I have a friend who recently got hired for a tenure-track position at a major American university, after two years of postdocs and sessional lecturing. This friend — who, like me, is under 30 — is an academic rock star: he has a long list of publications, manages to participate in 3-4 conferences a year,… Read More This is your brain on drugs: academic performance boosters
There are a ton of excellent yoga studios in Montreal. My personal favourite is Moksha Yoga (I go to the NDG studio, but there’s also one on St. Laurent). Moksha is a hot studio, and from November to March it’s pretty much the only place I feel like the permafrost on my inner organs actually… Read More Things to do if you’re spending summer in the city #2: Lots of Yoga
Sometimes I think the only reason I suffer through the abuse of Montreal winters is because of its summers. It’s no secret that there are a ton of great festivals to check out, that the nightlife is great, and that once stripped of parkas and galoshes, Montrealers suddenly seem happier and more attractive. Beyond the… Read More Things to do if you’re spending summer in the city #1: Support local farmers
Tuesday’s Globe and Mail ran an article on Yale law professor Amy Chua, who just published a book entitled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Penguin Press 2011). The article, “Confessions of a Tiger Mom: Why Chinese parenting is best”, focuses mostly on the sometimes extreme parenting style Chua advocates in her book, which is… Read More Education, creativity and the “mining of minds”
This past week I received a link to an article in The Economist, entitled: “The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time.” Maybe it was because I still felt indestructibly jolly, full of rum and eggnog and baked goods, but I ignored the foreboding feeling I had to stay away,… Read More Not just a river in Egypt
Mid-year (school year, that is), I always get discouraged. The fall semester is never as productive as I plan for, and the winter semester looms as a mountain of catch-up work and progress reports and general worry. Which is why I brought my work home with me over the holidays, and why I also can’t… Read More On seeing camels.
Thursday, October 21st, 7pm, The McGill Anthropology and Sociology Film Initiative will be presenting two classic experimental films: The Man with the Movie Camera, directed by Dziga Vertov (black and white, silent, 68 min, 1929) Go! Go! Go!, directed by Marie Menken (color, silent, 12 min, 1962-64) The screenings will be held in the Cultural… Read More Campus event October 21st: An evening of classic experimental film
1. Calculate your student loan payments. Think about emigrating. Feel suddenly ill. 2. Google diseases that match your symptoms. 3. Stumble upon an article on Graduate School Neuroses at The Chronicle of Higher Learning. Realize that hypochondria is rather prevalent among people like you. Feel less special. 4. Go to the movies before noon. The AMC… Read More 10 Things to do instead of writing your thesis proposal
This past Sunday I joined some of my fellow anthropology grad students (and one token archaeologist) for an afternoon of apple picking at Vergers Petit et Fils, near Mont St. Hilaire. Having been at McGill for five years now, a trip to an orchard each fall seems like a quintessential part of experiencing Montreal in… Read More On Apples and Academics
There is something contagious about the frenzy that is “back to school.” And when I say contagious, I mean it in a germy, plague-like, I-don’t-know-where-I-caught-it kind of way. It’s frantic and stressful and every year it manages to derail the carefully planned timeline I have for progressing through my program. I should clarify that for… Read More On liminality… and what feels like the longest rite of passage. Ever.
The graduate student experience at McGill
The graduate student experience at McGill
The graduate student experience at McGill
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