Classes are back, the semester has begun. I’m getting too old for this. I’m still pre-quals, and I have one more class to take, and now I have to TA a large undergraduate class. Sure it’s only grading HW’s, but it’s some 80+ students. Bleh…pesky eager know-it-all teenage undergrads… ok, ok, I’ll try to be nice. It’s just that they make me feel so old, and I’m only 30, married, with children…wow, I’m old, married, with children and still here, stuck in grad school while, I’m old, married with children!

Speaking of timelines, I’m really kindda of ahead. Plenty of older students graduate with a PhD and they are still old, but unmarried and childless. I feel bad for those women having kids in their 30’s with a metabolism approaching that of a hibernating frog frozen in winter… despite all the flack I got from friends and family on choosing to have kids “so young,” I’m pretty sure biologically I was already old. After all, it’s no coincidence puberty begins in our teen years… it makes sense to have kids at a young age, 21 is hardly young biologically.

Back to timelines. What’s the big deal about PhD timelines anyhow? We spend 2 years BSing with core classes and preparing for quals. Nothing really gets done, properly. Then, for two years we play catch up in a project our advisors have either a) a vague hunch it’ll work, b) a vague sense of timeline. So weeks are spent telling your advisor how nothing works, and how stupid you feel that your data sucks. PhD is really an exercise, not in research, but patience. Patience with your advisor, patience with yourself, patience with the process, patience with the project, patience with bad God-awful data.

Which brings me to the Fernieville wisdom quote of the day:

If I PhD project gives you lemons, make a really sour lemonade and cover it with lots and lots of sugar and hand it, in a really pretty cup, to your committee.