Beware of Technology-

Anyone close to something of substance in their graduate program needs to be aware of the fact that the Karma-gods in charge of technology are well aware of your progress. So, anyone close to a defense, comps., thesis completion take notice. Bad things associated with technology WILL happen...three examples...

Example 1: Thesis Completion

I was a day or two away from finishing my thesis when my girlfriend at the time decided to play a game that came on CD off a cereal box. The game caused havic on my computer. I turned on the computer only to discover that it was functioning in some surreal mode: "Safe Mode".
Not knowing what the H was going on, I started removing files associated with the thesis. I was not able to get all the images, however. The computer died. One image was so gone and so important that I drove 8 hours to retake the photo. Worst case senario, I had hard copy of the thesis and could have retyped all 100 pages.

Example 2: Comps.

Last spring I was scheduled to take my comps. I was TAing 2 classes at the time. I remember being very scrambled the whole semester. I was not backing up my stuff as usual or at least some of my stuff. I had my grades on a memory stick that I thought was more robust than it was (I have a fellow grade student that has one without the outer cover and has put it through the wash). I bumped the memory stick with my knee when it was in the computer and that's all it took to completely kill the thing. Fortunately, I didn't have anything crucial to my comps stored on it. Anyway, I lost 3/4 of the grades in one of the classes that I was a TA. I had to make the students bring in all their labs and re-enter all the grades. This cost me some donuts and orange juice.

Example 3: Comps 2.

We have a PhD going through his comps. He has been writing his proposal since the summer. His computer died a few days before he was supposed to submit the proposal to the committee. HE DIDN'T HAVE A HARD COPY! Also, he didn't back up the file on any other source. He was able to somehow get the file off the computer. He admits that if he hadn't been able to get the file, he was going to just walk from the program.

So, if you are getting close, it's heading your way.