Me.rand()

A day in the life of a grad student….

Posted by Ritesh - 08/08/08 at 08:08:15 am

6 AM : Alarm rings with “Go Jogging” flashing on the screen. The success rate of me actually going jogging is a function of – (my energy level, activity performed yesteday night, time I slept, atmospheric temperature, temperature of my room, no of blankets Im under, availability of tracks pants+shoes+tshirt, probability that my Ipod is charged, ipod arm band is nearby and also the entropy of the atmospheric pressure in direct correlation to my enthusiasm level. Result : shut down alarm with a promise of doing it tomorrow.

8 AM : deferred alarm rings again. Realize that I have a class at 9. I do a rough calculation :

5 minutes to get up properly
10 minutes to freshen up and brush my teeth
10 minutes return trip time to the canteen
10 minutes to eat : becomes 15 if friends are around.
5 minutes do nothing to let the morning tea do its magic and get my bowels moving ( this is again a quadratic function of the brand, temperature, strength and extent of relishing the tea )
10 minutes in the loo
10 minutes in the bathroom

so that’s total of 1Hour, if I take just 5 minutes to dress up and 2 minutes running time to get to class then I can actually make it. But wait,

no of loos + bathrooms in our section = 6
no of people waiting to get serviced = 12
avg service time is 20 minutes (best case)

By applying standard queing models you can figure out that I aint going anywhere near that loo today morning. Result : I decide to sleep till 9 and let the crowd clear away, so I can be at peace and actually get my calculated model to work perfectly. I also dont forget to message someone I know has attended to inform me about the intermediate break, so I can go and attend class half way through. Its party to curb the guilt that I have one class to attend and I cannot even do that properly.

9:15 AM : Alarm rings again : follow the schedule and get most of the things done.

10:15 AM : My wing man messages me saying there is a break

10:30 AM: Sit in class for the next hour and wonder whether the morning blues were worth all this trouble; a class that I dont like ona subject that I already know.

11:45 AM : class is let off and our gang of boys, whoever is present of course, go for another round of tea.

12 :15 AM: Back from tea. Do some worthless mail checking and awesome RSS reading. Get spat on for sharing too much on my reader. Feel bad and decide not to share anything anymore. Read something cool and automatically press Shift + S.

12:30 AM: reports are that God is on the prowl.

12:40 AM: God is close by. Perform an emergency evacuation of the lab or some other diversionary tactic to obscre ourselves from the world. Recent attempts have also involved hiding behind a forest.

12:45 AM: You can t dodge God. Get asked to meet him at 2.

1 PM: Decide to go for lunch.

1:25 PM: People finally respond to our calls and get their asses out of their chiars.

1:30PM :Start eating

1:45 PM: finish eating

1:50 PM: Decide between going back to the room and sleeping or going back to the lab and working. Devils that pull all the SAP out of us are already conspiring about their next trip home. Decide there is too much to be done to sleep and go back to the lab.

2 PM: Play 8 bit simulated video games

2:30 PM : get drawn into playing the viral VT.

3PM : try dodge God again but in vain.

3:30 PM: decide to work at 5and go back to room to sleep

7 PM :wake up and realized you overslept.

7:15 PM : Curse Dr Morgan for the damn internet connection at hostel and then check mail again. Read some RSS.

7:45 PM :decide to start working but then realize we are only going to be interrupted for dinner calls , so waste time by surfing net

8 :15PM: wondering why no prick has called for dinner, search for the gang. Result : gang has deserted me and gone for dinner already. With hurt sentiments and mild depression, head out to the canteen alone. See other groups of friends laughing at something really stupid and realize what an outcast I am (feel gratified about the stupidity of the topic that others were laughing at).

8:30 PM: feel like a stranger walking to the dinner table.

9:00 PM : go back to room to get jacket and laptop and head out to the lab.

9:30 PM : get into some mindless arguement over why open source sucks and hold onto my point.

9:45 PM :rip on some unsuspecting soul.

10 PM: Realize that there is some immediate deliverable tomorrow morning, like an assignment, report or a presentation.

10:15 PM: fight over who should be doing what.

10:30 PM: finally start some work (which is not the work that was supposed to be done from morning)

12:30 PM : realize is two hours and there is a lot to do.

12:31 PM : Coochie coo

1:30 PM : Coochie coo

1:31 PM : realize I just spoilt an hour coochie cooing

1:45 PM :yawn

1:50 PM :Yawn over and over again

2 PM : realize that the shawdy piece of unfinished work is actually good enough to manage a B the next day.

2:15 PM : Slow walk till the room

2:30 PM: to self : “tomorrrow is a big day and I need all the sleep I can get, Plus there is the jogging in the morning . Good night man. It was a fruitful day.”

August 8, 2008 | In home truths | 27 Comments

27 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

hmmmmm…..

Great work you are doin in a day mahn!!!!! Dr Morgan????? Nice name for the dickhead….

So how many times have u been for jogging???? with all the parameters rightfully present???

hahahahhahah

harsha

Comment by Sriharsha — August 8, 2008 #
nice one ……

Comment by swathi — August 8, 2008 #
I am planning to go on my annual jog day tomorrow. I just know tomorrow is the day. Wish me luck.

Comment by Ritesh — August 8, 2008 #
hey ritzy….just discovered your personal page of ur website….Looks very neat.

The article was fun to read, gave me moments of Deja Vou….reminded of some of my Drexel buddies.

Keep writing!!

Comment by Neh — August 8, 2008 #
Highly accurate, goes for all of us?

Comment by Jayanth — August 8, 2008 #
Five comments and yet no one has noticed that you have got your ante and post meridiem all mixed up…or may be I am the one that’s rude

Comment by Ravishankar — August 8, 2008 #
@Neh will keep writing
@jayanth Dont know if this applies to all of us , but if it does then what the hell.
@Ravi – Ooops , forgot AM comes after midnight, but isn’t it subtly representative of our pitiable state ? We have forgotten whats PM and AM …

Comment by Ritesh — August 8, 2008 #
Nice one. This will be a good read, when we r retired and with nothin to do but ponder over our meaningless lives, to reflect on the old times when we were not bugged by such, shall i say “deep thoughts”….

Comment by Arvind — August 8, 2008 #
I’m a grad student, and I can say this is so true:-)

Very well described.

Comment by shash — August 8, 2008 #
Great to see so many people rolling in with comments.

@Arvind : yes , this will be a good read once we become old and reflect on our college years.

@Shash : hohoho long time boy. Great to see you alive and kicking !!

Comment by Ritesh — August 9, 2008 #
Very nice.. I can relate to most/all of it .. especially the jogging part

”
9:45 PM :rip on some unsuspecting soul.

10 PM: Realize that there

”

You rip for only 15 mins ?!?!!!?!???!?

Comment by Abhilash L L — August 9, 2008 #
Very nice.. I can relate to the jogging part…
Good going………[:)]

Comment by Anika — August 13, 2008 #
Nice one… jogging ke parameters perfect hai:P…
Niceee… Hope u go for jogging before course gets over

Comment by Gaytri — August 13, 2008 #
It seems as if u are saying abt my day..same here buddy

Comment by Deependu — August 13, 2008 #
@anika @abhilash and @gaytri : I got a lot of responses verbally about the post and Jogging in particular.

Thanks a lot for the comments.

Comment by Ritesh — August 13, 2008 #
hehehe. very nice. did not realize you started writing on your personal blog again.
the post was hilarious. and very typical of you!!

Comment by Prateeksha — August 14, 2008 #
What!!!! you are go for jogging everyday!!!!???

Nice post. Good effort. Kudos.

In the parts of waking up in the morning I also follow few of your function arguments. By the way at the end of the post you might have felt asleep i think , because u forgot to change the time period

Comment by prasanna — August 14, 2008 #
Nice one dude

Comment by Prabhath — August 15, 2008 #
R, you completely forget to add another factor to the success rate function.
How badly you have too pee when the alarm rings and how long does it take to execute the event!
The length of time it takes to execute has a high correlation to your rate of success (ofcourse only applies to jogging)

Comment by StrangeLoops(G) — August 15, 2008 #
R, you completely forget to add another factor to the success rate function.
How badly you have too pee when the alarm rings and how long does it take to execute the event!
The length of time it takes to execute has a high correlation to your rate of success (of course only applies to jogging)

Comment by StrangeLoops(G) — August 15, 2008 #
Screw the conditions…..you and JOG!!! hahahahahahaha
bloody since when have you had this thing running, didnt know

Comment by Pradeep — August 15, 2008 #
I enjoyed every moment in reading of this article.very cool.I think u enjoyed in big way in writing of this.

Comment by G.Viswanath — August 23, 2008 #
‘God’

Are you talking about who I think you are talking about?

Amen.

Open Source vs Proprietary is a long standing argument … as interesting as Metallica vs Megadeth in some respects … both are necessary …

Comment by Sagar — August 26, 2008 #
Hey! nicely described testaments of all. Hope will join u tomorrow on jogging track which m planning from first day of college. [;)]

Comment by Ramesh — August 26, 2008 #
Good blog.

Just want bring your attention to the fact that – Do you have “2 PM” twice a day ?

Comment by Ruchit — December 25, 2009 #
24 comments and no body spotted this so far!

Comment by Ruchit — December 25, 2009 #
No, someone did spot it http://riteshnayak.com/personal/?p=28#comment-32 You probably didn’t read the comments

Comment by Ritesh — December 25, 2009 #