7/18/2005

No....no ...this date is not going down in history or anything...just realized that was the last time I had posted here. I was kind of going through a self imposed 'blog depravation' thinking if I had so much to say I might as well put it into my thesis writing then spend precious keyboard minutes writing about mundane stuff like how we started a fire and smoked everyone out of the building (which was quite fun actually), or gave my first ever public presentation at the conference..oh well !

After four years of crawling through, now that I am nearing the end of the PhD tunnel, I think I can make out a teeny weeny hint of light ...but even if I haven’t learnt anything during my years here , one thing is burnt into my brains forever : there is a huge....HUGE difference between "almost there" and "there". So never ever ever ever assume you are "there" ...when you are only "almost there". If you did'nt understand a word of that profound statement I made....then you, my friend, are probably not a PhD student ....congratulations !

I have never been one of those people who takes every decision in their life after thinking and rethinking and then thinking some more. Maybe thats why I sucked at chess!!! .

So when I decided (which took like 2 seconds) to give PhD a shot, I was totally clueless about what I was in for. Up until last year I was still clueless!!! Oh boy do I know now why we are called Doctors of Philosophy...thats all there is to it at the end of it all.
After this you realize how precious is
- your bank account thats not only malnourished but also suffers from diarrhoea...money is out even before it comes in !!!
- clearance shelf at Walmart...you can't imagine the treasures you can get there,
- your Russian car mechanic who yells at me like my mom, but charges me $2 to fix my overheated car. I love him.
- and of course Taco Bell...words cannot express my gratitude to this place.

What else do you need to survive other than a burrito, kapda aur kiraya ka makaan?

The “almost there” phase of my life has been going on for over 6 months and everyday I am that much closer to giving it all up. I come home every evening all morose and then something happens that will have me cracking up and happy again: a full hour of “Friends”. This is one serial that never lets me down …even after its 100th rerun I am still in splits .

Things have come to this stage now that I will do anything to run away from my work ...and that includes watching a movie like "Dus" ...what is worse ...I even enjoyed it :-( . I have realised that people get very upset / angry after watching movies like this . But I just shrug my shoulders and say "Ehh it was not so bad ...the girl wore some nice eyeshadow in that last scene , when the plane was going to jump into the lake and explode". What ? that was Zayed Khan ???
I do have an extremely low threshold for bollywood !!!

I just talked to my parents, who are vacationing in Singapore. My brother went back to India, and thought it was a good idea to give them an experience of flying ...since they had never got on a plane. So he took them to Singapore. Apparently according to my dad (who lives only to tease my mom over every goof up she does) my mom was so excited, she started "practising" how to climb into a plane. Every weekend when I call home, he is ready with his list of 'mom jokes'. Mom is a great sport though, and all she manages is a "thats enough now". Dad loves to entertain, and he does seem to have his own fan club in the khandaan. He keeps repeating his jokes ...but everytime there is some new masala in it...and exaggeration is his middle name ...nobody seems to mind as long as they have a good laugh. I do miss all those family get togethers , where everyone would gather in the living room after dinner and the tales and gossips would begin and go on till the wee hours of the morning.

Meanwhile, the other day my friend forwarded me a link that actually turned out to be one of my juniors from IITB. Its amazing how we bump into old friends and learn about their new hobbies

Anyways, this was fun ...although this is probably as random as I can get when it comes to blogging...but this is exactly how my mind works too ...its all over the place ...maybe that could be another reason I sucked at chess !!!