The Grad School Diaries: Giant Wombat Syndrome

“You know, kid, you need to get out more,” the giant talking wombat remarked, sounding just like a young Harrison Ford. “I think you’re starting to lose it.”

“No, really?” I replied, sarcastically. “You’re just saying that because I haven’t slept more than a couple of hours a night in weeks and I’m so stressed out that my old job is starting to sound like heaven on Earth.”

“Well, there’s also the fact that you’re arguing with your hallucinations,” the giant talking wombat suggested, helpfully.

“I always argue with my hallucinations,” I replied. “Especially the ones that look like giant anthropomorphic marsupials. At least, I assume that’s what you are. I don’t even know what a wombat actually looks like.”

It’s finals week of First Semester, and I’m in sort of a fugue state; stressed and tired enough that I’m not completely sure what is going on. I’d be doing better if the giant talking wombat would stop interrupting me, though. At least, I’m pretty sure I would be…

“Remind me why you’re doing this, again?” the giant talking wombat requested. “What are those things, anyway?”

“Flash cards,” I replied, finishing another one and adding it to the growing pile in front of me. “You use them to drill yourself on things you’re trying to remember. Much more efficient than flipping through the textbook every time you want to review something.”

“Like those things kids use when they’re trying to learn the alphabet?”

“Actually, you see these associated with any memory-based discipline,” I replied, primly. “Age doesn’t enter into it.”

“I thought this was a math-based discipline,” the giant talking wombat replies, puzzled.

I had thought so too, especially when I saw all of the calculations, ratios, and other numeric factors involved. But as the weeks passed it rapidly became clear that much of the analyses done in our profession are computerized these days. While we still have to generate the numbers, the critical factor now is remembering (and understanding) what they mean. I tell the giant talking wombat this. It looks confused.

“So this whole class is just read and regurgitate?” it asks. “Where’s the point in that?”

“It’s a matter of learning the vocabulary,” I reply, rising to the challenge like a good contrarian, no matter what I might think of the class. “You can’t tell someone that their new program is too Theory X if you don’t know what Theory X is in the first place, now can you?”

The giant talking wombat considers. “But in practice, can’t you just look things up as you need them?” it asks.

“Not if you don’t know you need to look,” I reply, decisively. “The fact is, this class is an overview of a subject that people really DO spend decades examining, and it can’t actually hope to do more than just get us started thinking about these issues. It’s going to take a lot more nights like this one before I’m even ready to join the conversation.”

“Not if you don’t start taking better care of yourself,” the giant talking wombat replies, returning to his original topic.

I sigh deeply and grab the little bottle of Wide-Awake from the corner of my desk. Caffeine does not work on me (because of all of the ephedrine-based medicines I was given as a child), but this allegedly all-natural herbal crap will at least keep me from dozing off or hallucinating. So I use it, even if it does taste the way industrial-strength disinfectant (think of the liquid they put in porta-potties) smells…

After a few moments the room stops spinning and the horrible chemical flavor recedes. I take a cautious look around: no sign of my giant talking wombat. I sigh with relief. I might still succeed in getting ready for the final on Friday…

As long as the pack of man-eating bananas in my bathroom doesn’t come up here and start bothering me again…