"Once upon a time there was a student who wrote a dissertation. At the end of his rope and convinced his committee didn't care about the damn thing anyway, he took a chance.
A little ways in, he wrote in the middle of one paragraph, "If you're still reading this, I'll buy you a beer."
A bit later, he did it again. "If you've made it this far, I'll buy you a whole six-pack," he wrote.
Further on, he decided, what the hell. "If you're actually still reading, I'll buy you an entire keg!" he added to the end of one particularly intricate argument.
When he got to his defense, his advisor chuckled, clapping him on the back. "You, my boy, owe me a six-pack!" he said with a knowing wink."
It would be even funnier if it weren't so true for so many people! Times like this I'm glad my dissertation 80% project/20% writing instead of slogging out 200+ pages of head trauma. Much love to the person who posted this joke in one of the grad student communities I frequent.
Now, to make the subject line doubly meaningful, I promise to buy myself a beer when I'm done writing this paper.
