spectastic

I think of relaxing as recharging my will power and whatnot. sometimes, you need to just do nothing, stop and smell the flowers you know? create space.. apparently, it helps with creativity to not be bogged down by the daily grind all the damn time. And when I get my energy back, I'll try to use it to fulfill different goals, whether it's career oriented, personal development, adventure type stuff. I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

just ignore them. at worse, your credit score drops a little.. unless they still have your deposit ----------------------- this crypto stuff hurts my brain. I need to learn about money..

I'm all for relaxing, but relaxing for 2 months is an overkill for me.. Go cross off some bucket list items and make some memories. I've been dreaming of doing a motorcycle trip around south america for a year now. But I'm stuck in a PhD program where taking more than 2 weeks off straight would get me a "could you stop by my office when you get a chance?"

^ person has a point.. I live with roommates who leave the lights on, and have the fan running all night when they sleep. However, I still save a boat load of money with a 4x2 shared house, compared to living a lone. The bittersweetness of my situation was that when I was locked in my lease, my friends had already locked in theirs, so I had to scavenge craigslist to look for roommates. I've had good roommate situations and really bad ones (like omfg bro..), so my 2 cents is to take every opportunity to screen your potential roommates. I'm not friends with my current roommates. In fact, I don't even like them. None of them have a clear direction in life. We don't talk to each other. No shared interests. But at least we keep to ourselves and don't interfere with each other's spaces (it could be a lot worse). Despite that, I'd be paying 2.5-3x the amount I'm paying now if I were to live alone. It depends on the person what's more valuable: comfort, space, money, location, convenience...

nice, maybe i'll see you out there! nationals is in colorado, which I've always wanted to find an excuse to visit. and it'll be interesting to see how us sea level folks handle the 5k' elevation. the atmosphere is supposed to be 15% less.

oh cool! which cat are you? school?

i approve this thread

I got this galaxy note 5 from my parents' family plan. it's a great phone, and I take good care of it, but it's just so damn big. the screen is 5.7". I've been looking into options to downsize. The iphone se seems like a good option, with options of 4g network, a camera, google maps, and internet, which is all I really need, and it has a 4" screen. so far, this seems like the best option in terms of size, price, battery life and performance. after checking the prices, I can sell mine, and get a new se, and just about break even. I only wish there would be something out there like the iphone SE that uses an android format. there was this other phone called the jelly that came out this year, that has a 2.4" screen, but that one apparently sucks at battery life, which is a deal breaker, because I'll be using the phone for long bike rides. anyone know of other phones I should look at?

i ride my bike competitively. If I join the school's team this year, there's a good chance I'll get to ride at nationals with 2, maybe 3 other strong riders from my school. However, it's a balancing game, and you have to make sacrifices. I can't ride my bike as much as I'd like, because I have to commit most of my time to grad school. I also have other interests I want to pursue, like recently I've been going out ~2x/week, and been taking weekly salsa. the late nights don't blend well with the early mornings.. suffice to say, I could progress a lot faster as a cyclist if I didn't have other things going on, but anyone can say that about anything.. My boss doesn't like it when he seems me in a cycling kit. He basically made me agree that I would only ride before or after I put in my time in the lab, not in between, because that can rub off on others, and disrupt the group or something. But it's entirely up to you how much effort you want to put in to a given hobby.

just from personal experience, the options for females in my graduate studies group is ehh... limited... the ratios are fucking horrible. I HAVE to get out of my cohort, otherwise, I'm doing myself a disservice. Whether I'm venturing out to undergrad groups, or just groups outside grad class, I'm not going to restrict myself to ONE social circle because it's socially acceptable to do so. i'll go to bars or clubs, and half the girls i talk to are undergrads at my school. i actually ran into one that i used to TA the other day, and we had a friendly chat. another time, i ran into one of my undergrads in the lab, and he tried to set me up with two of his friends. I just went home. That was kind of weird haha. As for relationships. OP is not ready for a "love of your life" situation. he needs social reference experience. LOTS of it. And if it means mingling with undergrads, then so be it. Just don't let it interfere with your professional life.

i didn't read through all the comments, but here's my 2 cents after scanning through. take it with a grain of salt, because it's not coated in sugar stop victimizing yourself. everyone has their problems. what makes the difference between those who make it out of their problems and those who don't is taking action, as opposed to complaining about how the world isn't bending to their will. I see social interaction as a workout. If I see a hot girl that I don't approach or at least talk to, that's an opportunity cost for me. Everyday, I get in my workout, so that I'm getting better, and not stagnating. go out and interact. I don't care if it's chess club, talking to random people on the streets, making comments about some girl's dress, sporting activities. get involved and talk to people. because there's no shortcut to getting reference experiences in social interactions. those who were raised in isolated environments (like I was) tend to be socially awkward, because they missed out on a lot of these reference experiences as children. You can, as I have over the years, catch up to the learning curve. But you have to take deliberate action to putting yourself out there. You're not going to get stephen colbert level charm overnight. lower your expectations. Like I mentioned, the world is not going to bend to your will. your ideal person will not fall into your lap. Even if they do, your lack of experience and probable neediness stemming from the fear of losing him/her would chase that person away, or in the best case scenario, your relationship would be unhappy. healthy relationships come from a place of abundance, where the guy has options, the girl has options, and they choose each other, despite having other options. If you take the approach of "I want this type of person, and fuck everyone else, they suck," you're setting yourself up for a lot of alone time brother.. love everyone, even the haters. Even if someone's ugly, lacks personality, doesn't fit all your 'requirements' or 'standards,' they're still human beings like you and me. if you want to become good at making friends, you need to throw this mentality out the fucking window ASAP. last night, I was out with a friend. we were at a bar and he opened a girl, and I winged for him, by talking to the two friends. the girl he was talking to had all the good reactions. they ended up exchanging numbers. the girls I was talking to were total fucking zombies. one of them refused to even look at me, and responded to my questions with 1 word answers. The birthday girl was pretty much the same. they looked totally fucking miserable and didn't want to be there. Do I hate them for that? hell no. maybe they had a bad day, or one of them just broke up, or some other chode guy tried to hit on them earlier, or maybe I just didn't have enough enthusiasm in my approach, which I realized is something I need to work on. In any case, i helped my wing, learned something, and we went on to the next bar. In that situation, most people would've assumed that those ladies were total bitches for ignoring them, and that's the WRONG mentality to have. love everyone. People have mirroring neurons in their brain, meaning they'll feel what you feel. If you're nervous, that has the tendency to make them nervous. If you look at the person across from you with disdain, they can sense that, and will likely reciprocate. these are biological features that have been shaped by evolution since the beginning of humans. this is important, because whatever you feel, the other person feels. if you approach a girl feeling anxious and nervous, she'll most likely be uncomfortable as well, and either brush you off, or ignore you. so get in a flow state to feel GOOD (this takes practice). the bigger takeaway here is humans have survived this long because we're social creatures, and those who suck at social skills got ostracized and eaten by lions. The fact that you're here today means you have the genes to be social, just like the rest of us. The problem is with smart phones, internet, etc, people have become socially conditioned to not socialize, which is sad, and the reason why problems like this exist. But you are already good enough, you just need to embrace it. this is turning into a rant but if there's any takeaway, it's number 1. Take action!!

success has a lot more to do with one's emotional intelligence than anything else. an investment banker can be the best math geek out of mit, but he/she's going to hit a ceiling eventually, limiting constraint being the ability to deal with people's emotions, understanding the self, what motivates the self, what motivates others, etc. the CEO doesn't make 270x more than the average employee because he/she has 270x more computing power. These positions are obtained through social interactions. as you may have heard repeatedly, and likely will continue to hear in the future (a lot), it's less about what you know or what you say, but more about who you know and how you say it.

I appreciate the feedback guys. I agree it's good to have a support group. I'm not particularly close with my cohort (we're co-workers/teammates, but I wouldn't consider them close friends or anything), but I do have other grad students in other labs/departments that I can see myself being buddies with. #3 really resonates with me. I feel like the expectation of grad school is for me to dedicate nearly all of my time and effort to it. but I see it differently. Sure, I'll put in my 40-50 hours (that's about my sweet spot too), but I also want to grow in other areas. For one, I've been in the real world, and developing a social circle outside school is an uphill battle. In that regard, being in grad school, having access to all these activities is actually a HUGE perk. In college, I missed out on a lot of opportunities to socialize and network. Now that I have all these resources once again at my disposal, I'm going to use it. It's not going to be my top focus, but I'll definitely try to be more opportunistic about it this time, compared to my last go around.

I'm sure some of you are in the same boat. I'm in my mid 20s, in a phd program, doing research with batteries. I'd say I'm good at what I do, and could argue that I could be excellent if I put forth more effort. But since starting out, I've become more jaded by the not so glamorous aspects of my field, the uncertainty that comes with what comes after the PhD, but most of all, the opportunity cost of what I could be doing with my time. I see other people my age with good jobs, starting to settle down with families, traveling the world, getting a vast amount of life experiences. It's really made me rethink about what success really means. Do I want to become a workaholic and get stuck in this routine for the next 4 years, or do I want to cross off some bucket list items, and be able to reflect upon my experience and say "yea, I've lived, my life was good." Sometimes, when I come in to the office, I'd find myself thinking about the places I could be, things I could be doing, like improving my dating life (which I'm working on almost daily), doing a motorcycle trip across south america, back packing across europe with my close friends, meeting new people, doing crazy, epic things that I'd have never thought existed. You ever tell yourself you'd do something, but not now, because of life circumstances, and you'll do it some time later, only to realize that you never do, because life just keeps throwing shit on top of your priorities? that's what I'm afraid of. I'm sure it's possible to have a balance somehow. Curious to know what others think about this dilemma.

I'm supposed to be meeting this really hot girl, but she keeps flaking because of her tight schedule of trying to find a place to live.. she did propose that we meed next week though. I'm usually not this patient..

i haven't yet checked myself. I just got the email from one of the admin people about it . But judging from the direction everything is going in DC, I wouldn't be surprised if this stuff starts to disappear....

yea no kidding

I notice there isn't one of these around yet for the upcoming cycle. I thought I'd start one, considering application just opened a few days ago, and they've made some changes, like going from 2000 awards to 1000 awards. I can only assume that this means they'll cut down the number of awards from the undergrads, 1st years, and 2nd years alike. I'm a 2nd year applying, trying to get my first author in December. Otherwise, this is pretty much a wash for me I think. 3.5 UG GPA 3.8 Grad GPA Chemistry: battery electrode materials

thanks for your responses rakeruk and adelaide. I think my ideal situation is similar to yours, in that I don't want to work for a living. my adviser on the other hand, works for a living.. we're talking 60-80 hour weeks. He's here on the weekends, for like 11 hours/day, etc. I feel like that's the case with a lot of these companies, especially in downstream manufacturing. You either edge out your competitor, or you get out competed. Right now, it's in my best interest to work my ass off, because in order to qualify for these interesting research jobs, and not be a glorified technician at some big semiconductor manufacturer. Right now, I can envision two scenarios. I work hard, in order to qualify for a chill job that I actually like, and allow me to have the balanced lifestyle that we all want as human beings, and I get to take 2 months off to ride my motorcycle to buenos aires (ideal scenario). OR. I work hard right now, and a few years down the road, I'm a workaholic with no life, because either I focus all my effort on the mission, or give my position up to the next guy who's more ambitious and motivated than I am, and I end up working as a glorified technician, because that's how competitive the job market is. Realistically, the outcome is probably somewhere in between, and I know a couple of references who are actually in my field that I should be able to reach out to. But I also want to get a reading on what it might be like for others

right now, I'm kind of conflicted between two opposite sides of a spectrum. on one hand, I want to work hard, put in my hours, develop my skills, and get ready for a competitive job market in a competitive industry, and work my way into an impactful position in my field of study. on the other hand, the rat race and corporate ladder isn't actually that appealing, and I want to have more free time for hobbies, friends, relationships, bucklist items like riding a motorcycle across south america, and be able to afford this through passive income streams like real estate and investing, living a minimalist lifestyle, and having a position that pays good $/hr. I realize that these two perspectives largely conflict each other, and it's a balancing act. However, I've yet to meet many people who have this balance all figured out. So just out of curiosity, what kind of careers are people here looking for? And what role does grad school play to help you get there?

i try to do everything electronically now. hard copies are harder to keep track of. especially when the lecturer uses slides, it's helpful to just pull up copies of those slides and write notes in them, instead of wasting effort to copy what they write down. I use xodo app to edit pdf files, and i think evernote is popular for actual note taking. most tablets support this kind of stuff. not as precise as paper, but I still like it better than paper.

my situation was different from yours in that I actually hated the company I was working for, and was planning my departure for months, but they ended up firing me instead, which was a blessing because I got a nice unemployment package that enabled me to basically take a year break and ride my bike across states. However, I was pretty close to my first boss (at the aforementioned company, before I got moved to a shitty boss), and he was actually one of my letters of recommendation. He understood that the path i was on wasn't right for me, and that grad school was. I was lucky to have him as a boss though. I think most other managers there would've realized that I offered no further value to them, and thrown me under the bus. So it depends on what kind of character your boss is.

pm sent.

omg why would you write something like that on the internet??? you should be ashamed.... jk that shit's hilarious those are big ass babies too...

someone should start a different thread....