Academic frozen sludge

Six inches. That's about how deep the ice slush was that I stepped into on the way to class. See, Newark has this thing about plowing where, well, they just don't like to do it. When they do, they do an atrocious job. So while walking from the Washington St. light rail station two blocks from campus to the law building, I stepped onto what appeared to be solid, black asphalt that was clear of snow and slush. False. There's that moment when it's just too late to do anything about it where you realize that asphalt isn't shiny. That's when my foot went down into what I had anticipated to be solid ground, but turned out to be several inches of frigid, Newark-infested frozen, slush sludge. Right before my first class of the semester. Joy.

I got to class about two minutes late, as is unavoidable when taking the 12:51 train, and I was the second to last person there. As such, and being a full, required course for PhD students, there really wasn't any room to sit. I ended up with a seat at the very front of our elongated rectangle of a classroom, right next to the professor and hugging the corner so as to be facing perpendicular to him rather than facing the rest of the class. During break, I asked if we could add the two empty, unused tables a few feet away but he declined, reasoning that he liked the "cozy" size and shape of the way things were already situated. I mean, that's great for him, but the person who came in after I did was forced to use his laptop on his lap because there wasn't even any table space left. It's one thing to have a preference but it's another to refuse to acquiesce in the face of functional classroom demands.

Also, he tried to illustrate a clear example of the law, but then couldn't remember if stop signs had six or eight sides.

On top of that, our first paper is due next week despite none of us having the books, all of us finding out what the books were going to be just today, and him not having ordered the books at the campus bookstore. Apparently he thinks that Amazon.com employs magicians now, which may or may not be true.

All in all it was a pleasant class where we learned that the teacher doesn't know what a stop sign looks like, the class is woefully ignorant of consent laws, and almost a third of the class knowingly cheats on their taxes.

I can't wait for more of this awesome doctoral experience.

Location:Newark, homeward bound

On the first day of class, spring 2011

38 degrees Fahrenheit is a terrible temperature. Anything warmer is better because it's closer to that realm of comfortable weather. Anything colder and you've hit freezing and the realm of snow, scarves, and heavier layers of heat. At 38, though, it's uncomfortably cold but it isn't cold enough to reach freezing, so you end up suffering through the purgatory of winter weather with a world covered in slowly melting ice that coats the roads and your car while a muddy, partially frozen mix of slushy sludge covers the ground. You have to walk to your car in several inches of water from the melting snow and getting your shoes soaked is almost unavoidable.

It's absolutely miserable weather, I promise.
It was 38 degrees this morning when I left for the first day of classes.

The drive wasn't terrible, but I got to Somerville station between trains, too late to get the early 11:52 but too early to just saunter onto the 12:51. Thus, I waited outside on the partially constructed new platform in the icy, not-quite-freezing weather under a roof that didn't quite do the trick. If the train doesn't go under it, why do you need such a high roof, anyway? 15-20 feet off the ground, a roof that high up does a poor job of actually fulfilling the role of a roof.

I overheard the cell number of a loud, obnoxious man making numerous business calls on the train and I was going to post it here in case people wanted to say hello, make a friend. I decided not to. I'll think of it as his free warning. Next time, though...

Anyway, my train ride is almost over, after which it's time for my first law class in two years. Until 20 minutes ago when I checked my schedule one last time to find my room number, I thought law was on Thursdays and research methods was on Tuesdays. Oh the joy of being wrong.

Location:Newark, inbound

Welcome to My Life

I'm not really sure what compelled me to start a blog based solely around my life as a PhD student except to say that I wanted a record of whatever stories I had to share later on down the road. These could be boring, such as the mundane details of the commute I make, or they could be more along the lines of that time I took a class field trip into Chinatown, NY to see hookers, pimps, illegal immigrants, and the whereabouts of well known gambling dens. Whatever the case, what you see is what you get.

I'm a PhD student at Rutgers, Newark in their criminal justice program. I like to call it criminology, however, because that conveys what I'm actually studying a bit better; the nature and theories of the origins, processes, and impact of crime. When I tell people that I'm studying criminal justice, I almost universally get, "So you're going to be a lawyer?" No, if I was going to be a lawyer, I'd be studying law. Law. Lawyer. Do you see-? Never mind. It's just so much easier to say, "criminology," because then all I get is, "Oh, what's that?" and I actually get to explain myself. Occasionally I'll get people that think that means something about forensics and I get to have a conversation about NCIS, Bones, or a number of other forensics shows before I want to break something.

See, I want to be a professor, which still makes me laugh because even at 25 I barely think of myself as an adult. I really do like teaching and I think I would be very happy making the world a smarter, more informed place. I'm fascinated by criminology and its intersection between quantitative research and qualitative social concepts. Before criminology, I was on the way to becoming a communication sciences graduate student, so I think I'm better off now.

Anyway, I go to school in Newark, NJ, which is quite possibly the crappiest city ever, and I commute from Lansdale, PA, which is a strange town in and of itself. Two or three times a week, depending on the semester, I wake up in the morning, drive about an hour and fifteen minutes up to Somerville, NJ, get on the regional rail to Newark Penn Station, take the light rail to Washington St., and then walk a few blocks from there to campus. Don't ask me why I don't live closer; if you've seen Newark you know that it's not really worth living any closer to that place than is absolutely necessary. If you Google "worst places to live" it autofills to "worst places to live in New Jersey" and the top result is an article about how shitty Newark is. Thanks, Google.

Once I actually get to class, I sit through a lecture or two, each about two hours long and maybe with an hour break in between classes, and then I make that same trip in reverse. On some days, I spend about 13 hours away from my apartment for just under four hours of class. Yeah, it sucks, but it's better than living farther away and making routine trips back to this area to see my girlfriend, doctor, sister, friends, and Philadelphia, right?

So that's really the back story. Classes start up again next week with an exciting semester packed with a night time intermediate statistics class, research methods, a white collar crime course, and a law class. Mass Effect 2 for PS3 comes out next Tuesday and Amazon.com should get it to me in 48 hours or less.  I'll give you three guesses which one I'm looking forward to more and yes, there are only two choices.