Friday, October 28, 2011

Late night memories

"CJ's chance of passing this test is
slim to none, and Slim just left town."
Credit: ljworld.com
So I stayed up (10 pm? in a sense) last night  to watch the end of the World Series game; with the miracle of modern technology, I was able to share the game with my friends on Twitter. I was amused to read this Tweet from Derek Lowe:
I am not going to be the most productive scientist at my company tomorrow. Lifelong St. Louis fan! #cardinals #worldseries
It reminds me of a terrible and amusing memory: election night 2000. I happen to have an inorganic chemistry exam at 8 am the next morning, so I decide to stay up and study with the TV on in the background -- not a good idea, I know. As Dan Rather was getting more and more incoherent ("If a frog had side pockets, he'd carry a hand gun."), I was as well. While I'm a big, big proponent of a good night's sleep, I found myself deciding to stay awake just long enough to see who the winner was...

Of course, there wasn't a winner. I bombed the test something fierce (possibly the worst grade I ever got in graduate school), but I have a story to tell my grandkids.

Readers, did you ever stay up in grad school? I'll bet you wish you'd had slept. 

7 comments:

  1. Seriously, CJ??? You're complaining about 10pm?? Think of us east coaster's who powered thru that game! ;)
    and whatagameitwas!!

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  2. Some of us are just prematurely old. Aren't you a Cubs fan? Rooting for the Rangers?

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  3. ah! this is a common occurrence for me. as you'll notice, the time stamp on my post is 3 am. :) I also might have been distracted by the game. But there really is not too much consequence as I'll just stay a bit later tonight for coming in a bit late.

    The worst was when I pulled an all-nighter to finish my Goldwater Application in undergrad, the next day I had an exam in Chinese that I ended up sleeping through in trying to take a "quick nap" before class. Like you, I've also never done worse. Laoshi was pretty harsh on missing class, no makeup.

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  4. Actually some of my most proud moments where when I said to myself,"Screw it!" and did what I wanted instead of studying for my graduate school exams.

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  5. My department required a master's thesis even if you were a doctoral candidate, and that had to be completed before you could make your research proposal before your committee. The year I was proposing, my adviser was on sabbatical in Europe and was coming back just for my proposal. I pulled an allnighter just to finish my thesis and proposal, as if I missed the window, my adviser would have justifiably upset.

    I got through the proposal just fine, but at my party that evening, I fell asleep. People assumed that I was passed-out/drunk, even though I had had only 1 beer!

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  6. Staying up all night in grad school? Come on, of course! Everyone must have done it. I did most of it in first year when I had to teach, take classes, and still get a ton of research done since the boss was a new assistant prof. I remember finishing grading at 11 pm a few times only to start my first reaction. Eventually, I just bought a sleeping bag and brought it to the lab to save on walking home and back time. Luckily, the chemistry building had a shower with some lockers.

    I don't think I ever stayed up all night after second year. In postdoc, I stayed up all night to finish all the samples for Elemental Analysis due to the screwed up in-house system here. Or to get some work done after the rest of the labmates leave.

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  7. I remember Rather from that night. "This thing is tighter than the lug nuts on a '57 Chevy."

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20