Thursday, August 31, 2006
The life of the graduate student..
..is quite fun. Especially when 7 to 10 of you spend 16 of the 24 hours of the day sitting next to each other in cubicle's, writing a sentence each day on the white board in your respective language(for cultural integration?)..the whiteboard, also used more often, and more usefully, for solving complex mathematical equations. Then one day after the mundane-ness of doing the above, you realize you need a change.
"How would it be if we stayed back in our cubicles?", "We could go for midnight walks/shopping on orchard road..", "the nerds idea of having fun..camping at their workstations!". But I think many of us are quite excited by that idea.
Even though I am younger or of same age as many undergrad students here, I have this feeling of superiority. I feel they are a frivolous bunch. Using Stephen's as the framework for all undergrad experiences, I feel Undergrads waste a lot of time. They are always busy with clubs(socs in Stephen's) and here there are more than 100 of them..from finess, to climbing to aerobics to rafting, to guitar etc etc etc. The fitness club was recruiting for operation and finance positions the other day. I was tempted. But I have no time.
Yesterday, I laughed so hard till my jaws painfully locked, when my singaporean friend took me through the intricacies of 'Singlish'. She said many PhD thesis had been written on the origin and evolution of the famous La.Shwetha currently is inthe process of creating a blog with the various Singlish terms we learn.
Math: the terror of my life! I was never bad at math, actually very good at it. But currently I am struggling with the overdose of it. but I love it, so given time, I should be fine. Economics is math+gas. For example this is how my lectures always go, "Consumption of individuals is determined by various pararmeters. If the saving rate goes up in the short run, what do you suppose will be the long run effect on comsumption. Assume examples(all very interesting)..but the important and fascinating question is how to you decide on how much you are going to consume?!"..I wait with bated breath.."You take the langrangian.."..Shit!Math oh Math. As is the life of a graduate student I must get back to a 185 page supplementary reading. think the camping at my cubicle will happen sooner than I had thought.
..is quite fun. Especially when 7 to 10 of you spend 16 of the 24 hours of the day sitting next to each other in cubicle's, writing a sentence each day on the white board in your respective language(for cultural integration?)..the whiteboard, also used more often, and more usefully, for solving complex mathematical equations. Then one day after the mundane-ness of doing the above, you realize you need a change.
"How would it be if we stayed back in our cubicles?", "We could go for midnight walks/shopping on orchard road..", "the nerds idea of having fun..camping at their workstations!". But I think many of us are quite excited by that idea.
Even though I am younger or of same age as many undergrad students here, I have this feeling of superiority. I feel they are a frivolous bunch. Using Stephen's as the framework for all undergrad experiences, I feel Undergrads waste a lot of time. They are always busy with clubs(socs in Stephen's) and here there are more than 100 of them..from finess, to climbing to aerobics to rafting, to guitar etc etc etc. The fitness club was recruiting for operation and finance positions the other day. I was tempted. But I have no time.
Yesterday, I laughed so hard till my jaws painfully locked, when my singaporean friend took me through the intricacies of 'Singlish'. She said many PhD thesis had been written on the origin and evolution of the famous La.Shwetha currently is inthe process of creating a blog with the various Singlish terms we learn.
Math: the terror of my life! I was never bad at math, actually very good at it. But currently I am struggling with the overdose of it. but I love it, so given time, I should be fine. Economics is math+gas. For example this is how my lectures always go, "Consumption of individuals is determined by various pararmeters. If the saving rate goes up in the short run, what do you suppose will be the long run effect on comsumption. Assume examples(all very interesting)..but the important and fascinating question is how to you decide on how much you are going to consume?!"..I wait with bated breath.."You take the langrangian.."..Shit!Math oh Math. As is the life of a graduate student I must get back to a 185 page supplementary reading. think the camping at my cubicle will happen sooner than I had thought.
# posted by qq @ 6:27 PM 
