FoggyAnhinga

royal guard

Green tea

Oh helicopter parents, haha (completely forgot that term until just now!)... wow, three weeks to make sure his son settles in?! That's some dedication... I often wonder how the kids who are babied through college survive in the real world (if they do survive that is)...

Congrats katsharki3 and Enhydra! Now go celebrate

writer block

Sounds like a real hassle to deal with those stupid complaints... if I was making those petty complaints to my parents, their reaction would've been something like "you're not in a 5-star hotel. Suck it up and deal with it yourself." I never worked at dorms but I've definitely seen some parents getting riled up over very minor things... one time outside my dorms, I saw a woman who was VERY upset that her daughter got a roommate. She was literally yelling and crying (because she could not believe this has happened) that her daughter must have a single, no matter what (I don't think her daughter had any social problems or anything... not sure why she was so hell-bent on her daughter getting a single room, which was not available to first-year undergrads except for very exceptional circumstances). I felt sorry for the RAs for having to take care of this.

iced coffee

birthday party

Haha what the?!? It's amazing the lengths some students will go to be as disrespectful as possible... What in the... I am seriously hoping whoever said these don't run for a presidential election in the years ahead...

compound element

rear pain

Whenever a POI says "thank you for your interest", that always sends chills down my spine... not that it's a harmful statement or anything, but since I've always associated that sentence with concluding remarks in most rejection letters in the past...

An anxiety before receiving an interview offer is scary enough, but I wonder how much more severe a post-interview anxiety will be while I wait for the final verdict...

White sheet

Haha wow! I wonder how that ended up? Did the jerk get pulled over by the cops? People evading responsibilities... *shakes head*

Sorry to hear that about your car. Sounds like it's super new! Gah, that brings in another thing to vent: hit and run drivers did anyone leave a note? If not, what a coward...

Wow, probably just had the worst dream so far of all the admission nightmares I've had... last night in the dream, somehow I managed to access my POI's email (I have no idea how that happened haha), and I noticed that another competitive applicant for his lab has been exchanging emails with him like best friends (far from being professional). To make matters worse, the POI was also responding back in an equally friendly way ("yeah man! that's sweet"). I remember my reaction was devastated and somewhat enraged since I knew I was not going to be selected at this point, even though I tried so hard to be as polite, enthusiastic, and professional as possible (without saying "What's hanging professor X!").

loser trouble

High employment

complicated grief

I used to be VERY intense during my master's since I was pretty much hell-bent on completing my degree within a limited time-span, even though many students in my department spend as much as 3.5 years on master's (I worked out my timeline backwards and I was astonished at how much work I will have to accomplish within a few weeks or even within a month to accomplish this goal). I did finish the degree as scheduled (after countless sleepless nights), and was personally proud of my accomplishments (I also established some solid connections with other prominent faculty and colleagues). However, that intense personality kind of killed my social life during those two years (my social life during then could be graded no higher than C-, if you can say that haha). I wasn't rude or gruff with other fellow grad students, but I turned down a lot of invitations for social events, couldn't attend my friends' post-defense celebrations, had to bail out of parties, etc (yep, it's horrible). Looking back I still could have completed my work on time while maintaining a chiller attitude. I guess I regret my intense personality, though fortunately since then I have learned to turn down a notch or two.

good team

Shoveling snow is one chore to keep my mind off the waiting game haha...

Waste product

Six days?!? That sounds extremely rushed! And unreasonable too... how are your admission prospects looking for your others applications?