grace, jared, stephen and a bunch of other people decided to go to atlantic city on a whim the other day, and were reporting their winnings/losses (mostly winnings, it seems) + massive quantities of alcohol consumed to us over chocolate satsuma cake in kinjal et al's house. everyone is earning money in every possible way, even the people in the program, who are supposed to be suffering in penury. i think that it's a matter of honor that grad students be poor, at least for their tenure as trainees, lest they shatter the morale of the other people in their department -- even if you can cheat, you don't (or you lie), to maintain solidarity, and the illusion that it's all about passion. after all these years of black-as-pitch pessimism, i'm shocked that i still think that way. this needs to be beaten out of me, soon.