Office Fever

As we approach the first set of exams for the graduate program, it’s fair to say that almost all of us first-years are going a little crazy.  Upwards of 70 hours per week with our heads buried in crazy mathematical formulaes and indecipherable microeconomic texts has created the hardest working (and most unnatural) environment I’ve ever experienced.  And with only each other as human company as we traverse this little office word of funky Greek letters and squiggly mathematical symbols, it’s no wonder we’re all getting a case of cabin fever.

Even my dreams have slowly become infested with my studies.  I’ve had more than one nocturnal subconscious experience with a recurring unsolveable algebra problem – one of the few themes you can’t find in dream dictionaries.  (What would Freud say?)  My fellow study-slaves and I constantly use academic jargon in every day life; comments on “maximising utility” when ordering dinner or using “dynamic programming” to choose a novel (not that we have time to read one) are commonplace.  Our only outlet?  Inconceivably lame nerd-jokes; a sort of acknowledgement of our plight, a shared understanding of our common burden.  And a salute to a hardship of Geek in pursuit of the perhaps unreachable dream of knowledge, enlightenment and social good.

Yep, office fever has struck, and it looks like an epidemic – and perhaps five years’ worth.  But here’s a snippet of the half-laughs that keep us going…