rising_star

FYI- If you do share have a roommate, be considerate about asking them to let out your dog. I lived with roommates (a couple) that had a dog and they were frequently gone for 12-13 hours a day, meaning that I ended up letting their dog out into the yard a few times, playing with him in the afternoon, etc. They were kinda jerks and never thanked me for it. I later got a foster dog while living there and they actually got upset with me one day for saying I was going to go out for drinks and dinner straight from campus, so would be gone for 9+ hours and that they would need to come home around 5pm to let both dogs out. Not even joking. I seriously resented them for basically making me take care of their dog Monday-Friday when they were in class or at work or studying on campus.

Gnome, I'm from a family where college degrees are expected. And, when I wasn't going to send out graduation announcement, I got told that I absolutely should by several members of my family. Everyone's family is different of course but, at least in mine, it is expected that you will share good news, whether that's a wedding, a birth, a graduation (high school, college, or grad school), a job promotion or awesome new job, etc. Not necessarily to your fourth cousin (I come from a large extended family so extending that far out would mean literally hundreds of announcements) but definitely to my aunts, uncles, first and second cousins (well, not ALL my second cousins because again, big family), and close family friends.

Just because something similar has been done isn't a reason not to go with it. My dissertation is based on taking an established method and applying it to a totally different context. Is it revolutionary in the sense that no one else has made that application before? Definitely. Is it revolutionary in the sense of being a complete breakaway from how things have been done before? No, of course not. No one expects that in a PhD dissertation though.

Buffalo Sweat is amazing. I have some friends that bring some back whenever they go home to Kansas. In fact, I should remind them to request some since they have friends coming to visit from Kansas in a week or so... Thanks for the reminder!

Honestly, I didn't realize people changed their number these days! If it's a landline, maybe you could move it to a Google voice number of MagicJack so you can still use it wherever you move. If it's a cell phone, I don't know that it's worth it. Most people I met in grad school didn't have a local area code for where school was.

Past conversation here might help:

There's nothing wrong with sending a graduation announcement. People will want to hear that you're graduating. You may get money but you may not. I sent cards to my extended family when I finished my BA, knowing that most wouldn't be able to attend the ceremony. Still, quite a few sent small checks of like $25 or $50, so the cards more than paid for themselves.

Just to add to what TakeruK said, my MA advisor was not tenured when I started there but is now. She's still there. My PhD advisor was a full prof when I started working with him and left a year and a half ago for another job. So, having tenure does not guarantee that someone won't move. It also doesn't guarantee that they'll have more time to work with you. My MA advisor had fewer students and thus more time for me.

Duck Rabbit Milk Stout. I left it off before because I'd forgotten about it. I really like it.

The fees really vary widely. I don't actually use Bank of America, for example, but they offer this page of information on International ATMs. In case the link doesn't work, here's the relevant info in a really ugly format: There are some banks that not only don't charge you the international transaction fee but also don't don't charge to withdraw from a foreign ATM. The reason I got an account at Charles Schwab Bank is because they not only don't charge those fees but they also reimburse you the fee charged by any ATMs you used. So, I can take out money basically anywhere. For example, if I need money really fast, I just hit up the closest ATM, regardless of the bank because I know the $2.50 or $3 the ATM operator charges will be reimbursed to my account at the end of the month by Schwab. I did a lot of research into the international fees issue before I moved abroad and, at that time, Schwab was the easiest and cheapest way to access my money and avoid having to keep large amounts of cash around all the time.

Oh, I have had the Founder's Breakfast Stout. It was delicious. Unfortunately, it's not available where I am.

Oh man. I don't know where you are but the Bell's Stouts are amazing (Double Cream and Expedition). Also amazing is Sierra Nevada Narwhal Stout, if you can find it now. Velvet Merlin by Firestone Walker. I think the others I'm thinking of are all porters but... no wait, Lugene Chocolate Milk Stout is awesome. San Tan's Sex Panther (if you live in/near Arizona) is also amazing, though I think it's technically a porter. Big Sky's Cowboy Coffee Porter is so good too. I just thought of this: Smoked porters. They are so, so good. Both Stone and Alaskan Brewing make them. You can also just hunt around on Beer Advocate or Untapped...

For money overseas, there's a few approaches. The best combination, imo, is to find a bank where you can get an ATM card with no fees for withdrawals at foreign ATMs. The best option I know of for this is Charles Schwab Bank (you can ask me if you want to know more, I have an account with them now). Alternately, some of the large banks, like Bank of America, have international partner banks where you can withdraw money with no fees. The reason I recommend directly withdrawing from an ATM with whatever local currency you need is that it minimizes the exchange fees, which means you lose less money to the bank in the process of converting the currency. This is great for when you need cash. For credit, which I have only rarely used overseas, you'll want to use a credit card that doesn't charge an international transaction fee (these can be 1-3% of the purchase price). The best known company offering cards without those fees is probably Capital One. Traveling within the US, you'll want to do the same thing with avoiding fees. For example, if you bank with Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America, etc., you'll want to make sure there are ATMs for that bank wherever you go so that you have easy access to cash when you need it. I always travel with a backup ATM card (I have more than one checking account so this is easy) and a backup credit card, which I keep separately from my wallet and purse. That way, in the event of theft, I still have some access to money. I haven't had to go this route yet (*knocks furiously on wood*) but I like knowing that I have a backup option in case something does happen.

Eh, not all cohorts get along well. I don't get along--or even speak to--most of the cohort I came in with at this point. Partly that has to due with different interests in terms of research but also because they were never all that friendly to me and, in some cases, openly mean to me at grad student meetings in the department. If this is a PhD program, your focus should be on getting through coursework as quickly as possible so you can just do your research and get out of there with your degree.

As a fellow stout lover, I'll have to look into that one. Thanks for the suggestion!

I've traveled both within and outside the USA alone, including three cross-country road trips. It can be a lot of fun! Just make sure you have some stuff planned where you interact with other people so you don't get lonely or bored.

Do they still do the bikes and breweries thing in Iowa? It had something to do with riding across the state and stopping at various breweries along the way.

Publishing isn't the only concern. Your institution's IRB and human subjects committee, which you will need approval from to do this research if it's for a degree, is going to ask if you plan to pay participants and how. They will have reservations about you using your own money.

There are other nitro beers out there. For example, Left Hand does both their regular milk stout and a nitro milk stout. You could buy both and compare! (Note: I have actually done this at a beer tasting and it was pretty interesting.)

Pretty_Penny, I would contact the community provider and just go ahead and make an appointment, even if there is a wait. The university services are also likely to have a wait, so you might as well be on both lists. You can always cancel one or the other as needed. Better to have the appointment and not need it than need it and still be scrambling to get one a week from now.

I've come around to having laptops and cell phones in class, as previously mentioned. Part of this was purely pragmatic. The digital versions of the texts we use are cheaper, sometimes 30-40% less than the paper version, which means most of my students are now using them. If I want them to bring their book to class, then that means letting them bring their Kindle, iPad, or laptop to class. My class right now is discussion-based but, sometimes we do in class activities where they look things up. Now, for all I know, one person is looking up the answer and the rest are on Facebook. But, if I ban all electronics, then I'm either preventing them from looking up answers in class or forcing them to buy the books in a more expensive form. I'm not willing to decide how students purchase their books, though I do try to make sure that the books are affordable in whichever form they access them (library reserves, digital, paperback, hardback).

Oh man, there's a dive bar here that only has two beers on tap: Coor's Light and New Belgium's 1554. For a while, it was only the Coor's Light. *shudders* Luckily, they had cheap well liquor drinks to make up for it and were basically always open, which compensated for many, many flaws. The addition of 1554 was a valuable upgrade to my social life.

Deadspin ranked 36 cheap beers: http://deadspin.com/36-cheap-american-beers-ranked-638820035 At one point, I drank PBR. I will say that of its three forms (draft, can, glass bottle), the bottle is the tastiest (which, tbh, is not saying much), though the rarest. Used to have it for $1/bottle at a lunch spot where I did my MA, making it cheaper than a fountain soda. Overworkedta and I seem to have similar tastes in beer. The Bell's Double Cream Stout is delicious. I'd list all the beer I currently have but, I buy singles a lot so I have wide variety. Some favorites include Big Sky's Cowboy Coffee Porter, Lugene Milk Stout, and Sierra Nevada Narwhal Stout. I've become quite attuned to beers you can buy for $1-$1.50 at the store, so I tend to go for those rather than the truly cheap beers because there's not a huge price difference given the volume I drink (as in, buying 30 cans for $15.99 doesn't matter because it'd take me weeks to drink all those cans anyway). Also, when did the hipsters give up Tecate and move on to PBR? I totally used to drink Tecate with a lime during my MA because they were a buck a can during happy hour.

If you're looking at the HP X2, Woot has them on sale today. They're factory refurbished and under $500. http://tech.woot.com/

My department's business manager would say that you should always overestimate your expenses because it's unlikely you'll receive all of the money you request. My recommendation on the lodging front would be to look into sublets, especially through university students, as that is likely to net you furnished space and save you money (which might be needed if you don't get the full amount you ask for). You'll also want to include parking on campus and wherever you live, possibly mileage in Ottawa if you're having to travel far to go to/from archives, or public transit costs if you're using that option. You should be able to find copies of other grants (via your department or university) to get an idea of how people justify their budgets. Here's an anonymized example from one of my really old grant apps (written in the USA for international field research): "Funds are being requested for lodging and per diem in X, Y, and Z, COUNTRY. All amounts requested are significantly less than the U.S. Department of State's foreign per diem amounts in each area ($172/day per diem in X and Y and $197/day in Z). The requested rates are lodging at $40/day in X, $25/day in Y, and $35 in Z, with per diem requested at $30/day in all locations. Funds requested are based on the PI’s past experience traveling and living in the area. By reserving an extended-stay hotel room, the lodging costs in Y are kept to a minimum." Something I just saw that I asked for when I opened the file: money for home internet, an external hard drive to back up data, and data analysis software that I wanted to purchase. Definitely things worth including if you can, especially to be able to safely and securely back up the data you collect.