The Green Book
4 weeks ago
I don't feel like doing anything
I want to go back to India, lie in ma’s lap, curl up
inside the comforter and watch TV with half open dreamy eyes all day. I want to eat mithai dammit. It’s one of those times
when I just don’t wanna do anything. Anything means no bloody studying or
anything productive. Guh, I hate this. I want to scream out the F word so bad
that everyone who’s in the vicinity should reduce to dust and all those great
people who did great things should vanish from the history books and especially Wikipedia, and
then I wouldn’t have to work so hard to beat them. I do not want to read this
crappy paper (paper is a casual word for a scientific research article). I want
to go home and eat that huge cake lying in my fridge (my roommate had a birthday
recently). My stomach is squirming. I’m squirming. Somebody, just please hit
me. Hit me, hit me, hit me. Hit me so hard that I go unconscious and I go to
sleep for a while and when I wake up, lots of days and deadlines should have already
passed. And on top of all this workload and tension, I just came to know about
a famous blogger who recently sold her book to the nation’s topmost publishing
house. I saw her struggling since 3 years and now she finally got what she
deserved. I’m happy for her but not so much for myself. I feel like slitting my
own throat with a darn nail cutter. Look at me. I’vent got shit done, haven’t
even written something worth publishing. What I had written, is under review since 3 months, and has been rejected from everywhere else anyway. I haven’t read a single goddamn book in
the past 4 months. Why? Been too busy earning a Master of Science. Hell yeah,
Master of Shit. Look at yourself in the mirror. Just take a look. You’re
nothing. And you will be nothing. And nobody cares about you, you back in the
mirror, pile of junk. Nobody's gonna read your 150 page Masters' thesis. Never, ever. I wish I was that little 1 year old baby like the baby
girl of my friend doing a PhD. The baby girl gets all the attention from her
PhD parents all the frikking time. She doesn’t have any reports or papers to
submit. Hell, I wanna be a baby. I don’t know where this post is going, I don’t
know where I’m going, prolly you’re not reading this anymore. If you’re, well,
screw you. Why are you so happy and glum, reading shitty blogs on the internets
and not have any work to do? I so much hate you for your idleness. Jealousy,
yes, bitch. I wish I could read some shit around. I wish I could see some
America in the last two weeks before I leave it for forever. But no, I’ve to
kill myself first. And before that, in this week, I’ve got to submit two papers to Prof. X,
take two final exams from the hardest courses outside my department which were
not required but I took them just to add some stress in my life.
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Current Book: "The Best of O' Henry" Selected Short stories by O' Henry
Current Music: "Hum Kis Gali Jaa Rahe Hain" by Shaan
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The Horrors of Final Oral Defense
PS: This is a very memory recording, personal journal type of post and you may not really get anything out of it, unless you're genuinely interested in the fine details of my mundane life.
After about 7 hours of sleep in past 48 hours, the Judgement day finally came. The table was set with strawberries, donuts, cupcakes, cookies and juice. The audience and the three professors sat there, eating, relaxing, their eyes on me and their minds on food. And I stood alone, in the corner, holding the laser pointer like a sword, with a pack of 50 colorful powerpoint slides as my arrows, defending my past two years worth of masters research.
The presentation went for an hour. Nevertheless, we moved on, the public part of the defense was over, and as people left, the grilling private session with the 3 professors began. I could answer most of the stuff but at one point I was sort of tired and pissed, and thus did a major screw up.
Prof. X is my major prof., Prof 1 and Prof 2 are the other two.
Prof. 1: I am a bit disappointed Tanya, you presented everything fine but you didn't explain any basic concept of how your results have solved the problem you presented early on. I mean I have no clue what is that, what is this, and why getting that is helping you solve this problem.
Me: I didn't cover that because I covered that in detail in my last POS meeting, so I assumed everyone would know the basics.
This was perhaps quite arrogant of me which I didn't realize then. The moment I said the damned word "assume" he raised his eyebrow in a manner that showed his ego was deeply hurt. He stared at me in disbelief, and perhaps slight contempt, for a long 30 seconds.
Prof. 1: That was 6 months ago, I had 8 proposals, 17 presentations in the meantime. I can't keep track of all the students I interact with.
I kept silent after that, and then he gave me a real hard time. There is a major lacking in my research and that's something I fought over with Prof. X 6 months ago, warning him again and again that people will argue why we didn't fulfill that gap in our research. But Prof. X just doesn't have a single, freaking dollar to fulfill that gap. He even suggested me, back then, to use my own salary or fellowship to fulfill the gap by paying myself for all the costly experiments but that is just unbelievable. So the ego-hurt Prof. 1 stuck on to that precise gap, and tortured me why it wasn't even considered. Anyway, I didn't reveal the real truth on our tight financial budget to the committee, and din't say anything about the stinginess of my professor. And Prof. X took care of them, telling we can't do it, because we didn't have enough time and money (the money word he said quite softly)
After an hour of grilling, they sent me out, to discuss the final decision of the committee among themselves (Pass vs Fail). And even though most defenses usually get Pass, and I was sure I will pass, but those 10 minutes of wait outside the room I felt I was gonna be failed, especially when those 10 minutes felt like an eternity. And I could her loud voices of my Prof. X, probably defending my case to the other two.
Finally, Prof. X opened the door, greeting me in with a smile, saying "Congratulations!". And all three of them shook my hand, congratulating me, with that ego-hurt Prof. 1 saying, "So when are you joining that other university? August?"
"um-no, in June."
"Oh-uh, so fast, well, good luck."
And then I left the room, and the building with a yellow form, tightly clutched in my sweaty fist, that had their signatures on the section "Pass", and I didn't feel as happy as anyone would after their oral exam, due to the unfortunate events involving the Indian bitch and this ego-hurt prof 1. But as I pour this all out, I feel relieved. That's the power of writing because I can vent all I have inside. On the other hand, this lame, average student who sucked at studies since childhood, has finally learned something and feels empowered.
And now I'm done. I'm through. I'm free.
I leave United States of America behind, very soon, for good.
After about 7 hours of sleep in past 48 hours, the Judgement day finally came. The table was set with strawberries, donuts, cupcakes, cookies and juice. The audience and the three professors sat there, eating, relaxing, their eyes on me and their minds on food. And I stood alone, in the corner, holding the laser pointer like a sword, with a pack of 50 colorful powerpoint slides as my arrows, defending my past two years worth of masters research.
The presentation went for an hour. Nevertheless, we moved on, the public part of the defense was over, and as people left, the grilling private session with the 3 professors began. I could answer most of the stuff but at one point I was sort of tired and pissed, and thus did a major screw up.
Prof. X is my major prof., Prof 1 and Prof 2 are the other two.
Prof. 1: I am a bit disappointed Tanya, you presented everything fine but you didn't explain any basic concept of how your results have solved the problem you presented early on. I mean I have no clue what is that, what is this, and why getting that is helping you solve this problem.
Me: I didn't cover that because I covered that in detail in my last POS meeting, so I assumed everyone would know the basics.
This was perhaps quite arrogant of me which I didn't realize then. The moment I said the damned word "assume" he raised his eyebrow in a manner that showed his ego was deeply hurt. He stared at me in disbelief, and perhaps slight contempt, for a long 30 seconds.
Prof. 1: That was 6 months ago, I had 8 proposals, 17 presentations in the meantime. I can't keep track of all the students I interact with.
I kept silent after that, and then he gave me a real hard time. There is a major lacking in my research and that's something I fought over with Prof. X 6 months ago, warning him again and again that people will argue why we didn't fulfill that gap in our research. But Prof. X just doesn't have a single, freaking dollar to fulfill that gap. He even suggested me, back then, to use my own salary or fellowship to fulfill the gap by paying myself for all the costly experiments but that is just unbelievable. So the ego-hurt Prof. 1 stuck on to that precise gap, and tortured me why it wasn't even considered. Anyway, I didn't reveal the real truth on our tight financial budget to the committee, and din't say anything about the stinginess of my professor. And Prof. X took care of them, telling we can't do it, because we didn't have enough time and money (the money word he said quite softly)
After an hour of grilling, they sent me out, to discuss the final decision of the committee among themselves (Pass vs Fail). And even though most defenses usually get Pass, and I was sure I will pass, but those 10 minutes of wait outside the room I felt I was gonna be failed, especially when those 10 minutes felt like an eternity. And I could her loud voices of my Prof. X, probably defending my case to the other two.
Finally, Prof. X opened the door, greeting me in with a smile, saying "Congratulations!". And all three of them shook my hand, congratulating me, with that ego-hurt Prof. 1 saying, "So when are you joining that other university? August?"
"um-no, in June."
"Oh-uh, so fast, well, good luck."
And then I left the room, and the building with a yellow form, tightly clutched in my sweaty fist, that had their signatures on the section "Pass", and I didn't feel as happy as anyone would after their oral exam, due to the unfortunate events involving the Indian bitch and this ego-hurt prof 1. But as I pour this all out, I feel relieved. That's the power of writing because I can vent all I have inside. On the other hand, this lame, average student who sucked at studies since childhood, has finally learned something and feels empowered.
And now I'm done. I'm through. I'm free.
I leave United States of America behind, very soon, for good.
The curse on the ugly people
I have always believed that ugly or plain looking people like me are in someway cursed. We were not meant to enjoy the trivialities of life as most other people do.
Often people come and ask me, "What's the purpose of life?", and I stare right back at them in reply and penetrate my gaze deep down their eyes to check if that's really what they're asking. Because if they are, it's too trivial a question to ponder upon. "What's the purpose of life?" Don't you know? Don't we all know? Inherently, aren't we equipped to answer this? Aren't we fulfilling that very purpose, silently, every day, every moment?
| We are the ants. Not the grasshoppers. |
The purpose of life is to live. It's that simple.
Biology has defined this purpose and we, as living beings, adhere to it, no matter we realize it or not. We live, and we want to live incessantly and that immortality is achieved by producing work or offspring.
The people who look plain/ugly/not-beautiful and also believe that they are so, suffer from this coupled inferiority/superiority complex which makes them think that they are different from rest of the beautiful people. Their inferiority complex makes them work harder to achieve the same level of happiness they think others might be having, and their superiority complex encourages them to achieve a different or an elite bliss which, according to them, others might not be destined to have. And then, we, ugly people, pursue science or art and excel in such arenas so that our beautiful peers can reproduce and their children may prosper. We must then stay in our labs, in our closed cubicles, away from the world, because if we went out to flirt and fool around, who will save the dying world and solve the upcoming energy crisis? Who will write great literature that will teach the upcoming generations the important lessons of life?
After all, we want immortality and for our species to live continuously, each of us must play our part. When I see a very hot girl or a handsome guy working hard alone on creating great work, I deem it as an insult to his/her fate. That's wastage of gifted talent. Or perhaps, they also "believe" that they are not beautiful enough and hence have joined the crowd of ugly.
And you'll always see that people who make it to the very top or to the very bottom have always found themselves lost in a combination of inferiority/superiority complex and it's a fine ratio that governs the slope of life. Those who are too satisfied, too happy, and too content with what they have, continue to live happily ever after and prosper as a family does. But we, the ones with this gnawing rage, this maddening thirst, and shimmering desire, must continue to look for answers.
We suffer from this disease, this disease called "inspiration" and I must suffer and toil till I find my treasure.
This is my curse. And this is my gift. How about you?
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Current Book: "Selected Stories" by Edgar Allan Poe (Haven't read single page in past 4 months)
Current Music: "Yahan ke Hum Sikander" from Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander
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- Tanya
- My little body is aweary of this great world. An Indian PhD student horsing around in Europe.
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