Every single year I get two or three weeks into the school year and have a day where I feel like I will die of the strain. “How do people keep all these balls in the air!”, I hear myself screaming in my head. Then, often the next morning, I wake up and find myself mostly in the groove of school again. I wonder if anyone has written about a way to ease that transition. If it’s this hard for an over-schooled PhD student it must be an incredible strain for those less acclimated. (I am not happy with that last sentence but hopefully, you get what I mean). On the other hand, it is possible that I am alone in this yearly ritual.

This week I think I am falling into the groove. Last Friday, I finished working for Ramp. I must admit that when the workday was over I felt incredibly happy to have one less ball in the air but I’d be lying too if I said I don’t miss it. The predictable 9-5 of work as a Software Engineer is much less stressful than grad school and the people at Ramp were really fun to work with.

Before signing off I should also mention that I went to a truly spectacular wedding on Sunday of a dear friend from here at Tufts. I met some wonderful people there and danced until much too late, only to learn that if you don’t get enough sleep on a Sunday night it can make your week more difficult than it needs to be. 100% worth it though.

In my next blog post, I am going to get back to curriculum stuff. I want to talk about what kind of stuff I saw while students worked on program 0.

Finally, this Friday I am taking part in the School of Engineering Lightning Round research presentations! Info here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/school-of-engineering-research-sharing-lightning-round-tickets-171174767337