Thesis tip

When you decide to be supportive of your classmate, and attend her thesis' defense ...

and you realize the only people in the room besides yourself are the degree candidate, and her 3 committee members ...

make sure you think of something really intelligent to ask at the end of the presentation.

So that when her advisor (who also happens to be yours) turns to you and asks, "So, at this point, we'd like to ask our guest if she has any questions" ...

you can whip out that great, insightful observation and impress a) your advisor and b) the other departmental prof sitting there, whom you want to have on your committee.

The plague all over again

BBC is reporting an outbreak of bubonic plague in Lybia. I'm in the midst of reading Camus' The Plague. I was inspired to read it by the conspiracy idiots (read: FBI) reports after the anthrax-letters in '01. The reports stated one of the suspects was extra suspicious due to his collection of books in his office. Quite a few of which are sitting on my shelf. The Plague, however, I hadn't read. Maybe it will make me suspicious (since in 2001 I had access to lots of anthrax)? The book is well written and interesting so far.