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.

I entered Professor X's office last friday afternoon with a beating heart and anxious face.

"I wanted to tell you something which I think I should have told you before but if I did you wouldn't have let me do it-"

His face became immediately stern as he took a half circle on his revolving chair to face me, leaving the important half written email mid way.

"What is it Tanja. Tell me straight and quick."

"I-I participated in this competition, and I got selected in the top finalists of the nation, and now they want me to participate in the final event in Texas next week. And I need your signature on this form so that I can go-"

"I will not sign it. This, this is wrong. Very wrong..And it's not the first time, you know it. When you did it in the first semester, without my permission went ahead to submit things, I tried hard to understand and forgave you because you were new...But now? Again? No, no, don't say it's a little thing. I don't care about that. I know it's a small thing for me to sign it and I don't care about it. It's about honesty. You're not honest with me. You want to hide things from me. On purpose. This is not good. Not good at all. You should have asked me in the first place. Yes, okay, maybe I would have said "no". But then an advisor must have a reason to say no, right? Then we could have argued. At least we wouldn't have to see this day. Now this is all so messed up. See Tanja, you made a mistake, you must pay for it. You must withdraw your entry from the competition. Your attitude is not right, Tanja. You push people, it makes them so uncomfortable. I can't review your thesis on your schedule. There's no time left, your defense is coming near, and you've nothing in hand. Look at XuXu, he has submitted his thesis to the committee already and his defense is later than yours. He started working on it in December and you began in March? This is not gonna work, Tanja. You've to change if you want to do well. Listen, I know you're gonna leave this university, no, no don't say anything, I can see that in your eyes. Your heart is not here anymore. That's fine, I've hired the Japanese girl anyway. But mark this, this is my personal advice to you. Wherever you go, you'll have a new advisor. He/She may not tolerate this attitude of yours. Ok? I'm telling you this because I've known you. You are bright, Tanja. And it seems you love this profession very much, you'll become a good professor one day. But only if you're honest and nice to people. Otherwise success in future will be hard. And you're my student, no matter where you go, my name will always be on your resume. I don't want to hear bad things happened to you later in your career. This is a small research community we're in. Everyone knows everyone. I want you to think and aim far, not waste your time in these petty competitions. Okay? Respect people. I hope you remember my advice."

And with that he turned his back to me to stare at the half-written email he had left behind to lecture me. Yesterday, I felt like things had come to an end. It was 3 PM when I came out of his office and I felt shattered, broken. For a few moments I realized perhaps he's right. Perhaps I won't be a great, successful  person in the classical sense of these terms.  And besides I didn't have a single PhD offer in my hand and I was about to be kicked out from the Jaali university within 2 months or so. Sometimes, you know, life is so dark around you, that it's not just blinding, it's suffocating.

But then, I reasoned myself. I said, "Well, it doesn't matter. Prof. X had already screwed my letter of recommendations. And if success means sucking feet of lame men by being a silent, laborious slave, then I don't want that kind of success. Nahi chahiye vaisi kamyaabi. I'll be better back in India, in my own room, alone, with a book in hand. A book like "Catcher in the Rye". And then I would write my own, and maybe publish it you know. But I can't do that diplomacy to win people. I'll never be a ruler of a reign. I was and always be a warrior. An amazon. Who fights by principles and dies in courage. I will not yield to incompetence. This life is just a story of this steep descent." But even then, the stark fact haunted me for two hours that life's gonna be harder if you're gonna continue making enemies and if you continuously refuse to respect people. But why should I respect them, these phonies?

Anyway, at 5pm, at the darkest hour of my life, I received a phone call. It was from the Awesome university I had visited a few weeks ago. And the professor that I was interested in working with was saying, "Tanja, congratulations. You've been awarded two fellowships for your PhD, which will cover your entire tuition fee and stipend. I would love if you could join my group, we would be able to do a lot of great things together. And, no, no, you don't have to tell me anything right now. Do not at all feel pressurized to decide, I'm sure that with credentials like yours, you must be having a couple of options and you might be waiting from other schools. So take your time, I would look forward to see you join us but feel free to let us know in two weeks, okay?"

"You just made my Friday night," I crackled on phone as a tear smeared down my cheek.

Following snippets are from the PhD campus visit I recently had in an awesome university:

# I reached the university 10 hours later than my scheduled time due to all kinds of snowstorms which cancelled/delayed possible flights and left me to rely on reluctant bus drivers who at one point actually controlled my fate single-handedly. Hungry, tired and with messed up hair, my series of interviews with various professors began 5 minutes shortly after I reached their campus. I was most interested in the following professor because he was not an engineer but a scientist:

"So Ms. Singhal, you're clearly at a disadvantage here. You missed all the morning sessions where the faculty gave their research overviews, so you've no clue what we do-"

I cut him and told what I knew. And I offered if he's interested in seeing some of my papers that I had brought along.

"Ah I see. So you've done your homework."


# Another professor that I liked went into more of a philosophical questioning.

"So Ms. Singhal your research is interesting. Do you think you can apply these concepts to the real world? How long do you think we may have before these technologies are available for the public welfare?"

I guessed 10 years and she laughed.

"Well, things change rather slowly in the US, Ms. Singhal. 10 years is too optimistic anyway. So, tell me, do you think you can change the world?"

"Yes."


# Once the interviews ended, I was quite happy and sort of imagined that I had bagged it and all. Little did I know then that the competition was incredibly fierce with candidates from Ivy leagues and such brand names that I didn't even feel like telling people that I was from Jaali University. We had a lot of free food and lot of socializing events, campus tours, lab tours etc which I enjoyed but hour by hour in those three days I kept on meeting stronger and stronger candidates. Prospective graduate students were from Georgia Tech, Berkeley, Texas Austin, Stanford, Penn State, MIT, etc and even Princeton for god's sake. And the only reason those guys were interested in this university was because they had lived 20 years in their hometown and now wanted a goddamn change. Secondly this university which we were visiting is supposedly ranked good in my tiny specialization but overall the university is not that much of a tagname as Caltech, Ann Arbor etc.

Once I saw the people, their profiles, and their high IF publications, I turned quite depressed and tried my best to passively convey that this university isn't really as good as the others they have applied to. I tried this hard on the Princeton elf, this smart, hunk of a dude with a royal breeding who was looking down upon everything anyway. I sometimes wonder how god can make people so intelligent and so hot at the same time. And why I ain't blessed with a single quality? I hope he goes to Harvard or something. But why would anyone leave Princeton anyway.

So well, near the final hours of my stay at the cursed campus I was quite upset and began to hate everything. I hated my own incapability, own lame existence. I just had or have no chance. Profs were being nice to everyone apparently and will let us know in 2-3 weeks. I know what they gonna let us know. . .

And then I felt like a lonely, weak hobbit stranded in the dark land of Mordor. And I felt, I felt, Elves may be strong and capable but they don't care about the battle. They are just too good to participate or fight. They have nothing to fight for, no desperation they have in their soul. And most of all, they and all the other creatures of this middle earth lack one thing, with which this poor hobbit is blessed in a surplus quantity. And it is due to that one thing, this hobbit was able to match her shoulders with tall elves for a couple of days on sacred grounds. That one thing which I cherish beyond all, my friends, is courage.

# We both sat staring at each other across Professor X's office table, waiting for the other to break the ice. My professor's huge square glasses hung low on his nose and through his unrestrained fiery eyes, he had begun to rupture my soul.

"So...umm...," I attempted to begin our weekly meeting, "did you get my email about the paper?"

"Of course, yes. Of course. I know." He sat still, ready to burst out any moment.

"Uhmm, it was my first paper...I hoped it to go through but...I feel bad."

"I told you. Didn't I? I told you but you never listened to me. You even argued with me, and that's your major problem. You have to do more tests if you want to publish papers in academia. You have to do more and read more."


"Umm, but the reviewers said that its rejected because its nothing new, we need to do something new to be accepted. Actually I don't feel bad now. It was just a bad paper with bad results. My next one would be better."

"No. You should feel bad. It's not about being new. Look at xuxuxu (insert random chinese graduate hero), look at his work and papers. Xuxuxu's project is very common but he still got good papers out of it. You just don't want to work hard. And your attitude is not good. You have to focus. Focus. Otherwise you won't be able to get things done. You're always running after scholarships and fellowships, but you're not so eager for research," Professor X's lower lip quivered intensely as he announced the climax just like pouring whipped cream on lemon cake, "You-you, you have the potential but you never seem to use it."


# So I went and sought some guidance from this old grumpy scientific guy, who's like the only person in the entire department who knows things, and that's what he said to me,

"I know professor X, been working with him since past two decades and I perfectly understand what you're saying. And lately, he's been having a lot of issues with students, I saw that, I saw that and I don't know why. But anyway, if you want to pursue some research that really matters, go and do your PhD under a real doctor. Someone who can teach you how to do things. Not these bunch of people who run this department and do stuff and publish stuff. You know what I mean by stuff?"

I entered my office this morning and found everyone working - glued to their computer screens - as usual. I am always curious to peek into the screens of my peers, I don't know why. I am always curious to know what they're upto.Are they surfing (youtube/facebook) or communicating (chat client/gmail) or reading a paper (research paper/journal article)?

I always want to know that and sometimes I would like to peek after every few hours. Evidently I am not working on these days and just idling on my PC and hence it helps me to know that the others too are just chilling out. So, I feel its OKAY to chill out. Its OKAY to stay distracted and read that trivial news section on msn once in a while. Its OKAY to go through all the fresh posts from the people on your blogroll.

However, an interesting thing that I have come to notice is the correlation between age and focus. For example my old professor, whenever I see her and have a peek at her computer, she's always communicating or reading a paper. I don't know how people spend the entire day without watching a single video :| And then this another mature guy in my office, like double phd guy, he's always so focused. Always reading papers or writing them. Never in the past whole year I have seen him surf.

Another visiting scholar, old married girl with a daughter, also keeps on reading papers all day. (Actually I have a really good position to peek into her screen so I can tell for sure). So I don't get what's the deal with reading papers all day. I mean, how the hell do you get so much focus? I just can't imagine.

If I think too much about it, the answer I get is - perhaps it's because they got family and all. So they finish work at 5 and runoff to their families for fun or whatever (you know right ;p) And for that they stay focused on work as long as they are in office in daytime.

But for people like me, single, young, and silly, I see it kind of impossible to stay focused. Perhaps I still haven't realized what I am meant to do. When I reach 40, maybe I'll know. And after all, that's the biggest question of life, isn't it? What do you really want to do in life? Answer it asap and you're good.

Ow that reminds me I have a paper to write.

"So bad scores. Why couldn't all of you even do simple trigonometric problems?" the teacher yelled at the students and then paused, as if waiting for an answer.

The semester break draws to an end and a set of new subjects and tasks loom before me. The break can't be discarded as entirely useless as some work was done in most aspects of this life. Most important thing was the creation of a schedule since the first week of this new year, which, if am able to follow from now on DAILY, I think I'll be good. Really good. But yeah, let's see if I really can or not. Because there will be a lot of things that aren't accounted or expected but then, that's life, isn't it?

In short, by the end of year 2011 there should be major changes in the About the author page of this blog and if not, I would have failed.

Hmmm, I really don't have pretty much to say on this weekendly-post so I will devote this post to my love for my lovely Chinese Undergrad Assistant.

Disclaimer: As I might have previously mentioned, the guy is really nice, adorable and definitely more intelligent/smarter than I am (all that GPA crap, you know) but has some funny habits which do crack me up once a while in all this dark and serious research that I have chosen to pursue. 

# One day, on a sunny morning, out of the blue or maybe tired of cleaning, our assistant asks us, "Is there any machine that can automatically clean cube moulds?" We answered, "If there was such a contraption, people would have really opted for civil engineering not computer engineering in these dark times. We, I mean you, got to get your hands dirty, bro."

# "Ah, my back hurts. Work is killing me," We said one day in a casual tone (its our pet dialogue in this youth phase). He says, "You should get some physical exercise perhaps." "O REALLY? WHY DINT ANY1 TELL ME THIS SECRET OF LIFE BEFORE?"

# We are looking around the lab one afternoon because we got to start mixing concrete and we can't find him anywhere. We check all closets, even under the experimentation tables but he's not there. He was supposed to be waiting there for us after preparing the raw materials. Suddenly, our phone breaks the silence of the lab and we flip it to read a SMS (Which BTW COSTS US A LOT EVERY MONTH) sent by our lovely assistant, "Material gets ready. I come to the bathrooms. Be right back soon."

# And some days he's too sweet because we have to lift and transfer 2 huge barrels each of 250 kg of cement to the lab and he kindly understands that we can't do it so he brings an army of Chinese undergrads who get the entire job done while I was away in a seminar. When I asked him why did he bring Xufushu in lab, he might get hurt and liability would come on us, to that he replied, "Xufushu is a very strong man," and we both looked in awe at Xufushu.

# Once he sends us a cute message reminding that our last bus is within 5 minutes from now due to the changed schedule of bus rides. We immediately thanked to God, prayed nice economy for China and ran for the bus.

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Current Book: "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
Current Music: They See (Desi) Revolution by DNOAX