Grad School Games

98.  I have terrible posture, but I’m working on it.

This is basically just the Pixelated Games taken to grad school, so I’ll just introduce the games as I develop them, rather than try to make this a running Olympic-style series:

The Syllabus Hunt

Participants have seven days to collect as many syllabi as they can.  They may sit in on the classes, or e-mail the professors for them, but they may not print out syllabi from school Web sites (unless they are registered for the class).

Rules:

1. No sharing syllabi, nor borrowing or stealing syllabi from other people.
2. No revealing the nature of the game.
3. No one can suspect that you are not actually in the class.
4. You may not actually lie to anyone.  If anyone asks you your name, you must be honest, even if it violates rule 2.
5. Violating rule 2 or rule 4 disqualifies you, so try not to be asked any questions

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Sometimes, even I wonder if I’m just making it all up

97. I chose the wrong career.  Twice.  But I’ve never been blindsided by this.  Jobs and money were just never important enough for me to care that I was heading in the wrong direction…  that probably explains why I’m sleeping on an air mattress tonight.

In June, while walking down a dangerous street in the most populous city in the world, I lost my wallet.

“Oh noes!”  you say, “how much money did you lose??”

Pfft! Silly goose, I don’t keep my money in my wallet!

“Oh noes!  Did you lose any of your IDs???”

Pfft! Silly gander, I don’t keep my IDs in my wallet!

“…  well, what DO you keep in your wallet?”

Mostly used business cards, actually.  I mean, I did lose two credit cards, but I canceled one of those within three days of the event, and plan to cancel the other really, really soon now.  Honest!

So, I had finished the shoes I mention’d in my last post, when somebody mentioned

After my last post, I decided to make myself a wallet:

I still need to modify it, but this story isn’t about my wallet, though it does come in at the end to save the day.  This story is about the fact that I bought a roll of duct tape on Monday and I’ve been using it daily ever since.  I still had a good chunk left this morning, actually, when we realized that the hose on the back of my dryer wasn’t attached very well and was leaking moisture into the air. (Is it called the moisture hose?)  My roommate jumped over the washer and was trying to reattach the hose.

“Do you have any duct tape,” he asked, half-jokingly.

I laughed and went to go find the duct tape…  But I couldn’t!  I couldn’t remember where I’d put it!  I went around for fifteen minutes before I gave up and started deconstructing my wallet and handing the pieces to him so that he could reuse the tape to attach the dryer hose.

Ten minutes later, I found the roll of duct tape and started repairing my wallet.

I’ve never used this term on my blog before, but I think this adventure qualifies:

Epic fail.

Last Year: P: P exists, Pavlov had too much time on his hands
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Quact

96.  I cannot imagine the future, at all.  I can’t even think of myself in two weeks: my mind just goes blank.  This has been going on since I turned 21 and realized I was probably going to become an adult after all.  I’d say that I would eventually write a post to talk about this, but I just can’t imagine that post ever actually being written.

It turns out that I’m not going to get my first disbursement check until September 30, which means that I will be very, very broke until then.  This means I’m not going to be able to get gold rims for my car.  I’m also not going to be able to buy the new shoes or school books I desperately need.  But I have bigger things to worry about..

I'll eventually sell these on eBay

Knowing that classes start in just a few days and I’m going to have a lot of work ahead of me, I considered reading ahead in all of my classes, just so that I could show up and not make a fool of myself.  Instead, I decided to make shoes entirely out of duct tape.  Here they are.  They’re ridiculously comfortable, because they’re designed after my own feet (with four pairs of socks).  So far I’ve had to modify them a few times to make them easier to put on and stronger in the soles.

Yes: I am that awesome.

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What’s this? Why is it all going over me? Could it be that I am in over my head?

95.  My favorite books of all time:  Ender’s Game, The Count of Monte Cristo, the Little Prince.  I like them for different reasons: I can identify with a 12-year-old that was manipulated into xenocide (Ender’s Game), I really admire people that can get things done and who do what they say they’ll do (The Count of Monte Cristo), and I like lilliputian monarchs (Prince Charles).

Dear World,

Today was the Duke graduate student orientation, which, as Ashley commented,

It was weird. I felt very smart and very stupid all at the same time.

So, I survived the trip to North Carolina and made it out of my first day at Duke alive.  Which is good.  As my Tweet said earlier, that was definitely among my top two preferred outcomes.

I’m going back to set up my Internet now, so maybe I’ll be able to update more frequently.  I’ll keep you updated.

p.s.  I’m thinking I’ll change the layout of my site in the next few months.  You can cast your votes for colors/styles now.

Last Year: "En la vida todo te regresa", "In life, everything comes back to you"
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SO LONG, SUCKERS!!

I mean that in the nicest of ways.

94.  I was never a very black & white kind of person, but I definitely believed there were fewer shades of grey.  I guess getting older has taught me that most things can be explained if you’re just willing to listen.

I’m leaving today.  I’ll be driving across the country in a few short hours.  In about a week, I’ll be busy buying stuff for my new home at 924 Carolina Ave in Durham, North Carolina.

What this basically means is that I’ll be offline for another week or two.  Sorry to keep doing that to you all.  It hurts me as much as it hurts you, honest.  Except, I probably wouldn’t call myself a sucker… and I’m not going to be having fun like I did last time I was gone for an extended period.  In fact, this next stretch, where I drive across the country, will likely suck pretty profusely.

You can call or text me words of encouragement, if you want:  +1 915 867 8669.  I’ll probably be awake whenever you decide to do that.

… Man, I really give a lot of information out online, don’t I?  This is the fifth time I’ve given out my cell phone number on here and second time I give out my address.  That is maybe not so good.  But hey, when has the Internet ever hurt anyone?

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