Snap, Crackle, Pop

Wow, 2 months since my last post. Time sure does fly.
In the last week, one recently graduated post-doc cracked mentally, one postdoc decided the guilt over leaving her son in daycare (he gets sick a lot) wasn’t worth it, and a doctoral student lost his sh!t and exploded at his mentor, thereby getting himself royally kicked out of the program. In the first instance, I can see it. She’s had a rough year and, once the adrenaline of getting through the defense wore off, her life caught up with her. In the second instance I cannot imagine what makes someone decide to spend 10 years of their life preparing for a career, then decide it’s “all or nothing”. There are other options after all: part-time care, working from home, or doing “swing-shift” work schedules with your husband. And in the last instance, well I wouldn’t have guessed it. He seemed pretty stable, but then again maybe he was in the right.
I dunno. Maybe it’s something in the air. But I, for one, would love to see a survey about the number of people that start graduate school drug- and therapy-free as compared to those who graduate. At least ½ of the graduate students I know are taking some form of pill – anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, or just sleeping medication. I know I’ve had a hard time keeping myself from hiding under the desk lately.