what the fuck am i getting myself into with this grad school stuff

It never, ever gets better! It only gets worse! haha!

http://www.theminorthirds.com/ilx/latin_homework.jpg

Home: transcribe the first half of that.

"Homework"! Not "Home".

awesome. i am drafting theater plans. not an architect. not a designer. unpacking my dad's drawing board and t square from like 1954 or something. i am just going to laugh at everything from now on.

casuistry is studying.......elvish?

Looks like Greek to me.

srsly i just freaked out over a 5-page paper, and this is the "easy semester"

It's Latin. Those are Roman characters. Those characters evolved into the ones you're reading on the screen in this sentence right now, basically.

I thought I ID'd some lambdas, pis, deltas, and taus, but it seems not.

this is my 'easy' semester and i feel like i am working harder than ever. wtf.
xpost

The pis (the last letter on the first line, say, before the final dash-like-thing) are "a"s. The lambdas (big hooked thing towards the end of line 2) are "b"s. The deltas and taus are "d"s and "t"s.

When was that written, Casuistry, and by whom?

Well, the text is a speech by Claudius, 1st c., but that copy is apparently from a few centuries later, 4th-6th c. That's all the info I have, since it is a homework assignment and all.

Sorry, my bad. It's perhaps a little earlier than that.

WELL JEEZ

I know. It's as if I should be in a class learning how to figure this out.

that is pretty awesome.

yeh. at least the stuff i'm toiling over ... or, rather, meant to be toiling over but not actually reading because, y'know, it's the weekend and really, i'm just going to get up early on monday morning and FUCKING BLITZ IT is in english.

at least, it claims to be.

also, this:

took only four weeks to go from bushy-eyed optimism to "wtf i am not cut out for this shit"

is kinda OTM. although with me it was two weeks to go from "rock! masters here i come" to "fuuuuuuuuuucking HELL there are not enough hours in the day for this".

It's way more fun when it's not in English, though!

^NOT!^

I'm in my second and final year now, but for some reason this semester is waaaay more of a pain in the ass than the previous two, even though on paper it seems like it should be about the same.

^^^this!!!!!!!

on paper this should be easier!!!!! is not!!!!!!!

I have been accepted into Carnegie Mellon. Holy crap I have a so much to do to make myself able to move in january?

Anyone want to rent a very nice central London apartment?

WOOT!

nice one, ed!

Holy shit I only just read below the fold in the email (damned blackberry) and I have a $9000 partial scolarship.

WOOT!!!! That will go far in Pittsburg. You could probably buy a house for that out there.

Holy shit indeed! At all of the following:

That acceptance now comes via the intertubes and not via snails.
$9K!

Pittsburgh rentals are even cheaper than Minneapolis ones AFAIK.

about $600 for a big 1 bedroom with full livingroom and a study knook.

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/images/00007R-54.jpeg

(congratulations, ed)

caek, is real letter?

xpost as long as you keep the LR and kitchen separate, WINNAH.

yes, it's real (but I was not the recipient): http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00007Q

that is how they roll

ed, what are you going there to study?

Engineering, Technology and Innovation Management a very interdisciplinary MS.

Two years?

1 year with a a summer internship, kind of wish it was 2 given the economic climate.

haha yes a lot of my peers from undergrad days have emailed me asking me if they should come back to uni to ride out the storm. good luck with the move and the school.

and congrats on the scholarship. presumably you don't have to pay fees with that $9k?

hahaha, no the $9 is offset against the $44k in fees so my fees will be a mere $35k.

good grief.

I wish you the very best in all things, but I honestly cannot imagine paying to go to grad school. (Unless this is one of those professional qualifications that will double your salary.)

It enables me to jump out of this dead end career and into something more lucrative, yes. Also I have not explored other avenues of financial aid yet (couldn't in most cases till I had an offer)

ah, all is well.

I have seen far worse episodes of this comic:

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd092908s.gif

so i suppose i should be getting used to these four-hour sleep sessions (not really going to call it "going to bed" anymore)

caek why is letter dated 2000 for class of 2005?

"class of xxxx" means xxxx is the year you're due to finish in the U.S. and an undergrad degree takes four years by default.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh gotcha