in reverse chronological order:

[darthfox]

• e-mail from my dad included the following item from the local news:A Cleveland State University professor was electrocuted Tuesday.
  
  Biology professor Tarun K. Mal was found on the floor of a science lab on Euclid Avenue at about 10:50 a.m., NewsChannel5 reported.
  
  Witnesses said the professor was plugging in a device when the accident happened.
  
  He was taken to St. Vincent Charity Hospital, where he died.  His name has not been released.
  
  emphasis, i need scarcely point out, was added.
  
  
• on the bulletin board in the recording 'studio', where today my counterpart and i finished recording sample sentences for Teh Dictionary:NEWTON'S THREE LAWS OF GRADUATION
  (by J. Cham, The Stanford Daily)
  
  Though famous for his seminal work in Mechanics, Isaac Newton's theories on the prediction of a doctoral graduation formulated while still a grad student at Cambridge remain his most important contribution to academia.
  
  FIRST LAW:  "A grad student in procrastination tends to stay in procrastination unless an external force is applied to it."
  
  This postulate is known as the "Law of Inertia" and was originally discovered experimentally by Galileo four years before Newton was born when he threatened to cut his grad student's funding.  This resulted in a quickening of the student's research progress.
  
  Galileo's observations were later perfected by Descartes through the application of "Weekly Meetings".
  
  Before Galileo's time, it was wrongfully thought that grad students would rest only as long as no work was required of them and that, in the absence of external forces, they would graduate by themselves.
  
  First published in 1679, Isaac Newton's Procrastinare Unnaturalis Principia Mathematica is often considered one of the most important single works in the history of science.  Its Second Law is the most powerful of the three, allowing mathematical calculation of the duration of a doctoral degree.
  
  SECOND LAW:  "The age, a, of a doctoral process is directly proportional to the flexibility, f, given by the advisor, and inversely proportional to the student's motivation, m."
  
  Mathematically, this postulate translates to:
  
  agePhD = [flexibility]/[motivation]
  a = F/m
  (therefore) F = ma
  
  This Law is a quantitative description of the effect of the forces experienced by a grad student.  A highly motivated grad student may still remain in grad school given enough flexibility.  As motivation goes to zero, the duration of the PhD goes to infinity.
  
  Having postulated the first two Laws of Graduation, Isaac Newton the grad student was still perplexed by this paradox:  If indeed the first two Laws accounted for the forces which delayed graduation, why doesn't explicit awareness of these forces allow a grad student to graduate?
  
  It is believed that Newton practically abandoned his graduate research in Celestial Mechanics to pursue this paradox and develop his Third Law.
  
  THIRD LAW:  "For every action towards graduation there is an equal and opposite distraction."
  
  This Law states that, regardless of the nature of the interaction with the advisor, every force for productivity acting on a grad student is accompanied by an equal and opposing useless activity such that the net advancement in thesis progress is zero.
  
  Newton's Laws of Graduation were ultimately shown to be an approximation of the more complete description of Graduation Mechanics given by Einstein's Special Theory of Research Inactivity.
  
  Einstein's theory, developed during his graduate work in Zurich, explains the general phenomena [sic] that, relative to the grad student, time slows down to nearly a standstill.
  
  
• an e-mail exchange (in paraphrase):Smug Bastard (in a mass e-mail):  Here is information about the upcoming memorial service for E.
  Me (not in a mass e-mail):  Thanks -- wish I could be there.  How are you guys holding up?
  Smug Bastard (also not in a mass e-mail):  Think we're okay, but it's hard to know, one day at a time, all new, not sure how we 'should' be doing, etc.  Thanks for asking.
  Me (internal):  of course i'm asking.  of course i am.  you idiot.
  
  sigh.