PhD life

Are you doing a PhD (thesis)? Do you know someone who is doing it? Most of them work for a little salary, in a precarious situation for many years but they seem happy to do it (most of the time). They work at strange hours, some days they rest at work ‘till 23 pm and other days they can ‘work’ at home. They travel quite a lot to go to courses, meetings and to do stays abroad in other universities … In 3, 4 or more (even 7 or 8!) years they have to do an original research work in one field of expertise, something very concrete, like ‘The sexual conduct of vinegar fly (Drosophila melanogaster)with full moon’ and defend it in front of a tribunal.
At the end, you are supposed to become a doctor, so a specialist person on your topic. The thing is that the way to the end is sometimes difficult because of problems of funding, supervisors, experiments do not work …
Moreover than these little negative things, to do a PhD is a very exciting challenge! You can contribute with a little grain of sand to the common knowledge, or at least you try to do it! As you would have guess, I’m doing a PhD and I have found a web page that is just for laugh about it all (PhD Comics).
I post you one of the most popular comic strips of this web page about the graduate student work output during a week. I would say that it is quite realistic!

Procrastinators, leaders of tomorrow

Hi there!

There is long time since my last post. Why? Because I am procrastinator person. Do you know the concept? A friend of mine explained me what it is and I feel identified at once.
Procrastination is the tendency to the deferment (to postpone) of actions or tasks to a later time. Procrastinators have difficulties to put themselves at work, most of all if there is not an immediate gratification.
It is a psychological mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. The word comes from the Latin pro = forward and crastinus = of tomorrow. If it is chronic may be a sign of a psychological or physiological disorder (fortunately is not my case!)
The interesting thing is that most of the people affected by procrastination are also ‘perfectionists’. As it is nearly impossible to do things perfectly, afraid of doing something imperfect, they don’t do anything. On the contrary, they can start doing many activities frenetically, just if they have any relation with the difficult task If you are interested inknowing more, there are good definitions in Wikipedia.
Now that you all know what procrastinate is, don't you find the Tshirt funny (haha)??

Do you recognise yourself in the description? No? Good for you! Yes? Welcome to the club!