Power Nerds Anonymous

As I found out over the weekend and most especially over the last two days, it turns out grad school does actually involve class, homework, reading and papers. Sigh.

I finally realized I was in for a ride today at about 2:45, when I was in an academic mentorship meeting (we're supposed to pick faculty who can help us with the non-research side of grad school) with Dr. C. Dr. C is a great guy and we had a great conversation, but he's also one of the faculty who helped develop the grad school curriculum. I wish I could quote him verbatim, but what he said was something along the lines of, "We carefully titrate the amount of work you have so that while it doesn't drain your soul, if you're not careful, it can take almost every spare minute you have." (Yes he said titrate. And he's now my top choice for my mentor.)

I had a feeling this might happen.

Luckily, I have one excellent reason to stay disciplined and keep working hard, and that's R. She comes to New York Sunday and I'll be damned if the first time I see her in 3 weeks will involve me reading (or honestly, re-reading) a paper, writing a presentation or finishing a problem set.

About the same time I realized that I somehow managed to be able to study or be in class for about 10 hours yesterday and perhaps 7 or 8 today.

All biology, all the time baby. That's how we roll.