Smaller Gradlife Incidents

Mom: Kids of your age have kids who go to school.

Me: You still have a kid who goes to school.

#LateLifeGradSchoolWoes

**************************************************************

Professor: You dont have the basic understanding of the subject.

Me: Sir, how do we have basic and acidic in computer science?

Professor: See, this is what I am talking about..#gradLifeWoes

************

Shopkeeper: Are you a Grad Student?

Me: Yes, how did you know?

Shopkeeper: Its friday night. Everyone is buying beer and you are the only one who is buying milk. #gradLifeWoes

**************************************************************

Professor: Have you found the solution to the research problem I gave you last day?

Me: No sir.

Professor: Why?

Me: That is because you have been keeping me on earth.

Professor: What the???

Me: Yes, you are keeping me on earth and that is why no great ideas strike me. You should send me to outer space and check what happens. Say for example imagine am on Hubble telescope fixing it,hanging 1852 thousand feet above earth, and suppose space debris hits me. Then to escape I will get inside a soyuz spacecraft stolen from International Space Station , head to the nearby Tiangong space station to get their Shenzhou spacecraft. (Purely random thought OK?) During that time when I turn the oxygen levels to kill myself am 100% sure the solution will strike me.

Professor: Get Out!!!!

Professor, I have been wanting to speak to you. I had a flash of a genius last day and I think I have atlast found why had a great flash of genius yesterday. I am not able to solve the problem because you are keeping me on earth.

Professor: What???

**************************************************

My professor had once asked me what my hobbies were I had told him ‘working out’ . Looks like he heard just the first part of it.

*************************************************

So I take this class, which is cross listed with the linguistics department.

One day I see this , ahem, girl (she happened to be beautiful, which I swear to god is irrelevant to this context) struggling with her programming homework. So I deliberately find a place next to her, start random conversations,...purely platonic I swear...So in the end (due to my sheer philanthropic nature , the wish for nuclear disarmament and world peace) I tell her: if you are having trouble with the homeworks, I can teach you how to program.

She dropped the entire course after that class.

#GradLifeWoes

*****************************8

Once when doing computer networks project I had asked this girl if she would like me to fill her tcp socket with my arp packets. She doesn't talk to me anymore.

#GradLifeWoes

**************************************************************

Professor (after reading the first draft of my research paper): How do you manage to come up with such shit?

Me: Irritable bowel syndrome sir.

#gradLifeWoes

**************************************

Me: Sir, I have no idea why my code is not working.

Prof: This is Computer Science...Look again, there always is a logical explanation why your code is not working. ALWAYS. Otherwise they wouldn't have called it Computer SCIENCE...they would have called it Computer VOODOO or something.

**********

Prof: What do you want to specialise in?

Me: Embedded systems.

Prof: Why?

Me: Sir, am on the bed most of the time. So I think “embedded” will be the right place for me.

Prof: FacePalm.

#GradLifeWoes

***********************

Computer Science Professor: Teaches you things that were invented last week and says its probably already outdated.

Physics Professor: Teaches you things that were invented in 1905 and calls it Modern Physics.

#smh #gradlifewoes

************************************

Professor: Mithun, can you use machine learning for this?

Me: Saar, I myself learn things so slow that teachers in kindergarten schools these days use the phrase ‘Mithun Learning’ as an example of Oxymoron. Now you are saying I must make the Machine also Learn? How saaar?

Professor: (Total Silence/FacePalm/Shocked look)

#GradLifeWoes

*****

So I once had this Professor in India whose name was Dr.Shemal. He used to like me very much until one day when in an email sent to the entire department , I accidentally added an ‘e’ to his name. Am I sick doctor?

***

Did you hear about the body builder who made six packs without ever going to the gym? He was apparently conspicuous with his ab-sense.

****

*********************************************************

Green Computing Project Reading/Research : 4hrs

OS Paper reading: 6 hrs

GA professor Impey work: 4 hrs

NLP Homework: 4hrs

Sleep: 8hrs

Cooking etc: 2hrs

Sunday: 24 hrs

damn

#GradLifeWoes

*******************************

Professor: Welcome to the cutting edge research project sponsored by a combined grant from NSF+DARPA+NASA. So do you have prior research experience?

Me: Ofcourse I do have prior research experience. Last day when I couldn't find my eraser first, I did re-search on the table, and found it under the comic book stash.

Professor: (facepalm)

#GradLifeWoes

In Dependent Study

So last day I go to visit this Professor under whom am doing Independent Study (Well, for the uninitiated, Independent Study is a term used in Grad Schools for slave labor where you pay money from your own pocket, and wash the windows of labs, along with doing some occasional research).

So after a 30 minute discussion (well, I accept that the word ‘discussion’ is stretching things a wee bit far- all he was doing was checking his emails, picking his nose and playing with his ipad, while I was speaking) of my “brilliant” idea in quantum cognitive science and how I think this might be the next best thing after canned beer to happen to humanity, he says “ maybe, you do have something there. Come back with more data.” Am like, this is exactly what he told me last time- “Come back with more data”. (As an aside, I did try printing a life sized poster of DATA from star trek in the school’s expensive HP color printer but gave up after the printer complained that am using too much free ink.). But anyways not bad, atleast this time he thinks there is something in my idea- there might be more meat to chew if I try harder. So a wee bit elated am about to exit the room when he says:“Wait, I have an important thing to do with you.”

Am confused. “What exactly does he want from me? Did he realize that I used the left over sulphur dioxide to clean the floors of the lab instead of detergent last week?”. While I was lost in my thoughts, in a quick movement, nothing that I have ever seen from a 65 year old, not even in esoteric youtube videos, he turns around, pulls a camera out of his desk, points it at my face and bhooom (no, he didn't shoot me, you think I would be here writing this if he did? ) snaps a picture of my mouth wide open (Aside: I think Creed actually made a mistake in naming their song “With Arms Wide Open” going by what they show in the song video, the song title should have been “With Mouth Wide Open”. But anyways, that is a topic for another discussion.) agape face. I was almost going to tell him, “Sir, if this is for some new matrimonial/dating site that you are moderating, you might want to take a picture of mine with a smile on my face. Or at least with a closed mouth. Because with this pic all I can think of is it being used as an interesting anatomical study by students from College of Dentistry).

But then a horror thought struck me, “ What if he realized that I was the one who flicked those 2 pencils and 1 eraser from his desk last week? maybe he is actually clicking snapshots to use as mug shots when he hands me over to FBI”. So there am shivering like a leaf, worrying about how my new “room mate” in the slammer is going to be. So shaking all over, I ask him “Sir, why exactly did you click my photograph? “

With a bewildered look on his face , which inherently kinda said “Which unknown planet that lies between pluto and neptune are you from,” he blurts out the following, as if its the most obvious thing in the world: “See, there are hundreds of morons like you who keep coming through that door daily saying they are doing research under me. I am old, and I can't remember any of your faces,left alone your names. At Least if I take a picture of yours I can create a hash table mapping between your face, name and what you are doing right?”

Am like: “WTF? so not only did you not listen to what I was saying for the last 30 mins, you don't even know who I am?. Worst, all your statements of “maybe you do have something there” and “get more data” was just a rhetoric that you tell to everyone who comes through that door?????”

#GradLifeWoes