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I've always had a love of sweet potato casserole, but that is not shared with sweet potato pie. Would I take it over any cake tho? Of course.

We're talking pie, so we're all winners here.

Umm your forgot Sweet Potato, the best pie.

Thanks I'll try both!

Any little moderators running around?

She also a Hokie?

Do something that is meaningful to you. Seriously. A lot of people view grad school like they do undergrad - "what do I have to do to get a degree in the end?" The path to a B.S. is charted for you by your department. The path to a Ph.D. is charted by you. Of course, the adviser has veto power, but if the work is within his/her expertise, there should be no problem.

The reason I say this is because academia is a thankless environment for early-career people. I get paid probably half of what my counterparts in industry (or even government contracting) make. The payoff for me will (hopefully) one day be a tenured post that allows me (relative) intellectual freedom to work on projects I find interesting. If, as a graduate student, you don't work on something you find meaningful, it will be hard to push through the hard times. And of course, those are more prevalent than anything else. For every one thing that works, ten things fail. When you need to do something "easy," something hard gets in the way that derails the whole damn thing. If you don't love it, you won't make it with your sanity intact.

As far as job interviews, I've actually never done one. I finished my Ph.D. and started emailing professors about postdocs. I got hired to my current position based on my CV alone. That's pretty rare, but it worked really well for me. But as I am currently filling out applications for faculty positions, I can tell you that the big thing is to be able to effectively communicate deliverables. Everyone has ideas, but can you tell a reader of your application "I will do [X] by applying [really cool methods] and it is meaningful because [these are the anticipated outcomes]." Even more importantly, how will your research bring in money? Without fundability, you'll never get hired. If you're looking to get into academia as a faculty member, get yourself a fellowship somewhere along the way, at the graduate or postdoc level. I was awarded an NIH fellowship for my postdoc, which is pretty critical. If you don't have a track record of fundability, your options, sadly, become limited. It's a vicious cycle - without money, you can't do work, but you can't get a job and do work without getting money.

No holds barred. It's a wrestling term meaning that moves that usually get you disqualified are legal.

Do not google no holes barred.

I initially read this answer as Beating Hos....and wondered why you would say that?

Bronco spends too much time thinking about things other than actually coaching football. I appreciate a philosophical approach to coaching; it's part of why I like Buzz so much, but Bronco makes it so unengaging. He also sounds completely unintimidating when he says that other teams "really aren't welcome, in terms of the outcome" at their stadium.

Also LOLUVA needs a new strength and conditioning coach if they have guys struggling to lift the bar (@0:40).

Yeah, that's a hard thing to wrap your head around. But once you see the patterns, you'll find an immense flexibility to a guitar or bass. At first, studying scale patterns is a bit overwhelming, but once you get over the learning curve, you find it is an awesome tool.