Etymology

The one thing I have learned so far in Grad School (other than integration and Hessian matrices - which, to be honest, I haven't quite mastered yet) is humility. Humility, from the Latin humilitatem. Meaning "the property pertaining to pond scum." You know what other word comes from humilitatem? Humiliation.

I scoured phdcomics.com for a suitable illustration of this principle but nothing quite captured the true pond-scumminess of the experience: hours of blood, sweat, tears and prayers suitable for multiple denominations, and all you can come up with is: "I don't know. Alpha squared?"

I won't lie to you, despite all my lecturing about how being a "mature" GradStudent provides a safeguard against meaningless stress, (cause baby, I've seen it all before) well... I had a bit of a fullblown meltdown the other day. A "2-year old in the supermarket" kind of meltdown. But alphas and betas and gammas and whatnots be damned, today I am David effing Guetta. As in, walking down the street towards the n-th mathematical modeling class, hands in the air flashing Nixonian victory symbols, and proclaiming to the world that "I am titaaaaaa-neeeeeee-ummmmmm." That's right. Res has become indestructible. Res has achieved nirvana. Res is immune to bullets, fire, disease and whichever Greek letter you see fit to throw at her.

Naturally, the locals see me with my hands waving and my top-of-the-lungs singing and probably think I'm the latest addition to this town's cast of crazies. And who can blame them. I'm the person who actually chose to go back to school. Again. Heck, even I think I'm crazy.

Crazy, yes. But no longer pond scum.