Embracing as Instructed

So I just went to see Jorge Cham from Cal Tech speak about "Procrastination" and his web comic about grad school. Definitely an amusing hour well spent/wasted. His humor was reserved and metered, and he was quite thorough in his presentation (he used very clever power point, like any good academic) pausing while people laughed and either making a face or calmly drinking from his water bottle and then finishing the sentence he'd started once the room was quieter. He had an edgy habit of narrowing his eyes sarcastically following his jokes that made him all the more irrisistable. His personal webpage through the CalTech faculty directory is elegant and staggeringly impressive. It's pretty safe to say this guy is ridiculously talented and frickin' amazing.

Some of the better anecdotes that I enjoyed from his talk included;

"Secrets of the Thesis" that no one tells you:
"Writing your thesis will nearly kill you. You'll survive...but you may never be the same."

"Procrastination is not a disease. I prefer to think of it as a time-management philosophy".

One of the common e-mails Dr. Cham receives run something like this:
"Cecelia is hot, can I marry her"

His response is:
"First of all, Cecelia is an imaginary character.
And second...she's MY imginary character! Go get your own hot imaginary character".

His take away message was:

• Embrace Procrastination
• Have Low Expectations
• You're Not Alone

That last point was followed up with, "Look around you...obviously there are ALOT (room full of grad students in various outmoded styles muching their pathetic lunches and drinking from nalgenes) of other people who SHOULD be doing their research and who clearly...are not".


Professor Mark Cutkosky, Sean Bailey and Jorge Cham with the original Sprawlita.

Excellent.