Things I've Learned in Grad School #4

Some people believe that ingesting certain substances (i.e., wine, beer, pot, whatever it is that floats your boat) really brings out their creative genius and enhances their performance. This is not true. However, I have found (and have heard fellow academic-types agree) that sipping on a glass of wine, or a fine dark beer (my advisor recommends Guinness or something similar) really can aid your writing. It relaxes your inhibitions just enough to really get the words flowing, without totally incapacitating you. May not be your finest writing, but you're gonna' go back and edit, anyway, and at least then you have something to edit instead of having nothing--or that single sentence on which you have spent the last half-hour trying to make it "perfect."

And now I am going to top off my glass and get back to that paper...