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"I'm learning to live gracefully with the frustrations of research: being grateful for when something works and not taking it personally when it doesn't."

Sometimes an adviser can be a little
too attentive.

"At first, I didn’t tell anyone. I faked the funk. I didn’t want their pity. I didn’t want them saying, 'well I’m so sorry,' while thinking, 'glad it wasn’t me.'"

The change from the dull delirium and insane drama that characterized my first year and half of graduate school has been welcome.

You learn to eat the elephant one bite at a time and not try swallowing it whole.

What a difference some data make.

"Integrity and honesty are the foundations upon which scientific inquiry and discovery are built. Trust allows us to believe what others have done and to use the results of others to drive our own research."

"I don’t have time for hostile relationships, especially with my adviser."

Much of my research life--the papers (there were so many), the books, the drafts--is now off to be melted down, or whatever they do at recycling plants, and made into new paper.

"This is probably why I won't be going into hardcore academia; I value my time, my family, and my friends far too much to be ruled by my job."

Have aliens taken over my advisor's body and released him from emotional oblivion?

There
is a body of research out there that would make me want to get up in the morning, thrilled to be alive. I'm just not working on it.

Recognize that your students are there to get a degree, first and foremost, but realize that they can contribute to your community.

Fall semester was rough. Not always because the demands of those five classes got me down--but mostly because my social life SUCKS.

"Do I need to learn to rely on my own desires, the rest of the world be damned?"

I won't be confined by other people's notions of who I am and what I should do. I'm starting to feel free.

I've found motivation, desperation, and rage to comfort me in my later years.

If I'm a competitive student, with a very good record and lots of promise, my decision on what grad school to attend will probably depend on pay, faculty, and facilities. In that order.

Peering in from the outside, the research lab I visited for about a month provided a completely different research experience than what I was used to in the United States.

In grad school, a certain amount of failure is inevitable.