On SMS and subtle corporate war

Nice article. Nice overview of things if you are willing to believe. In times when media is flooded with myriad of opinions it is difficult to decide whom to believe.
I would rather chose him (author).

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article3494081.ece

A king who chooses to ignore the first principle of statecraft that the royal staff must be tapped — and, tapped hard — once in a while should be prepared to be called corrupt.

SMS stands for Sardar Manmohan Singh.

New lab

So I started work at new lab today. Officially it was first day. Group meeting at 2:30. I was there 5 min early. I realized that people started arriving from 2:30 and in next 5 minutes there were 12 people in the room. I introduced myself to everyone. A gentleman from Iran was disappointed in me because he thought (from my name) that I was a female student. So far being used to hearing gazillion different ways to pronounce my own name there comes the new one. Have you watched the movie Lord of the rings? What was the name of the main bad guy? Does it sound similar to my name! :) Remarkably, although so small a group we spanned all of globe in nationalities. We covered the countries: United States, Spain, Greece, Iran, Russia, China, India, Vietnam, Korea. Holy damn, that's 9 countries! We could have held international peace conference in that room!

2 hours into the meeting I realized that it is serious stuff and I am sitting with highly qualified people. The lowest completed academic qualification in the room was Master's degree. Average qualification in the room was beyond (hand-fully beyond) Ph.D.

This summer is going to be crucial because end of summer will be decisive about my stay in the group. One thing is for sure I have a lot hard work ahead. Only to catch up with these guys. I am excited about it. After all that was what I wanted. Right now I am reading a book on tensor algebra. Future work involves programming in CUDA on GPUs. I am waiting for all this to come. I've got my office set up in there. It is in a room which does not smell much of human habitat. Everyone in the room could have heard the key-strokes of my computer. Most of the lab-mates sit in different room. This facility is off campus, some 15 blocks away. Which means that it is difficult to meet folks I used to hang out with in the main campus. Isolated. I have to travel 2 miles more everyday. Everything has its price. On optimistic note this may be worth the price.

Sometimes I love it

This person is is undergoing lot of exciting things in life. Because sometimes uncertainty can be exciting. And sometimes you just love it!

Recession

Half the professors in Mechanical Engineering department do not seem to be doing any research at all. Every other guy I meet and ask about the research the only answer is they don't have funded research projects. I wonder what is happening at University of Minnesota. Is it the recession hitting the university or really dumb professors or really dumb me not able to find a professor? Whatever it is there are more students than research positions at the U at this time. I don't know where the new students in Fall-12 are going to land up.
All the nice ones don't have money. Those (v.few) who have money are not-so-nice!

Tears

कितने कीमती होते है आसू
असली मोती से भी मूल्यवान |
Opening lines by Mom from her "spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility". You can only wonder what the rest of the content would be. It is an irresistible feeling to shed tears. In the first half. Followed by the irresistible feeling to stop shedding tears in the ending half. I could not capture the all of it over phone. I can't describe the emotions in my own words. It is impossible. You can only feel it.

Bite

Coming from a background where I simply did not know how do academic failure look like and little on how to handle them. Failure is difficult to handle. Not something that you anticipate mostly. And that is when and why it bites hardest - in your arse. And everywhere else too. But on the brighter side it is good to know your limits because you know where you need to push now. Lesson learnt is be prepared anytime for anything. Taking a fall is okay. Because it is in coming back from it is what defines you. "And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up." Master Wayne.

I passed

I passed the PhD qualifying exams this week. Finally. In second attempt at oral exams. Freaking oral exams!

Someday

Sometimes it's hard to keep up your spirit. But that's what you should do.

Sometimes some decisions bite back so hard that you wish you have undo button in life.

Sometimes you wish you be somewhere else but you aren't.

Sometimes your life is hard because that's the time you wanted when it wasn't.
Sometimes you almost want to be detached of everything but you cant just because there is 'so much' of everything that it will take forever.

Holi and Mr. Jack

After a long time I took a break and it was holi party at a friend's house. I cooked indian cuisines 'chhole and puri' with american touch which means less spices and some saucy flavor. There were some american friends who were not known to be very familiar with spicy food. Puris were amazingly good when they came out of the fry pan. Round and puffy! Chhole were also nice . There was  a lot more.  A genuine american homemade apple cake. lemon cookies. Peanut cookies. Some Hydrabadi dishes brought memories from Hyderabad. I think I like that place. And my tounge has somewhat developed taste for spicy hydrabadi food. We ate and ate and ate.
Anyways that was food. played some games for the afternoon. Playing mafia with 12 people is fun. Last part was holi colors. On the river bank under the bridge. That was our playing ground. It was my first dry holi but it was no less fun than wet ones. We were joined by some passer-bys who I think enjoyed the colors as well. And we also got audience from over the bridge.
Returning back in all variety of colors on faces and cloths the pervasive feeling was that it was a nice celebration of festival of colors and the end if spring break. Coincidently  it was also St. Patrick.'s day in US. On our way back we were strangely looking creatures covered in colorful cheer.
That was end of the party not the day. For the second time I braved myself for going to a local bar in company of two friends. I remember how bloody bored to death I  was first time. For someone who doesn't drink and dance bar is no place to be. Just sit and sip your coke. From my coke I put the straw in the wine glass and that was the worst taste of my life. It was so terribly awful, to the extremes that I sent it back through the straw in the glass. It was supposed to be some classy scotch Jack Daniels. Mr. Jack was scary! It's really surprising why people drink such awfuly tasting things. So much to get high. So much to fool yourself away from reality.

Confidence

It is amazing what self confidence (our it's lack thereof) can do to you.

Solitude matters

In a culture where being social and outgoing are prized above all else, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be an introvert. But, as Susan Cain argues in this passionate talk, introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated.
The power of introverts.

Virus

I've been a little busy last few weeks. And little sick too. The viral infection in throat keeps haunting again and again. I hate viruses. Im on the verge of recovery now.

Out of office

So now I am 'out of office'! Quite literally. May be it is the ghost of last semester exam chasing. I don't know what's the thing about freaking oral exams that people have kinkiness for. But weather you like it or not. It all comes in a package. It is about a month before I take them on for the second time. Having a sense of dejavu preparing for the same stuff over and over again. Never thought this will happen but as Mother Mary said let it be. It doesn't matter what you know it matters what you show.

Im not pessimist but I like thinking about worst things because if just in case they fall upon you, you are not caught by surprise. As I was last semester.

Busy

You know you are busy when the only time you remember that you have to get a new soap is when you are half drenched in shower and looking for it. And then end up using your flatmates'. Thanks that I am not living alone.

Laugh

Laugh because you are here!

All

I know I am not writing a lot these days. The school has started and the first week has flown past. The week was okay. We ordered dough mixer from amazon in our apartment and first test run was today. It is used to knead the wheat flour for Chapatis. The experiment was successful if you define success =1 and failure =0 and then round off the outcome to closest integer. ;)

I am considering taking sometime off from blogger. May be it is not a nice idea. But I could give it a try. Meanwhile there is significant change in nocturnal habits. You can see me sleep as early as 11 these days and get up before 8 am. Btw 8 am is the time here at this time of year when the Sun has just come up. Sunrise time is close to 7:45. So one of these days when I reached home all juiced up and just crashed in the bed and when woke up (without alarm beeping) in the bed found it was still dark and thought it might be 7:__ odd something and went to bathroom and came back and took time and bath and then breakfast, just the usual one, cornflakes in milk, and then looked at the clock and it was 6:15 and I was like, wow! surprised. Surprised! Wow.

I am also playing squash officially this semester in an intermediate level course. It is nice fun. I get to play against a lot of people and learn a lot. Everything is going so nice. Except for the thing for which I am here. Research.

Sweets from home

12th semester starts next week. My targets are pushed back somewhat. But Im in fight. Today it started with TA workshop mandatory for all people who will be TA (Teaching Assistant). I will be taking up job of TA for two courses.

Today was a happy day! I received the package of home-made sweets,pickles and snacks. Home sweet home and home-made sweets. Wow! They look nice. Be my guest. :)

Reminiscence

Sometimes I remember the old days when I used to travel back home. From Kanpur to Allahabad my hometown on train. The early morning seemed so nice. It was so different. So calm all around only the birds chirping. And the sunset/sunrise in the rustic background of the hostel (Hall 9) was a treat to watch. I kind of miss those mornings. And the evenings too when I would just stand in at the end of last block facing west. The breeze was so strong you could almost hear it sing the kind of songs which inspired William Wordsworth. I am not a gifted poet but I am human I can feel the same.
At the back of hostel, in fact on three sides, there were a vast ground usually covered with tall bushes. The kind of bushes you see on Africa jungles on NGC. In the dawn and dusk the sun against the high rise bushes made a lovely picture. You ought to see it. I wish I could see it again. A picture will give you some idea. It was nothing like living in such a place. It is priceless.

Duniya mein hun duniya ka talabgaar nahi hu

Duniya mein hun duniya ka talabgaar nahin hun
Bazar se guzara hun kharidar nahin hun

Zinda hun magar zist ki lazzat nahin baqi
har chand ki hun hosh mein hoshiyar nahin hun

Iss Khaanaa-e-hasti se guzar jaunga belaus
Saaya hun faqat naqsh-e-diivaar nahin hun

Afasurda hun ibaarat se davaa ki nahin hajat
Gum kaa mujhe ye zauf hai bimaar nahin hun

Wo gull hun khizan ne jise barbaad kiya hai
Uljhun kisi daman se main vo khaar nahin hun

---

(This poem is in urdu. Poet is Akbar Allahabadi)
Translation of urdu words:
talabgaar - some one who desires
zist - life/existance
lazzat - flavor
Khaanaa - room/house/compartment
hasti - existance
belaus - without any trace
faqat - beauty/elegance
Afasurda - melancholy/depressed
ibaarat - metaphorical meaning/ style
hajat - desire
gull - flower
khaar - thorn
more urdu words?

Home alone

The time has passed quickly after we got back from Chicago. All the mates who share apartment with me are gone for the break and I'm home alone! Living alone, cooking alone. :(
Although it can be argued that I am not among the extrovert living beings, I am more used to seeing people around me.
Not much to get started till 10th, the day we start the lab group meetings. I am not very sure of how long I will stay in the group but I will have to go to the meetings anyway.
When you chose advisor what is more important? What are you working in or who are you working with? Obviously second question will haunt you to desperation if you ignore it.

Btw since it is new year new year wishes to all of you. Although there was nothing new this new year