Miscellenious (or however it is spelled)

You say you live in a dream world...
I'll say that its alright.
You'll say that you get hurt everytime it shatters.
I'll say you know it was a dream world.
You'll say you dont want to call because everytime I say 'something happened' it crushes you.
I'll say I cant wait to be friends again.

And then I realize, we have no choice. Its the case of 'love me, hate me, but cant ignore me'.
I end up fighting the impulse.
I get up in the morning, and sing 'piyu bole'...

The connexon is not virtual anymore... its hard-wired.

I end the endless playing of conversations in my head. I say 'chuck it yaar!'

I have work to do. 'Work' to do!
I attend lectures.

Psychology is super-fun (for the lack of a better word).
I havent paid more attention to any other talks so mcuh...

Graphics is fun to DO... not to attend class. But the professor is interesting... the TA is more interesting... the programs are gratifying (I made a water surface with rain drops and refraction and reflection and other fancy stuff).

I still have no clue what Ruby on Rails is. But thats not a bad thing. The bad thing is that I have no inclination to know it! Just want to get done with it....

Amr's course is interesting. He makes me think. And he convinces me of something. And then asks me why it cant be the other way round. And I am lost! But I am liking it.

I went on a trek. One helluva experience. Was tiring. Went with Brinjar and his international friends. People here are FIT! And I thot it wud be easy... I huffed and puffed and fatigued out... And then someone said that we were almost 1/3rd the way! I gave up.... But finally completed it :-)

We have a 3rd TV at home. Its bigger than the other 2. So we have 3 TVs - big, bigger and biggest.
And 2 microwaves. And a printer. And a fancy 'water-purifier' that makes gurgling noises in the middle of the night. And I get confused coz my stomach makes similar noises. Somehow, the silence here is so loud that you can hear the intricate workings of your stomach. It almost gets embarrassing.

Kai called. I felt so nice talking to him. He is awesome! I saw his orkut pics. He's the authentic 'cool dude'.

And now I stare at the mobile... waiting for it to ring... waiting for the call... waiting... to no avail, perhaps!


I wish I felt like this!

The little joys of life...

Some things that have produced an un-wipeable smile on my face, of late:-

1. Receiving an international packet from Ma which contains lots of new clothes and mithai and ear-rings and footwear... but more importantly, lots of memories of mom's idiosyncracies (a letter which contains all the items ennumerated and meticulously described - silver earrings with beads etc).. I love her... and miss her :-(


2. Talking to Prerna and having insightful conversations about 'life' in general, and 'ours' in particular. :-)


3. Eating my first self-cooked meal! (vegetable with tortilla and orange juice... ok, I agree tHat I didnt cook much... But turned on the gas for the first time... Poured vegetable oil, added masala.... I just cant help feeling smug.. although the bhaaji was so raw that it wud probably bounce back from the wall).

3.1 Grocery-shopping in Albertsons... Its a soulful experience!

3.2 Eating Luna Power bars and drinking pink lemonade in the lab while trying to solve a problem.

3.3 Eating honeybunch and oat cereals at 2am (a true breakfast time).

3.4 Munching nachos with guacomole dip!

3.5 Tasting Juan's super-spicy food with chop-sticks (and getting heavily applauded when the task is successfully accomplished).

MAN! Life seems to revolve around food here... NOnetheless, we shall move on to the less important stuff ;-)


4. Biking down in 'full speed' when its brrrrr cold and the jacket is forgotten at home in the pile of clothes.


5. Getting good grades for a quiz I have no idea about (Yes, no matter what, authentic Mumbai Uiversity students cannot be satisfied with just 'knowledge'... they are a super-competitive breed who need to 'prove themselves', NOT by doing some fundoo research, but by scoring!! glee...)

5.5 Getting my doubts solved by Mohit :-) and hearing his 'gargudi' talks.


6. Overhearing conversations of grad students in lab
Stuent1: I am totally screwed ($%^&Q%$%)
Student2: Why do you complain so much? YOU have chosen this life of yours. Remember, in undergrad, it was your dream to come to grad school and do research.

HAHA! It probably does not sound as funny as I initially found it, but when I heard it from the horses' mouths, I was in fits of laughter! (and now remember the GRE word paroxysms!)


7. Manipulating the code in a way that it seems right, but is not actually right (In particular, doing all the calculations, and then displaying a manipulated value!) (Again, thanks to MU)

7.5 Laundry-ing the piled up clothes of 3 weeks and then suddenly getting the feeling of a fresh new wardrobe! (with the lovely fragrance of the dryer paper... whtever the hell that is!)

7.75 HAving a long uninterrupted bath of warm water in a tub... Ah! the little joys of life...


8. Listening to Reshammiya after a long days work and missing the rikshaw rides which invariably played him!


9. Seeing his name pop up in my orkut inbox!.. and listening to his talks... and his ill-timed jokes... and his accent... and his 'take' on issues... HIM!
:-)

old habits die hard!

The clock on the computer says its 11.44pm.
I look at it wearily... and agree with it.. then think of Lamport's timestamps and suynchronization of global clocks... and then laugh to myself.

I am still in the lab. Staring at the screen. Switching between getting the program to work and googling and orkutting and gmailing... and orkutting and geting the program to work and.. blogging!

I just had a packet of chocolate chips... bought from the slot machine.

I have not worked so much in 4 years of undergrad put together, as much as I have worked in the last 2 weeks.
Everytime my program stubbornly refuses to work, I turn around (as is my wont) to talk to my lab partner to ask him to borrow the code from the assigned coder of the class.
Then I remind myself that I am not in TSEC.
I am supposed to write the stuff!

The last 4 years, I had implicitly thanked (and in the weak moments even blessed) those coders whose code I had 're-used'. Today, I dont think that it was such a good idea....

Life would be much easier if only I had been sincerer in the past...

or if I am abumdantly carefree in the present!

Even as I end this article, I press Ctrl+S out of my new-formed habit!

Rationality defied

The lyrics that I most relate to, these days...
From the movie Filhaal,


Maasoom si hasi, bevaja hi kabhi
Honton pe khil jaati hai
Anjaan si khushi baheti hui kabhi
Saahil pe mil jaati hai
Yeh anjaana sa darr ajnabi hai magar
Khoobsurat hai jee lene de
Yeh lamha filhaal jee lene de



The 'masoom hasi' is almost perennial. I cant get rid of it (not that I am complaining)...

Arbit Reflections

And here I am in the GSL lab... working.. trying to work... pondering... trying to restrain the pondering... pondering nonetheless!

Why am I not motivated enough?? Why dont I feel like getting the program work?? Where has that desire for the sense of achievement vanished?
Why do I do things because I have nothing else to do or because I am 'supposed' to do them??

Why does a 5-minute read of an interesting article get me way more excited than humdreds of minutes of lecture time??

Why dont I feel the passion?? Why am I lost beyond belief?

But yet, why am I happy?? Why am I at peace?? Is it because of the new-found freedom?? I dont think so. Freedom is a state of the mind. I can be as free or as chained as I want to be.

What has changed though is that I am confident of my thoughts. I am thinking things through. I am distinguishing between what matters and what eventually does not matter.

Also, because I have changed the constraints on myself. I dont have to be 'successful'. I have to be happy. And they are not always causally related.

Happiness can come because of suddenly coming across your fav poem, biking down at 2 am with the interesting C.S.Officer (who makes a remark more insightful than most of ur well-wishers), laughing till your wits end, chatting with someone of a rather different background, listening to Rehman music, eating Vanilla cream Yogurt, attending a Psychology class, getting surprised on orkut by an old friend (crush?), going on long walks at night and hearing someone's talks, watching someone's smile as they stare at you in the eye...

Well, I am happy. Not peaceful. But yes, happy.
Hmmmmm.....

Gotta get back to the dam program and wonder how to render the wave equation....

But now I am happy that I am happy :-)

I found a family

So, its been 2 months. A careful observer would point out that there is nothing preceding the 'so' in the previous sentence. But that is how it is here! (they're weird sometimes... they sont even know that the 't' in often is meant to be silent).

But anyway, as one interesting chap has corectly said, "When in Santa Barbara, be a Santa Barbarian" :-)

Life is good. Pleasant. Peaceful. Slow. Healthy. Simple. Thought-provoking. Naughty :-)

I am a proud owner of a MacBook, a huge closet, a lovely bike (and a more expensive bike-lock), a half-bathroom.
I have a key to the house! After 2 months, it still feels strange to come in the middle of the day and open the ouse with the key insted of ringing the doorbell (we don even have a doorbell).

But the house is tending towards being a home now. We girls have 'settled in', so to say. We have begun to accept each others idiosyncracies. The everforgetful Juan has caused the fire-alarm to go twice on the same day because she forgot the 'tea' she's put on the gas. Erica is an established cleaner. After the kitchen has been 'cleaned', no one finds anything at all. People go crazy for days searching for things and end up putting salt in coffee. Moreover, everyone coniders themselves proficient enough in the art of singing and the house gets a littl too musical with an interesting symphony of Chinese and Opera and Rehman and Reshammiya.

Then there are the 2 TVs. One of them is sulking so much for our lack of love for it that we've given it a higher place in the shelf. But it still sulks and faces the wall. The other is tired of over-use by Golu and her guest. So there is theatre almost every night!

Then there is our interesting dustbin that keeps me company during late nights. And I have got so emotionally attached to it that I cant get myself to call it a bin. Henceforth it shall be referred to as 'khulla' and the reason shall get clear in the ensuing statements. It is rather well desingned artifact and I wonder if it is artificial intelligence at its best and most efficient. It has a spring that closes it. But the beauty is that it snaps open when there is slight movement around it. (My roommates call it a defective peiece and are conviced that it does not have good intentions, but I differ). It has scared many of our guests. Just as they walk past it, lo behold! Khulla opens out of revolt, making a noise, and the guests are given an aromatic surprise. And then all the initiated people try to work out their physics and calm down Khulla by 'adjusting' its spring et al. But my khulla is not so easily tameable. It stays true to its spirit and name and continues to entertain me.

Then there is my bedroom. oh! How much i love it. I love the fact that its small. I have NOT yet lost even my safety pin in it (I agree that this is an xageration... not becasue I avent lost a safety pic, but because I dont own a sfety pin :-) ) And I can dump my clothes ANYWHERE in my section without anyone telling me to clean it. It has inspired a new principle that I came up with: "The probabilty of finding an item in the universe is proportional to the randomness of items in the universe".

Then there is our fridge. Its the physical implementation of Pandora's box! Really!
It has the following properties:-
1. For every item that you can think of, there exists a sample of it in the frdge.
2. It is not true that there exists an item x that you want to fit in the fridge, and it wont fit in.

By virtue of the above 2 properties, the fridge is not just a Pandora's box, but also an inverse Pandora's box! :-)

Then there is the bathroom. But I shall not belabor on the merits and demerits of four ambitious girls sharing the same bathroom, for I think it to be quite a controversial topic.

That's my new home! I love it. I love the dining table, the sofa that is more cofortable than the bed, my comforter that makes me so warm, the thermostat (on which all 4 girls have conflicting views and every night, secretly, each one comes out and adjusts the temperature to her liking), the sink, the balcony (which is shared with the guys) (no, NO-ONE that good ;-)) the vessels and the plastic dishes that have compartments in it, the juice cans that make me thirsty by simply looking at them, Prerna's supremely delicious bhajis and dal, Prerna's inspiring talks,
the attitude of my room-mates.

I have found a family.

lessons learnt by an 'Indian Desi'

A long awaited post... Awaited mostly by me... was dying to put experiences into concrete words... wanted time to myself.. to reflect, to ponder, to assimilate, to make sense of it all, to make it into a flow and avoid a series of "goto" statements :-)

Phew!! The learning curve in the last month surely has been steep. (slope almost infinite!).

So, how do I start? Well, I could go about writing of how I had a 'glamorous' and tearful departure. But well, I don want to write 'senti stuff'... definitely not start with it.

I shall directly skip to the lessons I learnt:-

1. If you keep thinking that 5 Euros is equal to 4 movie tickets in R-Mall, you will always stay hungry in Paris.

2. Long earrings are in fashion EVERYWHERE, except in airplanes. If you attempt the fashion in airplnes, you are going to get stared at.

3. Its better to go to the loo when you are on the airport rather than lazily procrastinating the task and then inconveniencing your neighbours (and looking foolish) to go to the loo just when the plane is about to take off. (lesson 3.1 : There are no seatbelts in the loos of aircrafts!)

4. Your bags are always heavier than what you think.

5. If you are Indian (especially GujjuBen) then you SHOULD carry thepla. If you dont, the airport official will not believe you (and will wonder what's happening to the world), and will insist on opening your bag.

6. From the above it follows that if you are not carrying food, your bag will be rechecked becuse they are suspicious. And so you should not pack in your bag things that you would get embarrassed upon being unpacked. (Cricket guards with awkward shapes are a big no-no, no matter how much you care for someone. Likewise, stuffing undergarments in your kitchen bowl for efficient packing is surely going to make your cheeks go red!)

7. Sweet-talk can help you get your way through anyone - even the immigration officer. (he may even give you his phone number and ask you where you live, if you are wearing Davidoff's Cool Water).

8. Old men know they are old. But they dont like being told that.

9. If you want to know which way to go and in what direction you are already heading, a map is the last thing you consult. The first thing you do is look absolutely flustered and give a confused touristy look, especially if there are benevolent lookin people around. And then, if you are doing your job well, and if the person is benevolent, he will come to you and tell you all that you need to know and more. And if he does not approach you, you are anyway going to get lost. And next time you meet a kindred soul from good ol' India, you can tell them how unhelpful the goras are, with ample evidence and mirch masaala.

10. The map is drawn with a reduced scale. That means, roads drawn on maps are smaller than their actual lengths.

11. New York City may be the capital of the world. But just as a guy from Jamblapur in Assam cant really appreciate the 'coolness' of Cuffe Parade, one may not be able to appreciate "downtown Manhatten".
Caution: There is no Jamblapur in Assam. Probably, there is no Jamblapur ANYWHERE.

12.If you dont know what dish you are ordering in the 'really happening' restaurant you went to (all by yourself), its best to ask the ingredients (and check the price) (BEFOREHAND).

13. Order Salad only if you know how it tastes.

14. If someone askes you whether you have seen "American Desi", say yes only if you have. Its ok to say no. Its better to say no anyway, coz most likely the person who asked you has acted in it!!!

15. if you are not missing India, its normal. Dont try hard to miss it. In the process you miss whats happening around you.

I have learnt many more lessons. These are the lessons that I learnt only in the first 2 weeks of my US adventure. And I have been here for 5 weeks.

WOW! I am lovin this...