Cheap Things That Help My Life

I should note, before I begin, that I've not been asked or otherwise compensated to endorse any of these products. I just like them and want to pass along things that make my life easier.



1. Goody Simple Styles Spin Pins

I keep two of these in my purse. They are great for those days when Mother Nature decides to screw you over with humidity/rain/hail/other assorted nastiness. They will fix any hair problem in 30 seconds. All you have to do is pile your hair atop your head, screw in these pins, and it somehow magically looks good. Definitely worth the $6 I paid at CVS for them.


2. Simply Asia Noodle Bowls


Much like the Cookie Monster now says about cookies, I will say this: instant noodles are a sometimes food. But sometimes, you have 7 minutes before an afternoon meeting and crackers aren't going to cut it. But if you can get 2 tablespoons of water and access to a microwave for 2 minutes, you can enjoy this delicious, economical lunch on occasion. I keep a stack of them in my desk and I doubt 8 of these a semester is going to kill me; it also beats the heck out of paying $8 for a wrap at the food court.


3. Netflix

I've heard plenty of discussion on this, but I'm still firmly on the pro-Netflix side of things. I like getting movies mailed to me after doing minimal work to arrange it, and I also like watching shows on streaming when I'm alone in the office and need a break. It's just easy and if the place you live is anything like my area, going to a single movie costs more than a month of Netflix. And if you fall asleep from sheer exhaustion during the movie, you just start it again without being out $12!

Any other cheap life-improving items? Leave them in the comments!

Application Advice: The Introspective Questions

I've been softly avoiding giving out application advice. People interested in my own insane journey through the bowels of the admissions system are advised to go back through the 2009 posts. That said, in a recent conversation with a grad school applicant I came up with three questions that are worthwhile for determining which schools to apply to. Obviously there are an infinite number of questions to ask, but these three are a good place to start.

1) Would I actually move to the place where the school is located?

I flat-out ruled out some schools in places I didn't want to live. If you can't see yourself packing up and moving to New York City, why even apply to schools there? Location is more important to some than others, but do your research on the place, because you will occasionally leave campus. Think about where you'd be willing to move ahead of time.

A lot of applicants treat grad school admissions like undergraduate admissions -- send out a bunch of apps, then go on the prospective student visit and make a decision on the location. Bad plan! Don't waste money on applications for schools you'd never in a million years go to.

2) Is there someone, or multiple someones, to work with at the school?

Online faculty profiles are your friend. Email and phone contact with professors is even better. Sometimes faculty will be interested int the project but simply can't take on new students: they are going on leave, they have 82 students already, there's no room for a new student on the grant, etc. Find out this information before you apply.

My experience is that 95% of professors aren't bothered by a short, polite email inquiring about their graduate advising availability. So long as you aren't spamming them, this won't stymie your application in any way, and in some fields it can radically boost your admissions chances. If there's no professors around to take on your project, most schools won't admit you because there's no advising structure in place for you. Anticipate and take action to prevent this.

3) Is the program what I need, both in the next few years and for my career?

In this insane world of 12% acceptance rates, I understand the desire to gain acceptance to any program and enroll faster than you can say "is there funding?". That's because the regret of attending a school that doesn't have a solid program for your needs comes much later, like 4 years down the road when you realize your department specializes in research and you really want to teach. Whoopses!

This is 100% preventable. Do your research. Ask about placement. Ask about how the program works. Try to talk to graduate students there. If nothing they are saying appeals to you, don't apply.

The end result is this: if you only apply to schools you'd actually go to and do well at, you really only need the one acceptance to be on your way. The only general advice I can give is to try to remain sane long enough to figure out the answers to these questions. Don't worry, I'll have lots of advice on how to make the months pass as you're waiting to hear back!

Read for Banned Books Week!

I'm a little late, but there's still plenty of time for us all to pick up some Challenged Books.

This, from the American Library Association Website:

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read

September 25−October 2, 2010

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

You can read more about it here.

I perused the list of some of the top challenged or banned classics and this list of books challenged or censored in the past decade. Due to scholarly duties I decided to focus on one of my longtime favorites, To Kill a Mockingbird. The ALA reports that this book is most frequently challenged for racism, offensive language, and being inappropriate for the age group.

Remember yesterday how I said I try to rein myself in sometimes? Yeah, well, not today.

First off, I am absolutely against these challenges. I love books rather mightily, as you might have guessed from my photo. But often these challenges don't even make sense. One of the reasons people consider To Kill A Mockingbird an important piece of literature is because of Harper Lee's treatment of rabid racism and the various methods of defiance of the racist regime employed by the Finches. The "offensive language", namely the n-word, is absolutely in context and used purposefully. And it is only inappropriate for the age group if there is no guidance from adults. With a teacher in the classroom, this should not be a problem.

I think many of us in academia take freedom of reading and of book choice for granted, but clearly that is a mistake. If you decide to read or reread a book on this list, leave the title in the comments. I'm always looking for recommendations and these lists are as good a place as any to start.

College Graduation Rates. Where to Start?

I believe the only beneficial part of Facebook's NewsFeed is that I can steal content my friends find and post it here. And that's what is happening today. Grad school survivor Jack posted this article about Obama's take on graduation rates. As with most things, I reacted with a mixture of excitement and fear.

Where this might go right: If financial aid reform increases access to universities by students who under the current system can't afford to enroll or finish a degree.

Where this might go wrong: If the burden falls onto the schools and professors to graduate out any and all students accepted and enrolled.

"The nation's education system", as the article calls it, does encompass a huge number of programs for preschool-age kiddies all the way to college and post-grad ed. I'm always shocked at the number of people who don't think that secondary and higher education are intertwined. Students gain acceptance to college based on their performance as reported by their secondary educational institution. If students aren't finishing degrees because they don't possess the necessary skills, it isn't enough to overhaul the college system.

Speaking very generally, I think a lot of college educators are tempted (even if they don't actually) to brush deficiencies in high school curricula off as not their problem. But when students enroll in your class, their problems are also your problems. I admit that I'm probably quite out of touch with what junior high and high school classes are like today. I was forced to admit this after learning that students in our classes might have been paddled by teachers. (The first quote in this article is fantastic, by the way, but the rest of it makes me sad.) What the heck else is going on in schools that I don't know about?

The bottom line is that I hope this call to increase graduation rates results in real changes and not quick fixes. Only time will tell. Also, I don't know whether to be concerned or relieved that my degree didn't make this list of college degrees that don't pay...

Opp Choice: To Inflate, or Not to Inflate

I was just going to skip June entirely, what with the Africa trip, the post-trip recovery session, and the pageant that is celebrating a birthday when friends and family are far-flung, but then a fellow grad student dropped this on my desk, which snapped me back to grad student reality.

Law School's Employment-Boosting Strategy: Grade Inflation

At first, I wasn't shocked, because I don't think this is particularly new, even leaving aside UofC's bucket of oddness. But then I thought about it again, because this article isn't just about grade inflation; it is about a variety of institutional coping mechanisms in the midst of rising debt and unemployment among recent graduates.

I'll tell you that I have never been ordered to raise or lower a grade based on an agreed-upon standard designed to boost students' post-education job opportunities. But I'll also tell you that I've seen graduate students, professors, and students themselves have radically different opinions on what a B paper looks like, let alone if any Ds or Fs should be handed out. We've all had instructors who love to give B-minuses on every assignment, and we've also probably had instructors who dole out the As for simply showing up and staying awake. Getting these instructors to agree on a grade scale based on the actual work would seem futile, but rallying them behind a "cause" to inflate might work.

I have to wonder if law schools have been doing this for awhile, and now the trend is just strong enough that more schools have to jump on the bandwagon just to keep up. I imagine that in law schools, where rankings are important and students often burden themselves with debt, managing expectations is important. In some academic positions where 6 spots open a year, a program can throw their hands up in the air and blame the hiring process, which is shrouded in much mystery. Law firm hiring may also be shrouded in mystery, but if you go to a school that will pay a firm to hire you, things might be a bit clearer.

Does this vary between programs, or between schools? Is grade inflation, at any level, becoming a problem? What do you think of some of these solutions to increased job competition? And, what will this mean for those of us who missed this mass inflation?

**For those waiting on an update on the trip, it will come after the 4th of July, once I can upload the billion pictures of elephants we took! Stay tuned.

Life Beyond Ding Dong Day

As most of you know, and many of you have obsessed over, April 15 is the deadline for responding to offers of admission. However, the story is far from over on April 15. Despite the increased waitlist activity and rapid-fire notifications that happen after the dreaded date, it is almost impossible to put that aside when you're waiting for offers to come in. Instead, you panic.

I handled my wait in a poor way: by hoarding and then eating tons of Ding Dongs. Even worse, I did this twice, once during my round of MA applications and then again for the PhD session. I cleared out the store's selection of Hostess snacks, then stacked the Ding Dong boxes in every available cabinet and moped around, talking about how when April 15 rolled around it would be Ding Dong Day and I could be released upon my processed treats like the Kraken.

So far I have only found one remedy for this sorry state of affairs, and that is "friends with a good sense of humor". My roommate once wrestled a Ding Dong out of my hands when I tried to eat one early in a fit of insanity. She also forced me to leave the apartment one day, took me to a park, and made me swing on a swingset until the wave of anxiety passed. She also, as you may recall, brought home a children's book about baby animals, which was both cute and the only thing I was capable of reading at the time. I remain grateful because even though I clearly needed an intervention, I wasn't aware of the depth of my obsession until I took a meaningful break to enjoy fresh air and look at adorable baby seals instead of my empty email inbox.

People, if you have a friend who has melted away during the application process, fear not. They can be brought back from the edge with a little concern and creativity. You might need to take initiative. Now is not the time to break out Schindler's List for a marathon evening of depression. Plan fun things and express support. Children's activities seem to work especially well: paint by numbers, play-doh, and jungle gyms were all things I enjoyed around Ding Dong Day.

And people who are waiting: take off the sweatpants, leave your house, stop sitting outside waiting for the mailman, and stop refreshing the page. For goodness sake, get off GradCafe. Two years in a row I missed early spring because I was reloading my email over and over. Learn from my mistakes.

Also, back away from the Ding Dongs.

Academic News

The good news: The Closest Thing to "Google History" We're Going to Get. Thanks, Britain!

The bad news: Lots of schools are seriously broke due to their endowment troubles. Here's a pictorial of the ones worst off.

The ugly news: You can buy your place off the waitlist at this school. For an explanation, see above link.

Grad Student Fashion Crisis: The Recruitment Visit

I am on "spring break", but there's been such a hullabaloo over what to wear to these visit weekends that I figured I'd come out of hiding to give my two cents.

You need two types of outfits: the business casual, and the casual. The exception is if someone states that the event is either formal or totally casual. Business casual means button-down shirt or sweater, belt, nice pants and non-sneaker shoes for men, and slacks or skirt, nice shirt or sweater, and dressier shoes for women. Everyone I've ever seen at a recruitment weekend was wearing some combination of these items. The casual is in case they have a party or a dinner with students, or if you decide to go out with some prospective cohort members.

The ideal situation is to bring mix-and-match items. One visit I went on had the meetings with professors and the student party on the same day, so I just wore my sweater all day and put on jeans in the evening. You pick up on these sorts of things after the fifth visit. To save you from some trouble, I've compiled a short list of the biggies.

Some specific advice:

1) BRING A BACKUP: I once went on a visit where the weather was so humid, my linen pants re-wrinkled and, since I was staying in a dorm room, I had no way to iron them. So I wore my backup skirt instead. I have also seen people spill wine on their pants at the opening reception and then have to wear the winey pants the next day to the general meeting. You don't have to be that person.

2) LAYER: Schools in cold climates tend to be uncomfortably warm inside. You wouldn't think it, but schools in warm climates are also freakishly warm inside, because everyone there still thinks it is freezing. Bring a cardigan, sport coat, pashmina, whatever you've got so you aren't shivering through the meet and greet, and for goodness sake don't wear a huge sweater with nothing underneath.

3) BRING SENSIBLE SHOES: Planned or unplanned, there is always a campus tour, so this isn't the weekend to break out the new, unworn shoes or the stilettos. Also, whenever things run late you'll be expected to book it to the next event. Nursing a blister is not an option. I once ran full-speed through a building to arrive on-time to a meeting with a Big Wig, and I was never so appreciative of ballet flats.

4) DON'T GUESS: If you're still unconvinced, don't be afraid to ask the graduate coordinator. They have answered far stranger questions than "What is the dress code?".

Who Let The Students Out?

I'm a little concerned about this: The Case Against College Education

First, let me explain. I don't think college is appropriate for everyone. I also don't think a college degree should be required for every job; why a local ice cream shoppe is screening for college degrees, I do not know. I also fully support technical and vocational training, both as an alternative to and in addition to so-called "traditional" college.

Still, I have to question the author's choice of approach. Not only does he challenge the notion that people don't need four expensive years of college to be well-rounded (likely true, at least in theory), he claims that socially-mandated college is "tell[ing] millions of kids that their future depends on performing a task that only a minority of them can actually accomplish". Not that the kids shouldn't have to go, or don't want to go, but that they actually are unable to obtain a college degree.

Why, exactly, can "only a minority" obtain a degree? Do they lack the critical reading and writing skills to do well? If so, they certainly won't fare well in many professions, including the author's suggestion of journalism. Do they lack the direction and drive necessary for college? That could also be a serious impediment to success in "the real world".

I don't know about you all, but I had some bad teachers. I had a few bad professors too, but none of them were as educationally devastating as bad teachers. (The one coming to mind actually refused to learn our names, and instead addressed us by assigned number. She also had a penchant for ripping up homework assignments and then marking them incomplete. Talk about a wasted year.) I also had some amazing teachers, but they were bound by a lot of school district bunk. It basically meant that instead of learning to write effectively, we had to wait around until we'd learned everything that was going to be on the Prairie State Achievement Exam. Another wasted year, though less filled with fear. But when I graduated, I knew a lot about similes, metaphors, and quadratic equations and not a lot about artful communication, practical skills, or how to formulate and achieve long-term goals.

A lot of my best education, inside and out of the curriculum, came in college. I left college feeling like I had options. No matter if I decided to be a doctor or a puppeteer, I hadn't gone wrong. If I'd had to make my career choice when I was 17, I think I'd be in real deep doo-doo right now.

Fortunately for me and the future students I need to fill up my classes so I remain employed, some people aren't accepting this author's take on kids' inability to finish college, and are actually trying to do something about dismal graduation rates. I like to call it the Academic Bailout. The article makes it sound like they're throwing money at the problem, but at least they're looking for underlying reasons for why people aren't finishing their degrees. I'd always rather have answers than assertions.

Research Adventures, Part 2

Daring guest blogger survived Day 2 and sends us this message:

Archives Day Two:


So remember when I said that I got yelled out for setting off the security alarm? Well, the guard who in her mind rolled her eyes at me about 4,000 times yesterday actually greeted me with a smile. It was probably because I wasn’t lugging a suitcase with me, but I will say that Day Two went way smoother.


I actually made it up to the Archives room today. Not without issue, of course. Around 11, when I knew my requests had been processed, I walked up the marble staircase to the second floor. People had mentioned all about the Archives being “upstairs” so I figured that those stairs would get me somewhere. But I ended up on the mezzanine where the twin staircases met. There was nothing but an Edwardian era elevator and doors with swipe-card access. The elevator opened and two men in suits asked me if I was lost. I said I was looking for the archives room. By this time we were headed up to the 5th floor and they instructed me to hit the big button labeled 2 which would get me there, and it did.


I then spent the rest of the day engrossed in ship’s logs from the 1850s that still held the smell of the sea in them. Or maybe it was mold. Still, it was way cool. Sailors who misbehaved in the early 1850s were flogged. Sailors in the later 1850s were put in irons. When sailors got too sick and had to be taken back to the United States, they were listed as “condemned”. Not a very promising outlook if you ask me.


It’s looking like most of my research is going to be on microfilm, which is a good thing, as it’s much easier to sort through. But there is something great about the smell of an old book. Maybe I’m just sniffing too much old glue.

Research Adventures!

To give us a taste of what it is like to research in the Grand Poobah of archives, I've asked a daring guest blogger to report from the inside. Here is what she says of the start of her adventure:

National Archives in D.C.:

written by a Ph.D. student researching/writing/stressing over her dissertation.

Day One:

Things to know about the archive experience:

1) You get to go through the back door, which is cool.

2) Security is tighter than in airports. I highly advise you to bring as little as possible to the Archives since they will treat you like a moron, particularly if you really are the moron that brought your overnight bag with you.

3) If you are wearing your coat, do not remove it when passing through security. You will start to because it’s a million degrees and you know that your coat will set off the metal detector, but then they will yell at you to leave it on, then yell at you when you set off the alarm. Once you set off the metal detector, they will then use a wand and tell you that your coat set off the alarm.

4) Bring a quarter. You get to store all your stuff in huge lockers so at least if you are the moron who brings all her stuff, you can at least find a place to store it.

5) Visualize being a camel. You may not drink, eat, take off your sweater, bring a case for your computer or camera, or bring paper or writing implements into “Archive I”. Downstairs they are more relaxed, but do not even think about screwing up upstairs. More on these adventures tomorrow.

6) In all however, people are extremely helpful and just doing their job. Mr Johnson, a middle aged man wearing what looks like a Navy jacket, was particularly helpful. He determined that a big chunk of what I’m looking for is on microfilm which is great (I think) and helped me fill out the request form for the archives (see #7).

7) The archives contain enough paper that if places end to end would circle the earth 57 times. Or 57 million times. Or something like that. This is a big place and while some is organized, be prepared to spend a lot of time searching. And searching. They like their indexes in booklets placed in binders there. Preferably if the booklets were printed before 1957.

Stay tuned for more reports from the front lines of dissertating!

Quick Guide to Boxing Books

All right folks, I have eleven hours before before I start revising the fifth draft. So all I have left in me is this:

How to Pack Books

Let's face it, an academic's net worth is mostly in books. Together they are far and away the most expensive thing I own, and I'm not about to risk the lives of my babies because my job requires me to move them about the country. Here's how to pack them!

1) Find medium-sized boxes. Unless you are a part-time body builder, a large box is a mistake. If you are reusing boxes, make sure the box is not damp or damaged.

2) Reinforce the bottom with packing tape. A lot.

3) Wrap delicate or special books in packing paper. You may think you should wrap books in plastic or in bags to protect them. Do not do this! If you are very concerned about dampness, line the bottom and sides of the box with a plastic or garbage bag. If you are going to be storing the books for a long period of time, wrap books in acid-free paper.

4) Put large hardcover books flat against the bottom of the box, with the spine against the sides of the box. Stack paperbacks on top of them. Fill open spaces by placing books sideways, always with the spine down.

5) Lift the box halfway through packing to make sure it isn't too heavy. If you don't fill a box, stuff the top and open spaces with the packing paper or big bubble wrap.

6) Seal the top and sides of the box with tape. Mark the box well.

Other Tips:
-If ever you wanted to catalog your books, now is the time. It will never be easier.

-It might help to pack books according to general theme. That way, if you find yourself needing to look at a book about tobacco growth in seventeenth-century Virginia, you can just open the box with "Early America" books in it.

-Check for library books or borrowed books before you pack. This sounds like a no-brainer but you'll be kicking yourself when the library is hollering for their Stedman critical edition and you aren't sure which of the 18 boxes it is in.

Hopefully this will be of some use as we all prepare to scatter once again!

Status Update: You're Busted

There has been a lot of discussion about Facebook's advantages and horrifying pitfalls. A great way to keep track of friends' addresses, birthdays, and life events: yes. A potential reputation abyss: also yes! With bosses now screening the Facebook profiles of potential employees and police using Facebook statuses, groups, and photos to arrest people, there are plenty of reasons to keep your profile clean.

The problem, then, is not what you do to your profile, but what others do to it.

So you friended that fellow fraternity pledge back in freshman year and promptly forgot about it. Now you're a fancy TA, and while you're trying to talk about econometrics, your students are all on Facebook looking at that Beer Pong Championship photo he tagged you in. Suddenly your victory is not so awesome anymore!

It takes some real profile wrangling to undo this kind of damage. Luckily, Will has alerted me to an article that may help a bit:

Do This Now

After poking around the site and playing with all of the privacy settings, the two best things to do (in my opinion) are to disable photo search functions, and manage your networks and settings. Students shouldn't be able to see your profile, at all -- make it friends-only. And unless you've got some seriously questionable taste in movies, the biggest single issue on the profile is your name tagged on photos you did not upload yourself. Facebook's answer to these issues isn't perfect, but at least you get some control over what other people can see and search for.

Grad School: A Glossary

Every so often, a non-academic reader (I have those!!!) will ask me what the heck I am talking about as I spew some alphabet soup sentence like, "OMG I can't believe what that ABD said to the DGS". Fair enough. Here are some basic terms and my take on all of them.

ABD: all-but-dissertation. No more classes, just writing. Major academic milestone, akin to learning to crawl.

AdComm: Admissions Committee, usually some assortment of faculty that read through the application files and ultimately decide your future.

CGS: Council of Graduate Schools. Most relevant is their membership list and their resolution, which stipulates that applicants have until April 15th to decide on their offers. Non-CGS members do love exploding offers. Stand back.

Comps: Comprehensive Exams, also qualifying exams or quals. Involves reading, writing about and talking about hundreds of books. Something of a hazing ritual, it quantifies your life.

DGS: Director of Graduate Studies, i.e. Grad Director. A faculty member saddled with the administrative responsibility of keeping us students from falling off the academic wagon.

Diss.: no, not an insult, but rather a dissertation. Can also be a verb, 'to diss' or 'to dissertate'.

Funding: Money. The dough. Cash. Moo-lah. Comes in full, partial, or nonexistent varieties.

Grad Coordinator: A wonderful human being employed in the department office who will help you run your grad student life. Bring them cookies and never make them angry.

LOR: Letter of recommendation. I blathered on at length about these sometime in February.

SOP: Statement of purpose. Describes in some detail why you and your project are awesome. More on this later.

As Kristina once said, we grad students speak our own language, but fear not, readers who have real lives: while true fluency requires enrollment in the program of your choice, real-worlders can definitely become conversational in Ivory Towerish.

A Tang Thang

There is something about the graduate school admissions process that resembles the state of nature. I'm not even talking Hobbes/Locke/Rousseau here -- though by all means nasty and brutish, the admissions game is by no means short, and reason most definitely does not govern it. I mean the state of nature which preceded such "natural precepts" as striving for peace in favor of the natural precept "I want that banana, so gimme it or I will end you", where a funded acceptance might serve as the proverbial plantain.

Let us examine the following possible scenarios of the process. In honor of fellow crazed student Maggie's impending birthday, I have solicited the help of her favorites, the orangutans (afterward Tang), to provide a visual component to this study.

There are four general outcomes to the process, with each having several substages. If I can get a social scientist to diagram that for me later, we can explore those further. For now, we'll stick to the main categories: Acceptance, Waitlist, Rejection, and Nuttin'.

The good news first! Acceptance!

In the state of nature it resembles this:




Go, you! You're in! You are on your way to the highest tree in the forest, the ivory tower of nature, if you will. You might as well go beserk from the treetops and let everybody know: you are going to be Dr. Tang!

Less immediately enthralling is the Waitlist...

Which looks, both in the state of nature and in whatever state you reside in, like this:



Sad Tang. You are ranked somewhere between first alternate and eightieth. The admissions committee may or may not tell you this information. It is also possible that they may be lying to you. About everything. Adding to your misery is the fact that the goddang Accepted Tang is swinging about the jungle, throwing nuts and berries all over the place, and you just wish his vine would break already.

Still, it could be worse.

It could be Rejection.

I need no words. Big Aman here is taking care of it.



A lot of programs receive 200-plus applications for about 10 slots. That means each program produces at least 190 Big Amans annually between January and April. Multiply 190 and the hundreds and hundreds of programs, and add in Yale which rejects roughly a gajillion people per annum, for the total number of rejected applicants in the Big Aman army. The result is terrifying.

So it isn't really a wonder why the Adcoms like to play their Wild Card: Total Lack of Information!


No, Sad Eyes and Pouty Lip won't make the DGS return your calls, answer your emails, update the status website, or otherwise acknowledge you as a human/primate/whatever being. It is better for them if you exist in a state of anxiety, constantly refreshing the webpage and hitting redial, than for them to give any concrete information that might result in them a) having to prepare the campus for the giddy swingers, b) having to deal with Eternal Waitlistees, or c) facing their Big Amans.

It remains unclear if the graduate school itself is a civil society. I will report more on this in the future. In the meantime, I will give a shoutout to Wildcat U, which has ensured that this blog can exist for the next 5-15 years. ::throws nuts and berries::