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

:D

columbia : )

:D

What the fuck did I get myself into with this commencement stuff? Sitting in the pouring rain while people under a tent don't get that they need to cut their speeches wah wah O_o

gah yeah that is otm. i would have so liked to skip commencement!

also i would like to echo z s's sentiment about being permanently changed in a negative way, for real :(

Really wondering why this seemed like a good idea. Apparently the first time it's rained at graduation here in 23 years.

kinda jealous of u dudes done with this shit already, not gonna lie

They are giving us complete resumes for all alumni honorees now. You'd think they'd realize to cut that shit!

My father just texted me this: "inconsiderate windbags"

^lol

where's yr commencement at?

I skipped out on commencement a couple weeks ago and felt sorta bad about it but this makes me feel a little better. Tza I'm sure your parents are glad you're there etc.

Given yr last post - maybe not!! lol

On the quad.
Xpost

Two people in front of me just got up and left.

ours was soooooo long and boring and the professor elected by students to give a speech and hand out diplomas was one of my (and many others') least favorite professors, it was puzzling how she got picked

my UG commencement featured a rock band made up of professors from my school's neuroscience department

i was pretty stoned during my commencement, it was ok

Lol dad says their view is great now because so many people have left.

I'm hungry :(

It would be nice if my friend with whom I'm sharing an umbrella would offer to hold it for maybe 3 min?

how would you liveblog it then?

Are your gown and hood of sufficiently garish hue?

Not bad. Black gown, burgundy/hold hood

We get tartan piping on the gown and on the lining of the hood and the school's interpretation of the Carnegie tartan pays special attention to clashing with itself.

He just quoted Tony Robbins

Hang in there, tza!

Sorry guys, I drowned for a while but now I have lunched and am home drying out (literally not boozily lol I am drinking prosecco) as a newly minted mistress of fine arts ;)

[http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF][http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF][http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF][http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF]

WoooWoooWoooWooo

uh

http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF

WoooWoooWoooWooo!

CONGRATS TZA!

:D :D :D

congratz

good work tza

thanks guys :)

i graduated 3 weeks ago (my "official" grad date on my transcript is not till next week even) and today i got a call from my school's area code, no message left, so i googled the number and it turns out it's the alumni association already asking for money! great. i don't think i'll ever donate (like i already gave them $70k or something wtf) but if i do it'll be after i pay off my loans so maybe next time they call i'll say no thanks call me back when i'm 50. that's ridiculous imo.

my alumni association sent me my first invitation to donate a week ago. i don't finish for a year. lol at the idea of me donating even when i have finished.

The alumni association of the university that I teach at (and hence PAYS ME) calls and asks for money. Absolutely ridiculous. My grad school called us probably 100 times this spring; I guess "no" didn't mean no to them; it's enough to change my phone #.

Just went apartment hunting with friends in the city where I'll be moving for grad school...of course there's nothing cheap AND convenient, lots of tradeoffs, but it's making me really excited to move. Two and a half more months!

currently enjoying a fight with the referee of my first paper, journal probably going to have to adjudicate. my experienced co-author describe the referee's report as "the most unprofessional i have ever seen". i used to work for a journal and have read literally thousands of the things, and, yes, it's pretty weird.

example slightly passive aggressive passage from our reply to the latest report:

Moreover, a number of the referee's objections have seemed to us to be
presumptuous (they assume we cannot show things rather than ask us),
pedantic or poorly thought through, and we begin to suspect they have an
agenda toward the field in which we work. Indeed, while their reports
have been long and detailed, they do not seem to have invested as much
time in reading our paper as they have in writing their replies. This
was most clearly demonstrated when they wrote a very long and detailed
report on the previous version of the paper. While we do not blame them
for the clerical error, we were extremely surprised they did not notice
that the paper they were reviewing bore little relation to the list of
changes that accompanied it. This is surely something they would have
noticed had they really been judging the paper on its merits.

happy days

O_O
good luck, man :(

also i don't read that as slightly passive aggressive but more 'i am fucking pissed off and you are a moran'

Ha, Caek, that's beautifully worded! And no, I don't think it's passive-aggressive; more like quiet, measured anger.

Good luck with it all, though: it sounds like a shitty battle to have to fight.

the referee's a wanker amirite

good grief. sample from our latest reply:

We would also like to take the opportunity to draw attention to -- and _strongly_ reject -- the anonymous referee's suggestion that we are disingenuously pretending not to understand their arguments and the premises of dynamical modelling in order to expedite the publication of our paper. This is an extremely serious accusation which they slip in to their report only parenthetically and with no support whatsoever. We ask that it be ignored by the editors.

seriously, i used work in publising and run the peer review process for a journal. i have read maybe 5000 referee reports in my life, made accept/reject decisions on over 2000 papers and taken part in probably 200 adjudications, appeals or complaints. with the exception of a plagiarism case, i have never seen a referee behave like this. and it's my ruddy paper.

:( that is horrible!!

find out who it is and IRL yellow-card them

seriously though, why is this person being so darn obnoxious? did you become sworn enemies with someone when you were a lot younger?

referee reports can be kind of like the internet. you feel protected by anonymity (ok, you don't lj, but other people do) and are aware of other people reading, and you become a sociopath.

so there's that. also in this case our working assumption is he has a problem with our field rather than our work within that field, and we're bearing the brunt.

you need to find this referee and casually explain to him over a cold beer that you are a real person with real needs, and that your area of astrophysics is goddamn exciting

that how i break it down to an extent

he could just be a douche on a power trip. Those definitely exist in academia.

so fucking ready to be done with this (just a little over three months to go)