Re: Preparing Norc, no, Eldo for a life of college debauchery. Though it won't exactly be college; the grad school version of debauchery being far more refined.

by Bluebottle Sat Apr 01, 2017 11:32 pm

Three years What a Face

That's so much.. so much time study

so much time.. to procrastinate.. indeed Shocked

by halfwise Sat Apr 01, 2017 11:46 pm

If you haven't yet, you guys need to check out PhD comics.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1388

Mainly science focussed, but the same rules seem to apply.

by Bluebottle Sun Apr 02, 2017 1:49 am

Preparing Norc, no, Eldo for a life of college debauchery. Though it won't exactly be college; the grad school version of debauchery being far more refined. - Page 6 Phd120610s

Yup.. that's the feeling you have from being graded...

by halfwise Sun Apr 02, 2017 3:01 am

As someone who has had the task of assigning grades from grade school to grad school, I think it's all hogwash. Unfortunately given the volume of students to deal with, I don't see any better system. Shrugging

by Mrs Figg Sun Apr 02, 2017 7:06 pm

halfwise wrote:If you haven't yet, you guys need to check out PhD comics.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1388

Mainly science focussed, but the same rules seem to apply.

yippee! more procrastination fodder. Razz

by Mrs Figg Sun Apr 02, 2017 7:07 pm

Bluebottle wrote:Three years That's so much.. so much time so much time.. to procrastinate.. indeed

hahayeah, its 6 years part time, already done 3 years of procrastination studies, and its going swimmingly. Laughing

that's what PhD stands for, Procrastination Higher Degree. Surprised

by Forest Shepherd Mon Apr 03, 2017 4:06 am

Nice one Eldo, good job on getting back to your schooling. Thumbs Up

by Eldorion Mon Apr 03, 2017 7:33 am

Thanks Forest! Smile

by Norc Tue Apr 04, 2017 12:03 pm

i have to convince myself that deadline is wednesday and not friday because i have stuff to do and beers to drink on thursday, but it hard.. tricking my brain..

by halfwise Tue Apr 04, 2017 12:46 pm

the comic writer James Thurber had a trick for beating procrastination, and it really works. Find some task that's sort of tedious and unimportant - like rearranging the books on your bookshelf - then work hard to convince yourself it's really the most important thing to get done. It takes some effort convincing yourself, but it's worth it. As soon as you know you simply must rearrange those books, you set about doing anything else to put it off. If you also convince yourself that other thing that you used to have to get done is really not that important and rather trivial, you'll soon end up doing it to avoid rearranging the books; anything but rearrange those damn books.

I've tried it, it really works. But then the task of convincing yourself you really have to do this unimportant task becomes a new thing to avoid, but at least it works the first time.

by Norc Tue Apr 04, 2017 4:41 pm

this helped me a lot, like to keep calm, during writing the paper (linguistics in sign language).

by Norc Tue Apr 04, 2017 4:45 pm

halfwise wrote:the comic writer James Thurber had a trick for beating procrastination, and it really works. Find some task that's sort of tedious and unimportant - like rearranging the books on your bookshelf - then work hard to convince yourself it's really the most important thing to get done. It takes some effort convincing yourself, but it's worth it. As soon as you know you simply must rearrange those books, you set about doing anything else to put it off. If you also convince yourself that other thing that you used to have to get done is really not that important and rather trivial, you'll soon end up doing it to avoid rearranging the books; anything but rearrange those damn books.

I've tried it, it really works. But then the task of convincing yourself you really have to do this unimportant task becomes a new thing to avoid, but at least it works the first time.

i can see how this might work... but i don't think i can trick my brain. i just have to be strickt with myself and be like, it's not that hard, or make a list over smaller tasks, like a making a skeleton for the paper, so it is parted into smaller things. then, it is also easier to plan how much is left. for instance. i've written the background finished(ish) and the method section. one would think it's halfway, it is not..

by Ringdrotten Tue Apr 04, 2017 5:01 pm

"I've got stuff to do, and beers to drink" - norc

I might steal that line some day Laughing

by Ringdrotten Tue Apr 04, 2017 5:54 pm

And congratulations on the admission, Eldo, this is very cool. I once thought librarians were limited to libraries - I've been proven wrong several times, the skills you learn with an education like that appear to be both attractive to and sought-after by a large variety of employers. I wish you good luck Smile

by Eldorion Tue Apr 04, 2017 9:12 pm

Thanks Ringo! Smile

It's exciting (and a bit scary) to be making moves towards the professional world. I'm fairly optimistic that it will be an improvement over retail, though. Razz

by Norc Wed Apr 05, 2017 3:01 pm

what even is concentration and motivation?! gawd... i want to sleep.

by malickfan Wed Apr 05, 2017 4:03 pm

Eldorion wrote:After four years in the world of retail, I am very excited to be plunging back into academia, as I've just been accepted (and accepted my acceptation) into the Master of Library and Information Science program at the University of Maryland! It was my first choice and is the flagship public university of my home state, so I'm especially happy to be going to this particular school. (In-state tuition rates don't hurt either. ) I do have to get used to calling the College Park campus just "the University of Maryland" without qualifier, though, since I did my undergrad at one of the other branches (UMBC) and was always a little touchy about it being confused with the older and better-known school.

There are three American Library Association-accredited programs within feasible driving distance of where I live, and Maryland's looked to be the best. I've spent a lot of time in the past six months or so thinking about what I want to do in the future and was seriously considering applying to political science PhD programs last fall, but I think the job prospects for library science are much better, and it still leaves the door open to do research down the road. A lot of academic libraries look for people to have a second Master's or a Doctorate in a specialized field, as well as an MLIS. I'm not sure if that's for me but even if I don't take that route, I think I'd really enjoy working in an environment largely focused on knowledge and learning.

Writing about myself for the application essays was a somewhat agonizing process and my anxiety has definitely flared up at several points but for the moment anyway I'm feeling all bouncy and happy so I'm trying to savor that. And I do feel much more optimistic about the future than I have in a long time.

Great news Eldo Smile

by Norc Wed Apr 05, 2017 4:29 pm

pro tip for student life. my earlobe hole for piercings got a little inflamed. i don't own any kind of first aid kit... so i just used gin to clean it.. i smell like pinewoods now. it's ok. it worked.

by Forest Shepherd Mon Nov 27, 2017 11:38 pm

How's the school thing going Eldo?

by Eldorion Tue Nov 28, 2017 3:14 am

Hmm, well, that's a bit hard to answer right now. Laughing

I dropped one class back in October which will be a W on my transcript, but I'm doing well in the the other two in terms of grades. My anxiety has been through the fucking roof, though, and I've lost some of the recent progress I had made at curbing my perfectionism and the stress that came from that. But it's not like I have any better non-grad school alternatives right now, and everything I've heard from former co-workers over the past few months suggests that I'd be even more miserable at work now than I was earlier this year had I stayed.

The only project this semester that I really enjoyed was the website one, the results of which I posted recently. I'm sort of regretting the fact that I chose self-injury as the health information behavior to study for a multi-part project in another class, though. It hasn't been very fun being reminded from the scholarly literature how many professionals think I'm a freak and it's dredged up a lot of old anger towards the mental health system arising from my hospitalizations. Though it did result in me reading one particular book that helped explain why I have so much trouble thinking that I deserve to be treated well in more detail than I'd been able to before, so there's that.

Anyway, thanks for asking, Forest, it means a lot. Sorry that I don't have more positive news to share. Razz

The plus side is that after tomorrow there are no more major projects due for the rest of the semester since there are no finals and I finished the build your own website project six weeks early (though everything else has been pretty last minute). And I've been lucky to receive a lot of patience and support from certain sources.

by halfwise Tue Nov 28, 2017 4:28 am

Don't scrimp on the social aspects of being a student! Being a graduate student is less life-defining than for most undergraduates, but you're still missing half your education if you don't spend quality down-time with people who have similar intellectual inclinations. Such chances don't happen often once you're out of school, so grab it by the horns before it slips away.

I find exploring usually produces the needed pack mentality. Crashing the undergrad cafeteria at the dorms is a good lunch option, and since many grad students consider it terra incognita, putting together a group to storm the barricades is a good team building activity. Or taking the Metro to Dupont circle as a launching pad for exploring Adams Morgan. Stuff like that.

by Forest Shepherd Tue Nov 28, 2017 5:19 am

I'm sorry the mental health subject is reminding you of old hurts, that's lame. Of course I don't know quite what that's like, but it reminds me of when I had that sort-of mental crisis nearly three years back. Since then I've felt that I did not want to go back to school, because school is where I encountered a lot of the ideas that, I'm pretty sure, helped lead me to that point. I most often hear "triggering" in the context of goofs or jokes (which are often hilarious, to be sure), but there is certainly something to the reality that the mind goes to great lengths to push away things that remind it of past events that are too painful.

Perhaps you can bring some Tolkien into your self-injury project? There must be hundreds of case studies from all the crabbit explosions that occurred from, let us say... December 14, 2012 to December 17, 2014. The epicenter of course being in Scotland. And those were ultimately all self-inflicted!

by Norc Tue Nov 28, 2017 10:10 am

i am glad you finished early and can have some vacation. I am doing exampaper-writing on my birthday Sad

not cool...

also, Eldo, too bad about the self-harm thing ripping up old stuff, but use it as an advantage, you have a unique insight to the mental health system, it's ok to get angry, but don't let ti bring you down, use it as your strength <3 like tyrion said, but not quite.

by bungobaggins Tue Nov 28, 2017 10:44 am

2 kewl for skrewl Cool

by bungobaggins Tue Nov 28, 2017 10:51 am

halfwise wrote:Don't scrimp on the social aspects of being a student! Being a graduate student is less life-defining than for most undergraduates, but you're still missing half your education if you don't spend quality down-time with people who have similar intellectual inclinations. Such chances don't happen often once you're out of school, so grab it by the horns before it slips away.

^

This is probably the best advice anyone could give you, Eldo. Good luck with school. :prof: