in grad school most of your time is spent alone. you read alone, you write alone, you spend countless hours editing what you have just written only to determine you have no idea what you are talking about, then you publish. lather, rinse, repeat.
it is a pretty solitary life which makes reaching out to people all the more imporant. social events are more than just a drink or just a friendly get together they become breaths of fresh air, reasons to emerge from the hermit existence and suspend the lonely existence we've picked for ourselves. a coffee outside of your apartment becomes an almost sinful experience, every minute you spend not working there is a part of your mind that tells you that you should probably get back to work.
but we don't always get back to work, we blog, we go for coffee, we organize nights at the pub with our peers to keep ourselves from going crazy.
sometimes the hardest thing to do is to put pen to paper.