In the benefit of hindsight I can say I was so stupid. Well, you can say that anyway. But right now I am talking about going out running and doing speedwork yesterday. I pulled hamstring in left leg. Thankfully it is not too bad but there is this residual annoying kinda pain which stays. Icing on the cake - I leave tomorrow for 3.5 weeks break. Not a nicely timed injury :|

In the next 10 days I will be in 3 different continents; at least 5 different countries; and 9 different cities. I see my folks in Allahabad at my last stop! Life's Good!

Travelling solo

This is my last week in Minneapolis before I take my break. If I remember correctly last time I took more than extended weekend break was 1.5 years ago. So this was much needed. I will be gone for about 3 weeks. Of my three weeks break I will hover in East Europe for about 1 week. In India for 2 weeks. My sister is getting married next month!!!


I will be travelling by myself for most part of the time in Europe. They all seem to be very interesting people. I have travelled alone before but not for this long time. And not in foreign lands where I haven't lived or known anyone. All three countries I'm visiting have different languages, culture and currency. . I think it will be exciting. They have trains everywhere in Europe. That adds to it. I will be staying with Couchsurfing hosts in all places. They all seem to be interesting people. As they say, you have friends everywhere., you just haven't met them yet!

But I must say I will miss Minneapolis somewhat. Because it is summer and summer is the best time to be in Minneapolis! One of the best places to be in summer! But I am not complaining. I will be in Austria, Czech Republic and Poland. Yes Poland. I wanted to go there since a long time. In fact the main reason for stopping in Europe was to go to Oswiecim, which is Polish name for the town in occupied Germany where Germans decimated millions. More familiar name is Auschwitz. I am  going to visit the Auschwitz memorial. That is the main attraction of my stop. When I tell this to people they find it a bit weird. But I guess all of us weird in some sense in our own way and our own place. It is a place which marks nadir in collective human behaviour. A shame that this took place and was done by a leader of mass following. It wasn't war it was genocide. It was an important event in history.

I am somewhat obsessed with WW2 history and want to see trails of war history in East Europe. Also for some unknown reason I like the two countries. Poland and Vietnam. Both of them one thing in common. They were hotbed of two wars and destruction at the behest of foreign invaders (if I may use this word). I wanted to see the Poland and Auschwitz. I'm spending half my time in Poland. When I first told a European friend of mine his first reaction was: Poland? No one goes there! :) I don't blame him. He might be true. But I am no one and I'm going there.

I am learning some Polish for fun. Apparently it is a hard language to pronounce. For english speakers they pronunce much different from what they write. Oswiecim is Aaush-wien-shim. Zywiec is Zuwietch. and some more crazy ones. It seems a week is not enough to see all I want to see. I may have to come back to Poland. And East Europe in general. There is lot of history and culture to be discovered. And Europe in more general. And world in more general.

I will write whenever I have time in between.

Momy's day

May is the month of Momy's day and also my Mom's birthday. I love you and miss you Mom.

Have you done this?

Cry in bathroom and let the water run so that no one can hear you.

Ghazal

I like urdu poetry. They become your friend at times and support your existence.

मैं अकेला ही चला था जानिब-ए- मंजिल मगर
लोग साथ आते गए और कारवां बनता गया |

(I set off alone towards the destination but,
People joined by and by and lo! a soon it was a caravan!)

I am either moving too fast or too slow. My caravan is not catching up.

Happiness

Sometime I am saboteur of my own happiness. Whenever I have got something to be happy about I feel like I have something to lose. It is a mixed feeling. I am happy to be happy, just like everyone everywhere is. But I don't like that feeling of having something to lose. So I become tiny bit anxious when I have that. Well, I guess I am not alone. Quote:

"Niki Lauda: Happiness is the enemy. It weakens you. Puts doubts in your mind. Suddenly you have something to lose."

"Niki's wife: When you call happiness an enemy then it's too late. Then you've already lost."

Here is a youtube grab from the movie.

It has been raining Monsoon in Minneapolis since past few days! And rest of this week is going to be the same. I've already got two set of wet cloths. I love to watch the rain. Makes me feel nostalgic. Lovely weather (barring the fact biking becomes difficult.) Come June I will see the Monsoons in the Gangatic plains. :)

Holi

So we had yet another Holi in Minneapolis. Thanks to the three friends who played hosts (although I invited one guest of my own too). They've been doing this since last three years. It has grown into tradition of some sort now. I like that!

We had to wait more than a month from actual Holi date in want of good weather. TBN - It was 12 C outside on a Saturday but good enough for Minnesotans to call it summer time :) And I was thrown in the river in this temperature; all wet chest down. Kinda caught cold but got well quickly.
It was crazy crazy weekend. Here's a memoir of Holi 2014.

There truely are no rules of attraction. Freakin thing!

http://neophytespeaks.blogspot.com/2009/08/rules-of-attraction.html

I am not 31 yet

Freaking funny article about single guys of marriage-able age with poking Moms! (like mine) :)
I can partly relate to it.



Although I am not 31, or have a pseudo-liberal Mom (she is non-conservative liberal), or have a girlfriend but it is still hilarious read. :)

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/31-male-and-not-yet-there/article5929265.ece

Run

I ran in a timed run yesterday after long long time. Minneapolis Hot Chocolate run. At the finish line we were treated with hot chocolate fondue, chocolate drink and sweat treats. Enough motivation to run 5 kilometres!

I couldn't have prepared worse for the race. I didn't run in the week leading to it. Didn't properly do exercises either. The previous night we had a heavy dinner at Egyptian place. I ate all I could. Then bonfire outside by Mississippi until 2. Which meant only 4 hours of sleep before run with stomach full of Egyptian food.When arrived at the race venue I realized I forgot to bring my race bib number. So my run world not be timed. By my watch I think I finished 30-31 minutes.

Anyway the weather in next two weeks looks much better. Hopefully no more snow. I'm planning for a half marathon at the end of summer. August sometime.

:((

Lately I'm being lazy for no reason. I am a lazy person in general. Not to say that I lack motive. Laziness is not same as lack of motive in life. I have a motivation. I want to graduate with PhD :)
"See, laziness as you know is like gravity. All it takes is a little push. Ahhahahah". Dark Knight anyone?

But this week hasn't been so good. I had a not-so-good meeting with advisor where I realized that there is a lot more left to be done. This means at least another 2+ years left. Don't want to put blame on anyone. My adviser is usually more elusive than ninja. I wanted to have this meeting much earlier. But this guy is always travelling. On an earlier occasion when we met my 'objectives' were different than what I have now and I squandered some time figuring that out. All in all it is not that much okay to have a PhD advisor who doesn't see you much one-on-one. I used to think otherwise earlier. Ahh, sigh. But that's life, growing up. Evolution of your thoughts. I am still thankful that I have an advisor like him. (He pays me after all).

I've also been wasting too much time over other things which I thought I will never do. Ahh, sigh. That's the irony of life. We are all still humans and we cannot be programmed (as of yet).

At some point I have to start painting the blank canvas. I cannot just go on ignoring it forever for the fear of spoiling it. I chose a very difficult painting with lot of perfectly worked out details. May be I should just start doing it without much in mind and see where it goes. Like abstract art!

I feel much better after writing all this. Good enough to make me get out of bed and start the day. Have a good day folks.

Being myself

I am stressed out today but swamped with too much work at once to feel anything. Not very often but there actually are moments when I get fed up of being the strong-independent-all-by-myself self. But then I can't afford to do that for long in the fear of falling behind. I have to get back to being that same self. May be I can take one day break from it. Or rather not. What about the deadline tomorrow then? I can't decide what to do today. But I will survive it too to see another fine day tomorrow.

That's called Piled higher and Deeper.

I am a rock

"I am a rock, I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries."
--Simon & Garfunkel

I've played this song like 100 times in last few days. A cool website to do this: https://www.listenonrepeat.com/

Happy Holi

Happy Holi all readers. It's never spring in spring in Minnesota so never felt like Holi. We will probably do our Holi when weather warms a little but more.
April some time.

Grad school

Grad school is the kind of place which can mess up with your inside, if you not keep track of yourself. However much you work often it feels like you are not doing enough. You are not making enough efforts. There is always much more you can do or you could have done. So much to do, so much to learn.
And then there are times when you wonder whether what you are doing really matters. Does anyone care about it? Does it really makes a difference? Why are you doing this? This feeling very aptly summarized bellow by phdcomics.



To take it to extreme some would feel they are not entitled to having fun at all. Any time they catch themselves not working it feels guilty of some sort. Then I discovered it is not a singleton behaviour. There are multitudes of us.

So what is it that helps get around some of such stuffs? You would not guess: thorough literature review. I was reading a lot of previous works related to simulation of flow around marine and hydrokinetic turbines in natural river flows and to be honest I was tiny bit surprised that how little has been done. I came across really crappy published papers in random ass conferences getting 20-30+ citations within an year. There was also a published study about the same topic in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A which looked like a conference paper worth of work. All of which makes what I plan to do (assuming I successfully do it, or plan to attempt) more important than I thought.

SIGH... Back to Work!

Yay!

I am so excited at this moment but no moment to get away with high excitation. :(
I'm finally taking three weeks break in June two of which will be in India to attend my sister's wedding. Yes, my sister is getting married!
In the meanwhile I'm trying to finish my preliminary exam which consists of writing a 30 page proposal. Basically justyfying a committee of 4 profs that my PhD is worth doing. And what I am contributing to existing set of knowledge and how it will change the world. Stuff like that.
Point of matter is I am working like an ass to finish writing it. Mostly because I am very inefficient when it comes to writing. I spend a lot of time trying to frame sentences and write only this much. I set my personal deadline of mid-march. Looks like it will go missed. But I'm trying hard. It will be some sigh of relief. I want to get done with it so that I can feel excited about my trip without worries. And then go there without less load when the time comes.
Good nighty!

Geeta saar

Following are some of the age old wisdom found in Indian mythology. When I was young, in teen I remember, I used to buy a brand of notebook for school which always carried same back cover. I read that over several times and it stayed in my top rack for some reason. Now that I look back I believe it did shape me in some ways, the way I think or things I believe. Consciously or subconsciously, I don't know. Here is what back cover read like:

Translated in English, in the same order, it goes like:

• WHATEVER HAPPENED WAS GOOD
• WHATEVER IS HAPPENING IS GOOD
• WHATEVER WILL HAPPEN WILL ALSO BE GOOD
• WHAT HAVE YOU PARTED WITH THAT MAKES YOU CRY ?
• WHAT DID YOU BRING WITH YOU THAT YOU HAVE LOST ?
• WHAT DID YOU CREATE WHICH IS NOW DESTROYED ?
• WHAT YOU HAVE TAKEN, YOU HAVE TAKEN ONLY FROM HERE.
• WHAT WAS GIVEN WAS GIVEN ONLY FROM HERE.
• WHAT IS YOURS TODAY, WAS SOMEONE ELSE'S YESTERDAY, WILL BE SOMEONE ELSE'S TOMORROW.

CHANGE IS THE LAW OF THE UNIVERSE

Image and translation adapted from someone else's personal page here.

Good night!

20s

Twenties is the decade of your life when

-You will be who you have wanted to be and who you will be for the most of your remaining life.

-You will sort out the mess generally known as quarter-life crisis.

-You will find answer to most puzzling questions about life. You will give-up on on the ones unanswered.

-You will  hangout most with the person you go everywhere with. Yourself.

-You will come face-to-face with your loneliness and maybe learn to embrace it. Is duniyan me akele hi aae the aur akele hi jana hai. Said so Lord Krishna.


(Disclaimer: Above applies for the central band of people distribution curve. Extrema may be safely excluded. Views are based on authors personal experience, observations and readings. The list is not exaustive.)

Man in black

I've been introduced to more artists lately by pandora. Johnny Cash's is a story which follows a tipsy turvy road. It's almost like a good drama movie. There is this song that hits me most in which he explains why he wears what he wears. He had this outlaw bad boy kind of image but he also stands up for the 'poor and the beaten down'. He would always wear black in public because as he explains:

"We're doing mighty fine I do suppose
In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a man in black."

When you see all this war and suffering in the world you wonder where are those men who stand up front? As if the two deadly wars (Afghan and Iraq) were not enough killing for those-responsible-for-starting-war, there are innumerable suffering in Syria. While a lot of us in better doing part of world will never know what it is to be like in conflict zone, there is a whole generation learning survival skills in refugee homes. We can bask in glory of economic boom and scientific development but for many the achievements of the day are still primitive in nature. Getting food for today.

Well I don't want to sound like socio-path. It just happens sometimes when certain things happen in certain order to lead me to this point. But amid all this darkness there are things that are bright too! Scrambling through the world news sometimes there are things which restore the positive belief. Like this one. Why do women outnumber men in technology in the Gulf? Compare this against Why are there so few female scientists? 
Percent of women in all tech entrepreneurs in Arab world is 35% compared to corresponding global of 10%. Not many would have predicted that. That's why I love technology. It stands fair. Unbiased

Cheer up, because tomorrow will to be worse

Optimism for pessimists:

Cheer up, because tomorrow will to be worse.