In this age of “guaranteed next-day shipping”, a person might take for granted that his or her order will hit the road almost immediately after making the mouse-click or phone call that initiated the purchase. But not every company works like Amazon or Barnes and Noble or NetFlix.

Now, when my colleague put in the order for my YSZ (that’s yttria-stabilized zirconia – cubic zirconia stabilized at room temperature by yttria, and yes, that is cubic zirconia like all the fake ice you see the popular grad. students wearing) substrates, I knew I was cutting it close. Only a little over a month to fabricate the electrodes and run the experiments. But what do I know? Let’s try, right?

Wrong. Because “rushed shipping” from a California μ-high-tech. means your product will be shipped in four weeks instead of five. So now, instead of staying in my lab for a few days to get the experiments done in time for my May 9^th thesis deadline, I will not turn in my thesis, and wait another semester.

Is this my first experience with the UPS blues? No, not really. Way back when in undergrad. (read 2.5 years ago), I had the occasion to order several stainless steel plates from a manufacturer somewhere out in the Midwest. Half were to make their way directly to ye olde CommuniTute (that’s RPI for the uninitiated); the other half were to make a detour in California to get electroplated. Eventually, the first half of plain stock arrived. No one quite knows what happened to the electroplated pieces. Was there embarrassment and forced last-minute improvising? Yes, spades.

So could this latest fiasco have been avoided? Evidently not, because it seems both my fore- and hindsight need strong correction (I’m thinking of getting contacts – it’ll be more stylish, non?).

My point is: plan ahead for these things. This is why it takes six years to get a Ph.D. degree. Oh, and write your thesis while things are shipping (this I did do, and it really helps!).

Otherwise: this week happens to contain both Passover and the Orthodox Easter Holy Week. So happy holidays to those readers who are celebrating.

Before there were the PhD Comics, there was Aristophanes’ “The Clouds”. Over twenty-four hundred years old, the play is surprisingly timely, capturing in brief the prototypical elements of graduate study that any modern student could identify. I’ll let the comedic master speak for himself (or rather, through a translation by Arrowsmith, Lattimore, and Parker):

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STREPSIADES: …Throw open the Thinkery! Unbolt the door and let me see this wizard Socrates in person. Open up! I’m MAD for education!

The ekkyklema is wheeled about to show the whole interior court of Socrates’ Thinkery. High overhead the crane supports Socrates in his basket busily scanning the heavens. Hanging on the walls of the Thinkery are various charts, maps, instruments, etc. In the center of the courtyard stand a number of utterly pale, emaciated students deeply engaged in a rapt contemplation of the ground.

Great Herakles, what kind of zoo is this?

STUDENT: What’s so strange about it? What do you take them for?

STREPSIADES: Spartan prisoners from Pylos. But why are they all staring at the ground?

STUDENT: They’re engaged in geological research: a survey of the earth’s strata.

STREPSIADES: Of course. Looking for truffles.

To one of the students.

–You there, don’t strain yourself looking. I know where they grow big and beautiful.

Pointing to other students who are bent completely double.

Hey, and look there: what are those fellows doing bent over like that?

STUDENT: Those are graduate students doing research on Hades.

STREPSIADES: On Hades? Then why are their asses scanning the skies?

STUDENT: Taking a minor in Astronomy.

To the students.

–Quick, inside with you. Hurry, before the Master catches you.

STREPSIADES: No, wait. Let them stay a little longer. I want to speak to them on a private matter.

STUDENT: Impossible. The statutes clearly forbid overexposure to fresh air.

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While Socrates did not operate such a formal school, his most famous student, Plato, did – the Academy. Anyway, the moral is: it can’t be said that no one warned us….

One statement from the real Socrates which may cheer you up a bit:

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”

Seeing as I am now in 18^th grade, I had hoped I would have learned the ropes by now. Evidently not so. Learn from my mistakes. Here’s the deal: take some time off during spring break, I say. The reason is as follows: you are not going to get all that work done that you thought you would by staying stationary at your post in lab. You will enter the week full of great expectations, sure that you will catch up on everything – research, classwork … right, that’s everything. But it doesn’t work that way. This wave of procrastination will come out of nowhere. You’ll get an e-mail from a friend who beat it to Las Vegas for a weekend of debauchery and, worse yet, unproductiveness. Your friends on campus, who have all had a similar e-mail experience, will then invite you to one soccer game, and then another; you’ll take extra-long lunches and dinners; you’ll start browsing Wikipedia; and before you know it, it’s Thursday, and you haven’t even started that killer homework assignment yet, and you’ve got to cram for the next week and a half (just like your buddy who went to Vegas). So if you’re not going to be productive, anyway, might as well do it in style. Be unproductive elsewhere, maybe, just to change things up. Or stay on campus, but with the knowledge that you are “on vacation”. No need to spend a lot of cash – just give yourself some time, or, more to the point, accept that you are going to take some time for yourself, whether you like it or not. I won’t prescribe an optimal number of days off; just long enough ‘till the guilt is unbearable such that you become ready for work again (what some people call the state of being “refreshed”). Just don’t feel too guilty – it’s inevitable, after all, this rest.

You can extend this principle for non-spring-break situations. For example, when you’re fed up because your lab mate makes funny noises, and so does the heating system, and you have to sit through it for hours, plus Windows, just do what I do: go on strike for fifteen minutes for “better working conditions”. Make your own picket line by the water cooler, harass the strike breakers by engaging them in conversation to prevent them from working, too. Drink an antioxidant-filled beverage. Have some antioxidant-filled extra-dark chocolate. Share. Everyone will be much healthier for it.

On a sadder note, I just want to acknowledge the passing of an iconic figure at MIT, Professor Jin Au Kong (1942-2008). A researcher, educator, and historian of electromagnetics, witty and humorous and enthusiastic and kind, beloved by students and faculty, alike (no comparison intended), and one of my favorite people at MIT. His presence will be missed.