Cold

Caught cold in the windy city. Fever is okay now. But still having some throat infection. The medicines are of no use. Even the doc said I'll have to endure for 3-5 days. Just sitting idle at home.

End of it

Finally the eleventh semester of life and first at UMN has ended. With only 2 courses at stakes it was not very difficult that way. But I had other things to worry about and those things did not end the way I would have liked them to end. In fact they did not end with me failing to pass the oral qualifying exam. I am taking it again next semester. I seriously don't know what more is left for me to prepare for the content of the exam. May be I will change the subjects this time and study something new instead of repeating old stuff. And may be practice thinking-on-your-feet. Answering on paper and on blackboard in front of people can be very different things.

Anyways that was the end of it. Good or bad. All things must pass. I will do whatever best I can next time. And also I will be TA for two of the courses and no research work next semester as direct repercussion of the above result. But that might be a blessing in disguise. How? I don't know. Just waiting for next semester to end. And let some haze clear out.

Anyways that was it. It has ended. And the next one has not yet begun. Caught between the semester tomorrow is a nice day for roadtrip to Chicago with 4 other guys. Starting in the morning and then coming four days later. I seriously don't know what are we going to do this many days. Chicago might not be worth 3/4 days of visit. But going with a group so let it be. Accidentally I will be in Chicago during Christmas which is a big day in USA. Until I return I will not write so Merry Christmas people. Folks in Minneapolis are disappointed that it is going to be non-white xmas this time. Thankfully it hasn't snowed much yet here.

Last days

It is last few days of the semester. Everybody seems to be looking for the vacations. What have I to look for? An exam on Tuesday and then cookie exchange party with the lab group members. I am not sure what to expect from next semester. Or the coming break. I so desperately wanna nail the final day on Tuesday. But thereafter? Oh and I have a question. Can I bring along cake instead of cookies in the cookie exchange? Cake is a lot easier to make.

Poster & suicides

Today I had a poster presentation and it was not as bad as I thought it would do. Team of 4 we did not start off on time but then slogged a bit in the end to reach there. It was not outstanding but it looked more than over-a-weekend project. As a matter of fact we worked quite more than over-a-weekend.
The results although wrong looked feasible :).

I am reading this report on suicides at IITK. I will post a comment by Director Prof. Dhande: "We are all very concerned about what is happening. Though there are number of factors that are responsible for academically linked suicides at IITs, these can be curbed by systemic reforms. The council is not an insensitive body and I am sure some of these reforms will come up for discussion at the meeting." And now here are some of the suggestions by different fact finding committees setup after each suicides: "replace ceiling fans with pedestal fans in hostel rooms, eliminate single rooms from hostel, jam the cell phones or slow down internet speed."

Suicide rate at IITK is 10 times the average of suicides rate in north India. Also a peculiar thing about the state-wise suicide rate is that the southern supposed more educated and well-off states have much higher suicide rates than norther 'poor' states UP, Bihar. So, statistically speaking, if you want to live DONT STUDY!

Down but not out

Im down but not out. Failing the exam once seems difficult to bear partly because I am not conditioned to handle academic failures. Things have become a little bit complicated but I will sort it out. Only thing that I did not expect was the kind of support from my advisor. It does not help when hours before exam your advisor says that you do not have understanding of subject and (s)he is uncertain of supporting you.
It's just a bad phase which I will get over.

peom

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