A Lean Looser
Current Book: "Silas Marner" by George Eliot
Current Music: "Castle of Glass" by Linkin Park (LOVE YOU LP)
2:37 PM | Labels: academics, random rant, science | 3 Comments
Curiosity Rover Lands on Mars: An Inspiring Accomplishment
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The most beautiful picture of the mission |
I can remember clearly, a dozen hours ago when I was watching the live stream from NASA TV, as the world entered the 7 minutes of terror. The look on the faces of those scientists packed in a single room, trying to accomplish the greatest achievements of mankind in space exploration, thrilled me beyond measure. And when, the announcement was made,
Everyone in the room in California, USA clapped hard, and I, sitting far away in Europe, alone in my own room, clapped too. And when the final announcement of the safe touchdown on Mars was made, everyone in the room just went crazy with joy and tears, and so did I. Those final minutes of livecast from the EDL team were a better movie than the TDKR and HP7.
Overall, globally, I feel every common man, who may having nothing to do with science or engineering, was filled with awe on the news of such an event. But of course, there's also a section of society which merely discards these successes as "waste of time", "trivial exploits", "better spend $2.5billion on something else". It saddens me to know the extent of ignorance that still prevails in the 21st century. But then, there will always be these kind of people. There were a large group of people who were cynic about the invention of electricity. Then I'm sure there were people who must have been irreverent of the first satellite launch in the space. Little they would have known the importance of science, while their younger cynical generation idles their time on their TV sets, listening to weather forecasts.
But nevertheless, my primary point is that so inspiring can be the feats of others sometimes, that they inspire you to do more. Dare mighty things, is the phrase that is stuck in my head. And I think it's truly fortunate to be alive in the 21st century.
How beautiful life becomes once you are able to appreciate the beauty of it. When you can look at the stars and see the patterns and constellations. When you look at a flower, you can see not only the colors but the intricate machinery behind its bloom. And then you don't need money to have happiness.
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Current Book: "Dubliners" by James Joyce
Current Music: "Imagine The Fire" by Hanz Zimmer (best thing on the music planet out there, still)
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1:09 PM | Labels: Great times, Motivational stuff, science | 3 Comments
Alcohol vs Scientific Research
Recently, a fellow blogger, Mr. What Ho made a nice gesture by asking me to do a guest blogpost on his super-famous humor blog (which I find truly comic), and I had two pieces for him, one is on his blog now and the other is here (it's an old post written a few months ago). I like the idea of doing guest blogging on other blogs (so contact me if you want me to write for you) but it becomes awesome when you're doing it for an upcoming author!
Current Book: "The Portrait of a Lady" by Henry James
Current Music: "Call me maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen
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2:59 PM | Labels: academics, Alcohol, science | 5 Comments
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.
Current Music: "Hum Kis Gali Jaa Rahe Hain" by Shaan
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8:01 PM | Labels: academics, random rant, science | 6 Comments
Silly Research
Finals exams are holding me back for producing a long rant for this weekly post, so I present before the kind reader, by his/her permission, a silly project video that I made for a course.
I solemnly declare that I do not intend to trespass or trouble the serious nature of your life with the trivialities of mine.
Note: Do NOT make inferences about my research life on the basis of what you shall see here. Anyway, I know you will. But that's okay ;)
Credits:
Thanks to Turkey and China. Enjoy in full screen, if you may.
10:23 PM | Labels: academics, chicks, science, US studies | 2 Comments
Take a break, dude.
Me chilling out. |
Catch up your breath. Let your throat welcome the soothing air back to its calm motion. Let your lungs capture the breeze which could have choked them if you hadn't stopped.
What are you running for? What are you running after? What are you running from? I know there are good things that you want, that you're running for/after and there are bad things that you are running from. But this is a marathon, remember? Its not a sprint. You will wear out if you continue like this. Calm down, stop.
Take a break, dude."
This wasn't me speaking really. This is the voice I heard in my head when I found out that there is no bus service on Thanksgiving Day. Spending my one week break of thanksgiving holidays at my office had lulled this inner voice until now. So Thursday became the first weekday in the past few months that I skipped college. Skipped work. Skipped email.
Skipped everything that was important.
I did act a bit fidgety about all this complete holiday and shut off thing but then I realized that the inner voice was right. I really needed a break. I had to stop running. After all who am I? Who are we? No matter how big an achievement we make, we are still at nanoscale when compared to the world. We are those tiny particles oscillating about our own axis trying indefinitely to fight the inevitable thermodynamic equilibrium this system will attain one day. And don't even get me started what role we tiny specks of carbon have on the giant universe. And the multiverse?
Since I have taken a break from science, it is art that I will catch up with. There is a novel that I have been reading very slowly, I want to read some more of it. Then maybe I will perhaps write some shit up and send it to a contest or the market. Then there is a secret writing project that needs some attention from me. Hmmm, lots to do still. Break? What break? Must go work.
11:02 PM | Labels: academics, art, freedom, harry potter, personal life, science, too much work, unanswered questions | 2 Comments
How Terrible I Am.
My terribleness follows me like a Shadow. It swoops in almost every event that transpires in my life.
# Science?
I had submitted a poster 'just-for-fun' for an environmental/sustainability conference which was asking for submissions. I did it in like just 5 hours and send it on the last day. One of the mistakes I did was I never discussed it with my advisor. I should at least taken her advice if not permission (which was infact the most important thing)
But when someone told me that you can't simply send out research stuff by writing your professor's name without consulting her first. It could be sensitive data or data which is not ready to be shared yet. I got a bit scared and just hoped that ofcourse yeah they are not going to accept my silly poster.
And guess what, they did. Bless them.
Then they offered a financed trip to Atlanta in the first week on January, 2011 with the host (Georgia Tech) providing good accommodation and everything in a nice hotel for 4 days. I was elated the day I got that email. But then, my terribleness came into the picture. I had to finally, reluctantly tell everything to my advisor who was kind of 'shocked, not-very-happy' and she gave me some long lectures and told things which made me realize how big mistake I had made. I had sent out the research results without even asking the entire team and she explained, "You're too young now, its just your 1st sem, its too early to put out results, don't worry you'll have a lot of conferences in your career."
And I withdrew from the offer.
# Love?
Over the past few months in this new land, I had strange encounters with the undergraduate (ug) kind. Especially the female types.
- There was this American blonde ug chick who asked me out for lunch one day. I was sort of blank faced for 20 seconds after which she added, "Only if you're okay with it, I will join you". Then we went to teh lunch in a nice place (I don't know if I have described all this in a previous post, I really don't remember), and she was telling me all sorts of crazy stories including the ones in which she and her friends got so much drunk one Friday night, that her she-friend took off her top in front of everyone and then didn't remember anything about doing such a thing the next day when she woke up.
After that she asked me, "Are you a social drinker?" I hesitated, after which she added, "Do you drink, at all?"
My ideal answer should have been, "Hell yeah, what's life without alcohol?" Instead I told the truth and said, "Umm, no." After knowing that she began to behave a bit differently with me in class, although she still sits next to me. Thank you terribleness.
- Then there is this weird Chinese chick who has been having some close encounters. She doesn't really get tired of waving hands at me whether its the outside of the library or the inside of my department or even if its bloody long corridor. Whenever I see her, or I go past her, I see a hand propped up in air and a smile spread on her face welcoming my existence. But then I discarded all these signs considering the fact that some people are just really cheerful and friendly. Too BLOODY FRIENDLY.
But then my doubts were assured when yesterday I met her on my way to the lab and she appeared there, with a propped hand and a plastered smile and asked me,
"Are these your new glasses?"
"Wuh? uh? Umm, yeah," (I was left shocked as nobody in the entire frikking town recognized that I bought new glasses, cuz they pretty much look the same as my old ones, and yes if you remember well I had to order new glasses online due to this.)
"Well, how did you know? I mean, how'd you notice?" I asked.
"It has gray...bla bla..earlier was black..." and she added a lot of other technical information which I didn't hear as I was too busy being shocked at her power of observance.
"Oh um okay. okay c u then," I said and tried to escape my stalker (totally different stalker from this one)
"Btw, you know your glasses are awesome," she smiled as wide she could before I turned my back to her.
That line kept ringing for quite a bit in my mind but then I thought I shouldn't waste too much time thinking about Americans and Chinese, cuz there is a Indian out there, far away, waiting for me.
And since she is there for me, so I could really care less.
6:04 PM | Labels: Alcohol, chicks, love, personal life, science, stupid people | 2 Comments
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