VulpesZerda

When I asked my boss a few weeks ago for yesterday off:

"Why"
"I'm taking the GRE"
*puzzled look*
"It's like the SAT for grad school"
"Ok. So what's grad school?"

This is what happens when you work at a grocery store, I guess? I bet the conversation about taking the day off for a conference will be good, too.

I had a long-term Diet Coke habit and quit successfully last year.  Don't pretend that you don't also have a caffeine addiction.  Quitting caffeine cold turkey was not an option for me.  When I tried before, I got terrible headaches, nausea, and fatigue.  I recommend getting some time-release caffeine pills.  I started out with a 100 mg in the morning and another in the early afternoon.  After two weeks, I cut back to one in the morning and then eliminated that altogether in another two weeks.  I always liked the fizz, so I got a Soda Stream to make carbonated water.  Mine comes with three one-liter bottles, which I carbonate in the morning.  That normally lasts all day for my wife and me.  It's great not to be going to the store all the time to buy soda.  You can add flavors if you want, but I suggest staying away from the artificial sweeteners.

I used to love drinking carbonated drink, but I have stopped consuming it as I want to be in shape and stay healthy. I am happy with water and freshly blended fruits. 

I used to drink a lot of coke zero, and I also wanted to stop. This is gonna sound super hipster-y, but what helped me was brewing kombucha and adding flavor using fruits. It's healthier than soda, it's cool to make (it's really easy and so customizable), it's cheap, and I drink it in situations I'd usually drink soda. If you're interested I can give you some tips, just PM me.
Good luck!

The last time I quit Diet Coke, I used flavored carbonated water as an intermediate step. That way I was still getting the fizz and flavor but in a slightly healthier form. I switched to flavored water cold turkey and then cut those back gradually and replaced it with regular water. Good luck!

How many cans of diet coke do you drink each day? I think you could try cutting down the numbers gradually. For example, you drink 3 cans a day. Try to cut down to 2 in the coming week. Once you can achieve this goal, cut it down to 1 in the week after and so on. At the same time, you should find healthy alternatives to release stress. For example, when you feel like drinking diet coke under stress, go for a 10-min walk instead. 

There's a natural progression to one's publication trajectory. Posters can be very useful for having one-on-one interactions with interested audience members in a way that a talk doesn't allow for, but in most fields talks are more prestigious. Frankly, neither will buy you nearly as much credit as a publication. That said, in early stages of a student's career, presenting posters doesn't hurt; it shows that you're taking initiative and that you're doing good work. You should talk to your advisor about this, but at some point later in your career, if posters count for less and it seems like you have too many of them compared to talks, you can remove some of them (certainly the ones from undergrad) and keep selected ones only. I don't think that's a concern for you right now, though, and in general if you're doing good work that you're proud of, being at conferences and networking is usually a net positive. 

What's your research area? In social, at the major conferences (SPSP, APS) it's hard or nay impossible (SESP) for a student to present. Instead you could seek out regional or specialized conferences (e.g., ISJR, SPSSI, IARR, MPA, EPA) where getting a talk accepted is easier. Or, apply to a SPSP preconference that has a grad student session or data blitz. I think 1-2 posters per year is just standard/expected for a grad student but it's not unusual to have no/few talks in social because people know the rejection rates are high. The real utility of a talk is more than the CV line; it's that people see you and your research personally. ("Every talk is a job talk.")
 

From speaking with my advisor previously on the topic, I would say it isn't expected that a 3rd year Ph.D. student would have talks under his or her belt. However, you might want to keep an eye out for the next two years for talk opportunities because it is more expected in the later years of graduate school.
Personally, I like to focus more on publications instead of posters. On the other hand, if you've done the work and it isn't in the shape for a publication, it is good to have something to show for it. In my opinion, posters are better than nothing, but publications are vital. I don't know that posters will have much sway in getting a tenured position or post-doc, but they must look better than a blank CV for three years.

Not in your field, but this could be generally true: 
1. You can just use the heading "Selected conference presentations" and only show a few posters if the ratio is a problem.
2. Third year was the shift for me from mostly getting contributed talks instead of contributed posters. After my third year, I only had two posters and they were both at very selective conferences (<25% of abstracts accepted as talks). Typically for my field, everyone gets a poster contribution and 40-50% are talks if it's not very selective (usually means there are tons of parallel sessions and/or shorter talks [5-10 mins]) and 20% to 30% are talks if it's a selective conference (usually only one session and/or longer talks [15-20 minutes]). 

I use the Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HaPI) database. If your institution has a subscription, it's an easy way to find links to the original instrument and validation paper. 
https://www.ebscohost.com/academic/health-and-psychosocial-instruments-hapi

None of my boots are nice and I love flats, so what I actually did was wear my crappiest pair of boots (because there were so many puddles and lots of uncleared snow on the sidewalks). And I changed in the Panera a block down from the school. Lol

Man, no luck. VG/VG VG/VG VG/VG. I feel like I got kinda screwed on reviewers. All 3 only gave 1-2 sentences of feedback on each category, and so vague that I wonder if they even read the whole thing. 
Here's my verbatim feedback from Reviewer 3 (it's always #3) in its entirely, for example: 
Intellectual Merit: VG "Adequate academic preparation. Very good work/ research experience" 
Broader Impacts: VG "Image processing can only go so far in helping tumor detection" 
Summary: "Mr. Commodork is qualified, but not in the first tier of candidates"
What am I supposed to make of that??? Last year, I got very in depth paragraphs and comments on specific activities. I thought I made my personal way stronger, but I'm not sure now. Did my reviewers just get lazy and burnt out, or was my app that much more forgettable this time around? My CV got way stronger between cycles, so I'm kind of at a loss. 

I mean, there is no requirement for the headers. It's helpful though if you get a lazy reviewer who will only skim your application. Same with bolding things, using buzzwords. It's literally, 'Hey! If you're not going to read everything, read THIS at least!'.

I wake up and this thread has exploded. Only 10 more hours!
To address the earlier comments, I feel like my personal was way more polished than my research proposal, granted I wrote the proposal a couple weeks before the deadline. I actually had to scrap the one I was wanting to do due to feasibility and I wasn't able to send the newest proposal to my letter writers. I also feel like I didn't connect my proposal and personal enough (or at all). I won't go back and read it before the announcement happens. Oh well

Has anyone else started to think, "Last year this time I was starting to hear back about interviews, acceptances, rejections, etc...and checking my email every ten minutes every day"? Wow. SO much has changed in a year! For the better for everyone, I hope!

There are 14 of us in my cohort and we have split into about 3 very flexible groups. I tend to study, hang out and work out with these people. Thankfully I also have my coaching which means I'm not around them 24/7 - more like 16/6! It's weird when I'm naturally quite an introverted person, but I guess we all have quite similar personalities which means they're easier to get along with. Not what I was expecting, but actually quite nice. I think as we get more stressed I'll create a bit more distance, but currently it's not competitive. There are a few members of the group who do think quite negatively, so I'm trying to put some space between us.

I was glued to the 2015 Social thread last year. I ended up with a couple of acceptances, so I'd like to "pay it forward" by offering to PM back and forth with anyone who has questions!

They should be short and to the point, but there is a big difference between:
and:
(subject: PHYS 101 final exam) Hi TakeruK, where is the PHYS101 final? 

---
Both examples are short emails and get right to the point. However, for an instructor, one is actually worded in a way that you can answer, while the other could be tough to figure out. I think it's just a matter of respect that if you are asking for someone's time, you should provide information necessary instead of relying on or requiring the instructor to figure out what class you meant! Of course, I don't think this is even an appropriate question---a student should not be asking the instructor where the exam is, unless for some reason, there has been a big miscommunication (see: It's in the syllabus!)
When I think of email etiquette, I don't think of formal letter writing. As in my "proper" example above, I don't care if the student signs the email or not because 1) Gmail cuts off the signature anyways and 2) most modern email accounts have names set up so I could see who wrote the email from the header info (exception: If the student is using a university email and did not set this up, or if they did not provide their name to the email provider, then the student should sign it). I also don't need there to be whatever number of spaces---for a quick question like the one above, everything in 1 line is fine with me. I do think a proper greeting is required though because email is not text message and if you would not greet your professor as "hey you" in the classroom or hallways, then don't do it in email.
Finally, my last point is that there are lots of different levels of formality that you can use with email. When I send one to my spouse, it's basically a text message that I am too lazy to get my phone out for (especially since I find typing much faster than texting). Or, if I am waiting to meet up with a friend and am running late, I might just shoot them a quick email without any greeting etc. These are all great uses of email and take advantage of the fact that we can communicate almost at the speed of light! 
But that doesn't mean this level of formality is acceptable for every communication. The formality of communication between two people does not only depend on the format it's sent, but also the relationship of the two parties. I do not expect students to send me text message-like responses, whether it's an actual text message, an email, or in the classroom. I'm not sure why this is tough for students to understand---we figured this out with telephones! Even though the medium is the same, we communicate pretty differently talking on the phone with our friends, our parents, and our bosses. 

I was glued to the 2015 Social thread last year. I ended up with a couple of acceptances, so I'd like to "pay it forward" by offering to PM back and forth with anyone who has questions!

Continue talking, but with a more aggressive tone, louder volume, and look her in the eyes when you continue talking. Take cues from great men like Mitt Romney if you're having problems
0:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZlKAVPCnA

Maybe it's because of my field and its acute awareness of the gender issue (http://www.interruptions.net/literature/Smith-Lovin-AmerSocRev89.pdf), but I've noticed one of my professors actually shuts down the white males in my seminar sometimes! I think he realizes that the longer we don't get the chance to talk, the less likely we will ever try.

I've been pleasantly surprised to find that for me grad school is not that stressful at all. I was a bit high strung in undergrad, but during my first year of grad school I started just rolling with things and carrying on without worrying about them. And everything worked out fine. Now I fix issues as they arise and don't put myself down with the "should'ves" and "what-ifs." Most of the time I think I've a got a sweet deal going on here. Given the nature of my research, I work long hours in the summer but have a fair amount of free time during fall/spring. I don't feel guilty about not working 24/7 because I know I don't need to in order to still be successful.  It also helps that I don't have to teach since I've never been interested in a teaching position. I jumped in as a TA for one semester when the department had unfilled positions, but given the choice I wouldn't do it again (at least not for that class). 
The only thing that gets me down sometimes is being in a long-distance relationship. We manage, but after being apart for over three years now I'm getting itchy to finish up and move back to our home state. 

90th percentile is not "very low."

I was glued to the 2015 Social thread last year. I ended up with a couple of acceptances, so I'd like to "pay it forward" by offering to PM back and forth with anyone who has questions!