19 Ways You Know You Are a Graduate Student

This may not be true of ALL Grad Students, but since we are BOTH in Grad School, we have found these things to be true during this period of our lives. Some of them we have found ourselves to be silly, but others we have only discovered odd because of the reactions we have gotten from others. At the least, we have come to appreciate the little things in life in a period of time where little things come to mean a lot!

You know you are BOTH in full-time Graduate School when:

1. You run out of toilet paper often and revert to a kleenex box. 
When that runs out, you borrow a few handfuls from church before you finally make it to the store.

2. You save twist-ties off of bread or bagged goods just in case you can use them for something else.
Yeah, I don't think we ever used them for something else yet...

3. Date nights to the grocery store or the car wash are extremely exciting!
Oh, the little things...

4. You rejoice over a bottle of soap found deep underneath the sink because you've been without good soap for a few weeks.
He was really stoked.

5. All your conversations revolve around the books you are reading, the people you are investing in, and how to put what you are learning into practice.
Fun and exhausting.

6. You take turns checking out library books in order to save money on buying books for a semester.
Desperate times...

7. Paper towels are a great luxury. 
The gift of paper towels feels like a real present.  

8. You debate between buying groceries or paying to do laundry.
Thank goodness for frozen foods and old camp shirts.

9. You walk a lot more to save gas.
Good thing we live close to most places.

10. You realize loving each other means giving into bouts of "IASI"
Irrational acts of spontaneous irresponsibility 

11. Time to clean the house or make a meal seems like it would be a dream come true.
I literally daydream of these things while doing my homework.

12. The books you are reading are actually of interest, rather than simply work for a degree.
This is a great blessing of getting your Masters.

13. You realize you haven't spent much time with friends in…..a long time.
Ahhhhhhh!!

14. You use candlelight for 1 month to save on electricity the month of December. 
It really was for a better reason, but hey, it sure helped!

15. Your brain-work becomes balanced by watching tame TV.
Like watching the entire series of the Wonder Years & Dick Van Dyke show on Netflix.

16. You compensate intellectualism with extreme goofiness during down times.
Music videos, crazy dances, made-up songs, silly voices, spontaneous adventures...just to name a few. 

Party At My House from david and keri lippman on Vimeo.

17. You begin to see how much you really DON'T know and enjoy learning more and more.
Church History, Theology, Listening to others well, Philosophy, Psychology, oh my!!

18. Your excuse for everything is, "I have a paper to write." 
And it is legitimate.

19. All your best plans have the tag line, "And we can do THAT after Grad school too!"
And the list continues to grow, provided that we have means to follow-thru.