Off to home again

I am taking a 3 day break from 1st to 3rd Feb. Going home to re-unite with my wife and daughter. Looking forward to this trip. Have been feeling a touch homesick over the past week or two.

Had a hair cut today evening. It was about time too, almost lost my comb inside my hair today morning.

Never ever get a hair cut around the closing time of the saloon. The barber is usually tired and is desperate for some rest and food. Unfortunately due to my work pressure , I could only reach the saloon near closing time.

So I'll put it this way, I have an aero-dynamically efficient hair style now :). Guaranteed to give couple of percentage point improvement in fuel consumption if I were to drive a two wheeler now !!

Reader's block

I am hit by the reader's block !!

For some reason I can't bring myself to read a new book. I have tried several times to read a new book, invariably I'll end up dropping it after couple of hours. What's worse is that, then I proceed to pick up a book that I have already read and then re-read it.

Sort of like Tendulkar losing his form and scratching around for a few runs :).

Pretty sad state to be in. I am desperately trying to break out of this mode.

I have quite a list piled up already "Mister God, this is Anna", "The Five dollar smile" by Shashi Taroor, "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel, "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr" and so on.

When will I read all this .....

Interesting day at Each One Teach One

As I mentioned in my earlier posts, I volunteer time on weekends to some teaching at EOTO center. We held the final exams for our Spoken English batch of students today.

As a part of the exam we asked the students to come prepared with their resume for a job of their choice. We had 2 interview panels who grilled the students just like a normal job interview.

The performance of one of the students just blew our minds away.

She is a first year BSc student and wants to become a teacher. Her English and grammar were not great, but her clarity of thought and passion for teaching really touched our hearts. She had put in lots of thought into what she would want to do as a teacher, how she would do it, what would be the problems that she encounter, everything...

We probed away and could not find a single weakness in her thought process. In fact we were so carried away that the interview went way beyond the time limit of 15 minutes !! If it were up to us, we would have made a job offer to her on the spot.

It is so heartening see kids like these with so much passion for teaching. This is a profession that I have great respect for and I am pretty sure 10 years from now I will be into this full time.

Good luck to you, kid. I sincerely hope you become a teacher, our system sure needs people like you.

What's your personality profile ?

If you have around 10 minutes to spare , try taking the following Jung typology test to find more about your personality traits.

According to this test, I am an ISTJ ( Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging) with Introverted and Judging as the strongest two traits. You can read more about ISTJ type here and here.

Interesting results, looks completely accurate.

Dilbert rules !

Most definitely this is the story of my life ..


http://people.csail.mit.edu/adonovan/dilbert/show.php?day=20&month=7&year=1997

:-))

Who will cry when you die ?

So goes the title of a book by Robin Sharma. The book is not really about death or dying. It is just a collection of some nice thoughts. 

Somehow this title got inside my head today and just won't go away.

If I have to answer the question above honestly, well maybe no one would cry. Would that be a good or bad ? I don't know. Have I made enough of a difference for some one to care if I cease to exist ? Maybe, maybe not .

I am just too tired at this point of time to think reasonably. Nothing seems to be going right at this moment. Nothing at all.

Sometimes I wonder how long does it take before a person just gives up. I am pretty sure I do not want to know the answer to that question.

Feed a cold, starve a fever

So goes the saying. Always believe proverbs, so I have been eating non-stop throughout the day :).

My nasty cold refuses to go away, add to that there is a chest congestion now. Whenever I try to sleep , the whistling noises from my chest wakes me up !

And my old foe Asthma is rearing its nasty head once more.Had to take leave today as I am pretty sure the air-conditioning in office would have made it a lot worse

Cooking experiments : Episode 3

Well after being down and out for a day swimming around in loads of self pity , I decided to return to cooking to take my mind off all the issues. Also I am having this nasty cold and my eyes keep watering all the time. So really in no condition to go out and eat.

The items attempted this time is the plain old Dosa. I didn't bother with making the batter myself, outsource whatever is not a core competency :). Bought ready made batter from a departmental store.

Before I describe what happened keep in mind the following
(a) I am not in a good mood when I start of this cooking experiment
(b) I am tired and hungry as it is around 9.30 PM in the night
(c) Read about experiment-1 and experiment-2 to give you good idea of my cooking skills

So I heat up my rather old and battered looking non-stick pan. I pour couple of drops of Ghee onto the pan followed by the batter. Trouble strikes as soon as I start spreading it around. The batter won't spread around well. It is sticking on the the pan, and huge clumps are being formed all over. I had to scrape off the batter painstakingly and throw it away. I wash the pan and start once more. 10 minutes wasted, hunger increases to 1.2 x normal , temper to 1.4 x normal.

The brilliant researcher mind concludes that the batter is too thick and needs to be diluted. Attempt-2 is carried out with the diluted batter. It spreads around like a dream and I am thrilled to see the perfect round shape. Unfortunately it starts to go all wrong the moment I try to flip it over. The batter is stubbornly sticking to my pan ( Non-stick pan !! Ha, what a joke) .

Hunger is at 1.6x normal, temper at 2.5x normal. A few careful attempts to extract it using my wooden spoon yield limited success. Then I switch to brute force method. BIG MISTAKE, The Dosa disintegrates into several pieces. Some pieces are still sticking to the pan . Hunger at 2x normal, temper at 100x normal !!

I completely lose the plot. I don't swear in my everyday life, but man , I was impressed at the colorful language that came streaming out of my mouth. I had a good collection of swear words in stock in-spite of never having used any in public !!

I just rip of dosa from the pan and throw the pan into my sink. I am still steaming with anger. So I took the remnants of my dosa and put it directly on the fire. Watching it burn was so therapeutic , I felt my anger slowly burn away .......

Like a true engineer, I blame my tools. The "Non-stick" pan is the chief culprit and has been replaced with a brand new one. I am sure my next attempts will turn out to be perfect.

Watch this space , sometime in this decade you will see a success story

Feeling Blue

I am beginning my miss my wife and daughter more and more these days. The decision to stay apart for 3 years so that my wife can complete her higher studies is probably one of the toughest ones that I have made in my life

I miss being with my daughter

I miss seeing her grow up

I miss her smiles & tears

I miss just being around her, being a part of all her joys and sorrows

I miss someone to talk to when I go home

I miss someone who can give me a decent meal when I come back from office in a completely drained state

However as they say, this phase too shall pass and happier times would soon be coming . Just waiting for it .....

Chak De !!

Finally I did it ! After a gap of God knows how long, I have managed to see a movie in one sitting. Last Saturday my cable guy was showing Chak de India on his local channel. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I guess partly because I am a big sports fan and partly because, like most of us, I like rooting for the underdog.

The movie got me thinking about how few sporting heroes we have in this country.

I am curious why some one like Anju Bobby George is never spoken of the in same breath as Sachin Tendulkar. She has been a medalist at the world championship. Most people now forget that in the Long Jump final in the 2004 Olympics, she jumped her personal best jump of 6.83m.

I believe that is the hallmark of a true champion. To produce your absolute best when it really matters. Sure, she did not win a medal, but she jumped the maximum she ever did on the day of Olympic final.

We reached the final of 2003 Cricket world cup, how much did you say Tendulkar scored in that match ? How much was that again ? 4 runs ? Compare to his highest score of 186*.

Maybe this is why as a nation we have so few heroes, we do not even know who they are.

Additional food for thought : Had it been a male long jumper who reached the final of the world cup and won world championship medals, I am sure there would have been a lot more recognition for him

w300i display problem

I have become very reliant on gadgets, especially my mobile phone.  I have a Sony Ericsson W300i Walkman phone. The display of the phone recently started to blank out for long periods of time.

The phone remained fully functional apart from the display. I could receive calls, I would have no idea of who is calling as the display is blank. It is not that easy to pick-up who the caller is just by listening to the voice . At least for the first 10 seconds I used to struggle to recognize who is calling!!

Even more frustrating was the fact that I could hear the new message received tone, but when I flip open the phone the same blank screen would stare back at me. Also just to add to the irritation factor , once in a while the display would come on. As per Murphy's law, the display would never turn on when I really need it to !!

Finally it is repaired and back to normal now . The ribbon cable between the display the phone was the culprit .

Back to full mobility now

Why I like Jan Ullrich

If there is one sportsman in the world whom I genuinely feel sympathy for, that would be Jan Ullrich. Imagine winning the Tour De France at a very young age, then be hailed as the next big thing in cycling only to never ever win it again !! Always destined to finish second behind the great Lance Armstrong.

I have read Armstrong's books : It's not about the bike & Every second counts. I have tremendous admiration for the way he overcame obstacles. But Ullrich is the one who arouses my curiosity. How can a person who is so talented waste it all by just being lazy ? What goes through his mind, what does he think ? It would be fascinating to know. Unfortunately his Autobiography , aptly titled Ganz oder gar nicht, Meine Geschicte ( All or nothing, My story) , is not available in India . I do not even know if an English edition exists !!

I also read a brilliant book by Daniel Coyle , Lance Armstrong , tour de force in which he traces the fascinating paths of three of Armstrong's 2004 race rivals : Tyler Hamilton , Iban Mayo and Jan Ullrich. This book gave me some insight into Ullrich, but still I yearn for more !!

There is this unforgettable quote by Ullrich's manager when someone asked him the difference between Armstrong and Ullrich. He said "Armstrong lives to race, Ullrich races to live".

Tell me, how can this guy not interest you ? :-))

On Books & Reading

I enjoy reading, though I always feel I should be doing more. There are some authors that I love like James Herriot and then there are some I can never figure out. Ayn Rand falls in the latter category.

I have tried my best to finish 2 of her novels "Atlas Shrugged" and "The fountainhead". Some how I have never been able to go more than half of either book.

I do not debate the fact that her thinking and ideas are distinctly different, may be even bordering on the extreme. It seems in her books everything has to be black and white, yes and no, right or wrong. The main character always seems so arrogant and disconnected from the real world. The sheer volume of Atlas Shrugged too does not help, I guess.

But then my likes and dislikes are often peculiar. Couple of my friends almost attacked me when I told them I found "The Alchemist" by Paul Coelho was not worth all the hype . For sheer beauty of thought, I would pick The Prophet by Khalil Gibran , and for simplicity of thought, I would any day pick The little prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Alchemist is neither here nor there as far as I am concerned. No doubt many of you disagree, this is just my opinion.

I aim to finish at least one of Ayn Rand's books this year, may be my opinion will change then.

Return of the master chef

After my interesting experiment with chapathis ( read this ) , the urge to do something new returned. I suppose these urges are an occupational hazard of being a researcher.

Also a good researcher learns from his mistakes. So I decided that frying or re-heating frozen stuff would be something that is ideally suited for my skill level. As it turned out, I over-estimated my skill level :(

Would you say frying frozen chicken cutlets is a tough job ? Especially if the frozen cutlets come with detailed instructions on how this apparently simple operation needs to be done.

See the list of events that follow
-Master chef heats the frying pan filled with oil.
-No time limit for pre-heating oil is specified in instructions, so the chef assumes 5 minutes is a good enough time. Bad mistake as it later turns out.
-After 5 minutes a few frozen cutlets are tossed into the pan
-KABOOMMMM ..A fireball rises from the pan and almost hits the ceiling of my kitchen. Nearly burns my eyebrows off.
-The cutlets are on fire inside the pan !! Panic sets in , somehow gathered my nerves back and switched of the gas
-Wait for 10 more minutes till the smouldering pan can be approached. Sadly dump contents to the waste bin.

Another sad end to a promising experiment. Well , another day in the life of a researcher.

Australia , India and the cricket controversy

There has been only one topic of discussion today in office, the controversial Sydney test match of course . I guess lot of Indians like me are fuming at the whole affair.

Peter Roebuck sums up all that was wrong with this test match & Australian attitude beautifully in this following article.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/arrogant-ponting-must-be-fired/2008/01/07/1199554571883.html

Yercaud trip

We went to Yercaud towards the end of December . Just a 2 day trip. Weather was beatiful , not too cold, bright and sunny all throughout.

We stayed at Sterling resorts. I would not rate the place very high. The room had a very damp smell and did not look very clean. The place is built on the side of a hill, so it is pretty steep. It is quite an ordeal to go from the your room to the restaurant, you have climb as much as 4-6 stories of stairs to reach there !! Don't bother with the restaurant , they serve AWFUL food. Almost every one had a stomach upset .

Scenery was nice, there is nothing much to do while you are Yercaud though. Ideal for a 2-3 day complete relaxation trip

Nice one

I was browsing through the orkut profiles of some of my friends, came across this superb quote

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass,It's about learning to dance in the rain"

I am back

Happy new year to all. Back in office today after a fantastic vacation, probably the best break that I have had ever. Did not want to come back to office :-(

Now is the time for new year resolutions. Should I resolve not to have any resolutions ? :) Going by the success of previous years, it may not be a bad idea.

I recently read an article by Shobha De in The Week on some tips for happiness in 2008 . You can read the list here : http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?BV_ID=@@@&contentType=EDITORIAL&sectionName=TheWeek%20Current%20Events&programId=1073754900&contentId=3352568. She does make a mention about Ayn Rand in one of the points. Sadly I have so far found it impossible to finish any of Ayn Rand's works , more on that later .

Some of the points listed there are nice , I especially liked the following :
2. Learn to let go
3. Teach yourself to trust
7. Listen with your heart
8. Confide
16. Extend help
23. Embrace life

Well as far as my resolutions go, it is
(a) Read books from authors that I have not read before
(b) Not to get angry over trivial issues
(c) Learn cooking :) and minimize eating junk food
(d) Spend more time with my family