Two faced

There are two sides of me. One side wants to just be me by myself. Enjoy the solitude. Do not care about going to socialize. The other side forces to go 'out' more. Constantly telling me to not miss the party invitations.
It is difficult to say which side wins. They kinda go hand in hand but in my case, mostly, first side prevails.
I so much want to sit and work. Or just sit and do something interesting.
On a different note I haven't been doing much apart from work. There is a canvas and oil paints waiting for me in my apartment to start working again on them. My squash racquet is stashed beneath my bunk bed somewhere. Haven't biked more than 3 miles in a long time, save one occasion last month. Suspended my facebook account. And haven't been posting blogs either. This needs to be changed.

vichar kijiye

साक्षरता और शिक्षा में कितनी समानता है। शिक्षा का अर्थ केवल साक्षर होना नहीं है।
---

Mom

Translation: What is the similarity between education and literacy. Literacy is not the only meaning of education.

Dumping the cube

I won't be completely wrong if I say that I was busy past month to take time to blog. Some progress made on research front.I can only hope to do enough. I wanna finish before this year ends.

Today I woke up to hear the news that my Rubik's cube has been dumped in garbage bin. Probably not a best way to start your day.
The story goes like this. I got out my cube, disassemble the pieces and cleaned it. Then washed it kitchen sink and left on dining table to dry up. Overnight. So this really dumb guy, who also happens to be my roommate, comes up and supposes that it is there because it is to be thrown away. Dumps it in trash can in kitchen. not only this, proactively clears the kitchen trash in the garbage bin outside. And the morning I hear all of this about the garbage van has took all of it away.

Anyway I have a new cube by Dayan Guhang to be shipped from amazon soon. Lets see how long this one survives the wrath of my roommate.

PM's address to the nation

PM's address to the nation:

I agree with him on petrol and diesel prices. To most extent on LPG. Im divided on the FDI in retail. There is just too much of opinion floating around to comprehensively conclude anything without dedicating time to read them all. There are both positives and negatives. Not sure which one over-weighs the other.

WTF

There are several WTFs going on these days time. Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi arrested for making political cartoon. How can it be a criminal to make cartoons! How? WTF?
A certain politician in Mumbai gives hate speech openly every other day and people, lots of people, even those who are supposedly well to do off intellectually follow the demagogues. Those who are supposed to use their brain not the hate instincts. Lead the society into better place are following (and spreading) demagoguery. Why? WTF?
You can give a hate speech as an occupation and walk free but make a cartoon to get arrested. That's how it works? Why? WTF?
A group of political followers group together and stage protest against another political class. Attack police personal. Manhandle women. But guess what, it is not a crime. They walk free. If you wish to get arrested you better learn to draw cartoons. WTF?
I can go on and on and on. But what's the point. I mean I listen, so do a lot of people, to all the wtf and say wtf? And then what do I do. What could I do? To do anything I need to go way out of way. Which is the point where it all stops. And which is the reason for all the wtfs.

Baking

Today was cooking day. Or baking day. Right now my maiden banana cake is in the hot oven. Half way through it looked good. Fingers crossed. Tomorrow Im going to apple pie bake-off. To be judged by public. Taste all the good pies and then cast your vote.
Saturday is a good time to clear your sleep backlog! Sleep all day and play soccer in the evening. And bake breads in the night.

I think I figured out why I dont like to go to parties. The more I go party the more lonely I feel. I freakin hate it!

The party people will never understand this. Here is one for the party people.

Moving out

This weekend moved out to my new abode in Minneapolis. I must say the I kinda liked the old abode better. I am still wondering why exactly we moved out of our old place.
Moving is such a pain. We arrived at the new house. It is not as savvy as the old one. But I will get along. It is close to Hennepin Avenue which is home to some of the delicious places to eat in town. That is interesting. Lots of food to try this year. kramarczuk is a Polish cuisine place. Seafood market is just few blocks. Some greek salads just stone-throw away.

The thirteenth one

This week is just about an year I have been in this country. No signs of first visit back home in sight as of yet. Hopefully December could be the lucky month. If everything goes well in the coming Fall semester it could happen. This will be the thirteenth semester.

अब जब तुम्हारा जन्मदिन है

अब जब तुम्हारा जन्मदिन है
आज भी वो क्षण याद है
जब तुम नन्हें  शिशु के रूप में
मेरी गोद में आये ।
तुम्हारी बाल क्रीडाओं और
मीठी मीठी बातों से
समय के पन्नो पर
रंगीन चित्र से बन गये ।
याद है तुम्हारी भोली भली नादानियां ।

और आज जब तुम इतने
बड़े हो गए हो ।
मैं वापस लौट जाती हूँ
अपनी उम्र के उसी पड़ाव पर
जब तुम नन्हें शिशु के रूप में
मेरी गोद में आये ।

 ---
Mom

One handed

Getting used to one-handed way of life. I wonder how much you can do with only one hand and some finger tricks.
Try chopping tomatoes with one hand. It's fun!
One thing you cant do is tie you shoe lace. You can tuck them in though. Just tuck 'em in all day long. And keep tucking 'em in every time they come out. Don't tie 'em up.
Eating with one hand limits your palate to great extent. You can't have big american sandwiches. No fork+knife. Best bet is to use a spoon with one (left) hand.
Soaping  yourself with one hand is a different art in itself altogether. With practice you can do it. Use everything except wrist. Shampoo, facewash all do-able with finger tricks.

Accident

What are the odds that you will be traveling 10+ mph on a road bike on a nice sunny morning and there will be a tree on the side of the road with a wire hanging from top and that wire will entangle in your bike and you will fall down from over-speeding bike?
Well however small the odds you do happen to be just unlucky sometimes. Today was my day to be unlucky. I fell down and put all the body weight on one hand and seriously injured my right wrist. Xrays dont see fracture but it still hurts lot. It may take as long as 10 days to heal. If it is a hidden fracture, 1% chance then it may take months and an operation. Odds are small but nevertheless, fingers crossed! Its good that it is over weekend. I can start working from Monday if the pain alleviates.
Right now I have splint in one hand to keep the wrist in place. And yes typing with one hand is pain.

letter

Received rakhi and cards and letters. And chocolates. All in hardcopy. From India.
It has different meaning altogether. As if the letter carries the presence of people across time and distance to you.

Hello

Hello.....
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?
Come on.
Now.

Oblivion

Some people just go in oblivion.

Good morning

I woke up just now. Lying in the bed. And for no reason I'm feeling a bit lonely. It's not like I don't have friends and I'm really lonely but still as I said for no reason. May be it were the dreams. I don't remember what were they like. Most of the time I don't. Just after I wake up, it's gone! Like it were in a different, parallel, world. Anyways the point was I was feeling lonely.
It is not like im suffering or something. For a change, work wise things are going great. I would not say great, but not bad. Learning some new things. Started getting some results. Hitting my head on a big code in C which has absolutely no documentation. New a advisor has been good so far. Group members are many europeans so it has been tradition of starting with euro cup matches on big screen instead of presentations.
Anyways I need to do something about it. But I don't know. May be I will just wait for the feeling to go away. I have a new road bike but I haven't taken it out yet. I think I need to go out more. May be. Btw if you haven't read Nikola Tesla's biography it is great. Just because the man was great. It is very inspiring.

Country obsessed with cartoons

Country obsessed with cartoons. That is what can be concluded of the following list, which by no means, is exhaustive.

Jayalalithaa joins chorus against cartoon in NCERT textbook

Now Karunanidhi wants cartoon removed from NCERT textbook

Controversial Cartoon on Dr.Ambedkar?

Professor's cartoon was murder threat: Mamata - The Hindu

Regret

I have realized that we always regret more for things that we don't do than things that we do. Do more. Regret less.
I had been at this awesome food truck who really know how to 'cook' vegetarian food. Potter's pasties and pies they call themselves. The Thai Veg Pasty was close to any Indian stuffed carbohydrate dish. Like Samosa. Sesame short bread sweatdish with basil syrup was also delight. They dont make as good pie as I have had.
I am up to a nice and ok working schedule in my work. I have observed a very well document fact about productivity vs day of week. Like you would see in PhD comics kind of websites. They are not comic imagination. It is real. It is friday evening and I am trying to finish reading some stuff ('A numerical method for solving the 3D unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in curvilinear domains with complex immersed boundaries' for those who are curious to know what) and not able to stick to it.

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.