spectastic

.

jesus christ. do i really need to spell it out? older people tend to have more traditional views when it comes to gender differences.

i sense the feminists have been triggered! RUN

i sense the feminists have been triggered! RUN

i sense the feminists have been triggered! RUN

i sense the feminists have been triggered! RUN

thanks for sharing

thanks for sharing

thanks for sharing

i have no idea how much to tip people. was supposed to order pizza for group meeting. got $75 worth of pizza. I only tipped like $3, and apparently, the norm is $5 PLUS 10% or some shit. why?? just pay your damn employees a good wage, cover their gas, with vehicle depreciation. we're not in the 60s anymore. tipping is a retarded practice. be gone.

i have no idea how much to tip people. was supposed to order pizza for group meeting. got $75 worth of pizza. I only tipped like $3, and apparently, the norm is $5 PLUS 10% or some shit. why?? just pay your damn employees a good wage, cover their gas, with vehicle depreciation. we're not in the 60s anymore. tipping is a retarded practice. be gone.

I think also perhaps you should have posted a much more specific thread about math, rather than "sciences" in general, since you don't really seem to want to talk about the other fields and are focused on math being so very different. 

i have no idea how much to tip people. was supposed to order pizza for group meeting. got $75 worth of pizza. I only tipped like $3, and apparently, the norm is $5 PLUS 10% or some shit. why?? just pay your damn employees a good wage, cover their gas, with vehicle depreciation. we're not in the 60s anymore. tipping is a retarded practice. be gone.

i have no idea how much to tip people. was supposed to order pizza for group meeting. got $75 worth of pizza. I only tipped like $3, and apparently, the norm is $5 PLUS 10% or some shit. why?? just pay your damn employees a good wage, cover their gas, with vehicle depreciation. we're not in the 60s anymore. tipping is a retarded practice. be gone.

any 1 hour commute is a pain in the ass. I did this for a while when I was in industry. lost 10% of my waking hours being stuck inside a box listening to npr. would never do something like that again so help me god
on busy days, when I was tired and overworked, I found myself wanting to doze off at the wheel. a coworker told me he would sometimes take micronaps on the highway 
there are better ways to chill and relax.

I felt that way last year at the end of the semester. holiday break and being away from research did the trick.
aside from that:
1. sleep
2. nutrition
3. exercise
4. meditation
it looks like you're already covering 1-3. #4 helps people focus more throughout the day. after something like 11 hours of meditation, they noticed changes in activities in the frontal cortex, which is responsible for "will power." I honestly haven't sat down enough to try it myself, but the science is there.

yea, leggings are probably bad idea. if you want guys like me to take you seriously, definitely dress conservatively. otherwise, we'll be like "oh hi there.. how ar- beeewwwwbs"

all i saw was "busty"
 

again, and hopefully for the last time.. carbs is energy for your body (and brain). if you're not on carbs, you're running on fat and/or protein, which is is bad, because fat makes you fat... again, not all carbs are the same. you can get it from candy, fruits, bread, even vegetables. just because you're not eating bread doesn't mean you're not eating carbs. just because potato chips make you fat doesn't mean carbs is bad for you. if you can't eat bread or pasta, try rice, or something that doesn't upset the stomach..
your body get its energy on carbs. to say that carbs is bad for you only means that you're not eating the right carbs. substituting protein for carbs (as previously suggested) is wrong and stupid.. I don't know any simpler way of saying this.. 

again, and hopefully for the last time.. carbs is energy for your body (and brain). if you're not on carbs, you're running on fat and/or protein, which is is bad, because fat makes you fat... again, not all carbs are the same. you can get it from candy, fruits, bread, even vegetables. just because you're not eating bread doesn't mean you're not eating carbs. just because potato chips make you fat doesn't mean carbs is bad for you. if you can't eat bread or pasta, try rice, or something that doesn't upset the stomach..
your body get its energy on carbs. to say that carbs is bad for you only means that you're not eating the right carbs. substituting protein for carbs (as previously suggested) is wrong and stupid.. I don't know any simpler way of saying this.. 

Update: They cleared the charges!! I had enough photo and email proof of what happened (and the real estate investment place KNEW how bad the old management was) that I successfully pleaded my case. Plus the new manager was amazingly helpful and sympathetic (since she's been cleaning up similar messes left from old management). YAY!

this thread is not about you. my advice has always been directed to help the op address the weight gain problem, not this back and forth BS that helps no one. 
you got our opinion out. we're all unique. that's great. stereopticons clearly has nothing else to add beyond that. can we respect each other's opinions now?

this thread is not about you. my advice has always been directed to help the op address the weight gain problem, not this back and forth BS that helps no one. 
you got our opinion out. we're all unique. that's great. stereopticons clearly has nothing else to add beyond that. can we respect each other's opinions now?

I just want to say that what you are feeling is commonly felt by many other grad students. I think the nature of a PhD research program makes these existential questions more prevalent. We're all doing very specific and niche research. It may be very interesting to us (at least at one point) and we may be very good at it, but ultimately, all of our hard work and effort and unless we're very lucky, we're not going to change the world. At the end of the degree, maybe a dozen people will really care about our results. Perhaps a few hundred may know about it and file it away in their minds.
At the same time, society and culture tells us that our 20s are supposed to be our "best" years where we do a lot of fun times before "settling down". I just turned 30 so I see these messages in TV shows etc. all the time. Grad school is like an apprenticeship, where we are generally underpaid compared to our abilities/work because we are getting a qualification/degree out of it. (Not saying this is a good thing---I strongly believe that people should be paid in proportion to their labour, and that grad students should be paid much better wages. But I'm just stating reality here). Comparing ourselves to our friends/acquaintances who aren't in trainee/apprenticeship programs will always suck, because it's comparing two different career paths. Apples and oranges.
So, I want to say that during my 7 years of grad school at two different programs, I've felt this way many times. I've met tons of other students that feel the same way at some point. I really think grad school emotions is a rollercoaster of feeling like we have the best job ever and questioning all of our life decisions that led to this point. I also want to say that out of all the examples of people feeling this doubt, there are two phases in grad school where this happens the most commonly. The first is during the student's first year. A lot of life changes has happened, usually, and sometimes grad school reality is not grad school expectations. The second is halfway through the program (the "mid-grad-school-life crisis"). Usually there is a little bit of a slump after quals/candidacy and before the dissertation/defense preparations begin in earnest. It's a point in your career where you might have finished some of the initial project goals you had at the start and now you start thinking "now what?". And it's a point where it's time to seriously consider your next steps beyond the PhD and it's normal to feel unqualified to think up your own projects, or to be apprehensive about the unknown.
Sorry that the above is not really advice on what to do, but rather just affirming that you're not alone in how you're feeling. It doesn't make you a bad academic or mean that you're not cut out for the academic world (not that you need to be either). But now I want to share some tips that help me (and others) manage these feelings of doubt/uncertainty and helped me get closer to my own career goals:
1. Find support in others. One good way is to talk to your grad school friends about your feelings. A post like this is a good idea. I read threads elsewhere on these forums where people say they're not in grad school to make friends, and I can get that. It's a work environment and you don't need to be BFFs with your cohort. But I personally found that conversations about grad school life with people actually in grad school have been the most helpful for me to process and manage these feelings. So, if you're not interested in being best friends with your colleagues, at least cultivate a relationship where you can act as each others support network. If humour helps you, there are plenty of blogs/comics/websites that chronicle the woes of being a grad student (just be mindful that you're not reading these things and spiraling further into self-doubt). Some of my favourites are PhD Comics, Lego Grad Student, and WHATSHOULDWECALLGRADSCHOOL.
2. Rediscover your passion. We all chose this path because at some point we were deeply interested in our work (whether it's the topic, or the idea of discovering new things or whatever). I find it really helpful to take a step back occasionally and remember what I love about the field. I very rarely read popular science articles or news stories or TV shows about space/astronomy/planets because it feels a lot like work. But it was these things that led to my love of the field in the first place. Sometimes it's helpful to revisit these things and read or watch something you wouldn't normally watch. Another way I find my passion is to talk to others who work on my specific subfield. I always get a huge surge of motivation and excitement after a conference. I find that continuing to engage with my colleagues on professional Facebook groups and Twitter keeps me connected to my subfield. This is especially important if your department doesn't have a ton of people in your area. Also, it's another way to build a support network. Finally, for me, I try to do a lot of public outreach. Talking to non-experts about my work forces me to examine the big picture, which gets me excited about the work again. And seeing/hearing the audience's excitement is very motivating. These things help me feel like I am actually doing something I enjoy, not being stuck in a routine.
3. Prioritize your non-work commitments. I don't want to prescribe a set number of hours because everyone has different work habits and preferences. But for me, I did not want to work more than 40-50 hours per week. If I worked 40 hours per week, my stipend would work out to a barely livable wage (definitely not in the city where my PhD school was though). So while that's part of the reason I set a limit on working hours for myself, the main reason is to avoid burnout. There is a lot of pressure in academia for academics, especially students, postdocs and pre-tenure profs to feel like they have to devote their whole life to work otherwise they were not worthy. At some level, this is indeed driven by competition: there are only so many permanent jobs available after all. But, you're not going to succeed if you're burnt out. So, I eagerly took on and carved out time in my schedule to do things I enjoy doing. It sounds like you are already doing some of this. It took me a few years to develop the courage (and wisdom) to say "no" to work related things in favour of my personal life, but when I did it, I felt a ton better about myself and my workload. I used to think that I needed a "good" excuse to say no to something or reschedule something, but I now realise that this meant I was prioritizing work above all else, which was not healthy for me. So, I do prioritize work during the work day, but if someone wants to meet with me at 5pm? I am happy to suggest the meeting happen the next day, or the next week. And I'm not afraid to say the reason is that "I want to go home and cook dinner so that I can watch X show" or "Sorry, I can't, I am playing tennis with my friend at 5:30pm" or whatever. To me, work should not trump the other parts of my life so I compartmentalize work commitments to business hours on working days. This also applies to taking vacation time and doing the things on my bucket list. Find out what the policies are at your school and plan to do some of the things you always wanted to do while in school. There is definitely some balance required of "living in the now" vs. "preparing for the future", but it's easy to just think you'll do something later. Taking the time to do something on your "later" list now can feel really good and help with motivation too.
4. Check in with yourself often. As I said, grad school is a roller coaster of emotions. My plan was that I would do grad school/academic career path for as long as I feel happy doing so. That is, for every "down" in the rollercoaster, there needs to be an "up". I told myself that if one day, the rollercoaster never goes back up, then I will know it's time to do something different. To me, this means that the grad school / academia journey isn't a decades long process before I get any stability. It's very daunting to think of it that way. Instead, I just take it one year at a time. If I'm still happy and I still see a path towards my eventual goals, I'll stay. At the same time, I try to take actions that will increase my ability to achieve my overall life goals where possible. For me, this means learning skills that are employable outside of academia, developing and making contacts with people in the geographic region I want to stay in etc. I suggest these things because I find that my friends who decided to devote 100% of their time and energy into research because they can't imagine any other life run into self-doubt / burnout more often. Each person has to find their own balance of how much to devote into their research career versus an alternative career, but I can't imagine 100% towards research is ever a good balance. Or, to put it another way, I find that my colleagues and friends who took time to diversify their skills and experience were able to leave academia and find happiness/success elsewhere when they reached the stage where they were no longer happy in the academic track. But my friends who didn't do this either became successful in academia through their achievements, or they seem to be very unhappy but stuck where they are. So, I think it's important to check in with yourself often, gauge how you feel and have an "escape plan" if this academia thing doesn't work out. For me, even just knowing there's a way out provides me with a lot of peace of mind and helps me manage self-doubt.