h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

1) Denial- Experienced within the first week, usually after given five assignments that it would have taken you a week to complete during undergrad. "No way- there is no way I'm going to get this much work done."

2) Anger- Experienced after the first assignment is due, and the prof piles up three more to replace it. May lash out at groups that you don't feel are working as hard as they should. " What the do they expect me to do here? I'm not a ing miracle worker!"

3) Bargaining- Trading off of other essential activities so you can get your work done. "OK- if I don't eat and grab a nap in between the class I have to take and the lab I have to TA, I can skimp on exercise, stay up until 4 AM, and maybe finish this paper on time..."

4) Depression- Characterized by cravings for chocolate and fits of tears brought on by watching undergrads in the lab you're TAing. Medicated with good coffee. "I am never going to ing get this done! Why, why why did I apply? Everyone else knows what they're doing while I have no ing clue! I don't belong here! "

5) Acceptance- Brought on by the realization that you've already done five "impossible" things before breakfast. "'Write a paper critically analyzing three peer-reviewed articles in an hour, making sure to include outside references?' Yeah, sure, put it on the pile. I'll finish it after grading."

That sounds all too familiar...

have some to keep up your strength...

Scan, welcome to being your own best dominatrix.

Let's see...I have to grade 70 papers, write a draft of my dissertation proposal, teach two classes, got to a total of 5 hours of meetings, and read 300 pages by Wednesday, in addition to trying to figure out how the scholarship of teaching and learning can be applied to a discipline (my own) in which publish or perish is the rule.

I feel your pain. What say we share some seriously expensive ? Or maybe just an ?

I think there's a Shakespearian play stuck in there somewhere. Except that in Act V, you will have to mistakenly kill everybody around you, just as you were about to come to the period of acceptance...

Actually, MR, I could use a good solid . How soon can you make it out to State College?

Uh, not sure. I'll have to see when the next conference that way might be. I know there's a remote possibility I'll be in Philly in January for the AHA meeting...

Cool- we should meet! I can take the bus, I guess.

*sigh*

So much work!

My advisor has asked me to have some thesis questions ready for him on monday- I've got some, but... I dunno.

OK- there's this fault out in Panamint Valley, CA called the Ash Hill Fault. They've got a slip rate for it over the past 4 million years, courtesy of a basalt it deforms during that time. But it also deforms a bunch of alluvial fans as well. With new dating techniques, I can figure out how much those fans have been deformed, and get a more recent slip rate, which could be huge for our understanding of the valley.

So... does that sound like a question?

Sounds like a proposal for a wonderful project to me... Perhaps "has the author thougth about using the deformation of alluvial fans as an alternative dating method?"

What ever alluvial fans are... people who adore the great Alluve rock band?

Milla

... or were you not trying to question someone elses thesis, but building a case for your own?


In that case, that's a great project to research, in my eyes.

Yah, I'm trying to figure out stuff to research.

Then go ahead! What is an alluvial fan, by the way?

Well alluvium is sediment (material) deposited by water as it flows, so in a riverbed or across the floodplain (area that is regularly flooded if the river floods) etc.

Presumably alluvial fans are areas of deposited sediment in a fan shape. Because...heck think Kat, why...because oh probably because there's a big break in the river slope? The change in slope means there's a sudden change in water energy and sediment is dumped.

I just made all of that up mind...

Got the definition right, but you'd better check your process.

Okay umm umm something else that would make the river chuck all its stuff...oh! Is it from a river leaving mountains and entering a wider area of land? Narrow steep in mountains to wide flood plain? Like at a delta?

I think that's right.

You THINK that's right Such certainty, such assertiveness, such knowledgeability!

So there we go then Milla.
Alluvial fans are fan-shaped areas of material that has been dumped by a river when it moves out of a mountainous area to a wider, flatter area.

Sounds truly amazingly interesting doesn't it?

And I thought that my geography coursework sounded boring!

"Are Grocery Shops Distributed According To The Social and Economic Type of the Surrounding Area and How Has Out Of Town Shopping Affected Grocery Shop Location?"