Molzy

I am an RA, and my school is definitely more informal about my time off. Before I had even accepted my position here, my adviser explained that he expected us to be here most days from 9-5ish, though he also encourages us to work a morning or two a week from home if we like to do that. And he also stated right away that he expects his students to take 7-10 days off around Christmas and again at the end of our field season (so around August for me). So, I basically make sure that I am up to date on my work, and I never feel bad about taking time off. I think that time off should be something discussed before you start, especially if you need to fly to get home.

This is an interesting subject to me as well, because I too had a rule of not dating anyone in my department when I started. However, 9 months in, things happened and I started dating someone whose office is right next door to mine. We were very good friends by that time, and it has been almost a year now, and we are happily together and moving in together this summer. No one else in the department seems upset by it, and we are a very close department who hang out a lot outside of school. But we also aren't lovey-dovey in public, and I have made clear boundaries that we don't kiss or act like we are dating when at school, as I want to still be seen as professional. So, I think it can work. Obviously, things can go wrong though, so you need to be prepared to still work with that person. I have never had a terrible break up in the past, I am still friends with all of my exes, so I don't see it as a huge issue for me, but others have different experiences. There is actually one old couple in my department who can't be in the same room as one another, and I think it has negatively effected both of their graduate school experiences, as well as the people around them. Their break-up was not amicable, and resulted in campus police being informed. So, it totally depends on the people.

Hello all! I am getting my MS right now, and will be starting my dissertation in the fall. I want to get a PDF reader that I could easily take outside, or travel between home and work with, so that I am not sitting in my basement office for hours upon hours staring at my computer screen. Right now, I have all of my PDFs in Mendeley, and I love it for the organization. I would love to get a tablet PC, iPad or reader that I could sync with that, and am wondering if anyone has any opinions/suggestions? I still want to be able to annotate and highlight if possible. I have a Kindle (older generation) that I LOVE for reading - it is SO easy to read in bright sunlight. However, everything I have read seems to say that Kindles don't have good PDF capabilities, and I think I want something larger, closer to a regular 8 1/2x11 sheet of paper if I am going to be reading so many articles on it! Any suggestions? Molly