Lab Lit

I have been reading more "Piled Higher and Deeper". I already linked to my favorite cartoons, but now I have a few more.

They're all depressing, but number 136 and number 137 particularly so, because hit so close to home... Still, it's nice to know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Then there's one about what grad school doesn't teach you...

And the answer to a moral dilemma, which is very similar to the one a friend gave me when I first started...

And some practical advice for group meetings...

And how funding problems are resolved.

I was prompted to start re-reading these by the true lab story post over on Uncertain Principles, which explains

'A true lab story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper scientific practice, nor restrain graduate students from doing the things that graduate students have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a lab story, you feel uplifted, or if you feel that you have learned some useful fact about science, you have been made the victim of an old and terrible lie.

He mentions this in the context of lab lit, of which "true lab stories" are a sub-genre. Following his links, I find more examples of lab lit. There's a couple of books I've read on that list. And if the Connie Willis books there are classified as "lab lit," then so is all of "Piled Higher and Deeper." So now I'm trying to write a story of my own, and reading PhD for procrastination inspiration.

I'll let you know if I ever finish it...