Time Warp

There's nothing as exciting and intense to watch as a group of Honours students freaking out about their thesis submission deadline, when you're not one of them.

Yesterday, about 20 Honours students in in the department had an exact deadline at 3 pm sharp. 

Pandemonium ensued. 

All 4 printers in the building ran out of paper by 1 pm. 

Frazzled students were surrounded by papers and still correcting things. Some had 3-4 people from their labs hovering around them. Some were still consulting postdocs and Phds for feedback up to an hour before submission deadline. Most were in the department at 6 am.

In one overheard conversation, a PhD was offering corrections to his Honours protegee. Then he asked, so, is this like, due tomorrow afternoon? the Honours answered, nope, actually it's due in exactly an hour and a half. Silence. Nervous laughter from the Phd, you're not really going to be able to make adjustments are you? To which the honours replied, No, I can still make it.........

There was a bit less chaos in our lab. 

I floated in from my cubicle around 12, the supervisor went on a frazzled jog and the Phd was still ringing up our honours student, asking when she was coming in. Initially she kept brushing off, saying she'd be there soon. Then it was 2 pm, an hour before deadline and she still hadn't showed or printed any of her 300 page thesis. Eventually our supervisor dropped everything and drove over to pick her up. 20 mins later she was in and it was a mad frenzy to put everything together. The Phd helped her print off her thesis. Our supervisor hovered over the printer. I wrote up her acknowledgments, using the Phd's old Honours as a guide. Then we all did the mad dash to the submission office while putting everything together on the way. 

On the way over, we could spot other Honours students on their way to submit, also cutting it close to the deadline. As a joke, our supervisor boomed in his loud voice, "Omg! It's so-and-so, dude you're late! QUICK RUN!!!!" Of course, they would flip out and start bolting towards the office...and we'd crack up in laughter in the distance. One student was lugging a whopping 500 page thesis...to which our supervisor quipped "so, yea..i gotta mark that one.."

After helping her submit, we could tell that our supervisor felt like he just submitted the thesis. Not just his student. Madness. 

It wasn't over after that. 

Well..mostly. 

The new Honours, not yet starting, had to present a research proposal. To which we went to her rehearsal to give her feedback. I thought it would be nap time in some ways, but it was invigorating. The moment of recognizing brilliance. Which, never happens. Like the moment when producers at MGM found Judy Garland singing. She was sitting on a groundbreaking idea she'd come up with almost on her own, and was single-mindedly coming to the lab to pursue. Suddenly I felt somewhat sad I couldn't be around for longer, to see just what she's capable of. By the time she starts, I'll have submitted.