Lorena and I drove up to Vancouver, Washington after work on Friday to catch a train to Seattle. The train ride was wonderful. It was the first time I was able to go up there, but I hope it will not be the last. Kelly was at a party so we took an Uber ride to her apartment from the train station. That was my first Uber ride. I am never going to take another taxi if I can at all avoid it. It was just unbelievably efficient and convenient. I had no sympathy for the taxi systems in the big cities before Uber. I have less sympathy now.
We got up early, walked to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant by Kelly’s apartment and had an amazing breakfast. There were a ton of great little restaurants all over the place. We promised Kelly and ourselves we would make our way back up there a lot more often to try out more of them. After breakfast, Kelly and I went to the coffee shop where she does a lot of her studying. I worked and she studied while Lorena ran out and did errands. I got nostalgic for our study at the Hill and Hunt libraries back in Raleigh when the kids were at North Carolina State.
Both the kids are going through a lot of pain in their programs right now. When they set out to do something hard with their schooling ten years ago or so, we knew there would be some rough patches and they are both in what can only be described as a grind. Christian just finished his Quals and has to deliver his first conference paper at an Information Theory conference in Asilomar, California next week. Kelly has her first year paper due in January and her Quals in July. She has some very intense Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant duties on top of it all.
This point of their PhD degree work is nothing more than a horrible grind. They barely have time to sleep because it is just one deadline after another and I think it can be a little daunting and discouraging. They will be at the halfway point soon, so there is light at the end of the tunnel. One of the things I have to remind them is that the point of all this work is to give them the skills and credentials to get a good job. That is all. It is not necessary to even stay in the field they studied. When this is done, they have something real they can use to get a good job, but it should not define their life. Too many people get their degree and think it somehow entitles them to unwarranted and unrealistic levels of respect and success. It does not. Life is just getting started when school ends.
Betty Blonde #415 – 02/7/2010
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