The watch that I wear belonged to my grandfather. It's the kind that you have to wind up periodically. When fully wound, it runs a bit fast. Towards the end of the day it runs a bit behind. But as long as I remember to wind it every night, it's pretty accurate on average. My graduate-school experience has run to a timetable every bit as erratic as my watch.

My first few years went by quickly. Classes came at me in double time. No sooner had I finished my fledgling experiments than my qualifying exam was upon me. My first few years of graduate school were one of those frantic black-and-white films from the 1920s. But the last year has been a silent art film: poignant and slower. My final few experiments seem to unfold frame-by-frame. Every minute at the lab bench makes graduation seem a more distant prospect.

I think of my grandfather often when I wind my watch. Doing so puts things in some perspective. My grandfather overcame much greater obstacles in war-time Holland. He took enormous pride in doing what he believed in and doing it well. Winding my watch reminds me, too, that time always seems to balance out in the end. The thrill and rush of starting a scientific project inevitably give way to a more measured period of working out the details. Although eager to graduate, I'm willing to trust that finishing a PhD I'll be proud of is well worth the extra time.