I'm not sure how it works, but I think I've experienced time speeding up, slowing down and stopping during these graduate school years.

I now expect time to accelerate, and more computers to crash, as a deadline looms. When I am anticipating an exciting result and have to wait for a colorimetry reaction to develop, an hour feels like half a day. An afternoon of dilutions can feel like an eternity of boredom.

Our lab has no windows. It is easy, especially when one works through lunch, to forget what time it is. The lab sits at 43° N; in the depths of winter one can arrive at work under a starry sky, and leave at the end of the day long after the Sun has set on a cold and snowy Toronto. It is spookily easy to lose track of the days passing.

My favourite time-bending experience usually catches me by surprise. When I dive into a problem, a book or an editing project, hours pass unnoticed. It is usually the rumbling of an unattended stomach that finally yanks me back to the reality that I'm late to meet my friends for dinner. I wish I could explain how my tardiness can stem from time-warping in the lab, yet I simultaneously give thanks that this is one effect that I don't need to explain to pass my thesis defence.