together. I resign myself to just sleep without thrilling tales of war heroics, fickle Olympian god drama, and the bastardly ways of Agamemnon.
I hope this makes the distinction between the workloads and general atmosphere of undergraduate education versus grad school. Better put, this is why graduate school SUCKS a thousand times harder. Sure, I had to go to classes back in the day at Smith, but they were pretty much optional. I did about three hours of "work" each day, as opposed to the backbreaking 10-12 hour days I pull now. I enjoyed regular breaks, and three months off each summer. Granted, I usually did some kind of bogus internship or research fellowship during the summer months, but that was when I actually thought benchwork was fun and I'd spend the summer working on experiment that now I'm expected to do in two days. Also due to my intern status, there would always be someone else in charge of killing mice, working with radiation, or otherwise performing thankless and dangerous tasks for me. If you can avoid it, don't go to graduate school. It's not the keg parties, the daily routine of sleeping late, or the regular hanging out/loitering you remember. It's (given our meager stipend) very nearly slave labor. Save yourself and just get a job, because that's WAY more fun, the pay is much better, and it's way less work.
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Mouse Killer.
Seriously: I gave Grad School serious consideration and had my application to Columbia all ready to go... then I decided to travel the world as a theatre monger instead...
Seriously: I gave Grad School serious consideration and had my application to Columbia all ready to go... then I decided to travel the world as a theatre monger instead...
I am know how you feel. Well, some what. I am just a lowely first year so I am not as deep into lab work as you but I am getting sick of people asking me if I am going to be in my hometown for the summer.
~Cornell first year
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~Cornell first year
# posted by 
: 5/31/2006 8:29 PM
: 5/31/2006 8:29 PM Links to this post:
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