You know it's a good day in grad school when...(#2)

...you spend 10 hours in a single day writing R code for your Quantitative Methods course. After 1.5 additional hours of stats class, you and some friends hang around for a few minutes, chatting and looking slightly traumatized. Then someone points out that it's Wing Wednesday (25 cents per buffalo wing!) and trivia night at a nearby pub. Mentally fried and happy to be out of the lab, you head over to the pub with your friends. As pubs go, it is slightly cafeteria-like and filled with undergrads, but you don't care. Munching on sauce-smothered buffalo wings and sipping your Harpoon Octoberfest, you reflect on the intensity of your day and let your friends take the lead in trivia. Secretly, you've never really liked pub trivia all that much, anyway. But the energy begins to build as your team's answers prove correct again and again. Somebody tells you that the first-place prize is a gift certificate for more delicious appetizers at the same pub, and your team's focus intensifies. Finally, the game concludes, and after several tense minutes of point tallying, they announce that (drum roll, please) your team has won!!! Your booth erupts in cheers, and your friends have their picture taken with your newly-minted gift certificate (which, you note, is worth the dollar equivalent of 60 buffalo wings on Wing Wednesdays). Triumphant and slightly tipsy, you bike home.

Upon arriving at your apartment, you begin to write an email to your friend Jen, trying to explain that you don't normally like trivia much, but that winning is so fun that overall the evening was great. But the words don't come easily after a full day of writing R code and a few beers. You do the best you can, falling into a bit of a trance as you write. At the end of your email, you stare at the screen, your eyes widening in horror and disbelief. This is what you've written:

winning.utiles <- 25

trivia.utiles <- -3

tonight <-sum(winning.utiles, trivia.utiles)

how.awesome.was.tonight <- function(x) {
if (x=>22){
out <- ("great")
}
else {
out <- ("next time I'm staying home with my problem set")
}
return(out)
}

>
>how.awesome.was.tonight(tonight)
[1] great

But then you realize that, even though the Quant Jocks have taken over your brain, and even though you are now irreparably the nerdiest person you know,* at least you have found a way to make yourself laugh at the end of another crazy day in grad school.




*This is actually a potentially controversial claim, since I tend to hang out with a pretty nerdtastic set. I'm not sure I'm willing to relinquish the title entirely, but I am happy to share it...

You Know It's Been a Good Day at Grad School When...(#1)

...you spend 10 hours writing code in a freezing-cold basement computer lab, surrounded by your classmates (who are doing the same thing), and toward the end of the evening, a friend looks over your shoulder, sees a section of code that you've just written (which, when run, produces a simple but--you'd like to think--elegant 5x6 table), and begins to tear up. There is a moment of hushed stillness. "It's beautiful," she says softly. And you sigh in happiness, because you know she is right.

And then you realize that the two of you have managed to generate an alarming amount of emotion in reaction to ten lines of nonsensical-looking characters. But you don't care. Because your problem set is done, and you leave the lab to find food and a debate-watching spot with the knowledge that you Kicked Your Problem Set's Ass! Plus, you've got an evening of hilarity ahead: what could be more entertaining than a carbon copy of Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 trying to run for Vice President of the United States?!