Things they don't tell prospective students:

You went to grad school because you didn't want to get stuck working a $30k/yr QC job. You'll finish grad school with a PhD, which will qualify you to become...


A post-doc.



And essentially nothing else. Oh, you wanted a real job? They require 3-5-7-10+ years of post-graduate experience. Or they specifically state "no PhDs." Now you can't even get a shitty QC job. You don't have the right qualifications.

Meetings with the bossman: Outstanding data edition

I had a meeting with the bossman today. I did not care enough to set it up, but the post-doc that mentors me looked at the data that I received from this method we've spent 6 months developing and said it was SO GREAT that I should show the bossman and drink some champagne to celebrate.

So we have a meeting at noon.

A meeting in which the bossman sees the data and decides he can't trust it until I re-do it with more points here and here, and another sample there, although the results have been reproduced in the past several iterations of this experiment. To which the post-doc pulls out some graphs and says "but look! It is perfect data, it fits the curve perfectly, the double samples are literally exact duplicates, and everything is reproducible from experiment to experiment, week to week!"

Bossman glances and replies, "Thats good. Now here, you need another.... "



At 2:15pm, I decide that happy hour is in my very near future.

Free food, in math.

The "goodness" or lets say "efficacy" of free food can be related to several variables in mathematical terms, including Quantity "Q", Proximity "P" (where a high value indicates that it is very far away), Prior experience during day "D" (where a high value indicates a really, really shitty day), Ease of access "E" (where a high value indicates that the food is very easy to get to), and Taste, "T".

Let us imagine that Efficacy = (QxTxDxE)/P.

This suggests that free food is most effective when there are large quantites, when it tastes good, or when the user is having a terrible day. Free food is most effective when it is not far away (eg. closer).




This explains why I just ate several snack cracker-cheese-turkey bites (and by "mild cheddar," I believe they mean "no flavor cheddar", and really I am just assuming that was turkey based on usual color characteristics of prepackaged turkey slices) that have been sitting out on a counter all day long, but are positioned by the doorway in clear view in a lunchroom that is about 30' from my office.


This also explains why I'll eat week-old pizza in our fridge from a pizza joint that just doesn't re-heat well at all. Proximity score? 8' from my desk. I don't even have to exit my office.

All-area alert! Code red!

There is no early warning system more useful than the bossman proximity alert. He doesn't troll around the research staff office area often (his office is in an adjacent building), but when he does, we have a chain of command notification and warning system.

Bossman watch: Stage yellow. Bossman has a meeting with someone scheduled soon, in a location that is not his office. Be alert. Hide donuts, candy bar, and leftover pizza.

Bossman warning: Stage orange. Bossman sighted on office floor. Alternatively, Vocal sounds of bossman detected behind doors. Open graphing program/powerpoint/manuscript in revision. Locate journal articles, pretend to read/take notes. Begin eating healthy snacks, display prominently.

Bossman mega-alert: Stage red. Bossman entering research staff office. Greet bossman loudly and vocally, to alert other surrounding lab members. Stay calm. Close facebook immediately, switch to graphing program/powerpoint/manuscript in revision. If you are not his target, work furiously.

High School Reunion

I went to my ten-year high school reunion. Nothing reminds you of how not-far you've gone in life when you attend your ten year while still in grad school. You arrive and everyone looks so grown up and adult-like!


And then you realize that you flew into town, so you had to drive your mother's car to go party with your high school friends. Congratulations, exactly nothing has changed in ten years. In fact, you've reverted back to 10th grade, before you had your own car.

The only difference is that some people got fat or bald or became alcoholics. And thank god for that, because you've got to feel good about something when they're talking about their marriage(s)/house(s)/kid(s)/job(s) or the lovely osso bucco they had just last week at this fancy new restaurant.

I brought canned soup and packages of ramen to work this week for lunch, while riding a bike I bought at Target, in a pair of boots that my mother gave to me because she is *too skinny* for them now.

Nordstrom Rack!

Buying nice clothes for a conference is just an excuse to play "grown up" as a graduate student.

Journal article roulette

Sometimes reading papers is great. They give you new ways to look at old problems, they're refreshing and fascinating.

And sometimes they contain sentences like "alum adjuvants used with licensed vaccines elicit higher antibody responses after primary immunization than unadjuvanted preparations."

NO SHIT? That must be why alum is essentially the only vaccine adjuvant acceptable for human use for the past 80 years. Well, fuck me.

If the purpose of an adjuvant isn't to increase antibody responses compared to unadjuvanted vaccines, then what the fuck is the purpose anyway?

Why do authors write sentences like that? Why?


Why.