Hmm..

Some dreams are too good to be true... The biggest pain is caused when you bank your hopes on them...

The self battle

Have you ever faced a situation in which you have a battle with your self ? with your conscience ? with your mind ? with your heart ? or with your brain ? Many a times I feel that I should stand up for some things some close values dear to my heart. Fight it out with the world, even if it were a lonely battle. There are some things which I feel I should stick to some principles which I should adhere to in evaluating others. But then the world being an imperfect place I have to move along. I grew up on a high dose of Bollywood movies in which justice is always meted out in the end. The hero always triumphs. I became carried away so much by them that I started to think that the world is like that. I started to believe the good wins over the evil. I started to assume that there are strict black and white in terms of character. Until a few years ago. When reality started sinking in. I realized that worldly wise is much different from what is correct. I realized that people are selfish and there is no such thing as a selfless association. I realized that dont jump to respect a person. Hero worship is certainly wrong. But so is breaking hearts and trust of thousands of people. With great power comes great responsibilities. I started to realize that the world is so disparate - some people have so many sufferings, life threatening diseases and no money or relatives to take care of them. Sometimes I had tears in my eyes when I saw young children begging on the streets when a privileged few got their every damn distant wish fulfilled. I felt really saddened to see old people being abandoned by families. When I was young and whenever I saw something wrong around me I would go into a state of day dreaming. In that world everything was perfect and people were happy. I was powerful enough to provide justice to everyone around me. But then dreams are not always true. And the self battle between my dreams and my realities continues.

Arigatou

My favorite song these days ....

miageta yozora no hoshitachi no hikari
inishie no omoi negai ga jidai wo koe
iroaseru KOTO naku todoku
kiraki hitomi ni utsuru dareka no sakebi
kaze ni omoi wo tsuki ni negai wo
chikara aru kagiri ikiteikunda kyou mo
bokura no omoi mo itsuka dareka no mune ni
hikari tsuzukeyou ano hoshi no you ni

Meaning:
Rays of light from the stars in the night sky above
send a plea from across the ages
with colours that haven't faded
It's somebody's cry, reflected in those sparkling eyes
A wish carried on the wind, a request from the moon
to live as fully as possible, day by day
So that our wishes, too, will be in someone's heart someday,
let's shine on like that star

Ok I admit I am hopelessly addicted to the Japanese anime Bleach.

Dal Palak

Ingridients
1/2 cup tur dal
1/2 cup masoor dal (red)
1 big spoon oil
2 tomato
1 big onion
2 bunch palak
1 inch ginger grated
1 tsp sambhar powder
1 tsp jeera
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp lemon juice
salt, turmeric, chilli as per taste

Method
Boil Dal as usual in pressure cooker.
Heat oil. Add jeera, mustard to it. Add finely chopped onion, grated ginger until light brown. Add cut tomato. Add nicely cut palak and cover it. Add salt, turmeric powder and sambhar powder and cover it for a few mins. Add the dal to it. Dont add much water. Let it be slightly thick, north indian style :). Add lemon juice and serve it hot with roti & butter!

I believe...

I believe the sun should never set upon an argument
I believe we place our happiness in other people's hands
I believe that junk food tastes so good because it's bad for you
I believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do
I believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteem
I believe I'm loved when I'm completely by myself alone

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love 'til you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

I believe you can't control or choose your sexuality
I believe that trust is more important than monogamy
I believe your most attractive features are your heart and soul
I believe that family is worth more than money or gold
I believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair
I believe the only ones who disagree are millionaires

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love 'til you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

I believe forgiveness is the key to your own happiness
I believe that wedded bliss negates the need to be undressed
I believe that God does not endorse tv evangelists
I believe in love surviving death into eternity

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love 'til you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye
Until you say goodbye

Thank you Savage Garden :)

Multitasking

The tasks in a grad student's life are some what like this - There is a huge vessel full of water and there is a leak in it. You have to stop the water from draining out. You try to fix the leak, work on it for some time and finally feel you have done it. And then you see another leak and get started on it. Meanwhile there is a third, a fourth and a fifth one too...Gosh! Multitasking thy name is PhD :|

The Greatest.... Ever!

There are some people who take an area, redefine it completely and change it forever so that generation after generation stand in awe and say "How could he ???" , "Was he God ??", "I mean how ??".. Roger Federer stands on that pedestal today. 16-14 in the final set is crazily incredible and the each of the 15 grad slams have a tale to say about the prowess both mental and physical of this man. Today he proved that tennis means Roger and Roger means tennis. Hats off master!

Mentoring

Most of my friends who are working are already in the 2nd step of their career where now or sooner they will be leading a bunch of people. As a PhD student, you also get the opportunity to groom yourself to prepare for a career in Professorship or even in a company. I have this wonderful opportunity this summer to mentor a student and I am always wondering how to do it right. Mentoring in research is slightly different from mentoring at work as you do not know what you are looking for. I still think I am far away from being called a good mentor but life is a learning and you learn as you grow. After observing a few people whom I admire as a mentor I think some points are a must have in a good mentor, namely -

1. Sound technical knowledge of the subject - There is no substitute for this. Work on it, read as much as possible on the subject, read from diverse fields to get a good perspective of things. Even at work I think the kind of managers I liked were the ones who could see a larger perspective of things and whose technical knowledge was very sound.

2. Good communication skills - If I make a list of my top 10 great mentors, none of them would lack in communication skills. It is very important to be able to effectively communicate your ideas to the team. It becomes more important when you are working in a team from different countries consisting of people with different levels of exposure to English.

3. Let a person grow - Never brush aside ideas or suggestions. Trust people to do their jobs. It is very easy to fall in the temptation of doing things yourself when the other person is struggling. But dont do that. Guide him not spoon feed him. To bring in responsibility have a weekly meeting to monitor progress and roadblocks.

4. Plan out tasks - Before a meeting, have a definite agenda on mind. Have list of tasks to be done in the week ahead. Again be sensitive to the capability of the your mentee. Dont push too much or dont let off the person without any work. There is always a right balance.

5. Have confidence in yourself - This tip comes from my dear labmate. Be more assertive in your conversation while being open and accepting for ideas/suggestions/feedbacks.

Happy mentoring!

Life as I know it

Summer is beautiful: After the really long and harsh winters, Summer in Minneapolis feels like bliss. It so green everywhere and the flowers are so pretty and the days are very long and it doesnt get dark till 9 in the night. The city parks and the lakes show their true colors in Summer.

Chicago trips are awesome: My research group has collaborations with other institutions in Chicago & LA. We have met twice so far in Chicago and I have fallen in love with the place! The downtown, the huge buildings, the scenic parks and lake Michigan are so beautiful. My favorite is the Lake shore drive kinda like the Mumbai Marine drive albeit much longer. Next time we are meeting in LA and I just cant wait :-D

Playing and running: Two things I am really enjoying doing everyday so much so that I hate it when I have to skip it even for a day - playing badminton and running.

Back to cooking: With Mommy in law around for so long have really not taken care of the kitchen. Sis-in-law also came over and I got to meet again the family's darling Prisha. Kids are absolutely lovable and I can spend days listening to their talk. They are all gone now and family life is over and I get back to reality - my kitchen and ofcourse my work as there is tons of work piled up.

Why God never received a tenure at any university

Got this forward and couldn't stop laughing

1. He had only one major publication.
2. It was in Hebrew.
3. It had no references.
4. It wasn't published in a refereed journal.
5. Some even doubt he wrote it himself.
6. It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.
9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.
11. When subjects didn't behave as predicted, he deleted them from the sample.
12. He rarely came to class, just told students to read the Book.
13. Some say he had his son teach the class.
14. He expelled his first two students for learning.
15. Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed his tests.
16. His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.

Food for thought

For all you brainy minds - enough of Modi, crack this!

A pirate ship captures a treasure of 1000 golden coins. The treasure has to be split among the 5 pirates: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in order of rank. The pirates have the following important characteristics: infinitely smart, bloodthirsty, greedy. Starting with pirate 5 they can make a proposal how to split up the treasure. This proposal can either be accepted or the pirate is thrown overboard. A proposal is accepted if and only if a majority of the pirates agrees on it. What proposal should pirate 5 make?

Raju Srivastava Sholay

Absolutely ROTFL =))

Raju Srivastava

One of the favorite timepass at our house especially when Amber (Adi's friend) is also around is to watch Raju Srivastava shows. So much so that I think we have watched all of his videos available on you tube. But after watching this one I couldnt stop tears in my eyes laughing. Enjoy !

An article about my research group

Read this

A woman speaks

Sometime back on a frigid December night I was alone at my RA office debugging some idiosyncratic python code. Adi had not come to the university that day and so I had to go back alone. The python code simply wont budge and I forgot about time and realized only when Adi called. Since it was very cold and late and the winter break was going on I thought it would not be a good idea to stay there for long. I rushed outside the office and found that there was not a soul to be seen. Suddenly when I was crossing the dark corridor to get to the bus stand all I could hear was the echo of my heavy walk and I got a little scared. When I reached the bus stop I thought I would not find anyone and especially of the fairer sex but was happy to see a few girls around. When this group of girls went away I saw another couple of girls coming down to get to the bus. I then realized that in fact there was lone boy and a bunch of girls at that hour. I smiled. When I entered the bus I saw a lady bus driver and I laughed at my initial fear and felt assured. I came back home and told Adi about this and both of us agreed that if women can move about freely at any hour then it is a sign of development. I have heard of some stray incidents here but by and large I think it is secure.

Back at India, when I read about the deplorable Mangalore incident I feel disgusted. A bunch of history sheeters in the name of protecting "culture" of the country go about molesting and hitting 18-20 yr old young girls. Who gave them the license for culture protection (read hooliganism)? And how dare they call themselves "Sri Ram" Sene? . This is absolutely unpardonable but the police is yet to make moves to send out strong signals (as expected, huh). Last I heard the chief was released on bail. Why are these people in the name of culture taking us 1000 years behind ? I know these frustrated men who are talking about culture and patriotism have no morals are criminals to the core.

My class teacher from school used to tell me that if you teach a man and allow him independent thinking you get the satisfaction of educating one person but if you do it a woman you can be assured that an entire generation will progress because of her. These people by stifling the half of population are in a way putting us generations behind. They cant do it in India, please get lost we dont need a Taliban.

My pick for the pic of the day

And may be not just the day...

And I just love

A spick and span house and a spotless kitchen. Kudos to my hubby :P

Heal me

1. Tired :(
2. Damn the cold -40C with windchill and (-30C /-22F otherwise)
3. There is an emptiness after an exam and a Will you wont you feeling
4. The qualifier exam is the most killing exam I have written.
5. One deadline over and another one starts :(
6. Snow shoveling is not easy.
7. Sem reopens on Tuesday. But wait where were my holidays!
8. Wanna see a new movie but the brand new Chandni Chowk to China is a damp squib as per reports.
9. Wanna call home but everyone must be sleeping :(
10. Want to eat good indian food without preparing it. (Stress on the word good)
11. Ok enough cribbing I am listening to heal me I'm heartsick :D

Economic meltdown & PhD

From the PhD comics. Read this.
I am already rolling on the floor laughing!