The Power of Procrastination

Yesterday I attended the talk [The Power of Procrastination][1] by Jorge Cham, the creator of PHD comics. I am a big fan of the comics, despite the fact that I'm not a grad student/postgrad, and hearing Jorge's talk it was great to listen to the guy who makes them.

The talk was entertaining as you would expect, with plenty of jokes about the life of a grad student and their relationship with the rest of the world. While there were too many jokes to go through – and I don't want to spoil the talk for people who might be attending future visits (in Queensland for instance) – but here's one I remember well and really liked.

Another type of email I receive is: "Cecilia is so hot. Can I marry her?"

This disturbs me a little.

First of all, she's an imaginary comic book character.

Secondly … she's my imaginary comic book character. Hands off! Make up your own imaginary woman.

I quite enjoyed the slideshow as well since he used illustrations of the PHD characters for everything. A graph of "grad student motivation level" is made quite fun when a picture is shown below of the various states of distress of the comic's nameless hero.

The only thing I was unhappy about (extremely upset is more accurate) was that I wasn't able to hang around for the book signing as I had a meeting to rush off to. I guess I'll have to go catch another one in the United States … or I can blackmail the postgraduate society into inviting him back. :)

[1]: http://www.phdcomics.com/speaking.htm