tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382240152024-03-12T19:22:10.868-07:00FlaffFoolery, sir, does walk about the orb
like the sun; it shines everywhereRevealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.comBlogger172125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-80607553026783322772009-11-07T05:46:00.006-08:002009-11-07T06:24:20.089-08:00Dream for a Depressed Grad Student"That's for 5 years of my youth" <RIP><br /><br />"And <span style="font-style:italic;">that's</span> for all the mice I've tortured" <TEAR><br /><br />"This one's for the women I didn't save..." <SCCRRRCH><br /><br />"...<span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> for the problems I didn't solve..." <TRRRRRRPP><br /><br />"...this one for the questions I didn't answer..." <BRRRRIIIPPPP><br /><br />"..and here's for the diseases I didn't cure" <RIP><RIP><RIP><br /><br />"That's for the 3 AM depression fits" <KKKKKKRRRRRP><br /><br />"That's for the <span style="font-style:italic;">constant</span> worrying about never ever being able to afford a house" <TEAR><br /><br />"This one's for the grants that were never funded" <GGGRRRRPPPP><br /><br />"There's 10 for the weeks of helplessness, inadequacy and loss of control" <FUMBLE, FUMBLE, RIP RIPPP RIPPPPPPPP><br /><br />"This is for the experiments that never worked..." <rip><br /><br />"..and the time courses that <span style="font-style:italic;">never</span> produced interesting results..." <tear><br /><br />"..<span style="font-style:italic;">and</span> the weekends spent in correcting proofs of manuscripts that never got submitted..." <RIP><br /><br />"...poster sessions where noone came up to my poster...." <TEAR><br /><br />"..a big, <span style="font-weight:bold;">fat</span> one for crappy-ass conferences..." <RIPPP><br /><br />"This here's for insane post-docs.." <BRRRPPPP><br /><br />"..let's not forget the socially inept grad students.." <KKKRRRRPPP><br /><br />"..demanding PIs who don't know <span style="font-style:italic;">what</span> they're demanding..." <KKKKKKKKKKRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPP><br /><br />"..lily-livered mentors who quail in front of a thesis committee...." <KKKRRP><br /><br />"..thesis committee members, hah! A band of <span style="font-weight:bold;">jerks</span> if ever I saw one" <TEARRR><br /><br />"Finally, here's 50 for the Shattering of my Illusions, you bastards" <RIP> <TEAR> <KRRPPP> <GRRPPP> <BRRPPPP> <TRPPPPP><br /><br />Graduation gown confetti scattered around her feet as she glowed softly with satisfaction....and possibly exertion.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-83790952210964493462009-02-17T17:40:00.005-08:002009-02-17T18:21:09.300-08:00Blogging helps.So, here it is. Or, I should say, here we are. Again. <br /><br />It is not enough to know a language, to be able to immerse yourself in it. It is not enough to feel every comma, taste every meaning, thrill at the touch of a sibilant. That is the plain truth. It is not enough. <br /><br />What you really need is the power of flight. You need to leave the language behind you like you would shed your clothes before stepping into the shower. Because, if you must have it frankly, the language just gets in your way. <br /><br />The problem is though, that you become accustomed to the language. It is easy to become expert at spelling "loquacious" or learning to distinguish between the purposes fulfilled by a semi-colon rather than a colon. It easy because it is safe. The well known warmth, like that pair of threadbare cotton panties that appreciates the roundness of your bum just so, tenderly, is welcoming. It does not require squeezing or coaxing or the commodity that is hardest to come by, the courage to squeeze and to coax. <br /><br />I do not talk about the ordinary, everyday courage that you need to put on lipstick and smile at a stranger without wondering whether there's lipstick on your teeth. I talk, rather, about that particular brand of courage that you borrow from insanity. <br /><br />To think, first, and then to believe that those thoughts must be not proffered but thrust in to the <span style="font-style:italic;">mind</span> of another, it takes a special sort of something. Let us pretend it is bravery. Let us even pretend that at least in some cases it is welcome. Dickens, comes to mind. Austen is another. And yet those names themselves should frighten any but the most foolhardy, surely. To follow in the deep trenches left by those lithe footsteps. Presumption itself must tremble at the thought. <br /><br />Well satisfied, chastened, even, you beat a determined retreat. The fingers might itch in passing, keys might receive lingering looks and wistful sighs but the chin remains ever defiantly raised and the heart skips hardly a beat. Some thing lies in abeyance. <br /><br />But you <span style="font-weight:bold;">must</span> write e-mails, after all. People need to keep in touch. Donne, that wise man, said once I believe that no man was an island. Even less of an island is a woman. Some might say she is more an oasis where Arabs and camels talk to the palm trees, as they chew on dates. The trick is to strike the right note in the e-mail. To never cheat, never flirt, never even try to look up that tempting skirt but to keep the note informal, informative and always without a flourish. That is the way to keep that some thing abeyed. <br /><br />Maybe just the tiniest quip. A quip can do no harm. It is lighthearted, aiming to do nothing but create a smile in passing. A venture at a pun, maybe. You know old So-and-So enjoys his puns. There is no malice in a pun, unless it is intended. Everyone knows that. And all too quickly, the email is done. There is only so much that can happen in one life and the telling of it tends to create reduction. Embroidering is out of the question. That argument has been argued to a conclusion. There is not even anyone else to email.<br /><br />And yet, those fingers - they will itch. Those looks, they will linger and those sighs most of all will insist on wisting fully. The monitor wists back. The keys glisten. The rising flood of thoughts must leave now. Must. leave. now.!<br /><br /><br />So, here it is. Or, should I say, here we are? Again.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-22507098512932605822008-12-28T10:31:00.001-08:002008-12-28T10:42:24.494-08:00I'm 25I feel blue.....don't you hate birthdays?<br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MqEgRaXKaIA&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MqEgRaXKaIA&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object>Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-6592934934806685922008-12-21T11:21:00.005-08:002008-12-21T12:48:24.971-08:00Good Blog! Whither Goes Ze Time?It's been so long since I've posted here that I couldn't remember my password! I still don't remember my password but by some Blogmas (all will be explained in the course of the next three paras) miracle or some such it all worked out and I'm here...and posting...sigh..just like the good ol' days. When I used to have a job that involved minimal effort and interaction with a few cute li'l yeasties. And folks, I turned this job in to become a grad student...and (wait for it, it gets worse) sustained traumatic interaction with mice!! I will spare you stories of my trials with the mice. It'll only serve to keep you up nights and I will not have that on my conscience, sirs (and/or madams, noone shall call me a sexist). Anyway. Long story short, I've gots me a case of the Busy-ies. But, some of you with keener insight might note, I haven't gotten rid of this blog o'mine yet. Why, you might ask. The answer, madams (an/or sirs, of course), is *not* sheer laziness. Nuh uh. It is rather, that I have a primal instinct to blog.<br /><br />I've spent some time wondering why it is I feel this need. And (me being I), I have asked a lot of fellow bloggers this question. Varied responses I received. The most popular ones being you're a loser or you (meaning not me in particular but Those who Blog in general - or so I've convinced myself) don't have a social life. But this isn't true..can't be true. The blogger community stands second to none in having its fair share of losers and geeks and nerds and other people of that ilk that has no social life. But it also abounds with people who *do*, in fact, have a social life. Some of *these* people, it is true, blog because they like a fondly imagined captive audience for their rants and ravings (and no! that is *not* why I blog, thankyouverymuch). But I would like to believe that a lot of us blog because we like to write. More, we need to write. <br /><br />This blog, after all, is my Great Unfinished Novel. The one I've always known I will write. So, if you think about it, this blog 1) saves many trees a senseless and untimely death 2) saves many people senseless and untimely expenditure on the thoughts and ramblings of a soontobe25year old (yes, I've said it, I'm getting old) graduate student 3)saves me the needless hassle of marshaling my thoughts into any kind of order or rationality.<br /><br />The Blog, in fact, ladies and gents, is the Savior of the World (hence the Blogmas crack, remember? two paras up?). Sent down by a wise and generous God to protect us in our Hour of Need. In short, people, it is a Godsend. <br />-Also, stepping off that soapbox for a brief instant: we all know it's uncool in the Other World to talk about Profound Stuff and have Thoughts on Deep and Stirring Subjects like "Why are we here?", "What is the purpose of all of this?" and "Why, oh why, did we stop believing in God, the only reasonably happy answer to any of these questions that human beings have ever been able to come up with?". But down here, it's acceptable. Not just acceptable but almost de rigueur (plus I can use words whose meanings I don't understand. Win-win.)! And some people might say the main reason we blog is because The Blog lets us be who we are in our heads rather than who we are in everyone else's heads. Poppycock, *I* think. And pshaw! Alrighty, back on the soapbox.- <br />Hail, bloggers, to the one god, The Blog. (His only demand is that we are good and honest and kind and generous and that we give him offerings of gold and kaju katlis every second hour of the day. Very reasonable, considering the precedents.)<br /><br />In conclusion, I would like to introduce a new worshiper at the altar of The Blog: My sister, the archeologist, at <a href="http://whyneme.blogspot.com">here</a>. Tada!!! (You'll remember I was mentioning getting her to write stuff up, 'Fessor? Well, she did it all by her lonesome cuz I kept forgetting to get her to write stuff up :D). Enjoi!Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-39051433960180228672008-11-10T07:18:00.006-08:002008-11-10T07:26:18.547-08:00Serial Number: 1 - Lines that Ought to Live In..<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ycukFFlc-S8/SRhSQayecyI/AAAAAAAAABk/yNwt9UO4fc0/s1600-h/mnb.bmp"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 236px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ycukFFlc-S8/SRhSQayecyI/AAAAAAAAABk/yNwt9UO4fc0/s400/mnb.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5267050206232212258" /></a><br /><br /><br />--> She nestled her nose lustfully in his fragrant armpit hair<br /><br />--> He leaned over her vulnerable, fragile sleeping face and licked the drool from the corner of her slack mouth, tasting its musky odor gratefully as his quivering member did the Dance of the One-Eyed Snake<br /><br /><br />As ever, contributions welcome :DRevealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-54909320806582279242008-11-02T13:10:00.004-08:002008-11-02T13:33:22.776-08:00I'm thinkingit's time I started writing again. <br /><br />It isn't as if the stories have stopped. Just the story-telling.<br /><br />I should be ashamed of myself.<br /><br />And I am (don't think I'm not - also I *didn't* temporarily pause blogging because I was busy acquiring a real life and I don't care what anyone says about it! So, hah!). <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Mouse</span><br /><br />She could bite with her sharp little yellow teeth. She could kick, albeit feebly, with her hindfeet. She could use formidable silvery whiskers to suss her surroundings. But among the long list of things she couldn't do featured fighting the frightening progress of science. <br /><br />Trying to cure cancer's a rather greedy goal. Even for humans.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-68790169482519682592008-07-02T16:24:00.004-07:002008-07-02T17:05:09.279-07:00WarIn the end, it's the self-loathing that does you in. She knew this. Or at least she pretended she knew this. That was one way of coping with it, and that was her way so least said about it the better. If you reconstruct reality pleasantly enough, it seems winkingly real and that's enough to satisfy all but the most exacting. <br /><br />Ah, that man in the leather jacket checked me out in the bus, I must be pretty, she would think. Or she goes out of her way to find me and talk to me, I must be a nice person otherwise why would she like me? I got invited to their party and theirs and theirs and theirs, clearly I'm popular. Sometimes, the polish wore thin. And for a moment, the glimpse of self-loathing was confusing. Was the self-loathing the real part of reality or was the nonself-liking of her the real-er?. If her judgment couldn't be trusted then surely everyone else's could be? But a-ha, the hole in the donut of logic: if I can't trust my own judgment how can I esteem my-self. <br /><br />She sometimes wondered if she was insane. But then if you wonder about your state of sanity, you have to BE sane. Or so she thought she remembered someone else saying. And other people were so sure of their opinions so they must be right. Why couldn't she be like them. Fitting in was easy, it was *knowing* that you fit in. That was the tricky bit. But that was just her opinion and she had just proved that her opinion wasn't worth much. No wonder she loathed herself. At least I'm showing good judgment in that, she would think. <br /><br />And so, as Billy Pilgrim would have said, it goes.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-50518787068156407072008-05-15T14:53:00.002-07:002008-05-15T15:20:36.231-07:00At my grand-dad's kneeI hate to break it to you, but, yes, it's true. There was a piggy by the railway who was picking up stones (foolish little piggy). Unfortunately for him a train came along and broke all of his bones (as was only to be expected, really). With his dying breath, the little piggy gasps that it wasn't fair (maybe alluding to the brevity of his lifespan) and then the engine driver who had gotten out of the train by now and was staring down at the dying piggy with a sneer, sniffed and expressed his total lack of feeling on the matter. Moral of the story clearly is to fear and respect engine drivers. <br /><br />Talking about piggies, one has to mention that Orson Scott Card is an excellent story maker even if a rather poor story teller. And so, I do him the justice of recognising that just like my grand-daddy (who seldom made up stories but was an excellent raconteur) he would have never suggested that the piggies with the twig and hay houses fled to their more fortunate brother of the brick house. No, certainly not. They were eaten by the wolf. Wolves are not simpletons. Any wolf worth his salt would eat up any piggy who was foolish enough to build houses out of hay and any wolf who had the persistence to blow stick houses down is a wolf worth his salt. Moral of this story, give the Ender trilogy a shot. You might enjoy it. I did.<br /><br />Talking about wolves, there's the other classic wolf story. The one where the pretty little girl with the red hood goes jauntering through the forest and sells her grand-mum down the river to the big, bad, definitely male wolf. The wolf then proceeds to kill the grand-mum and feed the little girl the remains (that's the way *I* heard it, at least). The woodman comes along and saves the girl but I never heard tell of the grand-mum's rescue until much later (my grand-dad was a formidable man and I think he was trying to make a point there (he was also endowed with much foresight and it must have seemed like a good idea to him at the time to tell his grand daughter about the evils of the world in general and male wolves in particular)). The moral of that story was quite clear, I always thought. Get yourself into any kind of trouble and it's your family that'll pay. And additionally, pretty girls and wolves are fatally intertwined.<br /><br />Talking of pretty girls, you must have heard of the wandering spirit who snuck into her lady's chamber and finding an old man in there, picked him up by his left leg and threw him down the stairs. While this might very well be a reference to Cromwellian supporters or King Henry or priestholes, the moral could be only one thing. For pity's sake don't let strange creatures liable to grab people and hurl them down staircases wander around your house. Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady's chamber. Ugh. Creepy.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-17572115169421571182008-05-14T07:03:00.004-07:002008-05-14T07:25:54.980-07:00Alternate Universe or What I Thought of While Brushing My Teeth this MorningShe looked up at the ominously dark sky, hurrying her footsteps along the dusty path. Gloomy skies, wet winds and the terrible smell of impending rain. Any moment now the burgeoning clouds would sag lower, their yellow streaked bellies ripping open under the weight of all that water. And then the water would leak out, tearing through the air, coating everything with its dripping wetness. Making everything moist and slimy. Stirring the lovely dust into a murderous paste. <br /><br />Around her were other townspeople unlucky enough to have strayed out under the threatening clouds. They shied away from the muck of water, grimacing as the first drops splashed on their bodies, slickly glistening moisture oozing on skin. Noone tried to wipe the water off, though. It would smear before evaporating, escaping into the air, droplets begetting droplets. Shudder.<br /><br />She got home in time to avoid the torrent but still sufficiently covered in the watery slime to require a shower. She stepped into the glass cubicle, turned the knob and heard the satisfying gurgle in the pipes. A second later, she stood under a torrent of warm dettol, letting the cleansing stream remove the slime and microbes of water from her skin. She imagined the droplets flowing down the drain into the water proof gutter from which they would never escape. More stolen rain kept from the treacherous skies. Towards a day when mankind could remain clear of water forever.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-6890899165585922942008-05-13T11:52:00.003-07:002008-05-13T11:57:44.351-07:00Three Months, It's Been. Let's Hear a Rousing Welcome Back Cheer.A woman went to the super market. She needed a can of soup. Not just any soup but a particular kind. She didn't think she'd be able to find it in just any old super market. She looked first in Aisle 2: Soup, Noodles and Assorted Instant Foods. Not there. She then looked in Aisle 22: Asian Cuisine. Not there either. Last shot, Aisle 14: Canned Food. Not there either. She did a cursory search through the rest of the super market. She couldn't find it. She walked back home, not at all surprised that she'd been right. It happened to her all the time.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-44403433285668726152008-02-29T14:04:00.001-08:002008-02-29T14:08:37.190-08:00Out for Lunch. Be back Shortly.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NwDLpFqyxz8"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NwDLpFqyxz8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-83598421612721000842008-02-07T06:11:00.000-08:002008-02-07T06:16:38.884-08:00ConversationA: <blockquote>Why are you all angry and upset now?</blockquote><br /><br />B: <blockquote>Nothing. <br /><br /> Just that adults suck! <br /><br /><br /> And noone understands anything!!!!!</blockquote><br /><br /><br /><em>Oh, to be thirteen again. No, no, wait. Oh, to be 24 and talk to 13 year olds who are in the middle of an Emotional Crisis.</em>Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-34863383836076168432008-02-06T17:03:00.000-08:002008-02-06T19:57:00.965-08:00When I Grow UpMy sister and I, we made a promise to each other when we were both teenagers (yeah, blood mingling ceremony, promises of death and everlasting perdition, the works). We'd never become our mum, we said. Solemn oath, pinky promise. <br /><br />We're all grown up now (sorta anyway) but every now and then one of us will still tell the other, "Dude, you sound exactly like her" and that has become the ultimate warning between us. The youarereallybehavingverybadlyfleshofmyflesh cautionary statement. I think we're very good about it, the two of us together. We probably save ourselves from ourselves. And maybe, just maybe, neither of us will turn into the mater.I don't know.<br /><br />I have recently changed. Not by huge degrees, I don't think. But a little. It's not like I woke up one morning and became an insanely introverted, Ionlywearfullsleevedturtlenecksthatcovermychinandamfilledwithhopelessnessattheplightofmankind sorta girl. Far from (I don't know if I'm emotionally capable of being that girl. If I went two hours without talking to anyone, I'd probably go buy a coffee just so I could smile at and discuss the weather with the Hispanic coffee-lady (who is really sweet and gives me free chocolate muffins when I forget to bring cash, godblesshersoul)). But I've channeled a lot of my extroversion, toned it down in some ways ( or at least so it appears to most of my friends and hangout buddies). I'm not always up for anything anymore cos I have other plans most nights. I don't go around herding the Happy Hour group together for two dollar beers every week. I can't be bothered. <br /><br />I've not yet reached the stage where I don't have any friends left. People still call me, stop by to chat. But the invitations to go out and drink the night away at the newest club downtown are trickling down to a drizzle. Disappearing slowly. True, they've been supplanted by other invitations from other people (superbowl parties, athome drinkathons, dinners, movie night). But. The point is (and yes, there is a point, thankyouverymuch) it's shockingly easy to drift from one phase of your life to another and with that from being one person to being a different one. Unless someone's looking out for you. And making sure you don't. <br /><br />Maybe, on second thought, the bigger point is that change is inevitable. And the sooner you make your peace with it, the happier you will be. I don't know.<br /><br />Maybe there's change and there's change and you just have to know the difference.<br /><br />I don't have the answers. But I think I have the question. The question, I think, is how do you know if the change is good or bad, considering that the person you're going to change into is not the same person you are. Isn't there some sort of conflict of interest lurking here somewhere? <br /><br />Which brings me to my second question, who the hell figured I was competent enough to make my own decisions and gave me a whole life to myself? <br /><br />Hawtdggitydamn! Stap me if The Power that Is isn't clearly a Jackass. <br /><br /><em>Also, among the things I don't know is whether this counts as a theory post or no. I'm gonna go ahead and say it does. It's been too long without one on this here blog.</em>Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-49657210564419705452008-01-22T07:02:00.001-08:002008-12-28T10:49:39.340-08:00Anything to Keep me from StudyingSo, it's been a while. <br /><br /> ***********************<br /><br />I'm not going to be claim to be an expert (I totally had a simpleringly smug look on my face when I said that, cos, c'mon, *course* I'm an expert) but does it seem like we're having an amazing blog-graph here? Like, BM (even if she now insists on calling herself OTP! Like whatever!) went into a slump and then came up swinging. The Riddler (??!) was going great guns and churning out like 250 posts a day and then went into a "Oh, I'm saving myself for the long run by cutting down on it" downswing. So, they kinda neutralized each other. Yes? Sine and anti-sine waves. Or whatever (I'm not majoring in like Graphs or Accounting or whatever those people who learn how to graph major in).<br /><br /> ************************<br /><br />We've had a slough of grey days. I love grey days. It's the greyness of them. Seeping into everything around. Until slowly it seeps into your soul. And you die (or your soul does or something). Pretty neat, huh? <br /> <br /> ************************<br /><br />Yeah, I saw Sweeney Todd. I don't have the words to do it justice but I'm gonna use substitute words to try and capture the utter horror. Ghastly music, ghastly singing, marginally funny lyrics. Asinine plot line. Even Depp couldn't do a Pirates on this one. Sigh.<br /> <br /> ************************<br /><br />Talking about movies, though, I'm in love with Ellen Page. The girl rocks. I want to have her babies. Juno was drippingly delicious. I've already seen it twice (Ren, if you have the soundtrack, I want! I'll come down and get it off of you if you won't give it to me!).<br /><br /> ************************<br /><br />Everyone's getting married. Or having babies. What is up with that? A guy I used to know is really and actually getting married (wedding in India and all). Ex-roomie just got married (also wedding in India - actually two weddings - the works). A guy I still know is ohsoclose to tying the knot. Juno got pregnant. Another guy I know scored a lunch date. Odds are he's going to either get married pretty soon or get pregnant.<br /><br /> ************************<br /><br />School still sucks. They still keep handing out those awful test questions. I still get continually traumatized when I know an answer. It's like "Waitasecond! This question actually makes sense. I think I can answer it! No, really! I think I know the answer. OMG! I must be hallucinating. I've finally succumbed to the pressure and gone nutso" [Cue manic laughter in a silent hall followed by much glaring and angry sssshhhhhs].<br /><br /> **************************<br /><br />Customary video and I believe we're done here.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nBDbUVXXp-U&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nBDbUVXXp-U&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-58033817243946209872008-01-08T06:25:00.000-08:002008-01-08T06:30:13.121-08:00Bad Flaffy, No Donut for YouShe was sure he'd come back. That's why when her friends came over looking sad and held her hand, she just smiled. When they told her to cheer up and come shopping with them, she went shopping with them. She didn't need to cheer up. She knew he'd come back. He'd always liked how clean her house was. How she always made sure the pillow covers matched the duvet. The way her clothes were sorted out by use (daily wear, exercise, office, parties, Indian get-togethers, casual evenings), color (reds, greens and blues - she didn't like oranges and yellows, too bright) and length (shorts, skirts, pants and pjs, ankle skirts, saris). Every day she made up their bed (on both sides), vacuumed her house and made sure there were fresh flowers in the living room vase. Because she knew he'd come back. And imagine if the flowers were faded when he did.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-72891190243677917582007-12-10T18:31:00.001-08:002007-12-10T18:37:42.563-08:00Anniversary Time! Whoo hoo!It's my Bloggy Birth Month. My blog is Capricornian. How awesomely perfect is that? I have to admit I feel a little guilty. I have (and there's no nice way to see it) neglected the Flaffster. Left him cold and dry. Dropped him like a hot potato, in fact. I am overcome with remorse. But, on the bright side, my life is so fun right now. And blogs are a girl's best friend. They're supposed to be dumped on and then forgotten. The next time I'm at home on a weeknight, trying to avoid school work, with noone to talk to (cos nobody loves me, I'm nobody's child) I'll just come right back and dump some more. I'll make up more ridiculous stories. I'll even write more theory posts (talking about which, I have a great new theory on How so many Grad Students have Issues). I'll complete that Grad School Freak Show thing. I'll go back and read up all the old posts on my favorite blogs (by which I mean <a href="http://nishantjn.blogspot.com">yours, half pint</a>). And I'll comment obsessively and contentlessly on every single one of them. But till then, people, be patient. Show kindness. Love me.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-51206968866598650502007-12-02T07:06:00.000-08:002007-12-02T07:29:23.082-08:00It's that time of the YearThere is no need to get flustered, dearhearts, because Flaffy hasn't disappeared. Flaffy has just temporarily gone on a Real Life Binge (where she picked up this ridiculous habit of referring to herself as Flaffy). The thing about this whole Real Life deal is that it has consequences. Because there's all these Real People and they have Real Feelings. It isn't like being here. Where anything goes, because when it comes down to it, you can always cut and run. If you think someone's getting too close, or crowding you or rushing in where angels fear to tread you needn't reply to their comments/messages/e-mails. You can just pretend they don't exist and voila they <em>will</em> disappear. At least they will, eventually. If they're not really psycho stalkers. And as y'all know this blog never attracts psycho stalkers. Ever! <br /><br />Maybe that's the difference between the internet and real life. The internet's so much more convenient. It has built-in safeguards. And sometimes those safeguards themselves can make you do stupid things, say stupid things or be stupid things but still at the end of it, those safeguards will still be there (unless you're abysmally stupid and take it off line). I don't know (have you noticed how so many of my posts are about me explaining how i don't know the answer to almost every question in the universe? seems to me to be a recurring theme). I don't think that the internet's helpful in bettering social skills, it's a lukewarm medium of communication and at best a means of sporadically keeping in touch with people you don't really care about with as little investment of time and energy as possible. But I do think it's a lovely place to pretend that life has no consequences. Just when you need a break. Like the Bahamas.<br /><br />Since it's that time of the year when we talk vacation, I thought I should put this out there. An advance Christmas thing. Hope it helps (especially all of you who get exactly two days off for Christmas unlike some of us who get a month off - just saying).Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-66894934808291022382007-11-24T16:47:00.000-08:002007-11-24T16:50:09.965-08:00Another Theory FlashNoone who has the capability or best fit to be in grad school would want to go into military training. Not just because war is clearly an archaic monstrosity that should have been abolished by now, but also because a person who has the mind of a prospective PhD candidate would pose too many questions to be a propah militant. <br /><br />My sample size this time is a little bigger than my last theory-flash (where n=1), so I await reprisal with a quiet, optimistic confidence.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-77230205134961793772007-11-17T13:23:00.000-08:002007-11-17T13:37:33.909-08:00Theory FlashAs y'all are well aware, I hate being controversial. But still. Theories have to be given their turn in the spotlight. So.<br /><br />Two things men think with: one, everyone knows, well established fact and whatnot. Two, their feet. This is why (one figures) men don't normally think about much when they run (except hot chicks if they see any - which further proves theory and acts as corollary). And this is also why, conversely, women think a lot when they run. Cos women use only their brains to think. <br /><br />What dya guys think? Do I have bases covered?Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-36151528854691960682007-11-11T17:19:00.000-08:002007-11-11T19:55:36.084-08:00A Who's Who of Freaksville - 1"Ooh there'll be extremely intelligent people here", I thought. "No more having to be bored during conversations so retarded that you want to claw your own eyes out with your bare hands", I thought. I even might have chuckled a little bit and rubbed my hands together (or not. but I could have). But this was three months back (or was it four?). Now, one term and a half later, numerous tests under my belt, jaded, weary and this close to being cynical, I have had to face up to the truth. <br /><br />Grad school is nothing but one big, fat romp of a freak show. Freaks apparently abound in the corridors, pop out of fountains and lurk under the trees. There are (to be completely candid and scientifically detached about it) different levels of freakishness. Some are just severely socially retarded. Some are borderline normal (if you met them on the road you might even think "Awww how cute" and smile at them (but be warned. this is dangerous. hungry grad students should not be petted or smiled at. and all grad students are by definition hungry), or casually say "Have a good one" - shudder). And if you closed your eyes and pretended you were an arts major you might even believe they're normal (you'd have to close your eyes really tight, though). <br /><br />I feel, you, my blogging public, requires a revue of these weirdos that populate my world (only for your own good, because I'm noble and selfless, not because I want to rant. the idea!). So, part 1 of the Who's Who of Freaksville. I introduce the One Who Scares Me (aka Nice Guy).<br /><br />He is a nice guy. This is true. One of the nicest guys in class. One of the nicest guys I've met. Even, I'd go so far as to say (staking my integrity on this) that he's probably one of the nicest guys in the world. But people, people, a walking social disaster. It's not the sweatshirt that he's owned since the beginning of time and which smells distinctly of mothballs and some unidentified odor that I quail to investigate. It's not the unkempt hair which has seen neither scissors nor comb since it first sprouted out from the baby boy's bald head. Not even the mewing (he mews, apropos of nothing - which at least is normal because what could mewing be apropos of anyway unless you were talking to cats in an alley, behind a trash can) which is very unpredictable and can take you by surprise if you don't see it coming. I'd even go so far as to say it isn't the knocking over, tripping on, flailing hands into everything within a ten meter radius of Nice Guy. Lots of us sit at a coffee table and immediately knock over one glass of water, one cup of coffee, a chair and a newspaper in quick succession with fatal efficiency (well, not really, but maybe if you had some involuntary muscular contraction thing happening - one does not mock physical disabilities on this blog - ever). No, it's none of these things.<br /><br />What it is, is the incessant, furious typing in class (furious as in the professors sometimes have to positively yell into their microphones to make themselves heard over the racket he makes), the ear phones in his ear playing music so loud that people 3 rows below and 3 rows above in a ten-seat-on-either-side bloc can hear Mana singing Perdito (I used to quite like the song. sigh) and worst of all his belief that everyone else is similarly endowed with blaring music and ergo, his screaming (yes, actual screaming) of comments about the lecture to the people sitting next to him, complacent in the belief that noone can hear him because (wait for it) he can't. <br /><br />Once, I sat next to him. Never again. At one point the professor shone his laser beam at us and made comments about the 'bearded gentleman in the back who is typing what I'm sure are my lecture notes, furiously' (true story). I thought I'd die of sheer embarrassment (at least I hoped fervently I would) while Nice Guy through all of it (it felt like a lifetime, I'm reliably informed it was 20 seconds) didn't notice that the professor was highlighting his forehead with a red dot. <br /><br />Course he didn't notice (what was I thinking). I fear I cannot get out of grad school unscathed. Really. A deep, disemboweling fear. Wait for the next parts. You haven't heard nothing yet. This should have been a Halloween launch (in all fairness to the grand tradition of Halloween) but I was battling with my fears about then (and visiting various shrinks for help, dear god). So, think of it as an honorary Halloween launch. We'll just have a Halloween party all by ourselves. Bring the punch, I'll bring the gossip.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-75510802044958246012007-11-08T18:04:00.000-08:002007-11-08T21:44:56.319-08:00It's Called English, Pliss to Learn to Spikk itThere are many meanings for the word squeamish. I don't know how many of you know this (or care) but squeamish not only means that you are the sort who gets sick at the sight of bloody intestines on the road, it also means that you are excessively fastidious. Excessively. Which is why when I say stop being squeamish, you listen to me and stop being an idiot. Not tell me that I'm using the word wrong and I'm a dork (which I'm not. i have character witnesses ready to take the stand at a moment's notice). Or wait maybe, maybe you just do what I ask you to in the first place and then I wouldn't have to use the word squeamish and we wouldn't be having this conversation. I say come sit with us, and you come sit with us. Simple, no? What is this business of oh, someone else is already sitting next to you. What are you, the Queen of Sheba (or in this case the King. Who was the King of Sheba anyway, and whatever happened to the chappie?)? When you then make a fuss about it and say you can't kick someone off their seat and whatever other rot you happen to be thinking at the moment (I didn't ask you for your opinion, which you would know if you were listening to me, which you clearly were not), and then I accuse you of being squeamish, have the grace to admit, accept and move on.<br /><br />Dork, he says. Idiot.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-52410930591873354992007-11-06T17:48:00.000-08:002007-11-06T18:33:04.272-08:00LicensingI can see why you'd want to clean your gun in school. If I stretch my imagination. Maybe you're one of those people who are anal. You didn't have time to do it this morning so you brought it along to school, took it to a classroom, spread your stuff around and cleaned it. Decided to take a coffee break and left everything behind, ended up forgetting about it. Maybe. It could happen. <br /><br />I can even see how someone would do it as a hoax. Maybe to get out of a test, a committee meeting, a conference, a meeting with a particularly obnoxious PI. You bring just the cleaning kit and the empty shell box, arrange it on the desk in one of the classrooms. You sneak away. Someone will eventually find it and there, problem solved.<br /><br />If I try really hard, I can see someone deciding to kill themselves. You have OCD. You need the gun to be clean before you can use it. So you sneak it into school, find an empty classroom, clean it, leave the cleaning stuff behind (it seems pointless to lug it along with you), find an empty toilet stall, lock yourself in and shoot yourself. Maybe a med student who failed a year. <br /><br />But I have to actually attempt an out-of-body imaginative exploratory venture to see why someone would want to shoot random people down. You're not happy with your life, so you decide to clean a gun, load it and kill a bunch of people you don't know from Adam? Go figure.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-77891066156594200012007-11-04T16:08:00.000-08:002007-11-04T19:36:25.399-08:00Another Sunday by the PoolThere was a garden lizard at the bottom of the pool. Quite, quite dead. And had been for a while by the look of it. The death of a lizard is a puzzling event. Should one feel sorry, solemn, maybe even a little grave? Or is it an incident that doesn't concern one? Should it just be shrugged off and forgotten? After all, it's just a little reptile. There are tons of them around. It's not like they're an endangered specie that you'd have to care about and show appropriate feeling for. Nor are they filled with fragile beauty (a herpetologist might disagree but whatever). <br /><br />I stared at it for quite a while because I didn't know what to think (isn't it unsettling when that happens? I can deal with the whole thinking one thing, then the other and having a raging argument in my head thing but the sohowexactlydoireacttothis feeling is one I loathe). <br /><br />I fished it out in the end. Trekked to the security guard office, got a fishnet from the maintenance man, waded into the pool and fished it out. This is going to sound peculiar but I followed that noble gesture by burying it. Somehow the thought of just throwing it into the bushes where ants would swarm around it and maggots grow out of it didn't seem right. These lizards (the American ones, I mean) are so fat and disgustingly well grown. Alive, they frighten me but dead like this one, I feel sorry for them. So stupid. <br /><br />Why would you jump into a pool full of chlorine when you labor under the weight of a body that cannot adapt. When you're pampered from birth with everything you need, the sudden appearance of a chlorinated pool in your path does nothing other than invite you to take a refreshing dip. Nothing wrong with that. Try it out, be adventurous you think to yourself. But then you end up dead at the bottom of a pool. Because adaptation is a skill. And the only way you can acquire it is to be up against a wall. It just can't be inherited or bequeathed or bought. It has to be earned the hardest way there is. Mostly, by death. <br /><br />An Indian lizard, one feels, would definitely have jumped into the pool. But then, an Indian lizard would not have flinched at the chlorine. An Indian lizard would not have ended up at the bottom of the pool. Toxic schmoxic, it would have thought and swum right along. <br /><br />I think that's why I buried it. I might have some deeply hidden guilt for the unadapted ones. I just might.<br /><br /><em>And *ta da* this is the 150th post. Who'd have thought.</em>Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-84817082987095005752007-11-01T16:36:00.000-07:002007-11-01T17:39:16.116-07:00He Ate a Slice of WonderbreadIsn't it weird the number of things we forget? I figure if we count the number of things we've forgotten (which of course, logistically, we wouldn't be able to), we'd find that they far, far outweigh the things we remember. It doesn't even seem biased towards happy things. Right? We forget with equal frequency sad things, happy things, important things, trivial things. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/p62rfWxs6a8&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/p62rfWxs6a8&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />One of the oldest memories I have is of walking in circles on a tire that had fallen over on its side in my school play ground. With this other boy from my class (I don't even remember his name). It was a 15 minute break between classes. We didn't talk. At all. The whole time. We just balanced on that tire for 15 minutes (it was a large tire, I think from the school bus, we both could walk on it at the same time, easy). I can remember that 15 minutes of my life in graphic detail down to the grains of sand around the tire. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Obviously. For whatever reason. But that's it. That's my enduring memory from something like the first ten years of my life. Neat, no? <br /><br />I remember my first kiss. Also in graphic detail (but it's not because it was perfect-which it was- because I also remember some awful kisses - the sloppy kind, eww- and it's not just because it was a kiss (I'm sure I've forgotten quite a few)). I remember everyone in my high school class hitting this fat kid (not really hitting, but kinda fooling around with her). I walk up to her and go "Are you ok?" and she bursts into tears and when the biology lady comes into class all concern, promptly accuses me of bullying her (you can see why I'd remember that, my first taste of the injustice that is life). Several dramatic things happened in my life around the time. And either my folks or my friends from back then are forever going "Dya remember.." and I invariably go "Nuh-uh, I don't. <em>What</em> did he do again?" <br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HJtZ5w29se4&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HJtZ5w29se4&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />After that it only got worse. Those were the good years, memory-wise. Maybe as you get older, things just run into each other. You don't know if you went to that really cool taco place at 4 in the morning this weekend or last weekend or maybe last year. Where A threw up. Remember? Oh no wait wasn't it <em>M</em> who threw up and then S carried her home? And wasn't that in UK? <br /><br />Memory cues still work. But again for the most random things. I associate <em>This is the Last Time</em> with a snowy Saturday morning that I spent in my dorm room (dreadfully depressing) sitting on my windowsill. That's it. The whole story. Nothing happened. Noone came. The cute Brit boy whose window opened out on the opposite side of the square from mine didn't stick his head out the window and wave. The carpet lady didn't dust her carpet out into the square. Nothing. Just me, the snow, the windowsill and the radio.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gppLf4XduoI&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gppLf4XduoI&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />The point though (should I write this in <span style="font-weight:bold;">bold</span> for all of you who skipped the last two paras?) is that we <em>do</em> remember life lessons, by and large. Maybe the human brain is wired to forget details (like names and places and people and bfs and bffs and phone numbers and the time you thought you'd die because you were so embarrassed and could never show your face in school again) but to remember the big picture. The thoughts, the theories, the major mistakes and why it's important to drink tons of water when you're six vodka martinis down, they stay. Could that be the way it works? Maybe not. Because I know lots of people who <em>do</em> remember the details, every last one. Is it a question of recycling? Maybe, if you have a job that makes you think a lot your brain accommodates by letting you clear up headspace. Maybe this is the difference between thinkers and doers. The thinkers forget and the doers don't. <br /><br />I don't know the answer. I do know, however, that the most persistent guilt I have is the one associated with not remembering people who were really important to me at some point in my life. Or only vaguely remembering them. Or remembering them but not remembering why I do. <em>This</em>, I know (and yes, I am also aware of the random youtubing in this post - I have three words for you: It Was Fun). The cure, for the curious and the similarly afflicted, is to abase yourself at the altar of their injured expressions with disarmingly candid admissions of ignorance. Always works. And once they remind you, you generally tend to remember. <br /><br />Reconstruction is a marvelous thing.Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38224015.post-71396228916664590002007-10-30T17:18:00.000-07:002007-10-30T18:02:19.742-07:00When You're Back, You're BackThere are times when you hit peculiar patches. Lots of things seem to happen in a rush and then all of a sudden, nothing. Standstill. Halt. And just as you get used to the peace and the quiet, it starts up again. Like a runaway horse down a mountain slope, eyes rolling, tail flying, frothing at the mouth. In a single day, there's good news, there's bad news, there's good news that seemed like bad news but later resolved itself into good news, there's news you just don't know what to do with. The works. You tend to work around it, though. These peculiar patches. Learn to stand still at a point and refuse to move until things sort themselves out because otherwise you're just going to go stark raving mad. This is good, right? Everyone needs those standpoints. I think.<br /><br />Some of us find other ways around it. A routine, a habit, a schedule, anything that gives structure to the chaos. Some time during the day when you can just stop thinking, shut it all off. Not 'me time' because that would involve thinking about you. But just 'not-thinking time'. We are the lucky ones, no? The ones who can do this? The ones who've found the yellow, brick road.<br /><br />The thing about yellow, brick roads though, is that there is a certain problem. They invariably lead you to a place that never was. And then what do you do? You think you have it figured out, everything under control, a place for every thing and every thing in its place. The question though, I think is, is there really a place for everything? Does it help in any way that you can disappear into your own world and come back out of it feeling better about everything without actually having done anything about anything? Isn't that a negative, rather than a smug advantage? Do we really want to travel to a place ruled over by a little, old man with green glasses? Especially if we don't even get to have the red shoes?Revealedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16771676208279874047noreply@blogger.com5