Eye sty

Nothing much to write about except I got a sty in the eye. And I am closing in on my PhD proposal. If all goes well I will present my proposal by the end of this month.

Happy New Year 2015

New year wishes to all my readers!
Every morning, as a sort-of ritual, first thing I do is go through news like people used to do in old times, albeit in digital format. I started first morning of the year with a news article which describes Count Leo Tolstoy's way of living. The article is called secret to to a happy life. I was glad to see the article in a mainstream media. It wonderfully describes the values I wish to imbibe in my ways of living. I'll quickly summarize the 7 ways:

1. Keep an open mind: Willingness to change your mind based on new experiences
2. Practise empathy: Tolstoy displayed an unusual capacity to empathise by stepping into the shoes of people whose lives were vastly different from his own. Crossing the fence to the other side.
3. Make a difference: taking practical action to alleviate other people's suffering
4. Master the art of simple living: Tolstoy rejected all organised religion. He adopted a revolutionary brand of Christianity based on spiritual and material austerity. He gave up drinking, smoking, and became a vegetarian.
5. Beware your contradictions: Tolstoy famously preached universal love yet was constantly fighting with his wife. Moreover, the apostle of equality was never able to fully abandon his wealth and privileged lifestyle. His personal transformation, if not complete, still deserves our admiration.
6. Become a craftsman: Tolstoy recognised that striking a balance between mind and body was an essential part of his creative process. He kept horse-plough,scythe and saw, cobbling tools. If Tolstoy were here today he would no doubt suggest we get some craft into our lives rather than grant so much of our leisure time to tweeting and texting.
7. Expand your social circle: Best way to challenge our assumptions and prejudices, and develop new ways of looking at the world, is to surround ourselves with people whose views and lifestyles differ from our own. 

Personally, I am not fond of new year resolutions and shit like that but this article reminded me to at least focus on some of the things which I thought I should do but have not been doing. So I will try to reinvent my craftsmanship skills, befriend more non-scientists and non-engineers, disown the stuff that I own. I should also spend less time in front of black mirror. Unfortunately my work involves working in front of black mirror but I can minimize other trivial stuff.

Falling sick

I've been holed up in my house for more than 3 days now.4 days blacked out of life. My daily activity were reduced to bare minimal - eat, sleep, bathe and web-surf. Thankfully life is returning to normalcy little bit and I worked from home couple of hours today. Hoping to drop by office tomorrow for a while if I feel comfortable.

Falling sick is so irritating. You are held down by your body not by your will. Feeling of helplessness looms and you are at the mercy of imperfect human doctors. I might sound robotic here but that's how I feel about falling sick.

Well, this rings a bell that I should take even more cautions approach towards health and diet. I should not take my immune system for granted. Passing years will not benefit it.

Some post

This is a random post. I was bored and wanted to write. So just posted this.
But now after writing that first sentence I have a topic to write. Randomness. Chance.
It is such a wonderful thing. Although arguably there is nothing truly random. What we see as random is result of complex causal link inexplicable by human knowledge.

"The world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair."
--Joker

Anyway, on a different note this morning I developed terrible sore throat and it's getting worse. I think I know what it is because these babies keep coming back. It is funny because yesterday we were talking about flu and how if you have flu in holiday season you can pass it as a special Christmas gift :P
I hope it is not flu. probably because I'm sleeping late these days. I need to reset my sleep cycle at least 2-3 hours early.

UPDATE::
After 2 days it was actually viral flu. I'm down with cold and fever. Fever is gone for most part but I still have terrible sore throat, congestion and cold. It has been two days now. I did not do anything on weekend and also missed work on Monday. Let's see how much more it takes. I was also supposed to go to a family dinner for X-mas but now it seems unlikely that will make it. Flu sucks :(

Quote of the day

Quote of the day:

"Sometimes I just stay in office late because I don't know what to do if I get off early."

Quite lame... :\ I know.

My laptop has been giving me problems lately. For some reason the screen just goes black pseudo-randomly with the CPU running intact. I tried to find the solution and it seems like the graphics driver is problem. Whenever it tries to use video acceleration the screens shuts off. I tried to fix in by re installing different operating system(s) but it gives the same problem with linux mint and ubuntu.
CentOS  7 could not connect to wifi so I can't test there. I had pretty good run with ubuntu but it just doesn't seem to work now!
Finally I decided to get a new one and ordered a Lenovo. And a 23" monitor.

On Life and Death

As we live on earth we see it full of life all around. Sometimes when you stop noticing it life will brush against you and show its omnipresence. So will death.

Death is as much a reality as is life. Yesterday I wished an old friend on birthday and the email reply was "Saurabh my father passed away on 1st December". It took me a while to comprehend and think of what to reply. I cannot imagine how my friend will be feeling at this point and whether there is anything I can say to make feel better. I am very bad at handling such situation. If I remind death is reality of life that would just seem harsh statement. I cannot ask them to forget their loved ones. I cannot make them stop being sad by cracking jokes. All I can do is just talk to them and offer my help if any.

I cannot stop wondering how sometimes facing death would let us appreciate our lives and how much we should be thankful just to live to see another day. It comes as a stark reminder of how futile our attempts at so called future planning may be. And how our sense of 'ownership' of things we 'own' is more ephemeral than we thought. As they say - Kafan mein jeb nahi hoti (Shrouds do not have pockets).
So the eternal truth still remains that all things must pass. A while ago I posted something after my cousin died and I can't help but re-write the same thing:

"Only certainty in the life of one that has been born is death. All other events have only finite probability of occurrence"

Thanks

We usually have potluck at my place for thanksgiving every year but this year was different. It was a feast. Thanks to my hosts in Chicago. It was a real treat for a dinner lasting several hours with wonderful people from all over the world. I would never forget it.

I worked a lot to make it to my APS presentation. I have that little feeling of accomplishment even though it doesn't signify much. I also finished a small painting. It's a simple one but it's a start.

This seemed like a break in such a long time. Including the trip to SF trip it was almost a week out of office and now I'm finding hard to concentrate. But I have no choice but to get back to work as soon as I can gather my focus back which has to be very soon! I have some year end self-targets to meet. So here is what Robert Frost would like to say about my situation:

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep.

And miles to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep."

APS talk

I am in SF and done with my talk in the conference. It feels nice to get done. I think I did fine because people from audience who were not my colleague also said they enjoyed my presentation. But I did something really really stupid to in an otherwise good presentation to mess up all the hard work. Fat-fingering sponsored to 'sponered'. It is nowhere close to the original word! I dont know what was I thinking! So said my adviser. I had no answer.
I blame it on Microsoft. I corrected the spelling mistake in a version of file but somehow Microsoft decided to create a a difference version.
Anyways it feels nice to get done and I am  looking forward to my short thanksgiving break in Chi-town.

Warm weather escape weekend

I am flying to SF today for few days for work. The temperature there today morning was -1 x temperature at Minneapolis (in C).
It will be a welcome respite from cold. See you tomorrow pacific coast!

Another Sunday

Another Sunday in the lab. But this weekend has been fairly constructive. I got some work and some writing done. I have some year-end self-targets to meet. hopefully I am gonna get there. My Mom keeps giving target to find me a girl (or a lady at this age). She will ask about every one of my unmarried female friends. My answer: I like way too many girls to make up my mind. ;)
I am getting into a lot of Billy Joel crap. And also getting back to ghazals. Can't stop wondering how beautiful they can be! Here is a timeless wonder and one of my favorites again. I have posted it probably a dozen times before:

Hazaaron khwahishen aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle
Bohat niklay mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle

Nikalna khuld se aadam ka soonte aaye hain lekin
Bahot be-aabru hokar tere kooche se hum nikle

Mohabbat mein nahin hai farq jeenay aur marnay ka
Usi ko dekh kar jeetay hain, jis kaafir pe dam nikle 

Khuda ke waaste parda na kaabe se uthaa zaalim
Kaheen aisa na ho yaan bhi wahi kaafir sanam nikle

Kahaan maikhane ka darwaaza Ghalib aur kahaan vaaiz
Par itna jaantay hain kal voh jaata tha ke ham nikle

Hazaaron khwahishen aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle
Bohat niklay mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle.

Original+translation here! 

Happy Diwali

Happy Diwali to all my readers. Here is something to chew on this Diwali

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity"

                                                                                                                    --Einstein

Hello (crazy) world!

It has been about a month since my last post. The reason I have been out of blogger is very old and stale one. I was busy, But true. After moving to new house I was busy setting everything up again afresh. I might sound like Sheldon here but I will admit that I don't like change. Not in general may be but when it comes to living space it is very true. It is just too much work for nothing. Anyway in the new big house we are 5 of us, like a frat house, and I have 4 awesome housemates. Huge upgrade from previous one.
After that work was keeping me busy. All that summer travel made the work suffer a bit. I should have got done more than I did. So my adviser didn't like it. And if you are doing PhD unhappy adviser is not a good status call. Since then I've been working at least 12 hours a day and 7 days a week. But it seems it is not enough.
I have been inventing ways to cut down extraneous time  expenditure outside work. A big chunk of time which is gone un-worked involves food! Buying groceries and cooking. I try to buy grocery from the store on my way back home, it is a little bit more expensive but there lies the balance between saving money and time. For cooking I try to cook in bulk. Like 8 meals in a go and then freeze it. Towards the end I get sick of eating the same stuff from 4 days. But in the fight for survival I will happily take that over working empty stomach. Another tip is to keep the office stocked with food all the time. So I carry both my lunch and dinner with me when I arrive here in the morning. This way I can stay here as long as I wish and not let my hunger decide the leaving time. To make the whole exercise not hit the health I try to include a lot of fruits for  vitamins in the diet. Eggs and peanut butter and milk and nuts for protein. Potato for carbs (otherwise I keep losing weight, I already lost 4 pounds in last 3 weeks). Because rice is hell lot quicker to make in terms of preparation time than bread/chapati I've been eating a lot of rice. That means low fiber in the diet. Which is not so good for digestion. I've been meaning to try taking fiber supplement but haven't had a chance to buy psyllum husk. It has 28% of DV in 1 spoon. So 3-4 spoons and thats it!
Sleeping, bathing, laundry and some other misc. stuff are other ways to kill time which I haven't figured out yet how to minimize. Minimizing sleep time can be dangerous idea because if you fall sick then it will bite you back. Since last 2 days I was feeling feverish and nausea so I have too be very careful. I slept 9.5 hours last night and feeling better.
Wish me luck!

I'm losing my insanity

I'm losing my insanity. It is deserting me. It will be gone soon.

Packin n Movin

Since Mom left from my house I have been scavenging for my meals. I cooked only handful of times. In next few days I'm packing and moving
_________________________________________________

I moved and packed and my whole place is in a state of disarray. Half the stuff still in boxes. So I am living out of box these days. It is a 5 bedroom house with. Bet feature is a huge balcony. So big that two queen mattress can go in there. But rest of the house was not built with much thought. That apart it is a huge upgrade for me in terms of roommates. I live with 4 awesome gentlemen now. All of them PhD-ing with me at school. All engineers. All of them from same undergrad school I went. Most of us from even lived in the same hostel/dorm. High IQ house ;). I know. But quite homogenous mix. I would have loved to mix with more heterogeneous people but for now I have 4 cool housemates. Together we are five guys.

Mom's travel experience in US

Preface: My Mom is guest author on my blog for this post. She recently paid me a visit in US for about a month. This is in Hindi but I will soon be writing an English translation. She writes some serious Hindi, doesn't she!

बस लोगो से सुनती थी किताबों, पत्रिकाओं व टीवी के माध्यम से वहाँ के दृश्य व संस्कृतियों को देख कर मन में बस आश्चर्य चकित व अतिश्योक्ति का अनुभव होता था। जब भारत के एयरपोर्ट पर मेरी बेटियां व अंकित मुझे पहुचने आए और मैं उन्हें छोड़ कर अंदर जाने लगी मैं बड़ी ही भाव विह्वल हो कर उन्हें प्यार से देखते हुए अंदर आई। अब मेरे साथ दीप्ति थी। वह अच्छी लड़की है उसने बराबर मेरा ख्याल रखा। पहली बार जब मैं भारत के एयरपोर्ट के अंदर आई तो देखती ही रह गए। सब कुछ इंटरनेशनल लुक का था। पर भाषा हिंदी थी। बड़ा ही सुखद लगा। अब थोड़ी प्रतीक्षा के बाद हम अबु धाबी के लिए फ्लाइट में गए। थोड़ी हिचक थी पर फ्लाइट में अच्छा लगा। तीन घंटे में हम अबु धाबी पहुंच गए। कुछ पता न था कहा जाना है। एक गाडी से हम गंतव्य तक पहुंचे। वहां पर्याप्त हिंदी सुनने व बोलने का मौका मिला। वहां के लोग अच्छे व हेल्पिंग थे। दूसरी फ्लाइट पकड़ने तक हमने अपनी नींद पूरी की। कोई डर व भय न था। सुबह एक व्यक्ति ने जगाया। उसने मुझे व्हीलचेयर पर बैठा कर चेक-इन करा कर एतिहाद फ्लाइट के गेट तक पहुचाया। गॉड ब्लेस्स हिम। एतिहाद बड़ी फ्लाइट थी। ऐसा लगा अब बेटे के पास जा रही हूँ। और वह अवश्य बेसबरी से मम्मी का इंतज़ार करता होगा। यात्रा के दौरान रह रह कर सौरभ की याद आती रही। सोच रही थी मन में वह ऐसी यात्रा कर के आता जाता है। फ्लाइट में मेरी विंडो सीट थी। कभी बाहर का बादलों के झुण्ड व क्षितिज का आनंद लेती तो कभी स्क्रीन पर फ्लाइट पाथ का दृश्य देखती। थोड़ी देर तक आँखें बंद करती फिर देखती की फ्लाइट कहा तक आई। यह एक खेल जैसा लग रहा था मुझे। फ्लाइट अटलांटिक ओसियन पार कर के टोरंटो के ऊपर होते हुए जा रही थी। फिर न्यू यॉर्क, और फिर एक लेक पार करके, फिर एक लेक पार कर के फिर शिकागो।

फ्लाइट लैंड करते समय शिकागो का दृश्य बड़ा ही मनमोहक था। बहुत बड़ा था शिकागो का एयरपोर्ट। अगली फ्लाइट मिनियापोलिस की थी। हम उसकी प्रतीक्षा में चार घंटे वहीँ बैठे रहे और विभिन्न तरह के लोगों और उनकी समताओं व विषमताओं से भरी संस्कृतियों का अवलोकन करते रहे। आखिर वह घडी आ गई जब spirit फ्लाइट आ गई। हम लोग उसमे बैठे। एक घंटे में मिनियापोलिस आ गया। इस शहर का दृश्य भी अति सुन्दर था। हम अपना बैगेज ले कर सौरभ की प्रतीक्षा करने लगे। इस दौरान एक अजीब से टीस मन में हो रही थी, जैसे लगा मानो मैं बिल्कुल अकेली अनजान कहा आ गई। कुछ खोया सा लगा। मन नहीं लग रहा था। एक साथ दो फीलिंग्स आ रही थी। जैसे कुछ छूट गया है अंतर मन का। और शरीर यहाँ धकेल दिया गया हो। सौरभ के पापा के साथ ना रहने से ऐसा लग रहा था। उनके बिना बड़ी उदासीनता थी। मन दुखी, बस आँखें सब कुछ देख रही थीं। थोड़ी देर बाद सौरभ आ गया। पीछे से आकर मुझे पकड़ा। मन प्रफुल्लित हो गया। मानो कुछ छोड़ कर फिर कुछ पा गई। अपनी दुनिया मिली।

अब मैं सौरभ के साथ उसके घर आ गई। आने पर उसके कुछ friends मुझसे मिले। उस समय मुझे अच्छा लगा। उसके बाद कई दिनों में बीच बीच में कुछ अमेरिकन और इंडियन friends मिले। मैंने उन्हें डिनर भी बनाया। बच्चों के आने से मुझे बड़ी ख़ुशी मिलती थी। सौरभ ने मेरे स्वास्थ्य व भावना का पूरा ख्याल रखा। वह मुझे स्वास्थ्य-प्रद चीज़े ही खाने को कहता है, और समय समय पर मेरी तबियत की जानकारी रखता है।

सभी बच्चे बहुत नेक व समझदार है। सभी में प्रतिभाएं है। जो सम्मान मुझे अमेरिकन व इंडियन बच्चों ने दिया उसके लिए मैं हृदय से आभारी हूँ। जितना हो सका उतना सौरभ व उसके दोस्तों ने मिलकर मुझे मिनेसोटा व मिनियापोलिस के दृश्य व दार्शनिक स्थल दिखाए ।

धीरे धीरे कब वापस जाने का समय पास आ गया पता ही न चला। अमेरिका का यह स्टेट देख कर मैं यदा कदा आश्चर्य चकित हो जाती। यहाँ की प्राकृतिक छटा व सौंदर्य अद्भुत है। यहाँ के लोग अत्यंत स्मार्ट व फुर्तीले हैं। हर व्यक्ति बिजी व अपने हेल्थ के प्रति सजग है। खाने पिने व रहन-सहन का अपना अलग ढंग है। यह सब रियलिटी से जुड़ा लगता है। यहाँ स्वतंत्रता में संतुलन है। लड़की-लड़के का भेद-भाव नहीं है। वर्गानुगत भेद-भाव भी नहीं है। state को ही देख कर अनुमान लगाना कठिन नहीं है कि अमेरिका प्राकृतिक, टेक्नोलॉजी, टैलेंट्स, का धनी देश है। साफ़-सुथरा प्रदुषण-रहित वातावरण है। ट्रैफिक रूल्स का अक्षरश: पालन होता है। बिजली पानी की किल्लत नहीं है। एसी, कूलर, गीजर व रूम-हीटर्स जुटाने का बोझ नहीं है। ईर्ष्या होती है यह सब देखकर अपना देश ऐसा क्यों नहीं है। सब कुछ दूसरे का और आंतरिक स्वतंत्रता का आभाव सा लगता है।

माना की यहाँ की भौगोलिक स्तिथि व पर्यावरण उत्तम है। परन्तु अपना देश भावनात्मकता का धनी है। समाज शब्द की व्यापक व सच्ची सार्थकता स्वदेश में है। अपने उत्सव, अपने त्यौहार,अपनी आध्यात्मिकता, धन्य है। अपना स्वतंत्रता दिवस हृदय को रोमांचित करता है। धन्य है गीता का कर्म ज्ञान व अपना राष्ट्रीय गान। कोई मनुष्य किसी भी विकसित से विकसित देश में क्यों न पहुंच जाए स्वदेश की छोटी से छोटी यादें हृदय में समाई रहती हैं। भावनात्मक ख़ुशी व संतुष्टि स्वदेश ही प्रदान करता है।
                                                      जय हिन्द। जय भारत।

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So here is my loose translation of the text. It ma not carry the exact feelings because of my vocabulary (or its lack) but I think it has the central idea:
I only used to hear it from people, read it in magazines and see on TV about the scene and cultures there. They instilled in my mind wonder and superfluity there. When my daughters and Ankit came to airport in India to drop me and I was entering airport I kept looking at them with affectionately all the while. Now Dipti was with me. 
She is a nice girl. She took care of me throughout the journey. When I entered the airport in India for the first time I kept staring at everything. Everything had international look. But the language was Hindi. It felt very pleasant. Now, after a short wait we boarded on flight for Abu Dhabi. I felt little hesitant but it felt nice in the flight. In three hours we reached Abu Dhabi. We did not know where to go after here. We arrived at the destination terminal in a bus. We got chance to hear and speak enough Hindi here. People there were nice and helping. We got some sleep before catching the next flight. There was no fear of any kind. In the morning we were awakened by a someone. He took me to the check-in counter and then to the flight gate in a wheelchair. God bless him. Etihad was a huge flight. It felt that now I am going to see my son. And definitely he must be waiting eagerly for Mom. I kept missing Saurabh during the flight. I was imagining that every time he travels it should be a flight like this. I had a window seat in the flight. Every now and then I would enjoy looking at the sea of clouds and the horizon outside. Next moment I would follow the flight path on the screen. Then I would close my eyes and take a small nap. All this was like a little game. Out flight crossed Atlantic ocean and flew above Toronto. Then came New York, and then a lake, and another lake and then finally Chicago!

The view of Chicago was beautiful as the flight was landing. It was huge airport. Next we were to fly to Minneapolis. We sat there waiting for 4 hours for the flight at the airport full of motley of people and observed the similarities and differences. Finally the moment came when our flight came. We boarded the flight. In one hour we were in Minneapolis. This city was also very beautiful. We collected our baggage and waited outside for Saurabh. At this time there was a strange unknown feeling. It felt like I am alone and lost in a nowhere place. It felt like something was lost. I could not put my mind at ease. Mixed feelings of losing something and getting something were running through the head. Like I lost something from inside. As if the soul is left behind and body has been pushed here. Saurabh's dad's presence was missing. There was mood of melancholy without him. Eyes were live, looking at everything but everything inside was sad. In the meanwhile Saurabh was here. He hugged me from back. I was delighted to see him. I found my world again.

Now I came to Saurabh's place with him. Few of his friends came to meet me. I was happy to see them. In the next few days several of his American Indian friends met me. I also cooked them dinner. I was always glad when the children came to the house. Saurabh took care of my emotions and health. He only let me healthy food and inquired about my health from time to time. 

All the children were very nice and intelligent. They were all talented. I'm grateful for the respect I received from them. Saurabh and his friends showed me around in Minneapolis and Minnesota as much as they could.

Sooner than I could realized it was time to go back. I was amazed after seeing this state of America. The natural beauty and scenery here is wonderful. People here are smart and active. Everyone is busy and aware towards one's health. They have there own unique food and lifestyle. It all seems connected to reality. There is a balance in freedom. There is no gender discrimination. No class discrimination. Judging by this state of America it is not difficult to guess that U.S. is a nation rich in nature, technology and talents. Clean and pollution free environment everywhere. Traffic rules are followed verbatim. There is no dearth of electricity and water. There is no burden of getting AC,cooler, water-heaters, room-heaters, etc. I get bit jealous on seeing all this. Why can't our country be like this! Still everything seems foreign and absence of internal freedom. 

Agreed that the environment and the material position and environment are best but our home country is rich in spirituality. In India true and inclusive meaning of society is realized. Thanks to our festivals, our spirituality. our independence day romanticises the heart. Thanks to 'karma gyan' of Bhagwat geeta. Thanks to our national anthem. It doesn't matter if one is in most forward and developed countries one always carries eve the smallest memories in ones heart. Only our home country can provide emotional happiness and satisfaction.
                                           Hail India. Hail India.

What I learned from Couchsurfing

What I learned about people (and human behavior in general) from Couchsurfing. To give you a background Couchsurfing.org is a social website where you also actually go out and meet people outside of internet. Don't confuse it with dating apps and websites. It is nowhere near those.

People everywhere in the world are essentially the same. All of us don't do different things, we do things differently. There are all types of people in every culture. Good and bad. Social construction and stereotyping at best is awfully inaccurate and meaningless.

People can do a lot for you for free when paid in appreciation. We all love being accepted and appreciated. Why else do you think you keep checking back facebook to see how many more 'likes' that new post of yours got in another 2 minutes. There are ton of people everywhere in the world ready to host strangers without monetary compensation. Or help them in general without asking anything in return. I am one of them.

If you are traveling a little bit of appreciation of local culture goes a long way. If you even show that you are trying to learn the local language the natives will love it. I was buying groceries in a store in Krakow. It was a random odd weekday morning and cashier was just starting her boring day. When leaving instead of thank you I said "dziękuję". And the the way her face lit up, the flash of instant joy I cannot describe it. Another time at security check in Vienna I wished Guten Morgen to the security guy and got through line quickly. He started talking to me in German and I had to confess that I was faking it. At least I knew I faked it good :D
I was trying to find entrance to railway station to take night train from Prague to Krakow and I asked for directions to it from someone on street. This guy happened to be latin American by birth and I said muchas gracias in return. This made him turn back, He walked with me not only to the railway station but to my platform and to the train and to my seat on the train!

All of us want love, acceptance and positive reinforcements. We go great lengths for these three things. My travels and 'couchsurfing' have only reaffirmed the aforementioned. All of us know this but we just don't consciously realize it.

Why not

Sometimes it is better to ask "Why not" than "Why".
Sometimes but not always.
 

I am very lucky

Me, a friend and Mom have been hanging out a few times lately here. My friend said today "You are very lucky". I know what that means and I totally realize it all the time. I have experience of only one Mom but I still stand by my claim that my Mom is the best! She loves all my friends and they love her. I have also got "Let us exchange Moms".
She is smart and funny. Recently she learned how to upload photos on facebook and flooded it with local pictures :) Which also includes my pictures. :(
She learned youtubing and enjoying it.

Mom is here

Mom is here and I might be traveling around a bit to show her around. It is going to be good good time. My Mom is cool she mixes up very easily with the younger lot of friends. I bet you will like her if you met her. And sometimes says really funny things. Like once she asked if I speak Hindi or English when I speak to American friends :)
Time to have some awesome mom-made home food in America! It is her first time abroad and I hope she likes it here.

Alota traveling

I have been doing a lot of traveling lately. A lot of things crazier than what I would normally do. I did solo backpacking traveling with strangers in three different countries for 8 days. All three countries had different non-English native languages. Crashing at strangers' places.
Last weekend I was in Rocky mountains in Colorado climbing two peaks at 14000+ feet. It was exhausting as hell but I scaled the mountains. It was good feeling of achievement. My point is the more you travel the more you want more. I've been loving every bit of it. Some would say it is First world activities. But I feel traveling makes me free. I love the feeling of going somewhere with minimal belongings. I feel unbound, unattached. To a place. To things. And to people to some extent. I am practicing minimalism and endurance-ism when traveling.

When you've got nothing you've got nothing to lose.