One week from today....

I'll be done with the hardest semester of my life.

I will be VERY happy.

I have been a member of xanga for years... and today I am finally updating the look of the site. I am also procrastinating in the meantime.

Let me know what you think.

Here's a copy of a list I found on facebook

You might be a Grad Student if...

-you actually take the time to compile a “you might be a grad student if...” list and then begin silently crying because it is WAY too personal

-you think you should be paying rent for your office/library chair instead of your home.

-your office is better decorated than your apartment.

-you have ever brought a scholarly article to a party.

-you rate coffee shops by the availability of outlets for your laptop.

-you have ever discussed academic matters at a sporting event.

-you regard ibuprofen as a vitamin.

-you find the bibliographies of books more interesting than the actual text.

-you find yourself explaining to children that you are in "20th grade".

-you look forward to taking some time off to do laundry.

-you have more photocopy cards than credit cards.

-you wonder if APA style allows you to cite talking to yourself as "personal communication."

-you are thinking "I'll be golden in 2012...just you wait and see

-you cross the "gender" box off of a government form and write sex above and check the appropriate F box

-you get irresistible urges to use in-text citations in casual e-mails.

-you start referring to stories like "Snow white, et al"

-you have a coffee maker, phone charger, and food in a lab.

-you have a janitor-like collection of university keys.

-you look at undergrads and long for the "simple life" (My note: Life was just flowers and roses then)

-you refer to late work as an "ongoing project"

-you “fill up your car” with 75 cents worth of gas

-you procrastinate on one project by working on another project.

-you are working on one thing but feeling guilty that you aren't working on the other thing.

-you think your communication with God would be cited under “interview”

-you can't calculate a mean unless you're using SPSS or SAS

-Your roommate forgets she has a roommate but wonders where all the peanut butter has gone.

-the only style you recognize anymore is APA Style

-You might be a grad student if you feel slightly sick whenever the thought occurs to you that the entirety of your thesis will be read by a maximum of five people: your advisor, an external examiner, a selfless friend editing the spelling mistakes and perhaps one or two nerds who - for some reason or another - are interested in the same stuff as you. The feeling of sickness is soon accompanied with the related question "Is it really worth all this???"

-you might be a grad student if you choose beverages on the basis of caffeine concentration

-you cannot see the surface of your office desk anymore because it is covered in books, photocopied/printed articles, printed spreadsheets/graphs, half-eaten junk food, at least three empty cups of coffee stained in various colorations and a half-full cup of coffee, pens, worn-out computer and a calendar marking the days left until you have to hand in the thesis.

-free food is the high point of your day.

-people (non-grad students) ask you "Are you going to be done soon?" and you laugh but inside a little part of you dies.

-the local coffee shop experiences a "noticeable" decline in profits should you leave the city for more than 4 days.

-you refer to a particular microfiche reader in the library as "yours" and get annoyed if you find someone else on it when you go to use it.

-you sleep in your office/lab (in a sleeping bag) and shower at the school gym because it's more convenient to stay the night (while running a sim or analyzing data) than to go home and come back.

-14 hours a day on campus is typical, even on an elusive day known as Saturday.

-sleeping in means sleeping until 8:30

-you don’t remember the definition of “evenings” or “weekends.” You've been told that they exist, but you are highly skeptical.

- the books on your desk are piled so high that people cannot see you sitting at your desk

- the area under your desk is never vacuumed because you are occupying your desk when the cleaners vacuum at 4am

- you know Denise, Kevin, and Carlos, the security and cleaning personnel personally because they're your only company when you work through holidays and nights in the library (MY NOTE: Or in this case, the guy that works the late shift in the communication lab, I think he looks like Tony Shaloub)

-you pick up a little Spanish from saying hello to the janitor every night, and the first thing she teaches you to say is "I’m very tired"

-you get hate mail notes on your desk by undergrads complaining about your extended occupation of a library desk

-you can't help but sigh with envy when you overhear undergrads stress over 10 pg final papers in the elevator

-you find comfort, company, and solace in visiting Facebook/Myspace in the wee hours of the cold morning in the library all alone

-you consider power bar + extra large coffee a proper lunch/dinner

- you procrastinate by counting the number of empty coffee cups on your desk

-you sleep with your laptop at your bedside.

-all of your office plants die because you procrastinate on your thesis by watering your plants (note: for those of you still wondering, plants do not need to be watered 4 times a day)

- you can no longer count the number of times you have fallen asleep and woken up with "QWERTY" imprinted on your forehead

-you have figured out the exact way to balance your head on your hand so you can take a nap during a lecture while making the professor thinks you are looking at a piece of paper.

-the number of library books that you have checked out at one time= 40 library books checked out from two university libraries, 2 books on hold, 2 books from a different state, and 2 books borrowed from professors... and then you wonder why you are online instead of reading them... 

- you can analyze the significance of appliances you cannot operate. 

- you have ever, as a folklore project, attempted to track the progress of your own joke across the Internet. 

- you are startled to meet people who neither need nor want to read. 

- everything reminds you of something in your discipline. 

- you have ever discussed academic matters at a sporting event. 

- you have ever spent more than $50 on photocopying while researching a single paper. 

- you actually have a preference between microfilm and microfiche. 

- you can tell the time of day by looking at the traffic flow at the library. 

- you look forward to summers because you're more productive without the distraction of classes. 

-you have given up trying to keep your books organized and are now just trying to keep them all in the same general area.

-you have accepted guilt as an inherent feature of relaxation.

-you reflexively start analyzing those greek letters before you realize that it's a sorority sweatshirt, not an equation.

-you frequently wonder how long you can live on pasta without getting scurvy

-you can identify universities by their internet domains.

-you are constantly looking for a thesis in novels.

-you have difficulty reading anything that doesn't have footnotes. 

- you understand jokes about Foucault. 

- the concept of free time scares you.

-you consider caffeine to be a major food group.

-you've ever brought books with you on vacation and actually studied.

-Saturday nights spent studying no longer seem weird.

-the professor doesn't show up to class and you discuss the readings anyway.

-you've ever travelled across two state lines specifically to go to a library.

-you appreciate the fact that you get to choose which twenty hours out of the day you have to work.

-you can read course books and cook at the same time.

-you schedule events for academic vacations so your friends can come. 

- you hope it snows during spring break so you can get more studying in. 

- you've ever worn out a library card. 

- you find taking notes in a park relaxing.

-you find yourself citing sources in conversation.

-you've ever sent a personal letter with footnotes.

-you have a favorite flavor of instant noodle. 

- you have ever said (and meant) “I'd be delighted to proofread your book/chapter/article.”

-you spend more on books than on tuition.

-you get a 3-hour final with 5 questions or less.

- you spend Saturday morning waiting for the library to open.

- you've memorized your professors' home phone numbers.

- your professors know your home phone number.

- more than 25% of your textbook is "left as an exercise for the reader."

-you are on a first-name basis with everyone on the library staff.

You finally go out for a night on the town with friends and take along some reading material (for your next class session) "just in case there is a little 'down' time"