Vicious cycle in the life of a block head.

Most of us in grad school always wonder why we got in here at the first place. One year of facebooking had got me nowhere, oh wait ,  its no-where (for the overly optimistic bastards) and my adviser was too much pissed off that he despised my birth!!!! The extended-family acted overly worried "now" about the US economy (probably more than Mr. Obama) and the rate of unemployment while I was basking in the warm sun eating ice creams, drinking lemonades, beaches, summer shopping, once in a week adviser meetings and oh yeah, how can I forget facebooking. One year down, this is exactly where most of us would have been or are..

Week 0 : You are in the vacation mode when you enter the adviser office just to realize once again you are a blockhead eating away some valuable space in the lab and you come out feeling like shit and put up a status that's too pathetic that no one bothers to even notice it and a few "real" friends liking it. Walk back home like the tsunami washed your life away and get back to watching sitcoms :D

Week 1: Some interesting idea comes up, yayy!!! new project :) :) You are happy for some change (only to realize those are very minor but changes the wholes system, damn!!!!) and your adviser for the new idea and potentials (which he/she actually assumes). Spend few days with your adviser figuring out how the "new" system "might" work. But one big question "WILL THIS IDEA WORK???"

Week 2: Facebooking and more sitcoms coz you are very happy that you have gone to the extent of developing some new idea ( with very few changes that you assume is going to change the whole world of engineering).

Week 3: One of the nasty meetings with your professor makes you realize "again" that you are not just a blockhead but a lazy goon!!!

Week 4 : You become the Arunachalam Rajnikanth (Singam onnu purapattadhae) and work your ass off and submit a digest at some conference miles away just few seconds before the deadline. Now you have "in review" "some complicated paper" (that no one understands, including you)  in some conference to add up to the other "crappy stuff you only started" to add to your resume. 

Week 5,6,7 : Chilling out!!! More facebooking and sitcoms. Overly satisfied with a digest submission (which actually no one gives a damn about, well believe me not even your adviser) and a smirk on your face through out. I bet even a Nobel prize winner wouldn't be this happy!!!

P.S : Your adviser still finds flaws with your submission and your writing (as if out of grad school some Hollywood crew is going to employ me as the script writer). well, nothing ruins that smirk anyway!

Week 8 : One more of those nasty meetings, I am sure, I don't have to tell, how you would feel after the meeting.

Week 9 : Now the Padayappa Rajnikanth (malaigalai muttum varai muttu). One week of over working and you make your computer puke results , valid results (!!!!). End of the week, you happy, your adviser is happy to see you start working for the first time since your birth!!!

Week 10, 11 : More results (petty stuff now). Making plans to write up your thesis and your adviser is happy that you'd "get the hell out" soon. Now you are in the hyper mode, planning for your future (okay, that refers to what smart phone , car you must throw money at when you are out of school) and your adviser is also in the hyper mode, planning for YOUR future (which is, what should your thesis have, who should be on the committee, job and all other serious stuff that you should be worried about).

Week 12, 13 : relax mode.

Week 14 : Your idea spews some nasty problem that is just too complex that even your adviser is worried but thinks can be solved. Now you are worried thinking you'd never own the phone or car you wanted(of all the things you should be worried about!!!!). Oh wait, will I ever graduate?!!! Again, one big question "WILL THIS IDEA WORK???"

This vicious cycle of 14 weeks goes on and on, until you get out of the grad school miraculously!  

Interpretations

Ting ting..

I turn around wearily on a late Friday evening on my bed to the call of my mobile to find a text. I hit the open button and instantly the mass in my head that is suspended in some fluid reads the message in "an imaginary" voice that resembles the sender's, of course with an imaginary tone attached.

It's not just me, but most of us have this habit, to read any text, books, messages, mails in an imaginary voice and tone. If the words are from a person in our life, it's a lot easier to imagine the voice and we add an imaginary tone to the words which is most of the times clouded by the current state of our mind.

This interpretation of our brain always amazes me. When the book talks about a murderer and a victim, a cold voice and a frail one keep reading the print and a chill runs down my spine, the sensuous words on the print makes me imagine silky voices of a couple making love and I imagine the voices in a courtroom  talking inside my head. I can hear the passionate words of Cullen to Swan in my head, those of Dumbledore and also those of Langdon but in a voice that my head creates.

When a mail pops up from my boss, I can hear her irritated tone in my head. But if it happens to be a breezy day for me, the voice of my boss sounds breezy too!!! No wonder we mess up sometimes, since there is so much talking in our heads.

To end the story with which I started this post, my head interpreted the whole text in an irritated tone of the sender's and I ended up calling the sender just to realize that my head had messed up with me!!! The voice in me not just amazes me, but also bugs me sometimes.

25 Random things about me which might not be of any interest to you :P

Well, this isn't what I had planned about writing here, anytime, somehow I just felt like doing it now :)

1. I am a music freak, I need some music playing all the time,even when I sleep!!!

2. I am not fond of anything that has strawberry in it - cakes, Ice cream, milk shake and I always prefer chocolate anything.

3. I absolutely love coffee. I love to wake up to the smell of it. I like it very strong but with sugar. Somehow nothing beats the filter kaapi my mother makes. :)

4. I am not fond of shopping and neither am I a patient shopper. I would be the last person you might want to take out for shopping, but my choices have always been above average :)

5. I am passionate about cooking, only when there is someone who appreciates food. I totally hate cooking for my self!!

6. I enjoy watching action flicks rather than meaningful and realistic cinema.

7. I absolutely love getting wet or rather drenched in the rain, but not when I am well dressed :P

8. I love beaches, the sea and the sand, but somehow I have never been to beaches much.

9. I love chicken-anything :D

10. I am a religiously inclined person.

11. I am afraid of dogs, cats, birds, elephants and some humans ;)

12. The first thing that gets in my mind when I see any couple is "How can they be this committed to each other, seriously??!!!".

13. I hate to give answers, explanations even at the exams and I hate to prove myself to anyone.

14. I don't like the cartoons these days, I always liked the ones that I watched as a kid.

15. I love long drives, or just drives and no one but my dad has ever been patient enough to take me on one even in the middle of the night.

16. I love traveling but I also like traveling comfortable which makes things a little difficult.

17. I love the dark rooms rather than bright and well lit ones.

18. I like solving sudokus, in fact the minute I see those squares I fall in love with them.

19. My favorite subjects at school were Physics, Maths and Geography. The ones I despised were Chemistry, chemistry, chemistry and History :P

20. Sometimes I like to hold the phone without talking for minutes together with my besties and I find it a lot more comfortable than talking.

21. I have some kind of phobia attached with the word marriage / marital life, though I would very much like near and dear ones getting married soon just for the "kalyana saapaadu" :P

22. I love to listen, listen a lot and I hate to talk!!

23. I have this wonderful habit of quitting my thinking system the minute  I hit a block, which I realize is a very bad thing!!

24. I totally support flirtationship ;) (Don't tell me you don't know what that is!!!)

25. I love doing crappy things and sleeping :) :) :) :)

26. Just like the whole lot of you who are reading this post, I find this one very crappily done and boring. See 25. :P

Evolving into an adult

All of us have that kiddish element in us. The percentage of the childishness varies with individuals. As we grow older, this percentage falls (or may not in some cases :P). But what does it take to be an adult, to evolve into one, to decrease that percentage of childishness??

Being an adult demands more responsibility and gives you more freedom. "With freedom comes more responsibility". So?? Thats some crap the whole world knows. Especially we have heard that so much as a kid. I can recall words from parents, teachers, every year, "From this year you are older, not a kid anymore, you have to be wiser, more responsible, independent and adult-like" but when it comes to the freedom part, somehow I never qualified to be old enough!!!! :D

Jokes apart, I understand being an adult demands you to be matured, responsible. But something that I discovered lately, being an adult also demands not talking about your problems, focusing on them and solving them yourself because no one gives a damn about your problems, they have a lot of problems in their life and are too busy dealing with them. Like a SMS I got few months back "Don't speak about your problems , because half the world doesn't care and the rest is just curious". So in a gist, being an adult also demands you to act God-like, clean, with out problems. Well, that makes me wonder, Does the Almighty have any problems??

To conclude, if not talking makes me an adult that the world demands (or at least the people around me), I prefer being the kid, who constantly annoys the world with the overly cute (or may be the not so cute) wailing ;) At least I get to talk and have a light heart, when the Almighty tries to focus on solving his problems!!! :D

More of meaningless crap coming soon :P

Unexpected Quarters

I was watching Ellen Pompeo and Sandra Oh on this drama when this thought struck me. We all have our favorites, be it music, food, anything and everything, we have our favorites and also with people. No reason, we get along with some very well. In a bunch of friends, we always have that one special friend, we connect with that one person so well (Okay..might or might not be mutual).

I hear you moaning, uhhhhh so what???!!! Well, don't you think we miss out the others.. Most of us realize only when we get a token of affection from an unexpected quarter. All the while when we didn't even know this person existed and when we get to know how much we meant to them, it becomes an overflow of emotions, doesn't it? (Not to forget how messy it gets sometimes)..There are a lot of invisible people around us and not to forget we are also invisible to some..

Alright, so what is my point??? Awwww how I wish I had one!!! :-P
But I do wish we look around better..the sooner people get visible, the sooner we get to see the magic of love.

Dedicated to the girl who made me realize it, and of course to Christina and Meredith :P

Shrinking Violets

Every time I feel like sharing something, I open my blog, start writing, half way through I lose interest or enthusiasm. Some of us always have trouble expressing ourselves, the extra push is always required.

I always make a mental note that I have to get in touch with this person, that aunt, that third cousin's fifth sister who helped me but I never do it. I take the phone, go to the contacts and then quit it!!!! Well may be I could mail them...Aarrrggghhhh tomorrow may be.. Tomorrow never comes!!!

Well, its not just about connecting with people, sometimes I find it difficult to express myself, to open up, to talk my heart out. Every time some one gets to make me talk, it's out of that extra effort. Some of us just keep piling things in our heart, anger, love, fear and don't express it. All that I don't understand is why are we afraid to express ourselves??? When I express myself to someone to whom I haven't to in the past, its like ripping my soul when I am done with it. And  there is a guilt as if the whole episode was a blunder.

But being inexpressive changes the emotions altogether sooner or later. The emotions come and they die off before they can be let out, time flies by, the world thinks you are done with it but deep down only you know it lives... Hmm so I guess it's always better to take that little effort from our side and break the ice.

Right, so I am just going to pick up my phone and talk.. or wait may be it's not the right time???!!!! Is it the lethargy of the body or the heart???