Apology

Strong coffee breath smells like a cig. Yes, I just realized it. So I send in an apology to all those people I called smokers when all they did was to just get high on caffeine.

:)

:D

Sometimes it take a really long time to realize that something or someone makes you truly happy.

I've realized it.

:)

And I'm happy.

Truly.

Reaching new heights of bad luck - Part 2

Clearly, my bad luck has a major crush on me. Its so freaking possessive, that I never get a chance to break up with it. Not that I don't love it or something, I do. But you know, it gets creepy at times. It follows me wherever I go. Stalking kinds. Poor thing has insecurity issues. Uh. I really think if I ever do break up with it, it will do something disastrous...

:D

Nevertheless, continuing with my continuous crossroads with bad luck, this time its my Research work (whatever there is). So, there is this code that I need to run. And obviously, I was happy that there were over four computers available to get all knocked up with the code-running process. So I enthusiastically run the code for different conditions on all of them. And guess what, the bad luck steps in. Three of the four computers run out of memory! (apparently some mldivide problem in MATLAB). No worries, so now that one computer that didn't run out of memory (it has some kick ass memory, so I've heard), I was intent on running all my codes on that. 

I run the code. It runs, runs, runs, keeps on running, keeps on running, keeps on running... And running. So I decide to head back home and come the next day to check on it. Obviously, that computer isn't that slow that it wouldn't stop running the next day. It did stop running. I jump to the upper orbital. I save the figure and clear. And run another code, wait for another day, process repeats. Then, then, I realise I needed some values from the first code I ran. Remember the clear, (it was on MATLAB). So all data gone. Nevertheless, I still stick on and run it again. Haah, but this time I'm smart. I save the necessary data. And process that data again for some other results. But I don't get the results I expected. I keep thinking where I made a mistake in the code, find a few, correct them, but again the results are strange. THEN, then I ask myself ,"You crazy ass, which all values did you save in the first place?". And guess what, by the end of this question, I'm slapping myself like crazy (It was looking crazy :P ). So in the end, I RAN that fuckin' code, waited for God knows how many hours, just to NOT save the data, AGAIN!! 

:) This, my dear friends, is called being engaged to bad luck... But some call it Research.

(PS: I'm planning to do Post-doc too! I have this faith that my world will come crushing down then.)

Peanut Butter

It's the best thing that man has ever created.

The chunky, creamy, mildly salty taste.

The crisp peanuts crunching between your teeth,

Releasing that impeccable buttery peanut flavor.

It touches your soul to a level which is beyond any bliss ever felt!

Plain butter just got an upgrade. :)

PS: Yes, I am a foodie.

The first one, in a long time.

Yes, so the blog is active again. I'd been thinking of writing for a while now. But initially didn't have a laptop, and now I do, but no time. Actually I do have time. But never mind that!

Now that it has been a while since I practiced my typing skills, let me begin from the beginning. I graduated from IIT Madras and joined MIT for Graduate studies (Master's right now, and hopefully PhD in a couple of years!). Research field - Underwater Acoustics and Remote Sensing, very very different from what I though I wanted to join initially. But nevertheless, I'm here and everything is great. Perfect. In fact, perfect is an understatement. 

Its 11.14 pm, and I just finished a PSet in 6.003. Its funny how lingos change. Back in insti, it would've corresponded to an Assignment in B slot! So essentially, its a problem set a.k.a homework a.k.a assignment in 6.003 a.k.a Signals and Systems, an undergrad course I've taken here. Too much pondering over a minor point, but thats what's a blog is all about! Moving on, I've super-graduated from a desktop to a Mac. Its different, its hot, its a beauty! And now that I'm introducing random topics, one more won't do any harm. Pens have become extinct in my life, and pencils have phoenix-ed. Most students I've seen around here write everything in pencil, from names to notes, PSets to post-its. Everything! Resulting in the leads taking a lead. It's actually pretty convenient, coz you can rub all you want! And re-do the crap you did 3.4 seconds back. And rub. And re-do. 

So, the first set of Quizzes just got over, and for most of you, my mood is evident from my Facebook status. Yeah, facebook, that too, hmm. Another graduation from Orkut. Its better I'd say. And manages to take up a lot of time. But considering the fact that the machines in my lab have no memory for me to run codes, I think its a pretty good time-pass when I'm trying to run them again, knowing that they won't in the end. Oh oh, and the machines in my lab have funky names - Hydrophone, Dipole, Geoclutter. Very cool. 

My head is empty. Literally. I've started comparing my life as depicted in PhD Comics. I think they are pretty true. Grad school does stuff to you. I've started cooking and doing laundry. I've become a psuedo-housewife. Although, thats not a bad thing. Now I know how difficult it is to make really awesome food, unless you have the blessing of serendipity in your kitchen. 

The gyms are brilliant. The facilities rock. Free food is available a-hell-lot. Basically, I'm lovin' it. :D

Cheerio

I wish I were...

This might seem the very old and familiar topic to write in a standard 5 English exam, nevertheless, dreams and aspirations never die out. Not even at the age of 3, nor at 21. So here is my I wish I were..., dedicated to the ones who've helped me travel this journey called life!

I wish I were a butterfly,
Soaring in the air, up and high,
Hopping free with each breeze,
These moments I'd long to seize.

I wish I were a turtle,
Could do without a pipe to snorkel,
Lethargy so intense to govern my life,
Where time is plenty and happiness, rife.

I wish I were a ladybird,
Colored red on yellow, unheard,
Beating the sunflower in glow,
Absorbing life, in sips, slow.

I wish I were...me,
But thats not happening to be,
'Coz I am me right now,
To all who made me me, I bow!

Reaching new heights of bad luck

For those observant fellas who are on my Gtalk list, this was one of my status messages sometime back, and very truly so. The previous post I wrote was about my bad luck in my BTP, I think my bad luck charm in relation to the same has been working ever since I came back from holidays back in December. Considering the fact that I need my computer to work properly for this last semester, anything going wrong with it was like a crumpled piece of irritation thrown down by God!
So, the hard drive stops working. Then the RAM, hence the monitor. Then the SMPS. Sigh!
Four months. Just four months.
Four problems, FOUR problems!!
BTP. BTP!!
Sigh.
So I drag along a friend of mine with my CPU to the most trusted computer shop for all IITians out here - Devraj Computers. The owner of this place literally swims in the money earned by selling computers and laptops to us. Rich bugger.
The CPU was heavy.
Problems don't end.
Nope.
First, we don't have the change for Rs. 500/- to pay the auto-wala 70 bucks. After 15 minutes of bouncing off other shops saying no for any change requests unless I buy something from them (Argh!) I realise that there was a crisp 100 rupee note relaxing in between my SBI ATM receipts.
Okay, nothing bad happened for a little while.
We start back for the campus when the repair work is done.
The CPU was heavy.
We get an auto and after a little bit of bargaining, we convince him to take us back in Rs. 90/-. Loss of 20 bucks, but whatever!
There is a straight route from Devraj back to our campus, but the auto guy tries to act like a smart ass. Actually he ended up being just an ass. A big one. Real big. His auto stops working right in the middle of nowhere. Not a main road, not even a gali. Some deserted place in Chennai where the two of us had never been. Two stranded ladies. Okay, it wasn't that bad, I'm over dramatizing it. :)
So we get off and ask the auto wala to look for an auto for us. Now, as previously mentioned that he was trying to act as a smart ass, he again tried. Again cupped.
So obviously we got off and started looking for an auto for ourselves, on foot. The CPU was heavy. We finally find another auto and the driver refuses to come down from 55 bucks to 50. He had dropped his price from 80 earlier to 55. Argh.
So giving him the benefit of shit, we mutually agree on 55.
Campus gates welcome us. Grin. Nothing can possibly go wrong now. We had taken the auto till the hostel and not till the gate, and although the bus waiting for passengers at the gate, the thought of the comfort of an auto came over us. So we carried on in the auto taking the route where the bus doesn't run. 'Coz nothing could go wrong. But it did. Again.
The auto ran out of petrol. :D
No auto, no bus, 1.5km, CPU was heavy.
It was a Saturday. :D
Saturday=Movie at OAT=People coming from outside insti to watch it=Cars=LIFT!
Elation. But no car for some 10 minutes.
So we start walking. Soon, we manage to convince an uncleji and auntiji to drop us off at GC.
We thank them. We get off the car.
Thud. We drop the CPU.
Silence. Hysterical laughter for 4 minutes.
End.

So thats basically it. My computer is in good health and has shown no side effects of the fall. No mental derangement, although I still suffer from some damages.

Touchwood!

Tsk, Tsk..

Yeah its been long, very long since I've blogged. Actually I had given up on the fact that blogging can be used to utilize time between codes that take hours to run. Not the point, I was chatting with a friend of mine, KVM, about a really trippy incident that took place and he encouraged me to write about it. So here goes.

The past two weeks have been good and bad in such a wide variety of ways that trying to fit it in one post will cost me not only my patience, but a hell lot of patience! So, I'll just mention the top ones. Good in the sense that I've been getting a lot of time for myself and my sleep. Bad in the sense that my BTP got stuck at a point like a 3-DOF hinge (I kept rotating about the same point, unable to move forward in any direction). And so my days over the past weeks turned gloomier. And then suddenly I had Mentos - Dimaag ki batti jala! (Ok, I had Polo but I think it had the same effect). I realised that in the formula of

where p=pressure, I=impulse, t=time of impact, A=area; I had been reading 'I' as '1' ! And what added to the whole stupidity is that I was confused as to how the guy has given no dimensions to an impulse term. Oh come on, everyone knows Force times Time is Impuse and should be 'Ns'. But no! I kept on getting elastic response for my plate with this pressure pulse. And why wouldn't I, when I later realised that I=31Ns!

I guess all's well that ends well is partially true. I'm happy to have resolved the problem, but not happy to have wasted so much time on a silly reading error.

Oh well!

Paradise!

This may be a long time after I'm putting something up on this post. Unlike many bloggers, I usually wait for something to happen that is worth writing about. Though it completely contradicts the definition of blogging, it works for me just fine!

I love jogging, I truly do. And considering that fact that its my final year in this beautiful campus, I had decided long time back to spend more time around nature than elsewhere. So I've been jogging regularly for the past sometime I've been here, and as always, I get high after a 4 to 6 km run. The first time is a little painful, literally, because you suddenly get aware of the puny muscles you weren't cognizant of. Yes, awareness of form that restrains you from turning on you bed or getting up from the "poop" position (squatting, as many call it) is something I'd rather not have. Nevertheless, after a while, the pain alleviates, the muscles and tendons get back to their normal business, and life is good.

Today, as the title suggests, was a paradise for me. Or for most joggers so to say.
Cloudy sky, mild drizzle, fragrance of the wet soil, cool breeze giving those occasional goosebumps.....

A perfect milieu for joggers and nature lovers. And what added to the whole setting was the fact that one could spot a dozen of spotted deer and blackbucks, apart from the monkeys that looked kinda nice sitting with their babies and protecting them from the rain. I wonder why I detest them when they do the same outside my hostel room.

Its 7:40 AM right now, and I've been up for over an hour and a half.

I stink.

I need a bath.

What's in a name?!

I was reviewing the pages of my little over 20 years of life and was suddenly struck by the fact that till now I've been given a lot of names. Contributors include parents and friends mostly. Yeah, thats about it I guess, still haven't got the names like "Jhappi" or "Sweety" 'coz thats one thing you don't get when you are single! :D
So here they are, just a reminder to all those who might have forgotten them. For me, these aren't merely names, but carry with themselves a soul which have gotten so attached to me that its difficult to pass a day without them!

Names in chronological order (in brackets are the people who coined them-time):-

1) Betu (Pa - before my birth)
2) Anku (Very common, Ma and Pa - post birth, till date)
3) Cikku/Chikki/Chikmangaloor/Chikda (Modified versions by Ma - till date)
4) Rani beti (Ma - when she has to get some work done!)
5) Chottu (First nick ever, Pushkar and then the whole class followed-school days around 3-4th standard)
6) Jerry mouse (Sumelika, a wonderful friend - 8-10th standard. I used to call her Tom)
7) DJ/ADJ/Deej (Whole class - 10th onwards and now its an official college nick)
8) Hanky/Monkeyta (Puchhu/Vij - 11-12th standard)
9) Shorty/ Syaaxy one (sexy pronounced in a very country fashion) (Kini bro - college)
10) Deeju (AJ - college)
11) Deeday (Aru - college)
12) Kita (Fufa - college)
13) Small wonder (GRV - college)
14) Smallie (Puchhu/CB - school/college)


Hmph, I guess thats all. Though I have this feeling that I'm missing out on a few. Well, well, if I remember I'll try and not get lazy to put them up in the next blog!

Cheers!

Perfect!

A mild coconut aroma fills up the room. Its the oil my father had applied to my hair tonight that gives my room a very refreshing South-Indian flavor.
With the evening rains, temperature has dropped resulting in soft, cool zephyr giving me those occasional goosebumps you often long for in a place like Delhi.
The pleasant rustling of the leaves outside the window and the cacophonous noise of the traffic seem to be playing a tug-of-war, with one growing as the other subsides.
The clouds have parted. The sky is unusually mauve, more towards purplish-black, with a few twinkling stars making the sky absolutely enthralling.
All this garnished with a mint flavored lemonade.

Perfect!

Sometimes, senses give more than merely an awareness.
Together, they create a milieu for sixth one!

Of horoscope and its interesting connotations!

I don't really know if I had bit myself that day or was hit hard on the head, but I had logged into some kinda horoscope service. Apparently, every time I read it, it tells me about the fortune I will have in the things/people that I really don't have and vice versa. For example:

Things I don't have:-
a) Boyfriend
b) Lover
c) Secret love affair (wtf!!!???)
d) Money and shares
e) Kids (hello!!!)
f) And for the finale: LUCK

Things I have:-
a) An excellent family excluding kids and, well, husband!
b) Friends
c) Future boyfriend (sigh!)
d) Brains!
e) Three very very crucial weeks
f) And for the finale: BADLUCK

Oh well! Lets see what fate and fortune and all that has in store for me in the future. For now, I'm doing good without it!

Best gear shift!

Third to fourth!

:)

It has hit me!

I always wondered why people driving cars go zooming past when there is no need for any kind of hurry, I mean sharp turns, sudden brakes etc. One of my friends had once told me that when you start driving you are way too cautions. As time passes, you become more reckless and rash! I didn't believe it untill this very moment!
My worst driving ever!
My worst decisions ever!
Had my father been beside me, he would have kicked me so hard that I would've remembered it all my life!
But nothing to worry, nothing bad happened, just a few sharp turns and sudden brakes.
I wish I was a little more careful, 'coz introspection is something that annoys me, more so 'coz I always do it!

Dum dum dum...

And the God kicked my Bum!
:D

Not good

Being optimistic by nature, I used to think that everything happening around me is good.
But now I can't take it anymore. Stuff happening to me is not really the kind I'd want anyone to go through. It's painful.
And I don't like it.
I really don't like it, knowing the fact that all I can do about it is brood and crib. Nothing more, nothing less.
It sucks.
Bigtime!

The wait, awfully long wait..

I've never wanted these two months to go by any faster than this. That too when the holidays are going on. Holidays, as taught/learnt/experienced so far, are sometimes when one gets to relax and take all the time off the main course work. Somehow, thees holidays are doing everything thing to me except the things I just mentioned.
IITD, Germany, IITD, Germany..it feels like my life has been revolving around these words since I came over to Delhi. Oh yes! And GRE too. And passport, VISA, VFS, Immigration Office, Offer letter. In the most desperate way, my ears don't want any of these any more!
Last semester has been much of a roller coaster ride. The initial disappointment of not getting any good internship in any of the millions of universities, rejection letters filled with no funding, no time, no vacancy...Then the faint glint of hope all the way from Germany, then the initial confusion, exchange of a zillion mails...VISA submission, application form confusion, place confusion. I truly believe that that one form of mine was an exhaustive set of all sets of confusions possible! Funny as it may sound like, unfortunately, its nowhere even in the vicinity of being funny.
Well, there are times when I just feel nothing. Absolutely nothing. No happiness, no sadness, no anger, no satisfaction, no regret, nothing! Yet, I hope. I hope that something someday might happen which could change all of this. I wish I could feel happy/sad/angry, whatever, for just one brief moment without thinking about whats going to happen the moment I stop smiling, or screaming, or being gloomy as hell. Scoring probably the highest in the class has still somehow not given me the kick it always used to give. Maybe its the times, maybe its just me.
I wish it were only the times and nothing else, 'coz I'm still optimistic about them changing. But if its me, its more serious that this. Or maybe not. I don't want to do anything, I just don't feel like doing anything constructive. Yet, when I actually don't do anything, I start feeling bad about not doing what I could have done when I choose not to do it. Yeah, well, funny as it may sound (yet again!), its not!
What now!?
Bed or Comp?
We'll see..

True things

Right now, someone is really sad and someone is really happy!
Yeah, everyone knows it, I'm just putting it into words. Apart from the fact that I'm bored.
Bahh..!

Funny!

Few things always make me smile/laugh/giggle. And its not that its 'coz they've been told the first time, its just an every time thing! Three years into my precursor of an Engineering career, and my mother still thinks that I've got nut equivalents in my brain. Its kinda normal when you think of it. People close to you rarely admire you to the extent those who aren't close enough. Well I'm not the one dying for admiration or attention here but what I just said was absolute crap. I have no clue why I wrote that so as everyone can see, the summer heat is taking its toll on me. Damn the sun, damn the tripping a/c (well, literally, when it sees me shuffle between rooms to get some comfort!).
I'm in a brooding mood.

It's hot.
My mother says I have meagre chances of getting a good guy considering the fact that the ones already around me don't particulary create even a ripple!
I'm getting old, ok, almost old.
It's hot.
Germans are troubling me. Ok, not generalizing but I mean the Embassy guys.
Delhi water has too much Chlorine, my hair doesn't shine and bounce.
It's hot.

Ok, now the good things:
I'm hot.
It rained here, just now, mildish hairstorm.
I've got a cold but its fun irritating people around.
I'm hot.
Good food. Awesome food. Amazing food.
No TV so no headache!
Did I mention I'm hot! :D (I so love doing it!)

Thats it. By and large, my life's is just too good! Really. No sarcasm this time.

PS: I'm so sure I'll be getting comments like "Stop being such a narcissist!" and "Why brooding so much?".
:D Its fun when you can predict things, oh my, I really am bloody good!

:)

Definition of the very famous 'Royal Shove'

1. Code doesn't work, infact gives values of the order of 601 for a 0.5 m wave!
2. You think you are getting enough money for one month to spend, but then you figure out that the sum was for 2 months total!
3. Prof gives you a chapter, so that you can read it and make notes for 'him' so that he can teach the next batch.
4. Prof screams at his assistant about leaving the windows open 'coz the room sticks of sweat! In your presence that is..
5. The prof whom you need to talk desperately regarding a very important issue is either busy/gone for lunch/in a seminar/in HOD's office..basically never available!
6. You always get interrupted when you are talking in terms of i's and j's on a staggered grid scheme with linearized shallow water equation.
7. You puke!
8. Bad hair day!
9. Bad head day for all that is.
10. You have to give a presentation on an unknown topic, for unknown time with some unknown guy.
11. You are jittery, and you don't know if its the hormones or the people around you. Both are irritating.
12. There is always a lot of work on the other side, the moment you go nearer, either you don't feel like doing it/or you just happily ignore its existence. And then suddenly before sleeping, you again realize how much work is left undone.
13. THERE ARE BLOODY 13 POINTS!!!!

cheers cheers!
:)