E successfully defended his thesis today. Besides not wanting to see someone fail, I was rather nervous, because E is the first student of my advisor. In other words, I had no proof that my advisor is able to get a student through the MS thesis. Although I had no reason to doubt that, it is comforting to have proof.

Part of what I like about grad school is the thesis defense. My program has very little community, so I’m always amazed to see that people come out for the defenses and that people do wait anxiously to see the defender succeed. It’s like a weird family; even if people don’t appear to care about each other, perhaps they truly do. I also like learning about physics theory. I feel like come away from everyone’s research learning something new.

On another note from the past two days, I found out that two jobs I had applied for in 2006/2007 are up again in the Boston-area. They upped their ante from last time; the minimum requirement is an MS and one of them has an even more complicated process.  I have to write a teaching statement and submit three recommendations. While I am indeed applying for both jobs, the cynic in believes that I will be overlooked for a PhD. In this job market, I would believe that they could get a PhD. *sigh