The sexiest career in the world

Oh is it ever sexy to be a French graduate student. Not only is academia inherently sexy, but French! Oh la la! A typical day involves at least ten torrid affairs with men (and women!) who smell like Gauloises, not to mention the consumption of several bottles of Cotes du Rhone.

And yet, no. Grad school is fantastic, but as Daniel Drezner notes, responding to William Deresiewicz's complaint about the inaccurate portrayal of university life in movies and books, academia is not the scandalous den of sin the media would have you believe. Seriously. I'm in a humanities program, and believe me when I point out that there was significantly more student-teacher scandal (consensual and otherwise) at my math-and-science high school when I was there than I've noticed at the graduate level. If it were otherwise, I'd keep quiet on this topic, but there's nothing scandalous, so speak up I must.

Inspired by Drezner, I'm going to offer a day in the life of a real-life grad student:

-Purchase 1 1/2 pounds of ground coffee.
-Read Popkin's history of Modern France in coffee shop--free A/C with the purchase of an iced coffee!
-Check Facebook for new gossip: no new gossip.
-Unsuccessful attempt to find frame for Herzl and other posters. Slightly embarrassing moment when Park Slope frame store worker unravels giant picture of Herzl.
-Decide to leave iPod home when running errands, also in Park Slope. Hear woman discuss how "all Blackberries (blackberries?) in the city should be run over."