...viewers would have died of boredom. I barely left my apartment all weekend, focusing much of my efforts on the master's project. This led me to think what a University of Minnesota School of Public Health episode of 'My Life,' the Evan Cole edition would look like.
Evan rolls out of bed at 9:30 on a Saturday morning. Producer: What are you doing Evan? Evan: Well I'm gonna bypass that whole shower thing this morning and just head straight for my desk (aka the kitchen table) and start in on my master's project. 3 hours pass. Producer: Can you tell us what you've accomplished so far? Evan: Yeah...Iiiiii ate a lunch where everything on my plate was the color orange...distracted myself with some YouTube videos, ya know I can't get going without some comedy, and thennnnn....lets see I wrote about four sentences today, solid start. Another 3 hours passes. Producer: Evan, don't you have any plans today to hang out with friends, orrrr go somewhere? Evan: Me? oh no, I'm afraid not. Just me and the master's project today. Plus how motivating is it to go outside? It hasn't been above 0 for the last 24 hours. But hey, if you'll excuse me I have to continue diving into the mound of literature on pay-for-performance to find just the right example for this particular point. Many hours pass. Evan: Well that wraps up a days work for me. Hope that gives you a little sample of my life as a grad student, just trying to graduate in May...you know how I do. Goodnight. Producer:....what a nerd.
Now aren't you glad that video doesn't exist? I am. But in all seriousness I did make progress on the master's project, even though it feels like it is slow going. I think it is particularly challenging because it's more of exploratory research which I haven't really done before. It's a lot trickier to write a solid introduction section for a project that you don't know what results will come up, than for a literature review or a report, which I am more familiar with. I'm still very interested in my topic and I think when it is all said and done I'll feel good about it and feel like it is a well-written paper. But at this point, I'm getting hung up on making sure everything is close to perfect, when it may just be helpful to get something down on paper. Anyway, it will be fine, it's just easy to obsess over something as big as this, especially when that's all you have been doing this weekend.
I do have an interview for a felllowship located in Wisconsin coming up this week. I don't want to say that I'm nervous, but it certainly will be a new experience for me. They told me that the interview will only be 30 minutes, and that it will be over the phone with five interviewers. Plus, they already emailed me the questions that they are going to ask. I'd almost prefer not to know about time constraints and questions, but I can understand why they want to do it this way. So wish me luck; it's a great opportunity for me and I'm hoping for the best.
Also, I did attend the School of Public Health's "Pamoja," which is their annual party. It is also the time of the year where I look around the party and say "Who are all of these people." I mean, most of them I haven't even seen before, let alone spoken to. There's obviously only gonna be so much overlap in classes between majors, but I forget how big this school actually is. A side note: This year, Pamoja decided to provide beer in small dixie cups instead of last year when they would just give you the bottle. Here are the comments that I left unsaid but were coursing through my brain when I was served my small dixie cup of beer: "Oh I'm sorry, I ordered a beer, not a swig of mouthwash." "Is this the beer size that comes with Happy Meals?" "Look, lets cut to the chase here, I'm gonna be back for more in about 40 seconds when the single gulp of this has been consumed. Instead of opening a bottle of beer and pouring a small fraction of it in front of my face, you could just give me the bottle and cut out the middle man." I'm not trying to be critical, just funny, but next time if you're going with the cup method again, just get a keg or something.
For those of you who read my last blog, I have an answer on why some states have blatantly broken federal laws and have set up programs to import prescription drugs from other countries for a much smaller price. My professor said while all of that is illegal, essentially nobody cares enough to fight against it...for now. The demand and the number of patients doing that isn't significant enough, so big pharma doesn't appear to be taking noticeable profit losses due to these programs. But if that demand increases continually, you better believe they'll start throwing their lobbying power around to enforce those laws and stop the programs.
So there you have it. Well, I'm gonna go back to the master's project (what else is new).
See you around the blog.