I Would Rather Do This Than Write My Dissertation (Part I in a never-ending series)

Overall, being a grad student is really a pretty sweet gig. Sure, the pay is terrible and your employer doesn't respect you in the slightest, but that also describes about 99% of American jobs if I understand things correctly. Aside from such obvious detriments, though, it's not so bad. I get to largely set my own schedule, figure out my own deadlines, self-actualize my work and other such fun buzzwords, and all of that kind of good stuff.

But it's also hard not to look at what everyone else is doing and think that looks way better. Especially on mornings like this when I'm staring at the computer screen and trying to will words into existence (pro tip -- this does not work).

I get especially jealous of people who have no responsibilities or deadlines (but again, don't we all get jealous of such people?). Take for example this guy who hiked the entire Appalachian trail. For those not in the know, the Appalachian trail is the longest hiking trail in the US (maybe the entire world? I don't know, you have google, I assume), usually taking somewhere in the 6 to 8 month range to complete one end to the other.

If you try to do the whole thing at once, you obviously need to have a lot of supplies mailed to yourself to pick up along the way. But other than those few outposts where you'll pick up your food and changes of clothes, there's a pretty good chance you'll basically never run into people, or at least not more than one a day. As a world-hating misanthrope, it sounds like heaven.

But since I don't have the better part of the year to take off and go hiking, I'll just have to be content with this video, which the aforementioned hiker put together. He took something like 20 pictures a day on the trail and set them to music for this video. So in a little over 4 minutes, you can see the entire Appalachian trail. It's pretty cool.