P got to play..at least a little

It has been 6 months since I last posted here!! I often feel like writing but can't think of anything that does not sound like cribbing and whining. So today I am going to look back on my last post and see what are things I got done on my to-do and want-to-do list to make myself happy :)

I need to:

- Round up all lab work meaningfully.

Nope, not done. Seeing some meaning finally and some hope that I will get done in next 6 months, but definitely nowhere near done yet.

- Publish, publish, publish.

Not really done. Submitted two highly over-due papers. The main ones still need to be written up.

- Start applying for jobs.

Applied to 3 jobs. Got rejection from 1 already. Waiting to hear from the remaining 2. It is just so hard to even find a job one wants to apply when one has very specific ideas of the 'the job' but an average CV and a geographical restriction. Totally frustrating!

- Prepare application package which includes

- updating CV

- coming up with a research proposal

- coming up with course ideas for teaching jobs

- writing up my teaching philosophy

- and maybe thinking of finding some funding options for future too

Done except for the funding part. The job application deadlines forced me to finish this, but the quality of the final product is very questionable. So definitely need to improve all the above for future job applications.

- Prepare for the interview process.

Will do when anyone calls me for one :)

Until now it all sounds so morose :( Next ones should be better.

And all I want to do is:

- Go to India and visit my friends and family.

Yes, did this one!! :D :D It was a really short-trip and it was split in two because now I have to spend time with in-laws too. Still managed to meet almost all family and friends in my hometown and had a great time at in-laws place too :) Maybe short and simple trips to home are the way to go :)

- Go on a long vacation somewhere nice.

No long vacation other than the India trip, but got to see little bit of HongKong on our way back...thanks to a 14 hours long layover, easy immigration protocols in HK, and an over-enthusiastic labmate from HK to give confidence and info. Of course lazy J was against the idea at first as usual, but when I told him that it can count as my anniversary gift, he agreed, and at the end of the day, he actually admitted that he enjoyed the outing very much :)

Since the date of my last post, we actually went on another weekend trip to a nice sea-side place not too far from where we live. It was my birthday gift :)

- Do something fun.

I guess all the trips mentioned above covers this one too. A few specific fun moments:

- The long hikes on my birthday trip was most fun.

- Shopping for India trip was fun. Buying gifts for others is so much more fun than personal shopping!

- Going out for Kolkata sight-seeing, dinner and shopping with J and my parents together for the first time was special.

- Taking J and almost my entire extended family for lunch together was interestingly fun.

- Spending second anniversary with J and his whole family on a house-boat in Kerala was marvelous.

- Spending New Year's eve watching Malayalam and some heavily-accented hindi song and dance performances in a small-town Kerala beach resort was hilarious.

- The never-ending cable car ride to some faraway mountain with gorgeous views all around at HK was breath-taking.

- Read lots of non-work stuff.

Not lots off, but read quite a few books in last 2 months as I came back from India with a new stock of Indian-author books :)

Additional achievement..

Learnt how to make some yummy Kerala food from Mrs. M, and somewhat successfully re-created some of them after returning to US. This made her crazy happy and she praised me so much that my sis-in-law got little jealous and started cooking even more than she normally does..he he. When people have very little expectations from you, they get extra happy with your little efforts and achievements :)

OK now I feel much better. Time to go back to work now....

P wants to play :(

I completed my third year as postdoc last month. Everyone including my conscience tells me I need to wrap up my work here and find a 'real job' within the next year. This means I need to:

- Round up all lab work meaningfully.

- Publish, publish, publish.

- Start applying for jobs.

- Prepare application package which includes

- updating CV

- coming up with a research proposal

- coming up with course ideas for teaching jobs

- writing up my teaching philosophy

- and maybe thinking of finding some funding options for future too

- Prepare for the interview process.

And all I want to do is:

- Go to India and visit my friends and family.

- Go on a long vacation somewhere nice.

- Do something fun.

- Read lots of non-work stuff.

When the movies like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara tells you to live life and all that, they forget to emphasize the fact that these guys could do all that fun stuff only because they had some really nice jobs to pay for those expensive activities!!! Bah!

Life has been busy...

When life is busy, there's little time to think.

When there's little time to think, there's less time to feel sad/worried/angry and all other such emotions that need venting.

Hence, no blogging for long time :)

Health complications feared in last post was not true. Thankfully!

I can now reveal the details of the story...it is quite a story..

I had to go for physical checkup for immigration requirements. I could not use my personal physician as per rules. I had to go to someone the immigration people have listed on their website...mostly very poorly rated doctors. I picked one based on proximity...it's just some routine tests..how bad can it be, right? WRONG.

The doctor was listed as dermatologist/general physician. When I reached his clinic, it was more of a beauty clinic with ads of botox, laser hair removal and such! Anyways, the doctor never showed up. His assistants did all the tests and immunization routine (which was little odd but fine with me). Then they kept delaying my reports for weeks. Finally, the doctor's receptionist-cum-assistant told me I have an infectious STD and I need to go see a specialist!!!!! That was when I blogged last.

After the initial shock I started searching the net. Thanks to my biology background I know I can't possibly have that disease (I am a very faithful girl and I trust my husband too). Thanks to the internet for providing some quick info about the specifics of the disease, and thanks again to my biology education for teaching me how to read lab reports, I realized that my lab report was actually a false positive due to some generic antibodies. The same report clearly showed that the lab has done two more confirmatory test after that to find out I am fine. My personal physician confirmed my findings. Turns out the doctor's receptionist-cum-assistant did not know how to read anything outside what she is used to seeing (a false positive happens 1 in hundreds). She didn't even bother to show the report to her superiors and the superiors didn't even bother to check the report, before telling someone that they have a bad disease!! When I called them back, their attitude was 'oops we missed that'..no real apology..nothing to make it better. On the contrary, it took 2 weeks and several bugging phone calls for them to write a simple fill-in-the-blanks report, that too an incorrect one!! When I got the report, it said that I have history of chicken pox instead of saying I got vaccinated for that disease from them!!!!!!! So I had to go back and make them write one more.

Phew! I am glad I don't have to deal with such 'doctors' on regular basis.

Anyhoo...life is craziness free for now and as mentioned above has been busy.

So what's keeping me busy?

No I'm not expecting :p

- Just started getting better results with my experiments (ref previous frustrated posts). So busy making sense of those results and planning and executing follow-up experiments.

- Went to Florida on a short work trip, but managed to meet up K and her new husband. She seemed quite happy and I don't think I need to worry for her anymore :)

- Also have been busy with some home improvement/ home decoration type of work. My brother-in-law and his family are visiting us in a week. First visitors from anyone from J's family. So time to start acting like 'grown up married people' and make our house look like one where 'grown up married people' live and entertain guests :p

To health..

I don't want any more sickness, new diseases or any kind of health complications.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE.

On finding THE ONE and keeping him there

No this is not a Valentine's Day post. This is about one of my closest friend who is getting married next month.

Among all my girl friends, K would definitely score the highest in any 'good wife, daughter/sister-in-law' test. She would also score the highest in being girly, romantic, caring, motherly and all such things. In short, she is the Charlotte York of our group. She has been looking for the perfect ONE since high school days, but unfortunately she has only met with severe heartbreaks.

Her high school sweetheart cut all communications with her one fine day..the day after she did not qualify for med school. She didn't even know what happened until she met a common friend who informed her of her own break-up. The guy apparently can only have a doctor wife..hence, the unannounced break-up!! (Even if I can somehow understand the shallowness..he was very young after all..I do not understand how can someone be so coward to just disappear from a relationship?). She kept hoping that he will come back to her one day, but he didn't. He married his med-school classmate after becoming doctors.

K finally started living normally after 6 years of mourning. Then she fell for another guy in her grad school. Their relationship was all nice and good, but this guy could not stand up against his mother's unfair hatred against love marriage of any kind (why does a guy get into a relationship in the first place if he knows his mother will never approve and he knows he cannot go against her? His mother had cut all contact with her own daughter because she married a man of her own choice..so he should DEFINITELY KNOW what his mother is like..but he must be in denial). He just wanted to keep waiting silently until his mother agrees to their relationship. K very graciously removed herself from the relationship saying that she does not want to be the reason for mother-son split, but she kept hoping for him to grow a backbone so that they can be together again....until he sent her his wedding invitation (they decided to remain friends, you see!).

She says she knew the first guy was academically over-ambitious and the second guy couldn't stand up for himself in any circumstances. She never thought these can end the relationships. We, her close friends, fear that she knowingly falls for guys with weak personalities. Somehow she wants to protect and take care of these people and thinks she could make them better people. In the end, they take care of themselves and leave her hanging high and dry.

After about another 5 years of mourning, K met her current fiance. They had a pretty dramatic relationship over the last 3 years including one major break-up. We friends were (to be honest, still are) very skeptical about this guy too. He broke up with her abruptly over some fight, which is not that uncommon in relationships. The thing that bugged us most was that immediately after their split, he went and asked his family to look for a girl for him to marry, and even got engaged to some girl he barely knows. Then after few months he broke that engagement, came back to K and said he was just very angry and doing those things in anger. He said that he still loves K and wants to be with her again. I don't doubt his love, but for a 30+ year old guy he surely sounds scarily impulsive to me! We cautioned K strongly when she got back with him. She assured us that there's nothing to worry about. We certainly hope she is right this time.

The wedding is next month. She is all giddy and happy, posting annoyingly mushy stuff on Facebook :) I can't help but be extremely happy for her. I just hope only good things happen for her from now on. She definitely got her share and more of tears and pain already. She deserves some uncomplicated happiness now. I have more hope in the guy's family than him actually. His sister and mother strongly supported K throughout the break-up phase and also helped in bringing them back together. So hopefully they will help in keeping him in right place for rest of the life too.

I was hoping I would be able to go home next month and attend the festivities, but good old immigration issues make it impossible..again! Anyways, she should be in US soon after the wedding. So I guess I can celebrate then.

Sending all the best wishes your way darling K....