Goodbye 2008

You have been especially good to me.

At the end of most years, I feel that I had some good and bad times but nothing has really changed in my life. But you were different. I will remember you as that special year when I:
Got my doctorate degree.
Published my first two academic papers.
Got my first post doc job.
Moved to a new city.
Started an almost real life with J.
Started a new blog (and even managed to complete half-century just in time!)
And last but not the least, witnessed a historical change in world politics.

I know you have not been good to everyone around the world. Apart from the illnesses, heartaches and bad lucks, a lot of people lost their lives, loved ones, jobs, possessions, rights and faith this year due to senseless terrorism, wars, natural calamities, crashing economies and other such evils.

Hope the new year brings happy changes..and only happy changes..in my life, in every one's life.

Welcome 2009!

Blocked

Need to write 2 manuscripts, 1 abstract, 1 progress report.
Can't make myself write a single word in spite of sitting at home and getting utterly bored.
Thought will try to break the writer's block by blogging.
Can't think of anything to write here either!
What's wrong with me??

Marriage: Shouldn't it be a happy subject?

Majority of Californian citizens voted in favor of banning gay marriage in the state. Protests and rallies are being held against this decision all over the state and media is having a field day.

This whole issue brought up some random thoughts in my mind:

On one hand more and more heterosexual couples who have right to get married, do not care about getting married. And on the other hand, homosexual couples who want to, are not allowed to. It seems sadly funny that we always want what we can't have and don't want the things that we can have.

It seems like a hypocrisy too that the people who are banning gay-marriage are not banning pre-marital sex, adultery and divorce. Aren't these against the 'holy institution of marriage' as well?

Why can't we live our lives on our own ideals and let others do the same? Is that so difficult to do or is it that we just love fighting against each other to keep our lives from getting peacefully boring? I think its the second one.

Yay for President Obama!!!

..and yay to Ohio that finally turned blue..and of course to a very blue California. This year no one can make fun of me anymore as many did in 2004.

Only one regret:
Wish I could vote for him today :)

Thanks to all the people who did..all over the country!

Men will be men

Obama tells journalists that today is his 15th wedding anniversary, when its actually 16th.
Ouch! Even the best of the lot can't be trusted when it comes to silly romantic things.

At least he bought a nice bouquet for his wife :)

Durga Puja and me

I don’t believe in religion and their rituals. But anyone who has lived in Bengal or attended any Durga puja celebration even outside Bengal will know that these celebrations have very little to do with religion for most people. It is about taking time off from mundane daily life, dressing up, meeting friends and extended family, eating to heart’s content and so on. So being born a Bengali, Durga puja has been an integral part of my life. But with time my feelings towards this festival has changed again and again.

When I was a kid Durga puja meant lots of new clothes, no studies for 5 days and spending all these days in the Bengali Club of wherever we were living those days. My mom would dress me up early in the morning and then I was free to run around all day with the few Bengali friends I had in these places. It meant eating all kinds of good food and attending the cultural programs. The last part was kind of boring but since my mom always performed, so I was kind of proud to be given front row seats and all and stayed put for few hours without giving my parents any trouble. Overall it seemed to be really ‘special time’ and I used to eagerly wait for these few days of the year.

Things changed as I grew up and by the time I was in high school and college, the ‘special time’ feeling was lost. In spite of living in Calcutta at that time, I had absolutely no interest in participating in the madness going around. I still got lots of new clothes but going shopping in the crowded stored seemed like a crazy idea and the only reason I went shopping is because my mom dragged me to the shops. Having no classes was fun especially in college when I got full one-month holiday!! During the 5 days of puja I would mostly sit at home watching tv or reading Puja barshikis (big fat compilation of brand new novels, short and long stories, poetry, articles etc. that the various publishing houses bring out at this time of the year). At night I would sit in my 3^rd floor balcony in my PJs, watching the mad crowd passing by. Joining them seemed like the stupidest thing to do, and only severe blackmails from my parents and close friends could occasionally make me go out for pandal-hopping or eating out.

Then I moved to US to join grad school. Attending Indian functions was not at all on my mind when I was excitedly packing my bags before moving. But after 2 months of moving, it was Durga puja time. And suddenly I felt really sad that I was sitting in a class or lab and I can’t go shopping for new clothes, I can’t go out with friends for pandal hopping, I can’t eat all the junk street food. To my own surprise I was missing the crowd, the noise and the whole madness.  I spent all day looking at online puja tours of the famous pujas in Calcutta, the same ones that I never bothered to go to when I was living there.

Then some seniors in my university mentioned that they are driving down some 2 hours to attend the nearest puja the next weekend. Even before they could ask me, I was totally ready to go with them. Luckily I found two old salwar kameezes at the bottom of my suitcase. Got up early on a Saturday morning, wore one of the two clothes I found, rode with my friends all the way to the neighboring state and spent an ENTIRE DAY at that place. The most amazing part to me was that I was thoroughly enjoying the Americanized version of the well-known festival. All the ridiculously over-dressed people who changed clothes every few hours (as 5 days of puja was compressed into 1 day), one whole afternoon of Bengali cultural program with kids reciting Bengali poetry in American accent, the insane amount of food every few hours (again because of the compressed schedule) and even some of the religious rituals…everything seemed lovely, cute and fun. The ‘special time’ feeling was back.

 

But as the years passed everything seemed routine, predictable and boring. Every year I made sure to bring Indian clothes from home (even made others bring some the years when I couldn’t go home) and drove hours to attend the nearest ceremony, but all that seemed to be more because of not wanting to be counted as an outcast among the few good Bengali friends I had in the small town. I didn’t feel sad about being at work on the actual puja days or I didn’t spend time online watching the webcam tours anymore. The ‘special time’ feeling started to wear off again.

 

Its that time of the year again. I moved 2 months ago to a new city. I don’t have any Bengali friends here. And suddenly once again I’m sad. This weekend I did google search and discovered that there are 4-5 pujas within 50 miles radius of my home throughout this month (one even on the actual dates instead of a compressed weekend version!), I have one suitcase packed with Indian clothes accumulated from last few years, but I have no Bengali friends to go with. And suddenly once again I feel sad. Since last two days I’m missing all the things I did in that 1-day compressed Americanized Durga Puja during my grad school days. Some famous Bengali band was performing in one of the puja venues here last night. I felt sad that I am not attending it even though I don’t even know a single song by them and I’m pretty sure I won’t care about them even if I knew one.  But I kept playing random Bengali songs on youtube all of Sunday morning.

I think this has somewhat scared J. He gave a feeble hint that he might be willing to go with me to one of these places next week. Poor J…he avoids such social functions much more than I do. He doesn’t even go to Onam celebrations in spite of the temptations of his favorite Malayali food! Let’s see what happens next weekend.

Happy festive times everyone! 

Demands and Expectations

A friend of mine broke-up with her bf couple of weeks ago. Another friend and I were talking about this sad situation today and this other friend said about the first girl "She was too demanding and expected too much from him. They were dating only for a year. One can't be demanding and expect their partner to give their 100% (will do anything and everything for you type of commitment) in such early stage of a relationship."

Does that mean one can be demanding and have higher expectations after few years of relationship? 

I personally think one cannot. We do so just because we get more comfortable 'demanding' and 'expecting' things but I'm sure the effect is never good.

What do more experienced people say? In few years can I expect J to really stop reading slashdot when I am telling him about some very interesting piece of gossip?

Formula of success

A is an intelligent, hardworking person.
B is equally intelligent and hardworking, if not more.

A is very successful in life, personal and professional.
B is not much so in either.

A is a jolly person and always nice to everyone, even when others don't deserve niceness.
B is always grumpy, even when others are nice to him/her.

One would think that the reason of A's niceness is because of his/her successful life, whereas B is bitter because life has not been sweet to him/her.

But I have a strong feeling, its the other way around. I think I agree with whoever said "Success is not the key to happiness, happiness is the key to success."

Looking for parking in Berkeley?

(NL: Nobel Laureate)

Get a Nobel Prize :D

Postdoc life begins..

This is what the safety training people in my new job think of scientists and they are making very sure that I don't become one :)

New home

So after a real hectic move in a very short time I am finally in California!

There's a lot to be excited about. Being near J, new job, lovely weather, city life with public transport and actual restaurants. But the thing that I am most excited about is that there is a hindi movie theater just walking distance from my new home! :D

I think I can live here :)

The mother-in-law gene

Yesterday I went to lunch with my host family (a local American family who volunteers to help international students during their stay in this university). The family consists of an old lady (S), her daughters, son and daughter-in-law (V).

Now S is a really nice person. She is extremely helpful, never judgmental or interfering, always politically correct, highly intellectual and well-read (knows much more about Indian history and current affairs than I do!) and an activist for social and environmental causes. In simple words, she is someone whom anyone can instantly respect.

V was my fellow PhD student who completed her degree just couple of months ago.

During our lunch yesterday, I was amazed to see that S kept making V feel bad about the fact that she does not have a post doc offer and highlighting that I have one. I know how bad it feels when you don't have a job and people ask about it, let alone compare with someone else. I can only imagine how bad she felt when a family member was embarrassing her in front of an outsider. V just sat there quietly.

Its not that S has reasons to be ashamed of V. V is very intelligent (she actually made me nervous with her knowledge during a class we took together and she even co-authors a paper in Nature!!). Its just that she can afford to be picky about the job (she doesn't have to worry about visa issues) and so she is taking her time to find the best possible option.

The thing that made me angrier is when one of her daughters came back to town couple of years ago after resigning from her job, S was just too happy to have her back and even let her stay with her for many months.

I would think someone like S will be equally nice to her daughter and daughter-in-law, but I felt that the mother-in-law gene can get activated even in the nicest women. Sigh!

I got what I really wanted!

Five signatures on a sheet of paper that says I have a doctoral degree now. :D
Yipppeee!!!

Do you know what you really want?

Asks Jessica Alba in a very motivating tone. She answers her own question. She says what she really wants is a foundation that matches her skin color.

Wonderful thing to achieve definitely, but hard to believe that's all she wants :D

I wish we girls had such simple needs. Really!

Physics

"Distance makes the heart grow fonder."

What happens when the distance decreases?

Secret life of P

Ok finally I could make myself type again!
After typing 30,000+ words, I didn't think I would ever again
Yessss..I submitted my dissertation 3 days ago :)
Final defense is in two weeks and I should be dead scared right now, but I guess my brain is still numb to feel anything.

So while I'm in this numb state of mind, I think I will do the 'Secrets' tag for Poo. I am very secretive and might not be able to confess my deep dark secrets in a normal state of mind .

Ok, so I am supposed to tell 10 secrets about me. Since no one in the blog world knows me personally, pretty much anything I write will be new. But I will try to think of some "true" secrets. After all, the whole purpose of my blogging is to write down things that I can't say out loud. So here it goes:

1. People around me know that I am very close to my parents, but no one knows that how possessive I am about them. I am the only child and used to getting all their attention. So anytime my cousins or any other kid came to visit us, I used to be very, very jealous. I would pray that they leave soon and do all kind of tantrums (like faking sickness) to get attention . To be honest, I still feel little jealous when they keep talking about their 6 year old neighbor.

2. When I was 6-7 years old, I stole (as in took without asking) a Strepsils from my neighbor's desk. I thought it was a biiiig Poppins and was kind of angry at my neighbor for not sharing it with me. So I decided to help myself. If you ever had a Strepsils in your life, you probably can imagine how I was punished for my bad deed.

3. I am very adventurous with food. I can eat (may not always like it) anything that doesn't appear gross and that another human being next to me is eating. Some of the weird things I ate when none of my friends wanted to try are bheja fry (fried goat brain), frog legs and chicken gizzard. I must say they tasted pretty good :)

4. Talking of eating, one of my regular nightmares is that I have lost some of my teeth!! I have no idea why I get this nightmare all the time. Anyone knows dream analysis?
The other nightmare that I get often is being unimaginably late for something (class, train, plane, etc.). I think subconsciously I hate my habit of doing all things on the eleventh hour.

5. I don't remember any of my good dreams after I wake up, but I remember all my daydreams. As my profile says, I am a compulsive daydreamer. I think about future a lot and to the finest details. The fun part is that a lot of my daydreams have come true to the minutest details :) For example, long before I decided about my career I simply dreamt of working in US. I would imagine different professions at different times, but every time I will imagine living in an apartment in some place of US with a roommate, doing all chores myself etc. It was like deja vu when I first arrived in US and started living with my first roomie :)

6. Currently I live alone. Some of my friends think I must be very unhappy to be living by myself. But actually I love, love, love living alone. I always did. Anytime my parents went out for the day, I used to feel like the king (ok queen). The last two years have been the happiest time of my life. And to tell you a bigger secret, I am really scared to move to CA because very soon I might be living with J and won't have the whole house to myself :(

7. My friends were very surprised when they heard about J for the first time because I never showed interest in dating. They thought of me as the most unromantic person. What they don't know is I have been a hopeless romantic since ever and always believed in the 'someone somewhere' philosophy :) I just don't believe in casual dating or kissing every frog coming my way.

8. My first major crush was on a neighbor. He was the heart-throb of all girls in my school and he was quite a casanova too. To him I was just the ugly kid whom he has to (against his wishes) escort to school everyday :) Now we are friends though and he even calls himself my 'fan' on orkut. I don't have any romantic feelings for him anymore, but I still feel happy whenever he writes to me.

9. I always loved going to school (duh..that's why I am still in school). But, I hated going to my music school. I love music and singing, but the problem was that my mom sent me to an Indian classical music class and I totally hated it. So every Sunday I will have fake stomach aches, cough and one time I even tried getting a fever by putting an onion under my arms (got the idea from some brilliant bollywood movie ). Sometimes my tricks worked too! The other times, I would go to the class and lie to the teacher that we had guests at home and that is why I couldn't do my homework (i.e. practice the aa-aa-aas). I never had to lie about my school homework though :)

10. My profile says that I am ambitious. The secret here is that I have some crazy ambitions, such as being part of research projects that will take me to space or Antarctica or get me a Nobel Prize!! For now, I feel happy knowing profs who have achieved these or hold a cardboard cutout of the Nobel Prize.


Pheeww....thinking of 10 secrets is more difficult than I thought!

I think everyone I know has already done this tag. If not, please consider yourself tagged and share your deep dark secrets too. :)

Wrong number

In the past month at least half a dozen visitors to my blog landed here by searching for 'dump a man' or 'dump a married man'!!
Google seems to have mixed up the name of my blog and a post I did on a TV series called 'The mind of the married man' :D

If you are one of those readers, I'm sorry to say I cannot be of any help to you. I have absolutely no experience with married men or dumping any kind of men. I only dump my thoughts here and occasionally make fun of my very single man.

Google engineers, if you happen to be reading this by any chance, can you please do something to stop such mix-ups?

Lucky Friday the 13th

6 black blobs on a Western blot makes P the happiest girl on the planet :D
Yooohoooooo!!

Spreading the nerdism

Tagged by another geeky grad student Solitaire. This is a fun tag about books. But, unfortunately the 'fun' part goes missing from the life of grad students :(
You can skip to the red paragraph in the end if you are interested in some guessing games.

OK, so here are the rules of the game:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

I have two text books just next to my computer right now. I picked one and guess what, page 123 has a full page graph and and only two sentences in the caption!!

Hi hi..very tempting opportunity to stop, but I decided to try the second one.

So here are the 6th, 7th and 8th sentences on page 123 from 'Programmed Cell Death in Plants' by John Gray:

"E2F homologs of Arabidopsis build a small gene family with three members (Vandepoele et al., 2002).
Constitutive misexpression of E2Fa resulted in enlarged cotyledons due to prolonged cell proliferation (see also Figure 5.1 De Veylder et al., 2002).
The proliferation rate was dramatically increased when the E2F cofactor, DPa, was coexpressed."

Sounds like a foreign language? You are not alone. Doesn't make much sense to me either :D

Ok let's make this game little interactive for my non-specialist friends.
I'm posting the cover of the book. Can anyone guess what the picture is of? (Hint: It is of course a plant part, and it is taken by a very powerful microscope that can make micro-nano millimeter sized things look life-size).


Not tagging anyone.

What goes around comes around

Conversation between me and J sometime in 2005-06:

Me: I love the song 'Koi faryad' from 'Tum bin'. Have you heard of it?

J: Yeah. Nice song but don't remember the details. What is special about it?

Me: Well, other than the fact that it is a Jagjit Singh song and picturized on Priyanshu Chatterjee, I like the subtle romance in it. Even the dialogues in between are so nice. There is a scene in the hospital where Priyanshu says to Sandali "Janta hun apko saharey ki zarurat nahi, main sirf saath dene aaya hun (I know you do not need any support, I just came here to give you company)". I love his sensitivity and respect for the girl's independent nature!

J: Hmm.


FAST FORWARD....

Conversation between me and J last night:

Me: I am fed up with so much nonsense work (was referring to all the official work related to graduation, OPT application, job application and things that I will need to do when I move after graduation). You are happily sitting 2000 miles away. Why don't you come here and do at least some of the 'manly' work for me? I will need to get rid of some heavy furniture, get my car serviced etc. etc.

J: Hmm. But I thought you want to be independent and don't want anyone to support you. Remember you told me about that song! I call you everyday. See, I'm being so sensitive and respectful.


How does he remember only the things that he can use against me??
But yes, considering he calls his parents once a week and his friends twice a year, one call EVERYDAY is quite sensitive :p

Happy to be alive

I have been cribbing about work and all other problems. Today, I'm just thankful I'm alive and safe. What made me so grateful?

A tornado hit our area last night. My labmate and I were on the road when her fiance called and warned us that a tornado warning has been issued for our area. We were still about 15 minutes away from home. We were really scared because there was hardly any place to take shelter on either side of the road. The frequency of lightning and amount of rain kept increasing as we kept getting closer to our town. I don't know how I managed to keep driving with minimum visibility, hail hitting our car and a very shaky leg :) Finally we found a office to take shelter in. The care taker of the office was really nice, let us and few others in. We were sitting in their basement listening to the radio until the storm passed by. Some reports say that it touched down lightly just about a mile from where we were! No major harm done. Some uprooted trees and light posts and power failure in some areas. We came back home but the siren kept going on for another hour and news reporters kept telling that there might be another one coming. I was really scared all night. Was sitting in the middle of the house away from the windows and calling my friends and family. Went to sleep thinking that I might wake up in a different place :p

Fortunately I woke up in the same place :)

I am happy today to be not blown away and really grateful that no one was harmed.

And among all this, a dear friend, who has been like my elder sister since the day I arrived in this alien place, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl!!

Life is strange but not bad :)

Calvin knows best

Time to get back to 'inflating weak ideas, obscuring poor reasoning and inhibiting clarity'. Sigh!

Current status

I am excited!! Reason: I was tagged for the first time, by cute little Poo. Even more exciting is the fact that this is a brand new tag that she created herself. I love novelty!

So here it goes:

Reading: Journals, journals and more journals :( Blogs are my only non-work read these days. Sitting on my table to be read next are 'Unaccustomed earth' by Jhumpa Lahiri, 'The Idiot' by Fyodor Doetoevsky and 'The Day of the Jackal' by Frederick Forsyth. Guess they have to wait till August :(

Finished reading: Haven't read a real book since Feb. Squeezed in 'One night at the call center' by Chetan Bhagat few weeks ago though. Didn't like it at all.

Listening to: 'Viva la vida' by Coldplay.

Wearing: Nah, you don't need to know that :p

Watching: All the shows I watched got over last week. Right now the movie 'Save the last dance' is playing on TV. Have seen it a dozen times. So not really watching. Just looking at Sean Patrick Thomas and Julia Stiles and their smooth moves :) Planning to watch 'Sex and the city' movie as soon as I can find some girls to go with.

Thinking: Too tired to think. Effect of a late afternoon 2 hour long brainstorming(!!!) session with the adviser :(

Loving: The lovely weather. Hope it stays for some time.

Hating: Everyone who is going home or any other vacation for summer.

Missing: Being around people. Seems like I talk to people through phone or net more these days!

Wishing: That I wake up to find that it is August. All work gets magically done while I was sleeping and the only thing I have to think about is how will I look in the graduation gown :)

Hoping: To move to California in few months!

Craving: UDF's 'Black raspberry choco chip' ice cream. I will surely miss this one thing when I leave Ohio.

Ok, that was fun.

If you are still reading, then surely you liked it too. So, now you are tagged to do this too :D

Correlation

He had me at 'Hello'

Ok it's past 10 p.m. in Pacific time zone and so now I can express my happiness for David C. without spoiling anyone's suspense.

I have been rooting (and yes also voting) for him since he sang 'Hello' on Week 3 of American Idol. I think very highly of David A. too, specially his flawless voice, but he is just too cute and sugary for my taste. Rough and tough rock star with a sensitive side..ah that works for me better. And that is what Mr. Cook is :)

Congrats David Cook!

I feel rewarded

Two of my students from Spring semester found me on Facebook.
One of them said he misses my class every Tuesday! He also said that he enjoyed learning the things I taught in the second half of the semester and regrets that he didn't take serious interest from the beginning of the semester.

I feel I have achieved one of my teaching missions today: making a student (that too a non-major student) interested in learning the subject.
They usually are only interested in completing the course as a degree requirement. Some of them are also interested in the grades sometimes :)

To tell or not to?

Me and some of my friends are in a big dilemma. All of us think that one of our friends is with a wrong guy and her decision to marry him is the biggest mistake of her life. But none of us know how to or even whether to tell her.

I have heard it from couple of elderly people that they did not comment on their children's choice of partner in spite of having a bad feeling (which eventually proved to be true) because "everyone has to learn from their own mistakes".

But then I'm thinking if we see a loved one walking blindly towards a speeding car, we scream and warn them because we do not want them to get hurt.

Is it only physical injury about which we can warn against, but we have to let them suffer and learn when it comes to emotional injury?

If you think that a loved one is choosing a wrong life partner, do you/will you tell them?
If your friends tell you that you are choosing a wrong life partner, will you appreciate that?

How important are brand names?

My friend N and I have these long 'nonsense' conversations every now and then. Last night during one such session, she offered me to take her boyfriend because it seemed like I have more things in common with T than she has.

Of course I said "No thanks" and to that she said "You are saying no to an ex-IITian!!! Poor T, he will be crushed."

Now I can understand if T feels crushed because a girl said no to a 'nice guy' like him but what's with the brand names? How does getting a degree from a good school makes someone irresistible as a companion?

I know a good education can mean that there are better chances of having financial security and intelligent conversations, but my personal experience says that a great professional resume is no guarantee of a great human being. And I know a few 'famous school' graduates who liked 'Welcome' more than 'Taare Zameen Par'. So there goes the intellectual conversation.

I hope N didn't say 'yes' to T because of the IIT tag!

"What you don't have you don't need it now"

I wish I could be that optimistic, but I am totally unable to make myself feel so today.
I desperately need two things that I don't have now: a successful experiment and a job offer.
When will that beautiful day come?

The other extreme

In my previous post, I mentioned that we should not give up on a relationship when maybe putting in some extra effort can save the relationship. But one needs to know when such effort is useless. In case of some people, it can be the other extreme where they tolerate too much. I can think of one such person.

This girl is an engineer with a nice job in a reputed company in India. She had an arranged marriage. At the time of the wedding, her parents gave 35 lakh rupees, 50 tola of gold jewelery, all kinds of household things plus the other usual stuff. Even after this huge dowry, the guy kept asking for a computer, a car and some family property.

My first thought was "Why did she marry a guy who asked for dowry?"

If asking for dowry was not enough, he and his family wanted a son. The girl gave birth to a daughter. The guy never visited his daughter in the hospital and never took her home. The daughter lives with the grandparents.

At this point you would think that now she should definitely leave him.

No, she didn't. She kept going back and forth between her parents' and in-laws' houses so that she can give time to both her husband and kid.

Ok, even this is not the end of the story. After all this, they had a second baby!!!!

By this point I was sure that she must be dead inside. How else can someone agree to have another baby with such a creep?

And guess what, the second child is also a girl. So last time I heard she was still going back and forth between the two houses. Both the kids live with the grandparents.

I don't personally know her but I know her sister. When I asked the sister why they are tolerating this extreme nonsense. She said "If she gets a divorce, then no one will marry me (the sister)". The sister is a self-dependent grad student in US!!!

In my previous post I said that we need to be more tolerant to make a relationship work but this much tolerance is definitely a sin.

From 'you and me' to 'hum'

It takes lot more work to maintain a relationship than to get into one.
That's the moral of the story of the movie 'U me aur hum'.
So true!

My parents had an arranged marriage, have a huge age difference and are very different from each other. They keep fighting like all couples do. Still they have maintained their relationship quite well for over 30 years.

My friend M married a man of her choice after dating for 5 years. After another 5 years, she confides in her close friends that she seriously regrets her choice. Reason: Certain differences in their nature that she didn't take seriously during the dating phase.

Is financial security and a more accepting society making us less tolerant? Are we giving up much easily when things don't match up with our expectations?

Thanks to 'U me aur hum' for reminding us to put in that extra effort.

Mixed emotions

Got my first postdoc interview call letter last night. Feeling happy, excited, nervous and terrified all at the same time. The battle begins now...

Song assignment

Recently J bought an electric guitar. No he is not at all a musician or singer. He is just trying to fulfill his childhood fantasy of becoming one. He has absolutely no formal training on playing guitar or any musical instrument for that matter. He bought a 'Guitar for Dummies' book too . So far he has succeeded in tuning the guitar!

Seeing his extremely slow progress I decided to motivate him by giving an assignment with a deadline (grad school effect?). The assignment is to sing and play 'Pehli Nazar Mein' (song from 'Race' by Atif Aslam) when we meet next. Yeah, it's not the easiest assignment for a newbie but I just thought I'll try my luck. There is no other way I can make him sing a romantic song for me . Anyways, so I sent him the song. After listening to it few times:

J: "Ok so I know the song now. I can't play it yet but do you want to hear just the song?"
Me (Happily): "Yes, yes."
J: "Pehli nazar mein.....hmm..hmm..la..la.....maybe I love you, maybe I love you, maybe I love you so."

Oh well. I will just play it for myself.

Great minds think alike

P: I have no idea what I am doing with this experiment * *

Albert Einstein: If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be called research.

Fortune

My today's fortune on Orkut:
"You are next in line for promotion in your firm."

Promotion...hmm...now that sounds good.
It's a different issue that I don't work in a firm, there's no scope for promotion (at least in the same organization) and obviously there are no lines for it.

Here comes the sun

It's end of March. It hasn't been the brightest month of my life.
I am hoping April will bring some much needed success.
I am hoping April will bring some much needed good news.
Even though there's no sun outside and the forecast says it's not coming out in the next ten days either, I hope there will be plenty of reasons to feel sunny in the new month. For me and for anyone else who needs it.
Cheers!

Illusions

J's boss asked him today about my future plans (sigh..even people who haven't met me are concerned about my future now!)

Anyways, so when J told Mr. Boss about my intentions of finding a post doc in some university and my disinterest in industrial jobs, he said: "She must be from a rich family that she is studying so much." (Hello! I pay my bills myself and since when did academics become a time pass for rich people??).

Looks like unless you do a 9-5 job and earn in 6 figures, your job is not a 'real job'.

J is now dreaming about a 4 bed-room flat in some big city and a diamond cladded bride sponsored by 'the rich family'.

Questions

"So when are you coming to India?"
"And when are you getting married?"

Seems like people (specifically not-so-close family and friends back home) want to know only these two things about me these days. I was asked these two questions at least a dozen times in last few months!!

I am amazed because as I mentioned these people are 'not-so-close' to me.
It's not likely that I will visit any of these people whenever I go home.
It's not likely that they will get invited to my wedding whenever it is.

Then why are they so interested?

If this is just formality, can't they just stick to regular questions like "How are you?" and "How is life/work etc.?"

It's starting to get on my nerves because I'm totally clueless about my own future right now .

I'm running out of quirky answers. Anyone got ideas?

Ph.D. blues

• I have to finish my dissertation in 3 months.
• This paper needs to get accepted immediately.
• I still have to do that one experiment.
• I have to have a job offer soon.
• Those lab reports need to be graded by Tuesday.
• I need to file my tax returns.
• My house looks like a pigsty and needs mega cleaning.

My brain hurts. Literally.

Chicken and Me

A conversation between me and Mrs. M (J's mother):

Mrs. M: So you know Mr. M is only eating vegetarian food these days.
Me: Oh really? Why?
Mrs. M: Just like that. Says he doesn't feel like eating non-veg.
Me: I see. (Don't know what else to say)
Mrs. M: But he says he will eat chicken again on your wedding day.
(Huh! Now I totally do not know what to say)

Is this a new way of blackmailing?

I am becoming a skeptic

A student calls me up and tells me that he is in serious family crisis. The situation he describes is really, really awful.
I feel really bad and I ask "What do you want to do?"
He says "Can I submit that paper two days later?"
So now I am thinking " The family crisis he just described sounds too horrible to not run home immediately. Is he telling the truth or is he making up stories just to get that extension?"

I am turning into a mean, skeptic!

I blame it on the past experiences. People come up with some pretty crazy excuses around this time of the semester. It's mid-term week. Everyone is crushed with deadlines and exams. I have been getting deadline extension requests for this paper since last two days (It is due tonight). Unfortunately, I do not have the authority to do so and the Professor who has, won't buzz. I guess it's because he has even more experience than us TAs. "Tough love", he says!

How much sharing is caring?

This question is regarding sharing of private information, such as passwords of your e-mail accounts and such, with your significant other.

I guess according to the rules of 'love and trust' you are not supposed to keep any secrets from your partner. I agree about that mostly but what if you want to surprise the other person and you need to order the gift online? Definitely it won't be fun if the person comes across that confirmation letter in your mailbox!

The reason I thought about this topic today is a funny incidence (for any third person):
A guy I know got married recently. It was an arranged marriage. He has been in a relationship in the past but he didn't tell his wife about it yet. Totally understandable. It takes time to be comfortable enough to share everything about yourself, but I guess it takes less time to be comfortable enough to share 'the password'. Without thinking much this guy gave his wife access to his mail account and guess what...the wife discovered a bunch of letters from the ex! The past relationship was over some 3 years ago. The poor guy probably didn't even remember that those letters still exist, but you can imagine the scene in his house after that.

Moral of the story: Think twice before you decide to show your 'love and trust' :)

Labels

A is a man who chooses to go faraway from his loved ones for a better career option.
B is a man who chooses to leave a nice job to be with his partner, who has got a great job offer in a new place.
C is a woman who chooses to go faraway from her loved ones for a better career option.
D is a woman who chooses to leave a nice job to be with her partner, who has got a great job offer in a new place.

A is called a serious, career-driven, successful man.
B is called a spineless, joru ka ghulam (slave of wife).
C is called self-centered, heartless woman.
D is called caring, sacrificing woman.

Why these discriminations?

My friend has been kidnapped by an alien!

No, of course not literally but I feel the same.

My close friend (let's call her N) and I always made fun of people who are mushy, gushy about their love life/partners. We bitched about these people for hours and took pride in the fact that we were cold and heartless. Then she fell in love last year and suddenly she is doing the same irritating things and much more!!! Was it all an act of 'sour grapes' then? I feel betrayed.

Talking about my being cold and heartless, my boyfriend (let's call him J) had a dream last night that I have dumped him for someone else and he is very sad (he amazed himself with this feeling) and then what made him more miserable than actually being dumped was that I was telling him very casually "What's the big deal? Don't be a sissy. Get over it." ha ha...now that sounds more real to me than N's new Orkut photo (I wish I could post it here to prove my case).

Coming to analysis of the dream: I blame it on the big hype called Valentine's day. Everyone in J's office (including his 50+ boss) left early to celebrate V-day and his girlfriend didn't even call him all day to wish him and was almost falling asleep when he made his usual 'how was your day' call (I live 3 time zones ahead of him and it was much past mid-night my time..can you really blame me?). J is usually as romantically-challenged as me, if not more but I guess all the pressure created by this specially designated romance day can affect such people too. I am just thankful that the effect on him is not as drastic as on N.

Yaaaaaay...Happy snow day!!

Snow and rain on the same day = messy, slippery roads..and when you have to go to work on such a day, it becomes a really painful day. It is one such day here today. I came to work slipping and sliding 20 times on my way and was really worried about my return journey because today is the day when I teach from 3-9 p.m. But guess what, they just announced that all classes after 3p.m. are canceled!!!!....so now it becomes a happy snow day for me......yaaaaaaaay. Now I can go home and enjoy the snow from by window while drinking a cup of steaming hot chocolate....aaaahh. I am probably happier than my students for the canceled classes :D

The mind of the married man

I have been watching the DVD of this old HBO series called 'The mind of the married man'. It is like a male, married version of 'Sex and the city'. It is funny and smart and at the same time quite informative for us women! I mean it's no secret that most men have not evolved much since their days as cavemen and they have only three things on mind: work, food and sex and that marriage is like a life imprisonment to them. The things that this show reveals is how clueless they are most of the times about their own feelings, not to mention about their emotional, romantic and much evolved partner's feelings and how much effort they have to put in to keep up with the women in their lives (be it wife or the cute/hot colleague). The sad part is that they still fail..each and everyday and to rectify that they keep doing more and more mistakes making things worse. Maybe we need to start thinking in more simple terms to help these poor souls :)
The show also revealed some scary thoughts that men have (at least all the one on the show had). I am not talking about the usual fantasies of other women but things like having something called a 'free-pass dream' when the wife is too much to handle. In this dream they think of a quick, painless (because they actually love their wife) way by which the wife meets an accident and die(!!!!!!!!!) and they get their freedom back, get lots of money (insurance or such) plus a sob story to impress other women!!! Maybe I should ask my boyfriend if he already has one of those..or maybe I should stop watching this show..too much information might complicate things even more..he he.

Craving for heroism

Last evening I met my personal hero. Here's what happened:

I was really bored waiting for my adviser to show up for our late Friday afternoon lab meeting. To stay awake I thought I can use some sugar in my system and so I went to get a Snickers bar from the vending machine. I put the money, my change came back but the chocolate bar got stuck halfway. Slapping and hitting the machine couple of times didn't move it an inch and so I started leaving the place mourning my loss of 75 cents. At the very moment, a guy appeared from nowhere to get a cup of coffee from the next machine and he jumped in to get me my chocolate (I didn't even ask him to!). First he slapped, hit, rocked the machine..nothing happened..then he tried putting his arm inside the machine almost lying down on the dirty floor (I was scared that he might break his hand)..still nothing..then he pulled out a key chain with all kinds of tools on it (now I was very scared that he might break the machine and police will put both of us in jail)..but after almost 5 minutes of struggling on his hands and knees, he got up with my 75 cents chocolate bar in hand, offered it to me with a victorious smile and said "I can be really persistent". I felt soooo flattered :P

Even though we, today's women take pride in being strong and self-dependent and most of the times get annoyed if men around us try to be protective but maybe somewhere deep down we still like to be saved by an occasional knight in shinning armor :D

An eventful week

After my last guilty post, I worked a lot but sadly, after doing a loooong and hectic experiment, I was rewarded with a very unexpected result :( First I freaked-out, then started having doubts about how I will finish my dissertation by summer if things go wrong like this. This thought led to fitful sleeping with nightmares, whining and scaring parents, boyfriend and best friend..scared adviser and lab-mate too to some extent (to the outer world I usually pretend to be a completely unbreakable person :P ). But then after some major reading and brainstorming...eureka!! I found an explanation to the weird result..it might not be weird actually..everything in science has a reason :) Now I have to run one more test this week to get a nice result avoiding the unwanted part. Please, please, please let next week be a positively productive week!!!!!!

This is me!!!!

It's 5.10 p.m. and I have not done anything productive all day (my day started at 11 a.m. as today is Saturday)! I am supposed to study and finalize a protocol for a new experiment that I have to start next week. I also need to cook and clean today. I better get going...

Beginning of a new experiment..

Random thoughts, weird thoughts, meaningless thoughts, unnecessary thoughts...my small brain is getting too crowded. I need a Pensieve like Dumbledore! A blog spot might do for now. Let's see.