Staycation

I am taking couple of days off from work this week. Nothing special. I haven't had a proper vacation since Dec 2007, I didn't get to take a proper break between finishing my PhD and starting my postdoc, and I didn't take any days off since then either. I had to work from home even during the mandatory winter break. So I am really exhausted. I would like to take a month off and go home, but can't do that because of visa issues :( I wanted to go for a vacation within US, but J can't take time off right now. This week things were little less hectic at work. So I decided to take it easy and use couple of my earned leave days that will become invalid in 2 months and just do nothing :D My labmate told me that it's called staycation :)

So for the past 2 days I am having a perfect staycation. I am getting up late, sitting on my couch most of the day, checking my work mail only twice a day and responding to only urgent stuff, doing very little work related stuff, watching lots of TV, surfing the net all day with no particular goal, and even taking afternoon nap :D

I am really bored now and want to do something more productive. I hope I can do something fun over the weekend. For now, I'll start with doing a loooooong tag that has been making rounds on facebook and blogger :)

1. Last beverage – Thai Iced tea – last night with dinner. I don’t usually drink morning coffee or tea.

2. Last phone call- Mom
- again last night

3. Last text message – Can’t remember. I rarely use text messaging



4. Last song you listened to – Bruises-by Chairlift



5. Last time you cried – Around two weeks ago. I cry all the time :)

HAVE YOU EVER.



6. Dated someone twice? – No



7. Been cheated on? – I hope not.


8. Cried yourself to sleep? – Many times. Told you, I am a cry baby :)

9. Lost someone special? – Yes.

10. Been depressed? – Not seriously depressed, just the regular sad phases that most people go through at some or other points in their lives. I bounce back pretty quick though.

11. Seen ghosts – No :)

LIST THREE FAVORITE COLORS.



12. Black


13. Grey


14. Blue




(yeah I’m quite boring)

THIS YEAR HAVE YOU.



15. Made new friends – It takes me a long time to call anyone ‘friend’ but yes, I made new acquaintances. 


16. Fallen out of love – No and hope I don’t :)

17. Laughed until you cried – Not really :)



18. Met someone who changed you – It’s impossible to change a perfect person :p

19. Found out who your true friends were – I think I already know.

20. Found out someone was talking about you – Yes, but nothing bad. Just two common friends talking about others in the group.



21. Kissed anyone on your friend's list – Yeah. My boyfriend is on my friends’ list you see.



22. How many people on your friends list do you know in real life – I don’t add strangers, although there are few people whom I haven’t met in person, like J’s family members and some friends’ friends whom I have some good reason to interact with.

23. How many kids do you want to have – Maximum one. The world population is too high already. Besides, I am too lazy to take care of anyone. Taking proper care and giving right guidance to even one kid sounds like a huge responsibility to me!

24. Do you have any pets – No. As I said, I’m too lazy and afraid of taking responsibility of another life. I can’t even keep all my plants alive!

25. Do you want to change your name – Not really. I will loose my identity if I do so now. Besides, it’s pretty uncommon, which I like and it has a nice sentimental story attached. But if I can go back in time when my dad chose my name, I would ask him to think of a shorter and universal name :)

26. What did you do for your last birthday – Went to work. No one at work knew it was my birthday as I had joined 2 weeks ago and I don’t like to announce my own birthday. Evening was good as J brought me flowers (for the first time!!..faintly hoping not for the last time) and a chocolate cake and then took me out for dinner.

27. What time did you wake up today – 9.30 am. As I mentioned I am taking the day off from work. So there was no need to get up early :)

28. What were you doing at midnight last night – Watching Jay Leno.

29. Name something you CANNOT wait for – Get my new visa and go home. Haven’t gone home for 3 years and haven’t seen my parents for 1.5 years!!!

30. Last time you saw your father – Nov 8^th 2007, when my parents were going back to India after spending two wonderful months with me.

31. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life – I think I am quite fortunate for having a pretty decent life. The only thing that will make it perfect is if I had control over each and every aspect of it :)

32. What are you listening to right now – Sound of the ticking wall clock.

33. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom – I can think of two right now.

34. What's getting on your nerves right now? Waiting for my new visa.

36. Whats your real name – Can’t tell here :)

37. Relationship Status – In a relationship.


38. Zodiac sign – Leo.

39. Male or female – Female



40. Natural Hair color? – Black.

41. Hair color now – I don’t color my hair. Main reason, I am usually too lazy to spend time on looking good. Secondly, the amount of ammonia and peroxide in those colors make me very nervous.

42. Pet Peeve – Irresponsible people, ever-complaining-ever-unhappy people.

43. Need Glasses- Surprisingly no, even after spending most of my open-eye times reading, or peeping through microscope lenses in dark rooms or staring at a computer or TV screen :)

44. Long or short – I need a more specific question than that.

45. Height – 5’ 3”



46. Do you have a crush on someone – I think I am too old to have romantic crushes. Now I only admire fine men if I rarely see one :)

47. What do you like about yourself? – Hmmm where do I start…

48. Piercings – Ears..that’s it.


49. Tattoos – No thank you.

50. Righty or lefty – Righty.

FIRSTS.



51. First surgery – None so far, thankfully.


52. First piercing – Ears. I must be 2-3 years old. I hardly remember anything about it.

53. First tattoo – Never.

54. First best friend – I don’t remember. We moved from one place to another too often when I was a kid and I can’t remember the friends I made between ages 1-5. The only friend from that age who is still a very good friend is a guy who lived next door to my grandma’s house.

55. First sport you joined – I was never too fond of sports. My earliest memory of being part of any sports would be playing cricket and badminton in the colony when I was 6-8 years old.

56. First pet – I got two gold fishes as gift once. Do they count as pet?

57. First vacation – That would be a trip to parts of Tamil Nadu when I was about a year old. No, I do not have any memories of that vacation. I know because my parents have an album full of photographs from the trip and my mom still tells stories about what I was doing when we went to so and so places :)

59. First crush- S. Age 13. I think I mentioned about him in a earlier tag.

60. First alcoholic drink – I think it was Irish-cream.

RIGHT NOW.



61. Eating – Nothing.



62. Wearing – Navy blue gym pants and sky-blue t-shirt with my grad school’s name on it.

63. I'm about to – Eat lunch.



64. Speaking to – No one. I am alone at home.

65. Waiting to – Nothing. I have no rush, no plans today. Perfect staycation day :)



YOUR FUTURE.



66. Want kids? – I thought I wanted to, but I am getting unsure the more I think about it. Out of 4 of my closest girl-friends, N and L are single, D is married but fighting with parents and in-laws about why they don't want kids anytime soon, and M, who is married with a kid tells me never to get married and have kids because she feels trapped! Having such friends don’t help much :)

67. Want to get married? – I think so. Even though I keep getting cold-feet every now and then, I guess I want our families to be more comfortable with our relationship.

68. Careers in mind? – I already have a career. Now the only choice left is Academics or Industry.

WHICH IS BETTER WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX?



69. Lips or eyes – Eyes


70. Hugs or kisses – Hugs

71. Shorter or taller- Taller
than me, but not so tall that I feel like a dwarf next to him.

72. Older or Younger – Older


73. Romantic or spontaneous – Spontaneous


74. Nice stomach or nice arms – Nice stomach.

75. Tattoos or piercings- Preferably none. A tiny ear stud at max, if someone can carry it properly.

76. Sensitive or loud- Sensitive.

77. Hook-up or relationship – Relationship.

78. Trouble maker or hesitant- Trouble maker.




HAVE YOU EVER.



79. Kissed a stranger – No.

80. Drank hard liquor - Yes


81. Lost glasses/contacts – I don’t have any to loose. I almost lost my sun-glass few weeks ago in a fitting room. Fortunately remembered about it before leaving the store, and the dressing room lady still had them. From the look on her face, it looked like she was hoping to keep it for herself and was sad that I came back for it. The fact that she never made a lost-and-found announcement for half an hour supports my belief.

82. Sex on first date – No


83. Broken someones heart – I have said no to few guys. They seemed sad at that time, but don’t think anyone was seriously heart-broken. Most of them are married now and still friends, except one guy. He stopped all communication with me once he decided to get married. Most kiddish for a 28 year old, won’t you say?

84. Had your own heart broken – No, unless you count teenage crushes that never became anything more :)

85. Been arrested?- No.


86. Turned someone down – Yes.

87. Cried when someone died – Yes.

88. Got someone into trouble intentionally – No.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN.



89. Yourself – Very much, but not unrealistically. I am mostly aware of my capabilities and incapabilities.

90. Miracles – Not really. I believe what we call as a miracle is just an event that has low statistical possibility of happening. But if it happens, then there must be a logical explanation to it. Maybe we still don’t have all the tools to explain it yet, but there has to be a reason.

91. Love at first sight – Surely not for me. It might work for others.


92. Heaven – No.

93. Santa Claus – No :)


94. Kissing on the first date? - No


95. Angels – No. Selfless social workers come pretty close.




ANSWER TRUTHFULLY.



96. Is there one person you want to be with right now? – I am actually enjoying my rare day alone. But yes, it would be great if I could be at home with my parents now.

97. Had more than one boyfriend/ girlfriend at one time? – No



98. Do you believe its possible to remain faithful forever? – I think so. You can’t feel happily in love everyday of your life, but that doesn’t mean you have to find comfort in other people whenever you are unhappy with your current partner. Commitment and being faithful needs much more determination that being in love.

99. What's the one thing you cannot live without? – Oxygen :p

100. Posting this as 100 truths? - No.

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. :)

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.

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