First Day Post!

My apologies for not posting in the last week, dear readers. I have had many things going on and plus it was still summer break so there was not much graduate school stuff to post about.

However! Today is the first day of classes for me so I can happily announce that my postings shall become more regular. Also, at the bottom of my postings will be some daily graduate student/school advice.

My schedule at my lovely budget-deprived State University:
Tuesday/Thursdays: Early America and the Atlantic World (I'm a TA)
Tuesday: Colloquium of the US South
Wednesday: Atlantic History

As I obviously pointed out, I am indeed a TA for an upper-division course this semester. In my experience, TA's are kind of a non-entity. We exist in the classroom, keep up on the reading, grade all assignments, and give a lecture if we are lucky enough to do so. It looks great on the C.V./resume/Ph.D. applications. I am hoping to give a lecture, but now I'm not sure because of the budget crisis.

Budget crisis? It's everywhere! The worst part of it at my lovely State University are the furlough days where all services and (some) classes are closed to save money. No one is happy and it's all a huge mess. Less classes, less professors, same amount of students. I, myself, remain unaffected as none of my classes were cancelled but many students are not in such a lucky boat as I. It truly is a pity and the state should be more than appropriately ashamed of itself.

Daily Advice:
Thank your lucky stars that you're a grad student and therefore may have some seniority/importance protection against cancelled classes.

Note: I originally put the times of my classes, but as Mitch pointed out in the comments, it probably wasn't a good idea so I have removed that information.