April Showers

It rained today . I could smell that earthy smell , which takes me back home everytime...that gili mitti ki khusboo filled with childhood memories of playing in the rain, making paper boats, splashing in the puddles.

It amazes me, how our sense of smell can take us back years and lets us relive that moment in time and again , forever.

"Reality continues to ruin my life"...Calvin and Hobbes.

Of late I had kinda got into a routine of coming back to the lab in the evenings and staying late into the night. I can stay back working peacefully in the empty lab for hours as long as my imagination does'nt run wild and I start conjuring up images of weirdos waiting outside my lab !!! The moment I hear a thud or a click that is out of place, I will be out of the lab before you can say "chicken". Yeah, not scary monsters or white ghosts in my imagination ...mine is too realistic. Its strange people who scare me and besides who has ever seen a ghost lurking around labs anyway ??

So, there I was, all proud about getting my car fixed for 1/4th the price the crazy dealer quoted, and glad that I could now actually spend more time getting work done in the lab. But this being my life, how did I forget there is probably no one on whom the Murphy's Laws apply so well , as much as they do on me; if anything can go wrong, it will ...very very soon. I lost my identity card; the card which is as precious to me as "Khul ja sim sim" was to Alladin. It was my only after hours pass into the new high tech building we have moved into. I need to swipe it to get into the building , then swipe to come up 5 floors, another swipe to open the door in the hallway, and a final swipe to get me into the lab. I need to swipe to even get into the restrooms at the end of the hallway. I am guessing even people at NASA don't require so many ID card swipes to get into their most secret of missions !!! And even if someone does manage to trudge up all those stairs, I fail to see what they could possibily steal from here the bulky computers that are as old as me (hate to admit it , but they are), the stacks and stacks of journal articles or the chemicals in the cabinet with skull heads and warnings that go " Toxic: Do not inhale !!!, Contact doctor immediately if itching persists !! ? Although he could get quite a bit of money if he took all those empty coke and pepsi cans to recycle.

By that logic, I should'nt bother about any unauthorized person reaching my lab anyways, wierdos included...but my imagination quite predictably defies all logic.

I pride myself at never losing stuff ... atleast trivial stuff. Unless their disappearance causes severe monetary loss or drastically hinders my day to day functioning, I don't bother misplacing them. I don't misplace my junk jewellery, I have all the cards and letters and random scrapbook junk safe and sound, but I lost my gold chain , the precious gold bracelet Sri presented and was frighteningly close to losing my engagement ring once.

So, inspired by my friends stories of kind strangers calling me up or emailing me about having found my ID card, I waited patiently till today. But, I have given up hope. So, not only has this magnetic strip of plastic, made me curse heavily everytime I encounter my near death experience just climbing 5 flights of stairs since thursday, this one is also setting me back by 20 freakin dollars for a new one. And the way my luck goes, I am pretty sure that kind stranger is going to contact me right after I get my new card.

Meanwhile I can clearly make out the transition in my blogspace, from ones that talked about fun times at the parties or the movies to the ones in the last couple of months that has transmogrified into cribs and rants galore. Something a PhD student would blog about ....YIKES ...I can't stop it now ...its happening !!!

Spring is here ....FINALLY !!

Life is like the weather ....you will only appreciate the warm sunlight after weeks and weeks of dull, cold and cloudy days ; but never during the hot summer time .

So here I was feeling all frustrated with life, wasting my precious years towards a meaningless degree (I will change it to a meaningfull degree the day I get a paycheck that does'nt look like minimum wage !!) . When after a long cold and gloomy winter , spring is finally here like a breath of fresh air ...hmmmmm . Today was just the kind of day everyone needed to treat their cabin fevers as we bid adieu to the days of dressing up like eskimos.

After 4 long years in the US , it has yet never stopped amazing me , how perfect strangers can carry out conversations for hours just discussing the weather . There is so much to talk about , the seven-day forecasts, the high pressure , low pressure areas, thunderstorms, tornadoes, wind speeds, last years temperatures for the month . Personally too, weather talk has been quite an ice-breaker (pun intended !) in many a boring potlucks. My conservations with strangers can go as limp as my over-conditioned hair right after the "how are you ? " "I am good, thank you "....long awkward silence, " whats with this years winter , huh" ...blah blah blah.

But maybe this is a phenomenon limited to the states that actually have changing seasons ...I mean what could people in LA possibly have to crib about the weather. Except when the torrential rains hit them last month , even Leno could'nt stop talking about it ...see my point ?

Weather was just never a yap topic in India. It was always Shahrukh who came to my rescue there (Bless his soul).

My friend the other day casually remarked that she kept herself regularly updated on the latest weather from her basement lab, using the www.weatherunderground.com website.

So as days are getting sunnier and warmer, necklines are plunging and hemlines are dangerously rising all over campus . Except it's no picnic for me, as I puff and pant on the treadmill as a last ditch effort to get into a reasonable shape (from 'round' i.e) before summer time.

I know eventually I am going to start my cribs about the hot, sweaty days, the constant freeze thaw I go through everytime I get in or out of a building, and the sunlight till 9 in the night !!! Until then , I am just going to take in the warm sunshine of the spring .