Watching and learning

The career plan has always been to get a PhD and do research. As such, probably some time during undergrad, I started watching the faculty type folks so that when I become one of them, I'll be able to fit into the crowd. I've learned a lot of interesting things, but today, I put my finger on a very important one. My advisor has been MIA for the last couple of days. This is not entirely unusual. He often has short, relatively local meetings that he doesn't bother to tell us about, probably because he doesn't remember that they are happening. It's no big deal. Things pretty much happen without him anyway. Finally, this afternoon, we got an email. He's in Hawaii. For a week and a half. And that's when I figured it out. There's actually reason to his madness. He didn't tell us because he didn't want us to all flood his office with last minute requests before he left. Brilliant! I'm watching you professor, and I'm taking notes.