deep_thought

W O M M

2011-11-20T01:26:00.003-05:00

First off a shout out to all the folks that left comments on my past few posts. Since the posts were really old, the comments got held up by bloggers filter and I only recently got to see them myself. I am indeed alive and kicking and thanks for your concern/comments.

Life is progressively getting a lot better at my end. I got to attend a wedding in my family, the first wedding I managed to attend in the past ten years. My sis, niece and b-i-l were also there, and indeed, that was the best part of it for me- getting to hang out with them like the old days in US where I got to see them every other weekend. Other than that finally getting to wear one of the saris I bought during my wedding but never got to wear, wedding chaos, the train journey with 2 bogeys full of the wedding party, was all fun. We took an extra day off to sight-see around Orissa and enjoyed discovering parts of India that neither B nor I have ever been to, and hope to do a lot more of this now.

We took my FIL with us and at the end of day 1, B was exhausted from having to look after him, as the new surroundings, chaos and change had made him extremely disoriented. We began reconsidering our idea of putting him through the strenuous train journey and were ourselves were feeling stressed out and tired from having to deal with him. We even considered cutting short our trip and returning right after the wedding. But by day 2 he had readjusted himself and also enjoyed all the hungama, watching the ceremonies, telling us that it reminded him of our wedding etc. He also enjoyed all the sight-seeing we did and to his credit, was an excellent sport and never once complained about the stress he was feeling. At the end of 5 days, both B and I were glad we could take him around and didnt cut short our trip on his account, as he seemed to be quite refreshed and energized from it despite the initial disturbances.

So far we have taken 3 out of town trips and taken my FIL with us on each of them. While it felt nice to be able to show him a good time, we also realize that we need to plan a getaway for just the two of us, although we have yet to figure out the logistics of what to do with my FIL. Hopefully this materializes soon.

All in all, the trips have definitely helped to refresh and re-energize us. Another thing that has livened up our lives is getting in touch with friends and socializing. It definitely helps break routine and gives us something to plan and look forward to.

I am undecided about my job- I miss research and feel envious seeing my peers busy actually doing science while I have moved (too quickly for my taste) into more of a people-managerial role. I also have trouble adjusting my expectations with the kind of caliber that I get from my team. They are masters-level people and are very good at doing what they are told to but I wish to see a lot more pro-activeness, spark and drive that I dont see. I am trying ways to infuse it, but not sure I am getting through. On the other hand, I enjoy the field that I am getting a lot of exposure to in this job and the position of responsibility. Lets see where it goes.

Long time no see!

2011-10-23T00:45:00.001-04:00

I survived the R2I. Its been 3 months now. There were days it was crazy and other days it was not so bad. There were a handful of awesome days. But none of that has to do with moving back to India- if it were left to me and me alone, I think I would be fine- of course all the things that frustrate one at first about India would still frustrate me- the lack of efficiency, the lack of accountability, the daily struggles, lack of systems- but I got used to most of it really quick . I then find that my husband will probably never be ok with it. Given a chance, he would want to leave India the first opportunity we got. To each his own, but that kind of unhappiness is not easy to deal with. Nor is the realization that your happiness is so inextricably linked to anothers. I think I have had the biggest trouble coming to terms with that.

I started working a month after I got here. The job search was also interesting. My interviews went well and my talks were well-received everywhere I interviewed. Offers took their time coming, and I took the first offer I got - essentially because I could no longer sit at home and do nothing. Now I have 10 - hour long work days and 2 hour long commutes. I enjoy my job for most - the exposure, the responsibility (group leader in a small sized co.) and all of that- but I hate that I have to pay such a huge price for it with my personal life. I work 2 Saturdays too. So that leaves me no time to spend with my husband. Having spent 2 yrs in the long-distance, I was looking forward to returning to India and living a normal life and doing fun stuff together. Instead we have my FIL to look after, cannot plan out of town trips unless we take him with us, and essentially I feel like we have gone from long distance to leading the life married people lead after several years of marriage- totally skipping that in between newly married freshness. Sometimes I even feel like our LDR was more fulfilling in its own ways. Given that most of the causes for this are out of our control (work hours, commute time, FIL) it is all the more maddening and disheartening.

On the bright side, I do think we have brought a huge improvement to my FILs quality of life by moving back and living with him. I am very very happy that we are able to do that. I feel very proud of us and very conscious of the sacrifice we have made to be able to do this, because it is not one bit easy. Every time I feel excessively down I draw strength from the fact that we have helped him live a better life in his present condition.

In the early days after we moved back, my FIL was quite appreciative of the changes we have effected in his life. Now he has lapsed into a phase where he feels restricted (he can not continue with the same freedom and ease here in the new apartment as he would in his old) and as if we have locked him down. I guess the novelty wore off soon, and also a lot of it is just an outcome of his condition- it will be given to bitterness and frustration and all of that. We will have to learn to let it not bother us. We would benefit by slowly getting him to learn some of the things that can enable his independence to some extent, and we are doing that- but it demands a lot of patience and we cannot always do it. So we have managed to teach him to go down for a walk, using the stairs, and the building watchman ensures he gets back into the lift and makes his way home. So he at least gets to have his walk everyday. Us sleeping in on a sunday means he would be sitting up, aimlessly, waiting for us to wake up because he is unable to work the door and take the milk to make his coffee. Its small things like that, that make me feel terribly frustrated at times.

B and I do enjoy some of the fun parts of married life such as shopping for house stuff, buying our first car together, etc. So that has been fun. I have his unfaltering support in my professional life. Being new to the corporate world, Id run every one of my office life issues by him and he taught me how to deal with stuff. I can readily commit to out of town assignments and he will pack my bags while I am frantically working on my powerpoints until the last minute. He took the day off when I was sick to be able to tend to me. He has dinner heated up and ready when I come home tired after office every day. We have a nice maid who cooks our meals, and is nice and considerate with my FIL. We never have to worry about cooking and dishes- a huge and welcome change from our lives in the U.S.

But life easily slips into a routine and theres little we seem to be able to do to fix that. Perhaps all life does get routine at some point, its a question of me realizing it and coming to terms with it. My close friends tell me to give it time. I just keep hoping that in that process, this doesnt become our life. Let us see.

I miss the outlet that blogging gave me. It feels good to come here and vent.

It is sinking (in) part 2

2011-06-29T09:46:00.003-04:00

Next step to really drive home that you are moving out? Putting up your items for sale. After a lot of procrastinating I finally posted my stuff this morning and already have people fighting over my stuff (or so I'd like to believe). :) I was stressing out about not being able to get rid of all my stuff but turns out that if you mark down your stuff there's always several poor post-docs who have just moved in and want it . As of now I am saving numbers in my cellphone with names such as table, chair, bookshelf. :) The phone has been ringing non stop and the new mail icon is bouncing endlessly on my mac. Stay tuned for stories of bidding wars, cat-fights and what not at the home of TGFI. Yay! exciting!

ETA: Of course, it could also end like this

It is sinking

2011-06-28T23:21:00.003-04:00

in. :-) I remember writing a similar post when I was leaving Lutom. Well, here I am again.

My lab threw me a farewell lunch today. They gave me a nice present and cards with the sweetest things written in them, including "life of the lab" and "the gap will be felt". My boss said lots of nice things about me - calling me the provocateur of the lab, (hastening to add that he meant it in a good way) and saying he was sure I would go places and that I should always maintain my curiosity and spirits and smarts. And I stood grinning through it all, no attempt at modestly accepting praise. I don't know why I did that. He ended with something to the effect of "you've done some great work and it should make a great paper" or something, and I actually found myself saying "I know" at the end of his little eulogy. What is wrong with me?

It took a nice party and yummy cake for it to finally kick in that this is it. My bench and desk cannot continue to look the way they do- they need to be adopting that "Cleaned out" appearance soon. Then I went back to the bench to plan my experiments for my final two days. A huge panic attack set in. I guess a small part of me really wants to be able to finish each and every little thing before I leave, even though I know that is not possible. Thats when I realised that I will need one whole day just to organise my data and hand over my stuff to the guy who will continue my work. So I have decided to slow down on the experiments front- the last ditch efforts aren't really going to do much, as someone else has to anyway step in to fill in the blanks. So I'm better off investing my time in leaving a well organized to do list and boxes for my lab mate to take over.

I barely stumbled past my panic attack that pretty much paralyzed me into doing nothing the rest of the evening. Went out with a friend for dinner and felt a lot better. I have a plan, and all that is left is for me to whole-heartedly accept that I will not be finishing the project, admit to myself that I chose life over work this one time, and that is OK. Labmate will fill in the blanks for me, and the paper will have an additional trailing author. No big deal. My work is done. It's time for me to move on.

Acts of desperation

2011-06-27T10:59:00.001-04:00

I caved in and bought the 5 quarters from ebay, to complete my coin collection. Still haven't confirmed the purchase, not sure how I feel about it. :(. How do hardcore collectors feel about purchasing stuff to add to their collection as against really "collecting" ?

decisions..decisions.. :p

W O M M

2011-06-26T01:17:00.001-04:00

Am in for another sleepless night worrying about what lies ahead. Each transformation the next phase in my life is going to take on seems more challenging than the other. What is it that nags me the most: R2I? R2I professional? Wife? Daughter-in-law? None of the above. The role that worries me the most is that of a "caregiver" to my FIL. And in some sense to my husband too, who is taking the brunt of the blow of his dad's situation. B tells me how, the other day, his dad was ruing about why he ended up with a problem involving memory loss when he'd much rather have chosen diabetes or B.P over it. I can almost feel that pain that might've provoked that thought. Met up with an old buddy of mine few months ago, who had just lost his dad to Alzheimer's. He told me that there was absolutely no way to sugar coat the long arduous journey I was in for. And this when he lived away from his dad and saw his mom single-handedly care for his dad. Sigh.

B's strategy is to somehow learn to deal with it all, while celebrating the small joys of life. I hope that works for us.

On being efficient at work

2011-06-25T13:35:00.001-04:00

I've realised the single-most deterrent that slows me down at work is dragging my feet on tasks I feel I should've done earlier. So when I'm finally getting down to doing them, I'm still stalling, wondering, regretting why I didn't do it before. Instead of just putting my head down and plowing forth.

The second time-waster is my terrible inability to switch gears between projects- even different experiments within the same project. Pulling my mind out of one and transporting it to another.

These are two issues I have been working on in the last leg of this post-doc, frankly because at this point I didn't have the luxury of time. I've improved at both, even if marginally. The solution to the first was to just convince myself that indeed, NOW was the best time to be doing it, not earlier. That is simple to do, just needs constant reminding to get rid of the self-doubt and remorse. The second was harder to get under control. One thing that helped was a lot better organization and some disciplined habits of note keeping. At the end of each experiment, I write out my TODO NEXT while it is still fresh in my head. I put this in a sticky on top of the notebook for that project. So that, I am able to tell, at a glance, where I am on each project, and what is the next immediate experiment I need to do for it when I revisit it, and not have to rewrap my brain over the past few experiments to see what is going on with it. Lately, I've gotten even more disciplined and keep a HUGE running table, checkmarking various steps as I have completed them. The table has gotten a bit out of control, but its a visual tool and saves me time in the long run.

I do think I my note-book keeping skills have improved ALOT since my grad school days. I kept terrible notes in grad school. I wrote down every detail of the experiments I did, but it was all one huge single story book. :) There was no demarcation of different projects, different experiments nothing. No table of contents, no page numbers.

In my first post-doc lab I saw this superbly organized post-doc. She had a running excel spreadsheet table of contents, and a simultaneous hand-written one for each project. Each project of course, had separate note books. Every page was numbered. At the end of each day she updated her table of contents both on the computer and in hand. This way she could easily search through electronically if she was looking for something.

Each page in her notebook had a set template. PAGE NUMBER, DATE, AIM, MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS, CONCLUSION. She didn't necessarily repeat M&M for the same kinds of experiments, just said "Refer protocol #x". There was separate binder of protocols, and these protocols were numbered.

Every project similarly had a different folder on the computer. So that, any analyses she did, figures she generated went into that folder. There was never a stray file on her desktop without a home labeled with an uninformative name like CANON4355.TIF. :)

I have tried my best to emulate her ever since. Admittedly, I didn't get too far with my electronic table of contents- mainly because I have never had that discipline of sitting down at the same time each day at the end of the day and updating it. For her, it was an inbuilt habit. From 4:45 to 5:00 pm, that's what she did. Her day was planned accordingly. I have realised that just like exercise, keeping good notes is also something one has to invest in daily, we cannot let it pile up and take care of it all at once.

Then there is the added complication of good note-book keeping today when you do a lot of data analyses, write scripts, generate data sets, tables, etc. This my Ph.D. Mentor taught me to do well. To treat each run in the unix box as an experiment itself. To keep track of parameters used, operations carried out, a strict convention of filenaming (Not test, test2, test3).

I want to continue working on this, and getting better at it at my new job, wherever that will be.

4 out of 7

2011-06-21T07:16:00.005-04:00

Not too shabby after all. I made this list almost two years ago ..and I just got back from a crazy last minute impulse trip to CA. It wasn't' the ambitious trip I had outlined when I wrote that post, but I still managed to pack a lot into my 3 day trip, thanks to my superly enthusiastic friend.

I still have to blog about these trips: Chicago, Lutom, The GC and now sunny California. I have some drafts in my folder that I have to get around to cleaning up. I want to, to record how wonderful each of them were. Will do eventually.

For now, I am just so happy I finally managed to go to California, after all the yearning. I am so glad I made it happen. Yeah!

From Wiki: Half Dome is a granite dome in Yosemite National Park, located in northeastern Mariposa County, California, at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley — possibly Yosemite's most familiar rock formation. The granite crest rises more than 4,737 ft (1,444 m) above the valley floor.....Half Dome is nearly as whole as it ever was. The impression from the valley floor that this is a round dome which has lost its northwest half is an illusion.

carpal tunnel syndrome

2011-06-15T21:42:00.001-04:00

I got.

catn type muhc.

heh.

rant

2011-06-14T10:53:00.000-04:00

Once again, I am having trouble interpreting data in an article and I write to the authors. There have been several other cases where my email was just simply never responded to, even after multiple attempts. Asking for things as basic as primer sequences. This time the authors come back to us in a long winded way and simply say the raw data is not available. How can that be possible? The last time I wasn't satisfied with authors responses (after advice from a comment on this blog) I posted a comment on the journal website. The main author (big man in the field) of the article got back to my boss with a clearly unhappy email saying I was creating an extra hassle for them because now they had to respond to my comments on the website.

There has got to be some retribution for people whose published work cannot stand the trials of other people following their work. Both the reviewers and the main authors need to be able to explain such deficiencies. I guess nobody has the time.

south dakota

2011-06-10T08:46:00.001-04:00

I'm desperately trying to fill up my US States quarter collection. In the past several months, I have never seen a South Dakota quarter. Do they exist? Other than the territories, SD is the only quarter I am missing. Has anyone seen one?

Note to self: Lessons in politics

2011-06-08T09:55:00.001-04:00

* Sometimes, when your boss is being stubborn and refuses to concede to your point, you just have to let go. Even if you know that you are right, and you have all the empirical evidence to prove your point. Do not make it your agenda. Instead, give in, and then subtly let the further evidence (After doing what he wants you to do), make your point. Several weeks and months later, he will be telling you what you told him in that same room weeks ago. Minus all that effort that you have put in. That gets frustrating. But do not say I told you so. Feign the same wonderment and surprise that he feels, and ask him what he would suggest one does. Nod.

* Learn to read between the lines. ALOT. People may be super nice and polite in your face, and then continuously use underhanded ways of giving you a hard time because of whatever grudge they nurse. Basically, do not be fooled by niceties.

W O M M

2011-06-07T19:20:00.001-04:00

Life is all kinds of crazy right now. My data is finally begin to pour in, and it is very exciting! The kinds that has me at the edge of my seat, working late, sometimes too excited to even function properly. Yeah, I still don't know what most of it means, but it is exciting to just see the result of all that hard work, even if in files that are several MB huge and need some nifty programming skills to extract the information I need. Even better that I have some of those skills, so I'm plugging away, and generating pretty pie charts and bar graphs and what not. I hope it all comes together as a nice story. It plain sucks that I don't have enough time to see this story through its end. But the kinds of ends I want to take it through will take another 2 years. :)

Time is ticking though. And as much as this is fun, I need to be able to work faster, move quicker, and get a sizeable amount done in the next 3 weeks. I don't know how I'll do it. I hate the discouraging drone of my boss who keeps reminding me that I don't have enough time to do all that I need to do for the paper. Essentially hinting that I stay longer. It's like grad school all over again, the only difference being that he doesn't have to sign a dotted line for me to leave, so I am going to leave when I want to.

I feel very out of control of things right now. Million things buzzing in my head all the time. There's so much more I want to do, science-wise and life-wise. There's so much more I want to stuff into my 21 kg suitcases. Then I take a deep breath and remind myself, that there is also a whole new world out there, full off possibilities that I am just going to embark on. So what if it is lined with smog dust corruption and what not. It is a whole new world alright. :) I can buy more books, accumulate more junk, travel more, and do more science. And all of this with the guy I married a year back. That adds a completely new spin on things.

I have decided not to live the principled life in India. I will grease whatever palms need to be greased to get my gas, phone and other connections. I think I will simply have to assume that it is part of the costs. I will not fight with the autowallah everyday over the fare. At least until I am settled in. I will pick my battles. I am not going there to clean up the system. I will do my bit to be a conscientious citizen, but will not expect the same integrity from others. Lets see how it goes.

Just when I thought I will never have to take another exam..

2011-06-07T08:46:00.001-04:00

f you are new to Bangalore and dreaming of settling down here, you will have to pass the Std VII exam in less than one year and prove that you can read and write Kannada.

The Kannada Development Authority (KDA) has recommended that the state government bring out a legislation to get non-Kannadigas in Karnataka to clear the basic Kannada examinations. The KDA, headed by MLC ‘Mukhyamantri’ Chandru, submitted its recommendations to the state government on Monday.

Heh. A terrible pic to accompany the rest of this story here

Skeletons in my closet

2011-06-04T12:32:00.004-04:00

So today I overcame my fears and finally attacked the closet I was dreading to go into. It had boxes that I shipped/moved from my grad school days to my first post-doc days to my second post-doc (here) without ever opening. Now I open, and throw throw throw like a heartless bitch. These are mostly research articles- god knows why I didn't dump them in Lutom before leaving. I guess its mostly because they have my highlighting and notes all over them. Many of them were seminal papers in the field I did my Ph.D. in, many of them I spent hours poring over - sitting in the library, in cafes, on my bed- while preparing for my qualifiers, while writing my thesis, many of them formed the basis of and contributed to a lot of my research ideas. They are a huge treasure for me- so what if I never go back and read them?

But all of that sentimentality is going to go out with today's installment of paper recycle trash. Let this post be the lone reminder of their memory. RIP, reams of research articles. You did mean a lot to me, and you will always live on, in pdf. :)

Then come the huge fat reference books. I had each of these brought over from India, one at a time, whenever someone was traveling to here. Each weigh anywhere between 3 to 5 kg. Put in the perspective of packing up into two 21 kg bags- I would only be able to take 4 or 5, assuming I dedicated 1 pc of luggage to them (which is basically not possible). Also, I never went back to them in all these years. The central dogma of molecular biology has been rewritten and modified several times after Genes V. The entirely xeroxed Janis Kuby bible for immunology has most of its pages faded- (25p xerox in chembur :) )so that is definitely going to be trashed. Others again, are precious because they taught me a lot of my fundamentals, I took great pleasure in acquiring my own printed copies of them instead of having to fight with others for the limited library copies in college, and well - when I bought them, they were expensive. But yeah, with a heavy heart, barring 2 or 3 (10 kg limit) I am going to donate these to the library. I used to imagine that I would be a professor one day, and all these tomes would be sitting in my bookcase in my office. :) / :(

Then there's the craziest collection of little bags I own. Little paper bags usually came with gifts etc. or some shopping. I don't know why I have held on to these. But they have gone in the "carry if I can" lot. They don't weigh much and I like re-using them when the need arises.

Then there's another crazy collection of travel-size soaps/shampoos etc. Again a result of crazy hoarding whenever I stayed in hotel rooms or last minute buying before going on a trip, and then not using for whatever reason. Yes yes, I pick these up from hotel rooms. I believe I have paid for them when I paid for the hotel room, and if I leave them, the hotel will throw them. I know, I may slightly delude myself there, but whatever. I like them. Now they are most probably going to goodwill, unless I can sneak them in. :(

The rest of the stuff was a lot easier to throw/recycle/give away. Mostly sheets/covers, room freshners, assorted junk. Some nice gifts from ex-boyfriends and such. I use a lot of these without any sentiment attached - they just became part of my life- but some remind me of specific times and moments and I never see myself using them. They also happen to be the nicest of the gifts and I haven't felt like throwing them either. Now they go to goodwill.

I still haven't figured out how to best recycle electronic crap like cellphones, chargers, modems, ethernet cables and keyboards. I don't want to simply junk them because I know they can be reused. Anyone with specific tips on where to recycle them? I will look up freecycle.

I need to proceed with operation throw in the most detached way, hence I blog to get the sentimental shit out of the way. :)

Udhaari band

2011-05-28T13:20:00.003-04:00

I have closed out all but one credit card I own now. Even that one, I do not use, I am simply hanging on to it for all the miles it has. I pay cash for whatever grocery shopping I do, and weigh every purchase I make. For the past two months, I have paid my rent a few days BEFORE the 1st of the month, because I really need for that money to disappear from my checking account so I know how much I really have. I do not spend unnecessarily, spending from cash really makes it hard to do that. I still have one credit card to pay off, but hope to pay it off in the next month. Its a great feeling. To pay off all these cards that had seemingly never ending balances left on them..always accumulating just when I thought I'd paid a huge chunk. And I look at my current spending pattern and wonder, if I did this all my life, it probably wouldn't be such a struggle at the end. Ah well. :-)

I am antsy about being in India without a job to start with and living off B's money. When I tell him that, he reminds me of the short period between his lease ending and his moving back to India when he stayed with me and didn't contribute to rent. :-) He tells me to consider us even now. Weird as it sounds, that explanation makes complete sense to me and I rest easier at the idea that I will be sharing his money, and eventually, ours. Clearly, I have a long way to go at this marriage thing. :)

We're making a lot of plans now. It is coming together. I am also a lot more vocal about my concerns, that have been building up in the months leading to my R2I. Some of them are dissolving, others, will remain concerns, but not something we cannot deal with. I am happy to have friends I can offload to, and get some grounded advice from. That is important and has proven very helpful and comforting. I am looking forward to making new friendships in India, some fun people I have encountered in the blog-world and some that I know from earlier, who live in the same city I am moving to. Yeah!

What would you do if you were person B

2011-05-27T11:44:00.001-04:00

Person A is higher in authority to you. The terms on which you part with person A are therefore important for the next steps in your career, such as good reference letters etc, and for most part you have had a decent working relationship with them. But now, all of a sudden, they refuse to see reason or accept your point of view and make your daily life miserable by using all possible tactics - emotional blackmail, snide remarks, subtle pressure- to arm-twist you into going against your decision and choosing the stand that makes them happy?

All of this when, at some point, you would've actually taken that same stand if you felt compelled enough, but haven't made that decision yet and now don't want to be arm-wrangled into it.

Will you

1) Try and push your point and make unemotional strong arguments to make your case?

2) Give up without a fight and give in?

3) Do not fight/argue because it already seems like a lost cause but silently achieve your stand, risking some amount of bridge-burning etc.

4) Do not fight and make things unpleasant, but become superman/woman and keep everyone happy in the equation. (HAH).

There is no middle ground. its A's way or B's way.

I will not

2011-05-26T00:15:00.000-04:00

live in a building with a helipad on top. Will. not. OK? ok.

Interview Q and A

2011-05-25T09:14:00.003-04:00

Must have better prepared answers to these questions:

1) Why don't we have a cure for cancer yet?
-There's all the obvious reasons
-There are the specifics. Study the work that has gone into cancer drug discovery. Where did they stop? Why did they stop? And we very well know not all of it has gone to naught. What are the success stories? Not enough to be aware - must be able to articulate.

2) What would you do if you had all the money and resources?
- Cover all bases and find the cure for cancer! How?

3) How exactly has your work added to the field?
-This I know quite well, but could use some polish.

W O M M

2011-05-24T08:56:00.002-04:00

Note to self (Reminder): The things that you dwell on, break your head over, get deeply affected by, today, will remain but blips tomorrow. So do not unnecessarily beat yourself up over them. Think of all the stress you went through thinking about something last month- and how it resolved itself eventually. Conserve your energy for getting stuff done, not worrying about shit. OK? ok.

W O M M

2011-05-20T19:15:00.003-04:00

So my time in the US boils down to about half-a-dozen more weekends. I feel like I have to budget everything that goes into each precious weekend. Ergo, on one day of this weekend, I'm going to laze and do nothing. :-)

--
There is no disputing the fact that I'm going to miss the US. Like anything. The easy lifestyle, the greenery - especially in the midst of city life, the various conveniences, the lack of chaos, my comfort zones, the ability to walk out and get a drink, the quality of my work life- all of it. Every now and then I find myself taking in my surroundings and thinking wistfully about how I will miss it. Along with leaving the US, I leave my single life and begin living with not just my husband but also his dad. I am also going to miss the freedom of this carefree life- of cooking or not cooking only as I wish, of living as I please, cleaning when I want to. There are going to be big changes and it is daunting.

--
A friend I'm making plans to meet up with while in her city writes and says "I've dedicated the entire evening to you". Warms me up like no other- at a time while I know we are all busy, juggling numerous things, I was only hopeful of some of her time for dinner, and planning on doing some lone-tourism for the rest of the time. I was of course, pleasantly surprised to see that she was going to hang out with me all evening- and then began wondering if our lives have gotten busier or have the expectations dropped so much, that, the mere promise of more time than a perfunctionary dinner can make one feel so good. I guess its a mix of both.

--
I found out that my colleague from my grad school days who died recently committed suicide. I have just been absorbing this news - he was very social within the department, took good care of himself- stayed physically fit etc. and really warm and affectionate when I met him last month. I am glad I got to talk to him then. Nobody saw this coming. I began wondering who exactly I was feeling the most bad about- and I realized I was feeling bad for what he went through, in those days and hours leading up to the point that he decided to take this step. How horrible must that have been? But now he is gone. It is moot.

--

W O M M

2011-05-18T21:51:00.001-04:00

I was supposed to be working on a presentation but got distracted and bored and began wasting time on Facebook. That's when I found out about a colleague's death, less than a week ago. A colleague from my grad school days, who, when I bumped into a month ago was very affectionate and it felt so nice catching up with him. Now he's gone. It's really hard to digest news like this. You begin wondering about all kinds of things....and I haven't been able to focus since then. I spoke to a common friend and that helped. But I still can't get it out of my head. The finality of death leaves you so unsettled. :(

But I do need to shake myself up and get this powerpoint in order. My boss sent out an email announcing my talk with " "blah-blah-topic - TGFI: A superb speaker". That's his way of upping the pressure - and I'm definitely feeling the heat. Probably what is also paralyzing me now.

My parents left a couple days ago and I miss them. Miss being able to talk to them at random points in my day, even when I had nothing new to talk about. Miss looking forward to the weekend with all of us together. But we had a splendid time and I am so glad they made this trip. I also remember feeling a bit tired about having to go down to my sister's every weekend to spend time with them, leaving me with no time/space to myself. And feeling terribly guilty about feeling like that. But I guess its all natural. I have become very possessive about my me-time and it makes me cranky and tired when I don't get any.

I finally completed a task at work today- that should have gone out last week. A week's delay at this stage is much more than I can afford. But what to do? I did my very best- things were just slow...and then some errors made it worse. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the statistician who is going to analyze my data magically finishes it sooner than she said she would.

I am looking forward to a trip to Philly this weekend- something that I had not at all planned. I thought I didn't have much emotional attachment to the city, mainly because of all the things that went wrong when I was there, but I do have some fond memories, that I am excited about revisiting. And while I first thought of just one person I wanted to meet, I am now debating if I should meet another. :) Lets see. I hope the weather behaves.

OK, back to work.

W O M M

2011-05-13T10:56:00.000-04:00

A significant amount of despondence has set in at work. My main project is moving along at snails pace, after reaching a good place. My original plan was to rev up the other project once the main project was mostly done- or during the long waiting gaps that main project involves. However, I feel like I'm in a weird place now. 1.5 months doesn't seem enough to rev up and complete the other project..but I know that shouldn't make me just while away my time while the main project picks up. Its a strange feeling of defeatedness that I need to fight and purge out of my system. Do the best I can in the next 1.5 months. So what if I don't get anywhere with it. Best case scenario: I'll find something cool and then ways of continuing that work will materialize- I can continue in my next position, my boss can hire someone else to take it up- the possibilities are endless- I need not give up, yet. Don't leave before you leave. I am trying to be perfect- wanting to be able to execute the project from start to completion, and knowing that is impossible in the time frame I have, I seem to just give up. The classic mistake I have always made. Must snap out of this.

People carrying out loud conversations on the phone happens to be one of my pet peeves. I just don't get it. Are you so self-involved, that you think its alright to subject everyone in your immediate surrounding to your personal phone conversations? Unless you are a doctor directing a life-saving procedure or other such emergencies, I think its entirely unnecessary, exhibitionist, rude and polluting to have people talk loudly and make general conversation on buses, trains, in stores, restaurants etc. Surely it can wait until you reach a more private place? I see this most amongst younger people- speaking in high-pitched voices, discussing their travails and tales without a care to the fact that they are imposing on other people around them. I am quite tired of doing the glaring, staring, changing my seat. The very act rankles me.

We are all entitled to a few mistakes in life. That's what makes life that much more enriching and interesting. I am happy with the lot of stupid things I did. They all taught me some really important lessons, and made me that much more stronger and wiser. Without them, I would've never known.

W O M M

2011-05-09T20:32:00.002-04:00

Just after I blogged about my parents and niece's obsession with staring at others I had to share this bit. This past weekend we were walking about downtown Princeton- my parents, my sis, my niece and me. It was a nice sunny afternoon and there were a whole lot of people- locals, tourists etc. strolling around. My mom was wearing one of her beautiful saris and was probably the only one in a sari, despite the fact that that place is full of desis. As she stood leafing through some clothes on sale on a rack outside a store, a little girl- a bit older than my niece, and perhaps European ? happened to see my mom, and stood at the store entrance gawking at her for a bit. As if that was not enough, she then went and got hold of two of her younger sisters and these three little kids stood transfixed, gaping at my mom for the next five minutes or so. It was the most hilarious sight. We think they all thought they spotted a bollywood actress. :)

Days are slipping by fast. The next few days are really really tight for me, deadline-wise. I was hoping to get done with this one big task by Thursday, but now I'll be happy if I get it done by Friday. Fingers crossed as I still wait on other people to do their bit so I can take it forth from there.

Spending time with my niece is the best de-stresser ever.

I really do want to learn how to wear a sari and pull it off with grace and confidence. And no, not so that I can have random kids staring me down. :-).

W O M M

2011-05-06T20:12:00.003-04:00

I hope these keywords don't bring a shitload of spam my way, but do airlines even understand the meaning of discount airfares any more? I keep getting these emails about great deals from my city..no black out dates etc..and I go, plug in the dates, do the math and its never less than $300 RT. Are we supposed to be giddy with delight that we got a RT domestic ticket for $300 now?

Today as I gloomily waddled home from lab, I decided to do the "fake it until you make it" thing. Pretend that I am doing great. Pretend that I am super happy and optimistic all the time. Become that person everyone hates. And see if that helps improve my general state of mind. :D

I really want a weekend of vegetation and some alcohol thrown in for good measure. Not happening..at least not this weekend. :/

I have four more paychecks to come..and that's it. They will all go into the next 2 months rent and remaining credit card debt. I'll end with zero balance. That, is a terribly depressing thought. That is one of the things that is making it so hard for me to call it quits here - for the past ten years, I have been self-sufficient and the idea of sharing my money with others, or theirs with mine, is just all to foreign to me. :/

The good part about getting away from my apt this weekend- won't have to put up with my idiotic upstairs neighbours stomping their floors all the time. @#$@#$S.

W O M M

2011-05-06T09:57:00.003-04:00

I just had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of finishing a task way before the deadline. Granted it was a simple task, but sometimes those are the ones I procrastinate most on, knowing that I get it done in the last minute. This feels good. All those google reminders can go take a hike, because guess what, it's already done! :-)

I find that every time I open an email from my PI, I develop a defensive stance. Most times he is just responding to a discussion and voicing his thoughts. I need to stop getting so edgy about it.

I had a very uplifting meeting yesterday with my collaborators. Everyone promises to work as fast as they can to help me get done quickly. The support feels good. Interacting with an A-level team, 3 women (me included) and my PI, also feels great.

I will still have some unfinished ends left in my project. As it stands, my PI and I decided to bring another post-doc on board to finish it up. I still have mixed feelings about this arrangement. Mostly it is the pangs of letting-go, I guess. :/ I learned from my Ph.D. experience, where I let my last paper dawdle along for almost a year before publishing, mainly because I was resisting outside help, that an extra author on the paper if thats what it takes to GET IT DONE is nothing. But I guess in this case, I feel like I don't have a hard deadline (except a personal one) and so, why not linger for a bit longer? I am not sure. I do know that B and I are already making plans with a certain exit date in mind and it will suck to keep pushing those indefinitely. And that another 2 weeks more here may not accomplish completion, then what? I will still have to bring someone on. Sigh. What a never-ending-recursive-loop this can be. But I need to take a stand and make my peace with it. :(

Parental Guidance

2011-05-04T20:06:00.002-04:00

So my parents were here with me for a week. It was awesome. I'd get into lab early so that I could finish up and be home at a reasonable hour to spend time with them. My dad made me chai in the mornings, my mom had lunch for me when I came home for lunch. They cleaned up my place and organized all my books that were in random stacks lying around the house. I had also spent a great deal of time cleaning up the apartment before they got here, so it was in general nice to have a neat and tidy place. :) My mom folded my laundry. She even organized them into piles of "these really need to go", which I promptly mixed and stuffed back into my closet. Clearly my mom hasn't heard of emergency days, that lead into the actual day one does emergency laundry.

I also got to play tour guide and take my parents around the city a bit. It was fun to do that. Once I got comfortable with the fact that my parents are big on staring and were not going to back down. :p. They stared at everything and everyone. Skimpily clad people. Fully-dressed people. Fat people. Thin people. Biracial couples. Homosexual couples. Heterosexual couples. PDA. My dad even glared at this random couple smooching on the line front of us at Magnolias. LOL. My parents have been to the city before so there wasn't much sight-seeing for them to do. Other than people-watching and people-gawking and what better place to do that than NYC. I think we are a family of starers. I eventually stopped minding my parents because I figured, after all they are tourists. I am sure Americans would come to India and gawk at Indians. As tourists, you are allowed to. But my niece- she was born here. She is a BIG starer. It's so embarrassing. Having given up on distracting her, my sister has started to look in the other direction and pretend she's not with her when my niece begins staring at others in public. :-)

Then there came the advice. So I have put on loads of weight since the wedding. It is scary to see how the pounds piled on unnoticed- mostly from eating unhealthy junk food. And perhaps a good amount of stress. And of course these knee and foot injuries along the way that prevented me from getting any good exercise. So my parents are still trying to get used to the sight of their daughter, a good 15 lbs heavier than they last saw her and definitely not pregnant. My dad kept looking at me as if I was going to die any minute, and my mom went on and on and on. And then some more. It was of no use that I tried to tell them I was taking care now, and trying to get it under control. They just couldn't get over it. If it was not weight, it was other life-advice. They tend to forget that I am 33 and have probably figured out things for myself at this point. I did the best I could. But I will admit it got to me every now and then, and I had a preview into what life is going to be like, back in India when I R2I soon. Scary.

My high points of my parents visit were my dad successfully hailing us a cab on a crazy evening in the city when Obama was in town, and sitting at a nice streetside Hungarian bakery and..people watching with them. :) And bringing them to my lab. :) And going to a Broadway show with them and my niece, sis and b-i-l. We went to Mary Poppins and it totally rocked.

It sucked to come home to an empty apartment as always- even more unfair that this week at work is a little light compared to last week when I was battling all sorts of experimental failures and deadlines. But oh well- that's Murphy's law at work again. The apartment is abnormally clean and unusually silent now, although I am doing my best to bring it back to its normal untidy state. :)

Note to myself

2011-05-02T23:14:00.004-04:00

Dear TGFI,

If you ever forget or are tempted into thinking otherwise, please remember your current post-doc experience. The fact that someone with very little independent thinking and completely lacking any in-depth understanding of the science can look stellar on paper, produce of reams of data, have the most well-organized lab-notebooks, and land positions at big name labs. They will also go on to get big jobs, have glowing letters written for them in praise of their productivity. Of course, your opinion of this person is extremely slanted, because of your rotten experiences with them. So then remember that your opinion counts for precious little. Learn the art of beating the system, playing the game, and, in addition to all your intelligence and passion, pay attention to appearances and to looking good. Stop taking pride in your messy desk, because outward appearances do matter and go a long way in shaping your reputation. In addition to learning about conflicts and lab politics, also learn that an early arrival to lab, a disciplined approach and quick turnaround of tasks and projects are very much well looked upon, perhaps more so than traits of scientific thinking and enthusiasm. And the best part, these habits- of discipline and working quickly can be easily acquired by you, much more easily than one can learn enthusiasm and scientific inquiry. So, you're in good shape! :)

QOTD

2011-04-25T23:48:00.001-04:00

From my 5 yo niece, as she peeks into her mom's laptop screen and sees the Google homepage: "You're not working, you're on the internet".

On Tough Love

2011-04-23T21:03:00.004-04:00

I am constantly conflicted between being sympathetic and giving tough love. I wonder how I will ever be a good parent, if I cannot learn this tough love bit. It doesn't take much for me to melt and give in to my five year old niece while my sis and b-i-l behave like horrible cold stones. Hopefully I will get better when its a kid of my own that I would not want to turn into a brat.

People suffer all kinds of unthinkable tragedies in life. Things like the loss of a parent at an early formative age- shoes that you don't even dare step into for the sake of better understanding- it only tells you how much for granted you have taken some things in life. But then, how long can a person continue to blame such life-altering tragedies for everything? How long do you let one flounder aimlessly, live in his own bitter world, blaming every one for his situation, and when do you ask him to snap out of it? No one can ever get over such tragedies, but people have to move on, gain a sense of self and take responsibility for their own lives. No? What do you do when they don't, and get stuck in the rut of inertia and lethargy and just about manage to stay afloat in their self-pity pool?

I am beginning to think that some amount of bluntness is required, but I feel much too privileged to be able to say "Look, I know this all must be tough on you, but you need to take responsibility for your life" - because I don't really know how tough it is for them, do I? But I do very well know that they need to move past it and end the blame-the-world-for-my-sorry-state cycle- for their own sake. At some point, the fragility and the sadness and the inertia are all mixed up and its hard to separate one from another. And I suspect that it is this very conflict that allows such a situation to go on for years on end. But how long do you keep hoping for the person to learn from his failings, and when do you tell him outright?

Sigh.

W O M M

2011-04-20T08:36:00.001-04:00

I have become one of those people that cannot find the time to reply to emails. (or comments here). Atleast for unanswered comments, I can apologise here. :-)

I don't understand how girls walk in heels, having never owned any myself. Really- how do you manage, when your feet are at an incline all the time? It has got to hurt! I don't see how it cannot. I have been suffering from acute foot pain for a while now- called plantar fasciitis. I bought some really expensive walking shoes with "full arch support" and plod around in them all the time. Even they have stopped helping after a while. But while I'm confined to putting my feet in sports shoes, I find myself staring at women all around me in heels of all kinds - not in envy- but pure curiosity and wonderment. Those tall pointed stilettos, those boots with heels, even those ballerina shoes with a tiny heel- how does it work? I am this close to walking up to one of these girls and asking them how they do it. Are some people just better equipped than others to walk on an incline? Cross the road, climb into a bus, train? Get through a whole work day - do experiments, shuttle between the ice machine and the lab, go to seminars, lunch? Do they simply get used to it? Quite some mystery, this.

W O M M

2011-04-14T22:32:00.003-04:00

Am in that phase where i type out a whole block of mind-dump and then just delete because I don't feel like posting and the job is done, the stuff has stopped bothering me.

Detachment is what I need to learn.

Thoughts from the conference

2011-04-05T19:14:00.003-04:00

So I'm almost done with the meeting I'm currently attending. This is a huge meeting - 16,000 attendees - and the organization of the conference has been superb. Anything you'd want or need or wish for was available- on site child care, on site fedex, efficient and warm customer service and what not. I hope I can keep coming to this meeting even after I R2I- this will remain one of the most well organized meetings I have been to. I am in total awe of the organizers and almost wished I worked behind the scenes of such a fantastic event. :D

I have a nice hotel room in a very functional hotel. I steered clear of the fancy hotels because I didn't want to waste money on a room I'd only be coming to sleep in. I am happy that I only went ~$200 over the travel grant I got. This room doesn't even have cable-tv unless you pay ~$15 - $20 for an episode of something you want to watch! It has wired internet though, and that's good enough for me. I have a nice view from the window, am close enough to the conference and well-connected and overall happy with this room. My hotel-room craving has finally been fulfilled.

Last year my entire lab attending this meeting. This year I am alone. It totally sucks being alone. I think back to my grad school days and I don't think I went alone to too many meetings, it was always with my lab group or P.I. When I went alone from the lab, I had made a good enough network at the meeting beforehand (part of some committtee/volunteer group etc.) and always had company. Otherwise, it was a small meeting and people mingled easily even if you didn't know them before. I ended up striking close friendships with some people I met at those meetings.

At a big meeting like this, its very different. Everyday, between sessions, I have been enviously looking at groups of people who exchange notes, plan their meals/sight-seeing together etc. I don't have anyone to do that stuff with, and it has been bothering me. I tried my bit but its hard to break into well-established groups. At most people humor you for a few mins following introductions and then go their ways. Today was the heights of desperation and I even pulled the "Lagta hain aapko kahin pehle dekha hai" line on this desi girl in the hope of striking some kind of acquaintance with her so that I could get some company for dinner. But she said no she never saw me anywhere and went back to chatting with her friend. :/ I feel for all the guys that have tried this line and failed. :D On second thoughts, may be I should've tried it on a guy. :)

I tried my hand at the whole networking thing to make some professional connections. It went better than the attempts at trying to wrestle a dinner invitation, :) but I didn't do much of it either. I tried to advertise my poster a bit, talk to a few people, etc. But I made some starts, overcame some inhibitions so I am happy.

And while I didn't get to make any acquaintances to group with here, I found out that a very dear friend of mine from my grad school days was attending another meeting in the same city so I got to catch up with her yesterday. It was by far the best evening I had here, and it was so wonderful to meet her, sit and gossip and exchange notes on the past 6 years and feel like the good old days.

Science-wise it has been great as always- talks and posters of the highest caliber. The entire experience has been intense and inspiring. I have some nice ideas for what I want to work on if I start up a lab in India. :)

I did a lot of people-watching at the meeting. I noticed that all the company types were always busy between sessions, black berrying and clearing out work email and such. The academic types seemed more relaxed, enjoying scientific or non-scientific conversations and not glued to their smart phones. Of course, there were the poor sods working on manuscript revisions and such. :D. So many people were flashing their ipads, using it to keep track of conference schedules, take notes at talks and posters etc. The were better off than those that had to lug the fat ass abstract book around.

I didn't lug that dead tree with me- instead I made use of the online scheduler the meeting had and planned all of my days before hand and took printouts of it with me for each day, so that I only had the relevant info per day and knew where to go next after each session, which posters I wanted to see etc. For a meeting of this size, a few hours of advance planning is essential and I'm glad I did that. Today, I skipped the afternoon to come to my room and nap and that was also a good thing I did.

I am not going to do any touristy stuff here- I have been to this city before and there's nothing in particular I want to see. I will take advantage of the awesome weather though, and go out for a nice long walk and get some desi dinner. :-)

Ta

"Happiness is the best form of revenge"

2011-04-04T15:40:00.001-04:00

When my first post-doc wasn't working out, I went and spoke to the head of post-doc affairs at that institute, a famous woman scientist. She was very supportive and sympathetic about my decision to leave and admitted that my situation was not the first she had seen come out of the lab that I was leaving. She gave me some advice on how to find my next post-doc and her parting advice to me included the line about happiness, but I know how miserable I was in the months that followed.

Two years later, at a huge international meeting I bump into her. I introduced myself and thanked her for her advice and support way back then. She seemed to recollect. Then I told her how well I am doing now, about my work and the awards I have gotten. That her advice was well taken and I am indeed a very happy person today. It felt so great to share my accomplishments with her and I am riding on that high ever since.

Email draft

2011-03-29T09:40:00.003-04:00

Dear all,
please see attached near-final draft of poster (on which you are all co-authors). Thanks a lot for all the help or lack thereof.

regards
TGFI.

i guess this draft will never make it out to sent.

Don't say yes when you want to say no

2011-03-26T15:21:00.002-04:00

A rant about people who cannot say no. I wish people just learned to say "Sorry, I cannot do it" (Followed by a reason if they feel like it). Period. I don't understand why, instead of saying no, they go about giving me hazaar alternatives, that I've already thought through, considered, and then come to them asking for a favour. I ask for favours easily- mostly because I believe that if it truly inconveniences a person they will say no, else they will help me out. I know people who balk at the idea of taking any obligation from other people- I don't take my friends for granted but don't see anything wrong in asking them- "hey- can you ask around for me if ..blah blah". And I am prepared to be refused, no hard feelings. But I'm beginning to see why people, including my husband, would rather have it not done than ask for a favour- its because some people make it out to be so damn uncomfortable. They cannot refuse directly, they offer further unsolicited advice that can be tiresome, or worse still, they say yes but back out in the last minute or ignore your phone calls or do it almost begrudgingly, making you feel like you are putting them through an inconvenience. Why the fuck does everything have to be a charade? I have reached a point where I'd rather ask random people off a forum or mailing list for help- at least they can refuse without qualms and self-imposed obligations and truly just do it out of simple kindness and not because they feel obliged to say yes.

W O M M

2011-03-25T08:39:00.003-04:00

All the nasty stuff with my coworker gave way to a cheap thrill for me yesterday. It is essentially a cheap thrill, but I am going to bask in it for all its worth and enjoy it till it lasts. She got what she deserved and I hope it helps in taking her horribly arrogant attitude down a notch or two. But I doubt that.

---

While I am aware of there being two or three sides to every story, sometimes I can't help judge based on one side alone. Even if you give the other side all the benefit of doubt, what presents itself is still unacceptable. Makes you wonder what the hell happens and why people do what they do. Or if you ever really knew them well enough to be surprised by the happenings? I will never know.

---

Every so often, I crave being in a hotel room. Not necessarily a fancy shmancy hotel room - I guess its got to do with craving being in a new place. I'll get my travel-bug-fix soon. Very excited. I also got business cards printed for the conference I'm going to. I remember going last year, and not having the opportunity to give them to anyone. I hope this year will be different. I'm going to try harder (and stuff these newly printed cards into peoples hands whether they want it or not :p)

---

Nothing like a guy leaving you a voicemail early AM asking you not to stress about losing weight and telling you that you are adorable. (:D Right out of a cheesy song) Especially when the guy is not your husband.
I have been stressing about losing weight- I know it doesn't help. I am trying to correct eating, but its not going that great. The 3-days a week exercise routine went right out the window. I have relapsed into long working hours, coming home late, eating whatever I can manage to and fretting. And waking up late. With fatty nightmares. Not nice. This weekend, I'm going to give the cook-a-week's worth of food a shot.

We all "know" what's good for us and what's not. It's being aware of it- of what we eat, what we think, how we conduct ourselves- in the moment, all the time- is what is needed. That kind of constant self-awareness takes practice and discipline and a non-escapist attitude. (Gyan that i got from the don't lose your mind book).

---

97 DAYS TO R2I

W O M M

2011-03-22T20:49:00.002-04:00

My niece (5 yo) is growing up faster than I can keep up with. Her vocabulary includes words like "embarrassing", "Recommendation" and what not. Gosh.

The other day, my mom was busy yelling at my sis over the phone, saying that she yelled too much at my niece and that was making her thin. LOL. I told my mom that there was no bigger irony than her objecting to my sister scolding her daughter- our entire building, and the ones around ours will vouch for the amount of yelling from my mom we had to deal with while growing up, especially my sister. To which the smitten grandmother responds "You girls were terrible kids. My grand-daughter is an angel, and doesn't need to be yelled at". HAH!

I had another informational interview today with a Co. in India. It went well as in I got some information, and I definitely would like to explore opportunities with them further. Everyone's standard response is come here and visit us and then we'll take it from there. I guess its pretty reasonable, I would also want to visit a place before deciding to work with them. These days I am telling everyone that I leaving and I wish I had a more solid answer to "Where are you going next" instead of the "I have some possibilities..". Ah well. Both my Ph.D. mentor and my post-doc mentor are overtly supportive of my decision to go into the industry, but not without leaving subtle hints like "Why aren't you considering teaching- you're a natural" and other such attempts at brain-washing. :)

B is currently house hunting for a place for us to rent and move into together. I don't have a big list of things for him. All I want is a spacious kitchen and an Indian-style toilet. Those are my only demands. And he tells me that the latter is becoming more and more rare. How sad.

Experiments, data, packing, job-hunting, life. Its all coming together. That much is for sure.

W O M M

2011-03-21T17:51:00.001-04:00

All kinds of stuff on my mind. Am distracted and irritable at work. I know its because I was here past midnight yesterday.

A lot of my work these days is dependent on other people and it irritates me to have to wait for them to get to my stuff. Some waiting I understand, after all everybody has their plates full all the time, but after a point it gets frustrating. I cannot do anything but twiddle my thumbs and hope that they bring my work to the top of their list soon.

Then, I suffer from a horrible case of inertia. It takes me FOREVER to revisit projects that are lagging behind, kept on hold in the freezer. I really need to work on this and get over it, because all this down-time that I spend waiting for others can be used in pushing ahead these forgotten projects, which are equally necessary and at this point, equally urgent. I have to stop compartmentalizing so much.

In a few months I will be moving to India- my husband and I are going to live together with his father, who has a neurodegenerative disorder and currently lives alone with no one to care for him. Time and again, I have people coming up and telling me- "its going to be really hard for you". I am a bit tired of these comments, even though I realise they come from concerned well-wishers. Other people ask us if we considered alternatives- like old-age homes or living separately down the street from my father-in-law instead of moving in with him. You know what- if I had it my way- my father-in-law would never have had this problem, my husband and I would never have had to make the compromises we're making and we'd carry on our jolly life in the U.S. or in India, wherever we ended up.

But it is not so. The whole idea of moving back is to care for my father-in-law. I have no illusions about moving back, and living with someone whose brain function is compromised and is going to get progressively worse. I have no experience either- just like most of the people that warn me about how tough it will be. But I also know that a person suffering from such a disorder needs the company, care and support of his children, and not the loneliness of living alone and fending for himself, or amongst other old people. And I know that if I were in my husband's place, I'd want to do the same for my parent and would expect complete support from my husband. And I don't have the time or effort to tell all my concerned well-wishers this. Sometimes I wish people thought a bit before spouting these statements. May be put themselves in my shoes before making these comments that don't achieve anything. I am not touched by their concern for me. I am just reminded of the complications that lie ahead and that does not really help. I'd rather focus on what colour curtains I plan to get in our new place.

Our plan is to be able to provide the best care we can for my FIL. We are also aware that we cannot always be the ones making sacrifices, so we are hoping to balance it out with some support (hopefully from the same concerned well-wishers :)) , and with the understanding that in some instances my FIL, despite his condition, may have to be the one to make a few compromises, go through some hardship, on account of us. And we're hoping to strike a happy balance. This is life.

Rant

2011-03-16T09:54:00.003-04:00

Consumerism in science is at an all time high now. I'm getting a bit tired of all these zillion kits in the market for doing an experiment. So many different kinds of kits/reagents with fancy names and wrapping. So much redundancy. Like entering an aisle with 200 kinds of cereal to choose from, I just want to do a simple experiment..I shouldn't be so overwhelmed with choices, have to read through the fine print, pay heed to the disclaimers and caveats, and feel so boggled. So much gloss. Long tutorials, webinars, "Field Application Scientists" come in and give long seminars and ply you with food and drink. But will not give straightforward answers. Big claims. I'd rather do things the good old home-made way, sometimes. Its harder to keep track of the goal when you get lost in these experimental details, sometimes limiting our experiment by what a kit can or can't do, or needs. We need to simplify doing experiments, not complicate.

/rant

While trying to stop myself from dozing off

2011-03-14T18:20:00.004-04:00

at my desk, I resort to blogging to wake me up. I cannot believe I am so sleepy after a cup of coffee. Yet another reminder that I refuse to look in the eye ..that I need some serious exercise. :( My current goal is to work out thrice a week and so, I let today pass. Sigh. :(.

---
Listening to good music takes some effort. You need to seek good music, make a note of good bands/songs when you see hear them, and try to listen to more like them. Or have friends with good taste who point you to the good stuff. Or easy access to good live music. I miss those few good music influences I had in my life. So now I have settled for bollywood dhinchaak and a pop radio FM station. Both have become addictive just by nature of their repetitiveness. The bollywood stuff is peppy and upbeat, at least. The radio channel I listen to plays the crappiest music. But I find myself humming some of those songs, and even searching for them on youtube when I feel like listening to them. Gosh.

---
I read this really terribly written book "Don't lose your mind lose your weight". Don't ask me what I am doing reading books like that in the first place. :D. Someone praised it to the skies and curiosity got better of me. The message of the book, and all the principles it recommends are all spot on. I hope to adopt some of them and live by them. Its the style in which the book was written that totally put me off. It was coarse, over-familiar, all kinds of really bad jokes scattered all over, the author (a nutritionist) constantly deriding the reader, mocking her clients - apparently that kind of style actually appeals to a lot of people. Not me, for sure.

---
She has paraphrased my thoughts on the horrible NYT story reporting the gang rape of a 11 year old in Cleveland, Texas. We have a long long way to go in social conditioning and response to crime and abuse against women. For starters, I wish media (in all forms- TV ads, bollywood movies, music videos) would stop the blatant objectification of women.

---
* Currently Listening To: Lady Gaga - complete with humming and head-bopping. Somebody, kill me.*

---
I am doing a lot better in the get to work early department. And am less allergic to the hostile work atmosphere that has taken form over the past several months. I am finally learning to pretend that the nasty people don't exist and stop feeling bad about the negativity, just focus on what I need to get done. Stop comparing and belittling myself. It helps that I am now finally getting some neat data, that is keeping me excited and motivated.

---
My sister always told me this :), but recently I was made to feel really conscious about how much I whine (not just on the blog, but in real life :)). I need to consciously curb it. I guess I have never worked on what I project outward- I say what's on my mind, my face always betrays my emotions even if I make an attempt to hide something. My fake nod and smile really doesn't go too far, except in keeping things non-confrontational. But I will have to learn some amount of modulation. Learn to desist when I'm tempted to confront and lash out, learn to sugar coat somethings, learn to not come across as whiny, even if I am indulging in what I think is just telling it as it is. All in the name of being professional. Hmm.

* Currently Listening to : "Dynamite". (some Taio Cruz) Sigh. :(

---
I have a lot of travel coming up, and I am excited about that. I go to a big meeting next month, get to show off a prestigious travel award that I won to go there, and my shiny new laptop bag that was a gift from a friend. :). And yes, some cool data also that will morph into a pretty poster soon. Later, I make the trip to Lutom that has been on the cards for a while now. I get to visit PhDAdv. and other profs, as well as hang out at a few of the places I frequented way back then in grad school. I am so excited about going back to visit!

---
I really, badly want a friend like Elaine. :D May be I should watch less TV and go out more. :)

---
My latest pet peeve is all the buggers that talk loudly on their cellphones in small restricted spaces like trains and buses. What the eff is up with them? It smacks of complete disregard, inconsideration and absolute self-absorption. These people in their loud shrill voices discussing their lives as if everyone else's lives would be enriched by listening to them, whether they want it or not. I have done the staring, glaring, asking people to tone it down and getting up and changing my seat. But it annoys the hell out of me. The latest addition to this is people who play their ipods loud enough for the entire compartment to hear their crappy music. Selfish bastards all.

---
Mountain of dishes beckons. Ta.

want you to make me feel....like I'm the only girl in the world......Rihanna- .yeah..that's how bad it is.

It's been a while

2011-03-07T20:44:00.002-05:00

Life has been busy. I am reaching the point where I am getting overwhelmed and then paralyzed into inaction just because I am worried about all that I have to get done. It's not trivial. And I have 3.5 months left! Thats 14 weeks, of which 2-3 are going to be gone in traveling. So that leaves me 11-12 weeks. 11-12 weeks is really. not. much. time. :-o

Lab life has gotten quite unbearable. While earlier I used to complain about not having social lab mates, now it is downright hostile with one coworker- its an icky feeling to share my bay with this person now, and I hate being in the lab these days and keep looking forward to leaving as soon as I get in each day. What is worse is that I am letting this behaviour affect me and my productivity so much. There is nothing I can do to pander to another's insecurities or egos. It is out of my control and its not my problem. So I need to learn how to ignore this obnoxious behaviour and just get my work done. Hope I get the hang of it soon. All the unpleasantness apart, I am really glad I got to experience this - I have been lucky thus far in having awesome relationships with all my colleagues and having mostly wonderful people around me. I have faced little nastiness, come to think of it, especially on such a regular basis as this. This is a good taste of real world for me here.

I am preparing for an upcoming meeting I am going to in a month. This is probably my exit conference from the US, and I want to put to use all the stuff I learned about networking, planning my time at the conference etc. Lets see how it goes. I'm excited.p

I'm tired now. So much more to write but no patience to string together meaningful sentences.

W O M M

2011-02-28T22:08:00.002-05:00

Been corresponding with my Ph.D.Advisor regarding my job search in India....feels good just to be able to discuss stuff with her and enjoy her vote of confidence in me. She encourages me to take risks, saying that I am smart and if it tanks I can always get a job elsewhere. :)

Getting very irritated with my current boss, on the other hand. He walks up to my desk Monday noon asking "So, anything interesting over the weekend?". I wish I could have said, yeah, the interesting thing is that I didn't come to lab. Gah. Then I remember those periods PhDAdv. did similar stuff and how much i hated her for it then. :) My current boss will never come close to the place PhDAdv. has had in my life though, I am just drawing parallels between the annoying behaviours of bosses. :)

I don't fit into the R2I clubs that I am seeing online. These are people who have had full-fledged family lives here in the US, and are discussing taking back their sofas and matching lampshades back to India and have their companies paying for big ass containers so they can transplant their entire lives, mini-walmarts and costcos back to India. I have none of that kind of stuff to worry about. No 401Ks, no US-born kids for whom I have to worry about diapers and cartoon-character-bedsheets, no leather sofas, no artificial flowers to decorate my house (Because what you get in Michaels you can never find back in India) or tubes of toothpaste (because the toothpaste is too foamy in India) or any of that. Heck, I brought back Dabur Meswak with me when I came from my holiday to India last time. I plan to go back with 3 suitcases. (Will pay for that one extra), and hopefully have the remainder ferried back by a friend or two. Thats it. I do want to hold on to some of the stuff I already own- esp. camping gear and books and dvds, and those, as of now are the bulkiest things and are going to be the biggest pain to take back. :/ . But here is something cool I found on these R2I forums and wanted to share: A shipping company is organizing a donation drive, so that you can ship a box or two of gently used clothes/kids stuff- anything you'd want to donate towards charity and they will ship it to India for free. I found this great because I own tons of desi clothes that I didn't want to give to goodwill here because they seemed more suitable to Indian use. During my past trips I have taken and dumped some but they still keep piling up. I have to incur the cost of shipping my box to the collection center for this drive but that is a small price to pay. I am excited about getting a box ready to ship out to them!

On integrity

2011-02-26T17:27:00.003-05:00

I recently got to witness, first-hand, how someone's ego is so all-consuming, that they would be unwilling to admit a mistake they made to the extent that they'd let it go into records and eventual publication unaltered, just because they do not want to admit they were wrong. And that is how scientific malpractice can take form. If someone like a post-doc can be so full of themselves, one can only imagine how wide-spread and worse this kind of mentality is as one goes higher up, and leads to a lot of false and irreproducible results that get published. It may not make a difference to the bigger picture, but having come upon a mistake, don't you just fix it and move on? I am plain disgusted and put off.

I'm back and I'm not loving it

2011-02-25T09:37:00.006-05:00

B left a couple days ago, and I have been resistant to resuming all the things I did before he came, because it only reminded me of the fact that I was back to my life-sans-B. I have been dragging my feet at work, resisting even calling him during our regular phone hours as I don't want to face our routine phone-call schedule when just few days ago we were enjoying time with each other in the same room without worrying about distances and time zones. Going to bed alone sucks, waking up alone and having to make my own chai myself sucks. Its amazing how two weeks can spoil you so easily. In short, it sucks to be back.

We had a splendid two weeks. Traveled, met up with friends, crossed a few things off our list. Almost like our married life has gone from one honeymoon to the next with 8 months of separation in between. To add that touch of reality to it I also managed to get sick, get slammed with an urgent submission deadline when I should have been on holiday, and B had to take care of a sick wife glued to her laptop. A close friend asked me how things were between us having met after so long. I have to say, in a very self-congratulatory tone, that I am quite proud of the way we have made it through this 18-month-long-and-still-counting LDR. I tend to give a bit more credit to B, because left to me, I'd have done things a bit differently. He has, in his own little ways, made sure we're very much in tune with each others lives even though we are apart, still managing to retain a healthy balance in our respective individual lives. While I would've probably taken a bit more distant, self-preserving approach to it. This is not my first LDR, and ghosts of the past have off and on played on my mind through this one. That said, we've figured out a way that has worked great for us and meeting after 8 months and picking up has been seamless and effortless. We definitely noticed and had to deal with subtle changes in each other, that crept in from living in different places and evolving differently over the past many months. More so in B thanks to his readjustment to R2I. But that cannot be helped..it is pretty much par for the course.

Dropping him off at the airport was a tad easier this time than it was the last time I had to do it- but I still managed to put little crying snotty kids at the airport to shame with my unabashed water works. :D Coming home to the cold lonely apartment sucked. We are now slipping back into our routine LDR, whether we like it or not, and I imagine I will be consumed by work over the next 4 months by which time we can pack this up for good :).

W O M M

2011-02-04T22:22:00.002-05:00

In preparation of my husband's arrival from India, I have.....the dirty dishes and laundry waiting. Because compared to me, he lives like a king in Bombay, what with Kantabai to do his cooking and Meenabai to do his cleaning. Therefore....

The weather sucks. From beautiful snow we have gone to slick icy surfaces and all the snow piled up and frozen into ice mountains on every block and corner. Today I slipped and fell on my butt. Falling in snow doesn't hurt as much, but falling on ice/concrete is no fun. But my biggest worry was if my nice expensive jacket was ok. It was. :)

The cabbies in my area continue to surprise me. Every now and then I'll get a grumpy cabbie always trying to fleece me, and then every then and now i'll get an honest, chatty, helpful, sincere cabbie. Today was a nice cabbie day. :)

How social media has messed up our real-world relationships. We are now capable of causing hurt to people in that many more ways, thanks to blogging/facebooking/tweeting. You can be hyperactive on facebook and not return your friend's calls and they will feel bad. You can reciprocate to facebook wishes before phone calls and offend someone. You can bitch about someone on twitter in as vague a way as possible and that person will get to know of it. You can discuss life on your blog and not even be thinking about your best friend who happens to read your blog, and the best friend will take it personally. The written word has a stronger impact sometimes than the things you say, do, or don't. And, funnily enough, as we intentionally or unintentionally alienate and hurt these real-world friends, we find ourselves cultivating stronger bonds with virtual acquaintances. For the virtual ones are that much more convenient. There's no baggage. They are more in touch with you because they have read your latest rant/outburst. They "get" you. And, you can shut them up by simply clicking on a tiny x.

W O M M

2011-02-02T09:09:00.005-05:00

Things have been one stress after the other. As soon as I was done with my talk I was slammed with the deadline to submit the review article I was working on. In the meantime, I had promised my niece that I would visit her on the weekend, having not seen her in almost 2 months now, and I was having a tough time seeing how I could live up to my words as I sat at home working through Sunday. But what can you do when a 5 yo calls you and leaves a message on your cellphone that says "TGFI pinni, this is me Kavita speaking. You said you would be here Sunday morning and its afternoon now and I don't know where you are so please call back". ?? Of course I had to go. Her face broke into a huge grin when I showed up, even if at 4 pm giving us precious little time. I spent a few hours playing with her, and as I began packing my things up to leave early next morning, she pleaded with me "Why can't you stay here and work from home? You can do some experiments on my weather station". Her latest science-gift she got for christmas. :) If only.

The review out of the way, I finally breathed easy and unwound last evening. The first thing that came to my mind, when I finally had a moment to relax and not feel the stress of some urgent to-do task, was how much I am missing B and how hard this LDR is. We have come up with our own definition of LDRs, and as per that, people have to be separated by at least a coast to claim LDR status. Weekend couples who live in Pune/Bombay or NY/Boston are just couples in SDRs. They have it too easy. :p

The sense of urgency is back at work, and will probably remain so until June. BUT, the most awesome-est news ever is that B is visiting me this weekend for a whole two weeks! Yeah! I'm taking a week off work and we're going to do some traveling, meeting up friends, and such. His trip calendar has already filled up- and we're trying to walk the tightrope between fitting in too many "things to do", "Friends to meet" and just spending some good quality time with each other. I have finally begun getting excited about getting to see him after six months. As we're telling friends and making plans its nice to see the excitement spread and his friends changing plans and making night-long bus rides to come see him. Part of our plans when B is here is to go and surprise a very good friend of his. It is becoming harder to keep this surprise what with the way everybody is everybody's (facebook) friend and B finding it very hard to curtail his excitement. :D This is going to be fun. My boss granted me a week off very willingly, saying that I have been working hard and I should spend time with my husband, what with us having been apart for so long. This is the same boss that didn't okay 1.5 days off when I wanted to go to California for my birthday. Oh well. I am definitely not complaining right now.

Of course, needless to say, the blog will be quiet for the next two weeks :).

WOMM

2011-01-30T23:15:00.003-05:00

As soon as B and I start living together, this is the kind of stuff I look forward to,

* To be able to say, when any friend is trying to make plans with me "I'll check with my husband and get back to you"

* To be able to nag nag nag my husband. Yeah! I love!

* To be generally unavailable to friends on the pretext of wanting to be with my husband, nurse a sick husband, entertain relatives, being busy doing couple stuff etc etc.

* To be able to put the phone on speaker in the midst of a phone conversation and let my husband be privy to everything my poor unsuspecting friend is saying

* Ofcourse, to reply to gtalk conversations from my husband's friends saying "Hey this is me TGFI on his computer. hee hee".

* To sign off birthday wishes to other friends with "TGFI & B"

Can't wait.

This I'll miss..

2011-01-28T19:06:00.000-05:00

I love the snow. I love how it transforms the whole place into this white landscape. And sitting indoors, with hot chai and a nice book, while it is snowing outside. I love the sight of snowflakes flitting to the ground slowly - especially watching it from my huge windows in the lab. I am looking forward to building a snowman this weekend with my niece. This past week I spent two nights in the lab, one of them was during the heavy snowstorm. It was almost surreal to be up all night, seeing the snow fall and by daylight you could see just how much of it had piled up within no time. The snow plough trucks were up and about early, working hard, keeping the road clear of snow, only ending up shoving it all to the sides, boxing the parked cars in. I watched with fascination as a guy dug his car out of the snow today. Poor guy. He was at it for more than an hour. Patiently shoveling the snow off, throwing it across on the road. After a whole hour and more, he had cleared it up enough to get into his car but when he started the car, it wouldn't make it out of there. Finally some passer by helped him out with it. I was so glad someone helped him. And I'm even more glad I don't own a car. :)

In other news I had my talk today. It went well. My labmate, who is a super-efficient machine of sorts, went up before me. Her talk was superbly polished, very very data-heavy and, in my opinion, reflected the work of two post-docs. :) I had nothing to match up to. But I went up and did my thing. Gave my shpeil. I was very upfront about the fact that the machine broke down a month ago and my samples weren't processed. Then I just talked about my other project which is also straggling. A couple people came up to me and said nice job, and I got a few suggestions and questions. So I will be happy with that. I think that in itself is a huge step for me. The fact that I am managing to be happy and not beat myself up into misery about how my lab-mates talk was so much better than mine, chock-ful of data and how I had such little data. Of course I did agonize about all of that in the days leading to the talk, but I'm not going to flog myself over it. I am sure my time will come. And I am glad I went up and gave the talk, despite it being so data-poor, and I am glad I am dealing with it well, unlike last year, when the exact same thing happened and I remember how much self-flogging I indulged in. I remember walking home in the cold pouring rain, tears streaming down my face and hating myself and questioning all my abilities the day before the talk. All I could think of was, that I had quit my 1st post-doc after a year with no data, and then I had spent a year here with no data. I think my self-esteem was terribly battered thanks to leaving the 1st post-doc. This year things are a bit different- first, the whole machine breakdown thing is not my fault. Had it not happened, I'd have some blazing data by now. That is part of what's keeping me up. Of course, if I wanted to, I could get into "But still, what about Project B- you should have worked more on that and had more data on that". I can almost hear a tiny voice in my head say that. But I have managed to make that voice stfu.

This is my last talk at this dept, and I had hoped to wow people with all kinds amazing stuff and the cure to cancer. It was far from that. But, I must say, I have achieved a personal milestone of sorts. Finally learning to rise up and above the "beat the crap out of yourself" syndrome that I was suffering from for the longest time. That is what I'm proud of, and I can strongly feel that I am very consciously beginning to get rid of that attitude, learn to be easy on myself and respect myself. In other words, I have mastered the art of slacking off and not being ashamed of it. :D

W O M M

2011-01-24T10:39:00.002-05:00

Last night was my first ever all-nighter in this lab. After almost 2 years of being here! Yeah! Just the other day, I was bemoaning to a friend how I can no longer do these and I miss that feeling of accomplishment at dawn after one finishes an all-nighter and is riding the bus home as everyone else is coming in to work. :)

As I walked back home this morning at 7 AM and the cold draft hit my face, I thought I was ready to turn around and go right back to lab. But when I got into my warm apartment, the bed beckoned. 3 hours of sleep later, I am getting ready to go for the next shift. This is how it feels when you feel good and you feel like crap, at the exact same time.

Seinfeld

2011-01-22T15:13:00.003-05:00

So I have been OD-ing on my Seinfeld DVD set for the past many weeks- less than a month since I got it and I am already done with the first five seasons. I totally love Kramer and Elaine is just the kind of person I wish I had for a friend. In fact, I've been seeing so much of it that sometimes when I'm at work I think of the situation and imagine how Elaine would've reacted. She is slowly morphing into an imaginary friend. :) I am also getting to enjoy the show in a renewed way now, having lived here and getting all the references to the city etc. much more than when I used to see it earlier while i lived in India and lutom. The downside of this show is that it makes it look perfectly ok to sit around all the time, drinking coffee and eating at Tom's restaurant, discussing complete non-issues with friends and gossiping about everything. I more and more want that life instead of mine. :/

P.S: Completely off-topic and random but I felt the immense need to record for the sake of it: I just learned that "warts and all" is a phrase to mean the good and bad included. I'm cracking up because I have seen this being used on a few occasions in reference to the same topic- being the city of Philadelphia. A few people, including Sujatha on my blog said to me on independent occasions "Oh I like Philadelphia, warts and all" or something to that effect. Then, it got me confused- i thought there was some reference to a wart-like-structure in the city of Philly that I had never heard of. So I probed but only got vaguer replies. A google search for Warts and philadelphia brought up various things like skin cancer and genital warts, but surely, this is not what people were referring to when they commented on the city? So I let it go, and when I left Philly, although I had seen my share of figurative warts, I felt sad that I never discovered these warts that everyone was talking about. Oh well. Now I know.

And now I shall stop wasting time.

Ta.

W O M M

2011-01-21T10:09:00.002-05:00

The stress is setting in. And I am aware that I might be making it out to be more than what it is. But thats the way it is. A friend once told me I thrive on stress. If I don't stress like crazy, I totally let loose and unwind and don't get anything done. Or, at least I'm afraid that will happen. So I have to keep feeling this horrible overhanging tension, terror, feel like I have gotten nothing done and what not.

But the truth is that I have been working hard the past few months. It hasn't come together at the end, in time for this talk, the way I was really hoping it would. And that is really not my fault. The machine is broken. So I will have to let it go at that. Eventually I will have all this wonderful data that I can analyze for bigger reasons such as a publication- which is really what the end goal is.

And then, the overwhelming worry of not being able to give a good talk- of feeling small in front of the classy audience that is always giving great talks...I need to just get it out of my system. It is inconsequential. I go up there, I talk about what I have for 15 minutes, end of story. A great talk with awesome data would get some oohs. Mostly, though, people are thinking about pizza after. And what am I so worried about making an impression with the crowd that I am going to be a part of for only another few months? It does not matter. There are bigger and better and more important milestones, and I need to keep the big picture in mind and stop psyching myself out into feeling like crap.

SO THERE. I woke up this morning badly feeling the need for a pep talk of some kind- i think I have given it to myself. I need to shake it off, go about my list, not worry about outcome, and not worry about how the talk will reflect on me. Its not the be all and end all of my academic trajectory: far from.

A letter

2011-01-21T01:00:00.002-05:00

To whomever this may concern,

Fuck you.

And that is all.

Sincerely,
TGFI.

I feel much better

W O M M

2011-01-17T17:12:00.004-05:00

I have realised I enjoy working after hours and weekends in the lab because I can play the music at loud volume and my annoying coworker is not in my way. But it is still not the most productive way for me to function so I need to stop letting her get under my skin.

Some of the things that annoy me about her: the way she clangs and bangs equipment and stuff around as she goes bustling about in a big rush. The way she hogs all the machines at the same time and thinks its ok if she leaves post-it notes on them saying that she will be using them all day. The way she gets horribly defensive while discussing her data at lab meeting. The way she completely ignores other people discussing their data or presenting their problems at lab meeting- she is busy making her to-do lists or staring into space. I find that very very offensive. The way she never looks at you when you talk to her- just goes about her work, won't take her eyes off her computer screen or whatever she is doing, and answer in short monosyllables. Her complete lack of participation as a team-member. And finally, the ways in which she has tried to screw me over and create a distasteful lab environment over the past few months. Aargh.

I had a setback last week in my experiments that took a lot of head-scratching and trouble shooting and a few near-heart-attack type episodes as I was trying to get things under control. I think I have caught up over this weekend, at least identified the problem and now I'm back in the running. Less than two weeks to go for my presentation, so I'm hoping things continue to come together. I still have a long way to go. But at least things are working now.

I still haven't finished the review. :( But I feel like I have it under control.

I agonized so much over buying this expensive jacket last winter. We were half way through the winter then and I wasn't sure if I was going to be here for one more whole winter season after that. But well- I bought it anyway, and here I am, roughing it through one more whole season. The coat has come in very handy, so I 'm glad I caved in and bought it. It is super comfortable- it's like walking in a cosy snugly fitting sleeping bag. :) I love it! It's what inspires me to brave the elements and get out in the cold everyday. :)

Over and out.

Auto stories

2011-01-15T12:02:00.003-05:00

B has several blog-worthy stories of his R2I experiences that I desist from blogging simply out of respect to his privacy :). We both grew up in Bombay at a time when it was so easy to go out on the street and get an auto to wherever you need to go. I also remember loving the auto-wallahs because you could often strike up a conversation with them- on politics, on the city, and such. But since B returned to India last year things are not the same. Auto-wallahs will deign you with a ride only if your destination is convenient to them. The horrible traffic situation, the effed up bombay roads are all part of the problem. Since his R2I, B has had a love-hate relationship with the autos. He has gone from hating the auto-wallahs who refuse to go where you want them to, to boycotting them and insisting on taking the bus every day back from work just because he hates having to beg and plead with a dozen auto- wallahs each time before anyone agrees- to befriending Naushad- the autowallah, who, after picking him on the street outside his lane at the same time for a few consecutive days in the morning became his friend and started coming and waiting outside B's building every morning to take him to work. The last story totally warmed the cockles of my heart and Naushad soon featured in our daily conversation, until, recently, he got a coveted job in the Gulf and left. :(.

B's latest skirmish with the autowallahs was quite something, so I'm blogging it with his permission. He had a flight to catch one evening out of the domestic airport, and after getting off the train, found it impossible to get an auto willing to come to the airport. After getting frustrated and worried about missing his flight, he just decided to walk it up to the airport (a ~ 20 min walk). He walked through the dirt and grime and dodged all the traffic - of course, that area is totally unsuitable to walk through- and when he was inside the airport complex, an auto kept stalking him. He shook him away a couple times but this guy wouldn't let go. B finally told him that he needed to go to the airport and he was already there- to which the auto guy says "Nai saab main paisa nahin loonga, aap ko bas chodh doonga - udhar havaldar mujhe pakdega agar main khaali auto leke wahaan gaya to". :) !!

Celebrating the small joys

2011-01-14T09:33:00.005-05:00

I sent out another draft to my boss - thanks to her nagging and managing to block facebook, youtube, blogspot, wordpress and twitter on my laptop. Really enhanced productivity. I think finding someone like this to nag you while writing- on a few hourly- basis- is really helpful. My husband is not effective at nagging me to write- may be because of the time difference, or the fact that I can just tell him to shut up and get lost (I told her too, but she didn't back off). I remember the days of my thesis-writing when another blog-friend was nagging me hourly, starting at 10 pm every night right up to 2 and 3 AM, and really helped get that tome out of the door. I will always be thankful to him for that. This review is not yet done, but I got some comments from my boss on my draft and can work some more. I think this weekend I should wrap it up.

One of my core competencies is being a go-between between the biology side of our experiments and the statisticians who analyze the data for us. It is always a challenge to be able to speak to them in their language and reach a happy medium regarding grey zones. Statisticians believe in numbers, strict quality controls, and mostly black/white. Biology doesn't always work itself easily into those frameworks. While I cannot actually perform those sophisticated analyses that they do, I can understand programs, thresholds, criteria, and what some of those rules and statistics really mean and measure, in a biologists book. (For example, I am not this guy) After our latest joint meeting with the statistician where I managed to break down things to him, my boss sent me an email as follows:

"Kudos. For your clarity in catalyzing the discussion today, and for your fine efforts addressing the data analysis portion of the project".

This felt nice also because there were a lot of undercurrents in the lab regarding this project. A coworker was actually doing all the experiments and felt like I was unnecessary in the project because I wasn't "doing" any of the "work" and perhaps insecure that I was going to steal her credit. A very baseless fear because I wasn't doing any of that - it would be ludicrious for me to even try- she was assigned to do the experiments and I was assigned to analyze the data. I had to fight to keep my place there, be included in meetings, get all the updates on the project, because I knew I was bringing something to the table that she wasn't, and, because I was intellectually invested in this project. Through most of the conflict, I was getting mixed signals regarding where my boss's loyalties were. Mostly, I felt he was just playing politics, while he assured me that I had my place in the project. Then, a few months ago, when coworker wrote up an abstract on this work, she put me in as the third author, and my boss bumped me up to second author. That was a good sign for me. The whole spat was an education of sorts for me: in jealous coworkers, in politics, in making my point, in being mature and professional as against impulsive and forthright. In the past few meetings, I have hopefully convinced both boss and the coworker, (although I don't care too much about the latter) that analysing this data is as much as a beast as generating it, and I am making significant and unique contributions to it.

Finally, I found out that I have been selected as a finalist for an award that will help me go to a big meeting in April if I get the award. It will be awesome if I get the award: money to travel to the meeting, and, more importantly, some visibility and recognition. Fingers crossed for more news from there. :)

The bigger beasts in my life remain: a big presentation in two weeks and a review to finish up by then. But for now, I want to bask in these small glories. :)

Two choices

2011-01-12T15:29:00.004-05:00

Lets say, you are committed to do something. You cannot get out of it, and you cannot count on snowstorms to bail you out either. So, now that we've established that you HAVE to do it, you have two choices from here

1) Drag your feet through it. Spend a lot of time "not" doing and then scramble to "Doing". Beat yourself up in the interim. Waste time without even enjoying it. Avoid avoid avoid. Waste time online. Drive self crazy. Think of this while doing that. Think of that while doing this. Worry so much about doing a good job, that you feel paralyzed and throw yourself into an endless loop. Worry- don't perform- worry more- don't perform some more. Sleep a lot, get stressed and eat fattening foods. Finally get there bedraggled, having done a half-ass job, and telling yourself its ok, its not the end of the world after all, there are other things. But, actually, in reality, hate yourself and never stop regretting that you could've done so much better had you not wasted all that time.

OR,

2) Have a plan. Stick to a schedule. Do it in small chunks. Focus for small manageable bite sized amounts of time. Reward yourself for every tiny milestone with some internet-indulgence or food or tv. Little by little, in focused efforts, GET IT DONE. Waltz into the finishing line gracefully.

What would you pick? Is discipline really more painful than self-loathing laced time-wasting which you don't even enjoy while at it?

W O M M

2011-01-09T22:22:00.003-05:00

By some weird stroke of luck combined with a very vela mind I logged into my AGE OLD hotmail account today. When I should have been writing my review article, of course. Whats new?

So anyhow, I sat and read a bunch of my old emails from a very very old phase in my life. My early years of grad school, my beginning years in the states.

The stuff I unearthed was more than just a blast from the past. Lot of stuff I had forgotten.

A couple very mature and nice e-mails from a friend when I mostly remember only her immature and hurtful exchanges with me from that phase. I felt so happy to read this. Proof that everyone has their phases, everyone is entitled to outbursts and equally capable of reason. Although it is mostly irrelevant now that we are past all of it, it was still gratifying to read it and will perhaps help me build a different memory of that time.

A friend's long rant on her resignation from her co. This is eye-opening now because it reflects a lot of shoddy unprofessionalism that B often complains about. Her specific complaints (from 4-5 yrs ago) are eerily similar to some of B's complaints of the organisation he was in. Having never really witnessed corporate behaviour first hand, these are all preparation for me for when i get into the big bad corporate world.

My past flames and flings. :) Quite something to look back on those, fondly and not-so-fondly. :)

My best friend doling out advice. This was when I was out of touch with her for the longest time, and then all of a sudden blurted out to her what kind of shit I was dealing with. And true to herself, she was there with solid support, backing and very good words of advice.

The really weird thing? I had a very similar conversation with this same friend today. We live in very different worlds- and rarely call/talk..she is a mother of two kids and I am a lazy person who has recently begun to rectify my horrible habit of not calling people. Anyhow, i called her today and was talking to her after 6 months. Ten minutes into the conversation I found myself blurting out to her the stuff that has been bothering me. No background no nothing. I just had to tell her and she understood. And sympathised. And gave me some very practical advice that put me at ease. We may have drifted into very different worlds over the years but I am so glad to know that friends like these will be there, and a lot more accessible when i go back to India.

General evidence that i've come a long way, and that I am capable of a lot more hard work than I am putting in right now. :) I didn't have a blog to waste time on then. :)

The job hunt thing

2011-01-08T17:28:00.003-05:00

So I really need to have a more efficient plan regarding my job search. While I think I have a good idea of what needs to be done, I've clearly been lacking in the execution department.

Few things I've learned and I am doing:

1) Use professional email id (@edu) as against gmail id. I have actually gotten quicker responses when I emailed from my edu id.

2) Use informative, specific, eye-catching subject lines: "Interest in scientist position" is not good enough- better- "Referred by Dr. XYZ of QWERTY institute" or "Heard your talk at ABC meeting in Washington DC".

3) The initial email should also be specific, tailored to the company/organization and not generic. This everyone and their dog knows by now.

The next thing is FOLLOWING UP. This is where I am sorely lacking. I have had a good few initial conversations, going up to the stage of phone conversations, interviews, meetings, and even a tentative job offer in one case. But because of several reasons: 1) There being no set date of my return, and perhaps me having started some processes too prematurely, 2) Letting current deadlines and workload dictate the pace of my job search I have let things slack off.

So when I have downtime in my lab here, I work up these contacts and fire off good introductory letters. Then, inevitably, something pressing comes up in my current work. Everything else takes a backseat, and that hard earned initial contact fizzles off. That is what I have got to stop. I need to keep it going, like I said earlier, in an organized fashion- have a visible place where I enter dates of communication and schedule follow ups.

And finally, I do think I face the challenge of applying from overseas, which means I am probably not being taken as seriously, and people would perhaps prefer it if I were on the ground there already. That bit, unfortunately, I have no control over. I had envisaged a situation where I would've lined up interviews and gone home for a couple weeks before winding up here just to scope out opportunities, but things haven't fallen into place like that. Now, there is no time or money for such a visit. I will just eventually pack up and leave. So my goal is that I have some good interviews lined up for when I do return for good, and get to meet them all in person before I pick my job. I think that is quite doable. In that time, I'm hoping our dilemma of two cities is also resolved.

The good thing is, that the boss and I have agreed upon a formal date of ending this post-doc and it is set in stone. And while I am, as a result of that, mostly worrying about ALL that I have to accomplish here, it also means I have to work with equal zeal towards finding me a good job in India. I am keenly aware of the need to invest in a good career for myself in India, to keep me motivated and excited in the face of all the challenges that come with moving to India and doing science there. And for that, I will have to work hard.

W O M M

2011-01-06T20:00:00.004-05:00

Apparently I exhibit clear writing (or avoiding writing) patterns of behaviour. My husband can tell I have something to write when I start cooking and eating healthy food at home every day. Or when I am doing the laundry without dragging my feet. Regular readers of this blog may be able to tell by the increase in posting frequency. My boss has yet to nag me about the draft I owe him. I dream of all these encounters with him- he corners me in the hallway and I have nowhere to run..we bump into each other while I'm getting into the building..we're trapped in an stuck elevator..all kinds of such nightmares but every day is an anticlimax. We see each other and discuss all and sundry- he even noticed my new glasses today- but no mention of the draft I owe him.

And, with each passing anti-climatic day, the sense of urgency disappears for long enough for me to breathe easy,watch TV, go to bed instead of staying up and writing, only to wake up to a new day, with new ideas of being captured and taken to the gallows where all paper-writing-procrastinators go. Mummeee!

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I bought the Seinfeld DVD set - all 9 seasons- for a steal on Amazon.com. And I say it is money well spent! :)

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Mass sms-es and mass e-mails and impersonal fb msgs wishing you a Happy New Year are essentially a waste of time and mean nothing. Instead of flooding my inbox with yet another impersonal message, why don't we just assume that you wish for me to have a very happy new year, and I, you? Cards in the mailbox are something else. This year I got a sum total of one. Thank god for that. Next year may be I will send some out too and do my bit to keep this tradition going.

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I suck at this following up business that one is supposed to do when job-hunting. I need a method to it. Excel spreadsheet style- keep track of when I wrote whom and reminders in my calendar to follow up with them. Otherwise I'm getting nowhere beyond encouraging initial conversations that fizzle off.

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I find it a tad insulting that my boss asked me to draft a recommendation letter that he was supposed to write for me, and, then, proceeded to send it off without changing a single word! I know he's a busy man, but still. On the other hand, may be I should have written in there that I was the next best thing to qiagen kits. (A molecular biologist's equivalent of sliced bread).

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I have offended good friends in the past by not remembering their wedding anniversary- even while being with them on that day or so. And of course, they didn't tell me. I think wedding anniversaries need to be celebrated only by the couple in question. It should be their own little private affair and the rest of us shouldn't have to deal with the responsibility of remembering their anniversary and wishing them. I will always celebrate the fact that my friend married a nice person and is enjoying marital bliss. I don't need a day for it! :)

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Ours is a small lab- 4 post-docs and the boss, and the admin. In the past, when each of us has returned after a holiday to our home countries or such, we've brought back something for the lab. Cookies or sweets or whatever- usually they are kept in the admin's office because we can't have food in the lab. This time a coworker returned from her vacation, and gave the boss a box of cookies - nothing for the rest of us. She didn't do it front of us, but he happened to mention at lab meeting that the cookies were really nice and thanked her for it. I thought that was terribly lacking in class - her only bringing stuff to the boss. Am I the only one to think that it was crude?

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I need to write. Over and out.

Happy New Year to you all

2011-01-01T19:36:00.004-05:00

I had a "low-key" NYE. And quite enjoyed it that way. This whole "lets go out and pay ridiculous cover charges and buy expensive watered down drinks" or "lets go to a loud party and drink and dance and sleep on the floor" is just a sham. I think I am ahead of the curve, soon the in thing is going to be simply sleeping at home and waking up early, refreshed and well-rested and not hungover on the 1st day of a brand new year. Yeah! Remember, you heard it here first. :D
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I also spent some (Very little, not too much) money buying some more books this morning. And if all goes well, I might acquire still more. I know, horrible. But here's my logic- we're going to have to ship our books anyway, so what's another box, right? Right? Right????? I really need to get that off my chest. Also, is hoarding sufficient cause for divorce? If its books and a book-lover husband then it should be ok right? Right? Right???
--

I have this fleeting desire to go back to grad school for a Ph.D. in neuroscience or psychology. What am I talking! Mad I am.
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I think my tummy has simply given up and cannot handle outside food. I need to stop abusing it.
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Long but nice article How-to-Change-Your-Bad-Habits: The take home is not new:

"Approach change as if you're learning a new language or a new instrument. Obviously, you're not going to be fluent or play symphonies instantly; you'll need constant focus and practice. Overcoming an unhealthy habit involves changing the behaviors associated with it and managing stress, because stressing about change (or anything else) will knock you off the wagon faster than you realize. Above all, get that dopamine system going: Find rewards—make them instant, and don't be stingy. Your brain needs them. And I promise (well, Volkow, Schlund, Wexler, and Fleshner promise) it gets easier. That's not a bunch of self-help nonsense. It's biology".

Home, sick.

2010-12-29T15:17:00.003-05:00

New years eve is just another day, right? I think I'm going to stay home and sleep through it this year, the damned weather outside is not at all inviting to go out and "partay" into cold hours of the night, and although I was planning on going out earlier, now I just don't feel well enough for it.

I wonder how some people feel about their salary being one of the earliest links that pop up when you google for their name. I just googled a couple friends' of mine from grad school and while I'm impressed, and a tad envious to see the whopping amounts they are making, i also felt irked and kind of uncomfortable. Don't think I ever want to do it again. And then I think about how, in India, people blatantly ask another how much money they make. I can't stand it. Why only India- once, I had a random lady at an eyebrows place ask me how much I make, while threading my eyebrows! And it was the first (and last time) I was there. When at first I was a bit taken aback, then I tried to evade it, upon which she pressed on "Phir bhi, batao na..." OMG. I told her I came to the salon to relax and not to be reminded that I probably couldn't afford it to start with.

I am really dreading dealing with this kind of crap when I go back to India. Amongst other R2I-woes. My friends warn me about people overstepping boundaries of all kinds- spouting unsolicited advice about your choice of upholstery to your making a baby. Deep breaths, I guess and hopefully snarky remarks that strike when they are needed and not 12 hours after the incident has passed, which is what typically happens with me. :)

While on the topic of unsolicited advice, its also funny how I've been getting a lot of R2I advice from people that are living here in the US. Seldom are they telling me what I don't already know, perhaps acquired from the same channels as them. I guess they are just making conversation, and its funny how sometimes innocent remarks can rub one off the wrong way. It is happening to me quite often.

I am also not sure if I continue blogging here after R2I-ing, especially if I join academia in India. Life is going to get that much more interesting, complicated, and blog-worthy :) after I move back, but I am worried about revealing personal/professional details with a lot less anonymity and in the midst of a lot more nosiness than my nondescript existence here in the US. May be I am being unnecessarily paranoid? I know that the blog has been my outlet like no other, so it will be hard to let go. I will perhaps start anew? I don't know. Lets see.

Some deadlines have been set. If things come together as I hope they will, I now have a fairly fixed return date. And R2I-woes apart, the joy of finally beginning to live with B will make a lot of the other stuff more bearable, I think. My biggest fears are finding career satisfaction and dealing with B's dad's sickness. Day to day life issues, I think, I will just learn to deal with over time.

W O M M

2010-12-28T17:15:00.002-05:00

Why is nobody blogging any more? So sad.

I read a funny tweet today "Once facebook starts tracking and letting you know who visited your profile how many times, we're all screwed". Hahaah. Then we'll start seeing those annoying orkut type messages "What ya visit and no scrap? I am hurt". Gah.

I am just going to recycle my old resolutions for 2011. Eat healthy. Exercise. Do not waste time or money. Call up people more often.

My biggest resolution is, a two drink maximum this new years eve. :D. Considering how over-priced things will be on NYE everywhere, this one should be easy to enforce. I generally live a pretty low maintenance life, but, have never gone an extra mile to save money. I spend impulsively sometimes, eat out often, and don't think too much before spending, when i do spend money. With my impending R2I, I have become a more conscious money-saver. Questioning purchases, avoiding eating out, etc.

I hate being arm-twisted into things.

I believe in things getting jinxed sometimes when you get too excited about them, overplan and such. I know its silly and illogical and unscientific, but. Well.

I was trying to help a friend deal with a rocky relationship- reminded me of some of my own friendships and how they have morphed over the years. I wish I could explain better how its ok for people to distance...to grow apart, and to attain a different place in your life than they used to. It is a natural progression of life and sooner or later, equilibrium will be attained, and we will be at peace with it. Some hurt and some misunderstanding is part of the bargain and nothing is ever constant, to use cliches. It all gets easier when you learn to accept the changes and not fight them, wanting things to be the same just as some kind of reassurance to you that you haven't failed a friendship. At most you are guilty of erring, a very human quality.

Some close friends I grew up with are still saddled with the best-friend tag, whether they like it or not- it's a lot easier than saying "my once best friend". :D. Jokes apart, I still believe these are the best friends I've ever had- even if, I talk to them only once in a few months, they are not my "Go-to" people, I have very little left in common with them, we've strayed apart over the years, I cannot any more relate to them, their mommy-talks drive me crazy...I just don't make such close friendships anymore as I struck with them, so, they get to keep their titles- no strings attached.

I am guilty of mis-judging my boss's words of late. I am glad he has my interests in mind. And, truly, productiveness from me can only help the both of us, so that's all we really need.

I was working like crazy, then lost tempo. I need to regain that tempo. Tomorrow.

Tonight I will send off a draft- its only 500 words, I really should get better at this writing thing at this stage. At least my boss had only good things to say about my first draft, a sign that I have gotten better already. :)

The weekend that was

2010-12-27T15:05:00.004-05:00

On friday morning, as I was lazing and procrastinating, a friend said they were driving into the city and if I was free to meet them for dinner for that night, and I said yes right away. Suddenly, my weekend had gotten hectic. I had to rush to the lab, finish up work, make gulab jamuns which I had planned on making for my sister, and head out to meet my friends for dinner and then head out from there to my sisters place. Right then, I was priding myself about being such a shameless person, almost always available to take up any invite. One of the luxuries of single life that I love and will dearly miss once life becomes a two-person decision-tree. :)

Anyhow, I had a wonderful time meeting up with friends on Friday, after more than 1.5 years. The last time we met was when B was leaving the country, and they made the 3 hour drive all the way to meet B. My friend has had a baby in the meantime, and we had fun catching up, tourist-watching and general tp. I enjoyed christmas day with my niece, and then, as sunday morning dawned, the news of the upcoming blizzard surfaced. I had another dinner to go to Sunday night on my way home. In as much as I really wanted to go there, I decided to do the wise thing for a change and cancel on them. Instead, I made my way home early Sunday evening, despite my niece's protests to stay back so that we could have fun and play games all day Monday. :D. Aww. I had to come back and get work done, even if I couldn't go into the lab.

My first time in the thick of such a crazy blizzard. As soon as my train got out of the underground and entered surface lines, everytime the car doors opened, snow would come rushing through. People were sitting with their caps and gloves on inside the train. I was dreading leaving the train when my stop arrived. As I headed out of the station trudging through ankle deep snow, avoiding the gutters lining the side walk, it was near impossible to raise my head to see what was in my way. The snow came down in sheets, slanted at angle directly coming at my face. Cars were crawling when they were not skidding. The 25 minute wait at the bus stop was horrible. At some point I stopped feeling my toes and huddled in the space between the bus stop and the ticket machine to get some barrier from the snow that just kept on coming. Finally the bus showed up. The last leg of this journey was the 5 minute walk home, which, luckily I managed to walk on the street instead of the sidewalk, where car tracks had made it much easier to walk on. A cute snowman with a carrot nose welcomed me at the front of my building, and definitely cheered me up. :) As I rushed into my apartment, found that my hair was frozen, lumps of snow had entered my house through the outer pockets of my backpack, my coat, etc. Never did I want my warm apartment more. I got into warm clothes and relaxed with a cup of hot chai. Ah.

Today I decided to "Work from home" as I have no intention of wading through the snow fortress outside. Don't ask me how much work I got done. :/

Don't leave before you leave

2010-12-23T20:48:00.003-05:00

What an awesome talk, and what wonderful points. All please listen.

Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook: Why we have too few women leaders.

This thing about lesser women than men negotiating for pay is really striking and has been mentioned on various platforms. I am glad that I negotiated (Even a post-doc salary, that everyone tells you that there is no room for negotiation) when I was looking for my 2nd post-doc last year. Also, today, on my final paycheck for the year, I noticed that my income did not reflect the same annual raise as recommended by the NIH. While I should have really looked into it at the start of the year, I brought it up with my boss today and he said he will look into it. Lets see.

W O M M

2010-12-23T10:37:00.002-05:00

I was wondering to myself, why is it that I am always stuck in lab over holidays and weekends, when everyone else manages to go off and enjoy the break? How come I always end up in such data-desperation? May be it feels that way because I am stuck in lab now, it is not like I never enjoyed time off..

Also have this miserable feeling about work..trying to put a finger on it and realise that, as always, I am upset at myself for not being able to achieve my own lofty goals. It is really high time I set realistic goals...the holiday period is basically 2 work-weeks, nothing more. Take off two days from it because it is really hard to work on Friday and something or the other will be missing and can't be ordered due the holidays..that brings it to 8 working days. Thats it. Hoping to achieve all kinds of grand plans by just working for 8 extra days is really basically flawed, especially in my time scale of 7 days for an experiment to go from start to finish.

And as far as work goes few things I need to fix to make me more efficient and productive

1) Get a handle on doing more than one project at a time. Typically, I race forth with one while the other gets forgotten, and it is very difficult to go back to it and pick up from where I left. To maintain some sense, I have started sticking an up-to-date post it on the project folder, writing exactly what experiment needs to be done next for that project, so that whenever I want to start, I can simply set up the experiment, instead of sitting at my desk, poring over the notebook, reorienting myself, and lamenting my loss of time.

2) Rid myself of mental blocks associated with some activities. We all have parts of our work we hate- it might be mind numbing activities like counting cells, or really repetitive or mundane work, or really detailed/difficult work which has a high failure rate. Every time one of these activities are embedded in my project, I put it off, thereby stalling the entire project. When I finally get around to doing it, I realise it was not so bad after all. So, I need to rid myself of mental blocks, and just do the damn experiment. If it fails, I will just have to repeat it. And again. No need for much drama, self-flogging, feet-dragging etc. to accompany these activities. Everyone has to count cells and organize samples and do the grunt work to get to the sexy part.

3) Also, make some of the grunt work more appealing , or less unappealing, by being more organized and clear cut and breaking it down.

4) Finally, must draw up a realistic time-table of goals. And stick to it. The operative word is realistic. Account for fatigue, boredoom, getting in late, not coming in on the weekend.

blah

2010-12-20T14:13:00.001-05:00

Buying gifts is fun, except for dealing crazy holiday shopping crowd. I spent more time on lines at the checkout counters in various stores yesterday than the time I spent picking my gift. On the other hand, I got some nice gifts and was quite excited about them. Today I spent 45 mins in at the post office, with only one counter open and a line that went out the door. And here's the kicker- I spent more $$ on express shipping- because the stuff had to reach someone in two days in time for them to take it to India - than the cost of the gift. With some better planning, I could've bought my friend the nicer and more expensive gift using the money I spent on shipping.

Had to get it out of my system. Argh. Stupid things that I do.

Next time: buy online, get it shipped directly to the kind courier person.

That said, there is still some joy in picking a gift, packing the box and shipping it that cannot be the same as ordering online and having it directly shipped. I will go with that for now so I sleep easy and stop kicking my shins.

I want

2010-12-16T22:53:00.001-05:00

The following ringtone for my phone, which I'm going to christen sheela

My name is Sheela,
Sheela ki jawani,
I'm to sexy for you,
Main tere haath na aani.

yeah!

On the choices we make, the paths we choose.

2010-12-15T20:49:00.002-05:00

Bitter sweet. More bitter than sweet. I should be ecstatic today, got a really tough experiment to work after a lot of head-breaking. But, unfortunately I am not all that ecstatic. Because I had pretty much given up on it weeks ago and made the choice to pursue an inferior approach. There were deadlines and so we had to pick between keeping on trying with the new approach or going with the inferior approach that I had gotten up and running. So we committed to that inferior approach, which means we locked in $20K for it. We cannot back out of that. I continued to pursue this better approach in my "spare time" because I wanted to learn how to do it, and now, I have been able to get it to work, but unfortunately I won't be using it. Such a crying shame.

I hope my boss can remind me of all the reasons we made this choice and be happy with the choice we made. This back-and-forthness, even after committing, is so typical of me and is eating me up.

Life is like that, eh?

But its a good lesson in choices, short-term versus long-term benefits, pressures of deadlines and..what not. A lesson I will remember.

I am also sleep deprived, hopefully tomorrow will be able to think more clearly and make this out to be less of a tragedy than I am building it up to be in my head right now.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-15T04:18:00.004-05:00

2001..I had just come to the US, very little general knowledge about jews and little awareness about the old testament and all of that. I mean, I'm sure we learned about it all in school at some point- but ..anyhow, I am all excited about Christmas and wish this very obviously jewish professor "Merry Christmas" in a loud booming voice. What was worse is that this was a prof I had an enormous crush on . - intellectual crush.

2010..I am a lot more aware and culturally aligned here now. Today I got out of a 3 hour discussion with a really nice prof- who I have been increasingly awestruck by over the past many meetings- just at his passion for his science, his meticulousness, his patience at explaining things to me...and of course, I end the meeting with a loud booming "Merry Christmas, Dr. K". Dr. K being an obviously jewish name.

Honestly, to me, "Happy Holidays" just doesn't cut it- it doesn't have the merry tone to it that "Merry Christmas" has. And I've always struggled with Happy holidays. What about people who are not taking off during the season? Like me? Should I be offended when you wish me Happy holidays? Crappy christmassy music and over the top commercialization notwithstanding, I love the spirit of christmas. And I guess I have this strong urge to spread that joy amongst people I love, either secretively or overtly. Only that can explain such stupid behaviour on my part.

What to do now? Do I follow up with an email to Dr. K and explain that I meant happy holidays even though I said Merry Christmas? I really like him and I want him to like me! :)

Merry Christmas, all of you!

W O M M

2010-12-11T10:26:00.005-05:00

"You'll be warm tonight" he said. And how thankful I was for him. For the fact that he came home late evening, while I was cooking, and spent 30 minutes..fixing my heat. Right now, the super is my favourite man..and indeed, thanks to him, I have heat! In this pre-war building that I live in, the heaters are ancient and while the management is busy getting the building beautified, upgrading these radiators is nowhere on their list. For the past few days I was wearing three layers at home, sleeping under two comforters and having a really tough time waking up. Everyday I dragged myself out of bed with weird body aches and went in late to work and still groggy. I blamed it all on over-sleeping. :) Coming home late at night after work and crashing, I was never in my apartment long enough to realise that my heat wasn't working. After a lot of self-beating over my inability to get up early, I realised that I was basically not getting any heat. It is fixed now, and what a world of difference it makes. :)

Yesterday I stepped out of the building to snow flurries that I wasn't expecting at all. It was pretty and cheered me up despite the cold - it was a good thing I was dressed well so I could enjoy the walk home. The winter, with its all its nastiness, can be pretty after all, especially when you have heat in your apartment. :)

Some people are very very resistant to help, I have realised, and that is probably the single most thing that brings them down. I used to be one of those people that found it very difficult to ask for help. I have gotten a lot better now- both professionally and personally. Professionally, it was thanks to PhDAdvisor's goading- she recognized that this was my weak point- and always chided me for spending too long trying to figure something out on my own before I stuck my head out and asked for help, and reminded me of the importance of time, and the smartness in asking for help. Personally, I have paid my price for struggling alone, not wanting to take help, only to realise my foolishness later. I have learned, finally, that help is just that- its a push. Eventually, you have to do the work, and you get to enjoy the results.

I don't know how to make others see the wisdom in this though- people who are struggling with their failings- feeling demotivated- stuck in a rut that I so very well recognize- and the only way to break out of it is to get some outside help and take baby steps. But so long as they resist it- wanting to do everything on their own - too ashamed or proud to get help- they only get further stuck in the vicious cycle. Its scary to see others fight similar battles that you fought and not be able to do much about it.

I am doing some mindless stuff at work these days. Working through a huge batch of samples in 3-day cycles. So every third day I am pretty much doing the same thing. I have never worked in such a monotonous mechanical fashion before. It is interesting. It is boring in some ways, but the challenge is in replicating the protocol "exactly" the same way on each of the sixty samples. I am enjoying the challenge in that, and pretending that I'm a robot. :)

The last 2 episodes of The Office (last of this season) sucked big time. Why is a comedy getting all mushy and preachy? It's bo-ring.

I am starting to put-together R2I lists. R2I-lab-list is a list of all the lab stuff I want to take back with me- protocols, tweaks in protocols, scripts, literature, notes from seminars, data slides, etc. R2I-personal-list is the list of stuff I own and want to take back with me. There isn't much in this list- unlike families that have lived here and R2I-ed, I don't have boxes of crockery and artifacts that I want to take back. Between B and me, we have a large collection of books, quirky coffee mugs and some street-art that I collected while living here. Then there is some stuff I want to take back as memorabilia. Bare minimum. Then I have a whole load of clothes that I don't even want to think about sorting through. I had earlier thought of a R2I-shopping list- things to shop for to take back with me (Backpacks, camp gear, DVD sets of our favourite sitcoms), but now I realise that I don't have the money to buy any additional stuff, and really, cannot think of what I would need to buy from here.

Recent R2I's - what did you take back with you?

Mess-magnet

2010-12-07T08:54:00.002-05:00

I think I am drawn to mess. Messy house, messy desk. And this urge to set straight people that are messed up. I don't know where it stems from. I am beginning to wonder if its healthy- this innate need/desire to voluntarily counsel and reach out to complicated people. Of course, all people are complicated. But I seem to have some knack for bringing it out in some people, and then wanting to help them sort it out. God knows I'm not even qualified for it. Why do I do it?

How much can one really help another adult who is fully capable and needs to be responsible for their own decisions? Does talking, gentle nudging, tough love, help in these cases?

All I know is that I never got through challenges all by myself- I had my cheerleaders- friends who cooked for me, who gave me wake up calls, who yelled at me, who pushed me, who told me as it was, who nagged me on gtalk...and thats how the qualifying exams were passed, the thesis was written, the crappy relationship was ended.

So when I see people who are less fortunate than I am in terms of a support system, I want to do my bit. But this time I am utterly unconvinced if I am doing any help and worried about another person's problems consuming me when I have my own plate pretty full.

I guess the bottom line is that I should help so long as I can afford to, so long as I don't let it bring me down.

Saturday AM lazy I don't want to go to lab hence I blog blogging

2010-12-04T13:24:00.004-05:00

Do any of you have friends who cut & paste ENTIRE JOKES into the gtalk window? Mostly dirty jokes? Three paragraphs long? What do you do? I told this friend to stop doing it since it could get me into trouble at work. So now she does it only on weekends. Heh.

From being anti-facebook my sister has gone to posting essays on facebook. I am not sure what to do with that now.

If I had one wish, it would be to please destroy the facebook "like" button. Please. Is there a facebook campaign for that? Why do people use "like" for things like obituaries?

Twitter: I am officially a twitter-lurker, even though I don't tweet. It is a wonderful time-sink. So much nonsense at one click. So many high-faluting people spouting opinions, witticisms, so many people blindly "RT-ing" all that nonsense and proclaiming lame jokes as brilliant and epic. So many people having full blown conversations back and forth. And so many fools wasting time on it all like me. :D

I am becoming dangerously close to crossing over into the dog-lovers world. I worry about me.

I have decided to give little christmas presents to all the people that factor in my daily life. That would be the super, the nice security guard that helps me out, the escort van driver, and the guy who washes the glassware at work and is always chatting me up. Now if only I could come up with something nice to give them.

I am enjoying outsourced. It is funny in its own way. Its like a parody of the opinion American Indians have about indians, and thats what is funny. Also Todd's dimples. Kinda cute. :)

Academia versus Industry take 542

2010-12-04T08:36:00.004-05:00

So, I still haven't decided which way I am going. I have spoken to a bunch of people in India, in my field, who also followed similar trajectories like mine. The impression I get is that pharma R&D is pretty nascent in India, and not really doing much discovery to speak of, not in the areas that I am looking to contribute. On the other hand, academia is enjoying more funding, more encouragement and is a much more attractive option now than it was earlier. My feeling is that at least in academia, I will be in control of the quality of science I do, which is what my ultimate goal is, to do good quality science.

The good thing that came out of these discussions is that a good few people- again senior to me but in my immediate field- feel that I have a very good CV and am competitive enough to apply for academic jobs in the good institutes in India. That has bolstered my confidence a lot. I am slipping back into the mode where I wanted to be in academia for all the things I liked about it- the opportunities to teach, mentor, and generally enjoy academic lifestyle. But, I haven't slipped fully yet. :)

To complicate things further, we don't know yet which city we're going to be in. We want to be in city B2 but B is currently stuck in city B1. :) I know B2 has perhaps the best options to offer me in India, in terms of both companies and institutes. Then there is city D which is also very attractive science-wise- perhaps ideal fit for my profile but both B and I would never want to live there. No prizes for guessing which city that is. :)

Right now the way it stands is that if I am going to be in city B1, I will perhaps go the academic route, because the industry scene is pretty weak there. In B2, I will try for both and see what they have to offer..I am still information-collecting, CV-circulating, talking...

I now know what all those job-seeking seminars meant when they talked about taking the time to network, have informational interviews, etc. It is great that these people I am talking to are so willing and forthcoming with advice and their own stories. It helps me form a much clearer picture of what I am going for, and also lets guage my own worthiness for once, through less harsh judges than myself.

HHMI awards for International scientists

2010-12-02T21:39:00.001-05:00

How cool is this?

New International Competition Focuses on Early Career Scientists

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute today launched an international competition to select up to 35 early career scientists working at academic institutions in 18 countries on five continents with the goal of helping these talented individuals establish independent research programs.

“Science is an international endeavor, and HHMI wants to help develop the next generation of scientific talent worldwide,” said HHMI President Robert Tjian. “We are especially interested in helping scientists through the challenging early years, when they are just starting up their labs and research support is difficult to get.”

The Institute has committed $24 million for the International Early Career Scientist Program and will award each scientist who is selected a total of $650,000 over five years. The competition is open to scientists who have trained in the U.S., run their own labs for less than seven years, and work in one of 18 eligible countries. Those countries are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, India, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, and Turkey. Eligible researchers in these countries are invited to submit applications.

W O M M

2010-12-02T21:01:00.002-05:00

Sometime in the last six months before I defended, I set the following autoreply to my gmail id and stopped checking it

"Dear friends,
I am going into a self-imposed exile starting Jan 16. I have a thesis
to complete and a dissertation to defend. In addition, I have a job to
find and a class to teach. Of course, experiments are still being done
as I type this. I hope you will all understand and overlook my absence
from any social behaviour and communication in the coming weeks. See
you all on the other side of this madness. :-) "

I think a lot of the pressures are similar this time around. I don't have a thesis, but I have immense need for data and a solid story to produce and write. I still have to find a job, that too back in India. And no teaching, but shit loads of experiments to do. I need to go back into that exile mode. But ye saala twitter ko kaun band karega?

WHY

2010-11-30T09:19:00.004-05:00

Is writing such a paralyzing activity? WHY?

Is there anyone out there, who simply puts pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and writes away, without feeling like running away, getting distracted, etc? How do you achieve that kind of efficiency? I'd think having an outline is a start, and then focusing on each bullet point and trying to flesh it out, without getting distracted, staying focused on just that point. This is what Ph.D.Advisor told me to do. But I seem fundamentally incapable of it.

I have been "working on writing" this review article for the past 5 days now. Mostly it has involved reading the literature, getting distracted into tangential areas, doing dishes, baking a cake, blogging, worrying, reading some more, wondering, doing benchwork instead of writing, and finally, the lowest of the lows, hiding from boss.

All so familiar too.

Sigh.

On customizable browsers

2010-11-29T17:51:00.003-05:00

Apparently we are still very far from having a google-for-life. I will keep waiting. In other news, I found my keys (YAY!) and my camera (YAY!). :)

But while waiting for google-for-life, I have a few other items on my internet wishlist that I think are a lot more do-able and perhaps the equivalents already exist and I just need to find out ?

1) You know how we set can set our homepage to be a certain page on our browser? Now, when I am doing certain tasks, there are a fixed few websites I visit for them. For example, while writing a scientific article, I visit google scholar, pubmed, my institute's library website, etc. While working on a particular kind of analysis I have a few set half-dozen tabs that are open. When I'm wasting time on the internet, I have a fixed few twitter/blog/reader pages open.

Now, I wish I could I create customized profiles on my browser (in my case firefox), so that, I have "manuscript profile" which automatically opens up the relevant pages each in a separate tab, "analysis profile" which automatically loads these 5 -6 pages that I routinely need to do this analysis?

Some may say I should just organise my bookmarks in neat folders and be done with it. But even if I had done that, I would have to manually open up each page. And given that this is a repetitive task, wouldn't it be a lot nicer to have such profiles? Just like having multiple homepages for a browser.

Also, I found an app called Freedom that cuts you off from the internet for whatever amount of time you set it. I have been trying to use it to help me stay focused on work and it is quite helpful, when I have to be on the comp to work but don't need the internet. I am currently using the free trial, if I continue to find it useful I might buy it. Let us see how long i last with it.

Random memories from the wedding

2010-11-28T19:00:00.004-05:00

Just got off the phone with an old pal who wanted all the details of my wedding ceremony. Sharing them with her made me want to write this down for memory, and also I am avoiding the dishes.

I mentioned how, in Telugu weddings, there is this custom of the bride's maternal uncles carrying her in a basket to the mandap. In my case, I was pretty sure that my er..BMI would dissuade any of my uncles from either attending my wedding or signing papers that absolved them of any such duties. Finally, I made a deal with my dad that we would cut that bit out of my wedding ceremony, and do the high BMI equivalent, which is the maternal uncles walk the bride to the mandap.

The morning of the wedding dawned, and I was whisked downstairs to perform Gauri pooja. I was doing this in a tiny room adjacent to the mandap up on the stage. It was then I discovered what a high-handed fellow this pandit was. He was loud and bossy and always yelling, even at my parents. I didn't like him one bit, and amongst other things, was caught on camera having a fight with him at one point :D. Not your traditional demure bride, this.

Anyhow, after the Gauri pooja was done - in full fast forward fashion, I heard him yell at his minions to bring the "Butta" = basket. We had like 5 minutes left for the "muhurtam" - the pre-appointed auspicious time when the groom and bride are officially married, and a time that is of utmost importance to the exact minute. So the pandit was yelling to bring the basket, and saying- "this muhurtam is five minutes away WHERE is the basket!" and I was trying to protest saying "Actually, my father and I decided that we would not be needing the basket" but my dad and mom were busy at the mandap, the pandit was not even listening to me. I began hoping that the basket was just symbolic. May be some tiny basket would be brought. Next thing I know, this huge basket has been commissioned. The pandit yelled at me again to sit in it, and I, swept in the sense of rush and urgency, alighted into the basket putting my best foot forward (My left foot- I am left handed, after all!). Then I heard the pandit scream some more "Ayyayyo! You didn't just put your left foot in! Get up and sit again, this time, start with your right foot, PLEASE".

Then, he goes out back and yells at all the guests - "The bride needs to be carried in her basket! Come forward to carry the bride!" Like he was rounding up volunteers to push a car that wouldn't move. All the yelling was being done in telugu, but clearly it was being translated and broadcasted because a lot of my dad's friends, non-telugu speaking people came up. The next thing I knew, there was like a horde of people, burly, tall men, and I was sitting in the basket, looking extremely petrified and upset that I was actually being put through this. My assorted "uncles" - there were like 7 of them at least, came forward to lift the basket. The pandit was yelling some more in telugu, and I, sitting in the basket, was translating it into hindi/english for my non-telugu speaking strong and brave uncles- "Hold it by the base! Hold it by the base!" They would have to carry me for about 2-3 yards to the mandap, and I was mortified of this spectacle we would be making as we entered the stage area, in full view of all the guests.

Memories of my sister's wedding flashed through me. Then, there were just 4 uncles, of medium height and built, carrying my demure looking sister, and smiling at the camera. I was beginning to see how my pics would look- an army of burly men, probably sweating at the brows, with no time to pose for pictures as they had to get this done before something or someone gave, may be even cheering one another on. And a defiant and scared looking bride glaring at the camera looking like she was being married off against her wishes.

Just as we emerged from the room, into the stage area, the lights went off- power cut! In the few minutes that it took for the generators to kick in, I was carried to the mandap and set down, no mishaps whatsoever, and I quickly got out of the basket and sat myself down. If there was such a thing as divine intervention, I had just witnessed it. There is no photographic proof and nothing on tape covering this most embarrassing event. While my uncles are disappointed that there is no evidence of their bravado, I, for one, am thankful for load-shedding practices in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

W O M M

2010-11-26T08:33:00.006-05:00

A place for everything and everything in its place is not a sentiment I subscribe to. Currently I am terribly frustrated with my penchant for losing or misplacing things. I am unable to find my digital camera since a month, and now, my keys have gone missing for the past few days. Luckily my neighbours had my spare set, but that only has keys to the house. Getting into lab has been an adventure every day- either entering through the neighbouring lab that connects ours or begging and pleading my way with the security guard. And I have, of course, turned my blackhole of an apartment inside out to find these things but cannot find them. As a kid, I was constantly misplacing my books, especially on the day before the exam. Then I 'd weep copious tears and hope and pray that my mom had hidden them to teach me a lesson. That never turned out to be the case, and the book would be found later in some random location in the house. I have even been known to walk in my sleep searching for misplaced notebooks. :) My mother was so freaked out she took to putting on an extra lock on the main door at nights so that I don't step out.

Top on my wish list is a google button for life. If only I could google "my keys" and find the random corner of my apartment where they are sitting right now, I would be so happy. I hope those smart folks at google are listening and working on this.

Thanksgiving was: experiments that didn't work, good food, friends, and good conversation. Lots of eating. :)

During one of my crib-fests with H recently, he was remembering the first time he met me- when I had just arrived in Lutom from India. I was full of spunk and outspoken and had no care in the world. And I had really short hair. :) Now, nine years later, here I am- a lot more mellow, and, along with these long tresses I have managed to also accumulate all this baggage from over the years :). H was saying that I need to work on going back to being that person I was then. I wonder if that is possible- after all, this is what life does to you. It takes you through some harsh realities and shapes you. When I left India, I really had nothing to worry about, at all. It was a carefree existence. Part of me misses that old me, but for most, I have come to accept what I have become as the natural progression of life events. If I were the same person I was 9 years ago, it would mean I had seen nothing in life. But the past nine years have been an enriching and fun ride, that I wouldn't want to reverse for anything. I think back to my lowest moments and am still thankful they happened because of all that I learned out of them. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Or, may be, chopping off my hair will do the trick. :)

I wish I could stay home and laze but off to lab I go.

W O M M

2010-11-23T22:09:00.002-05:00

Pet peeves: People who cannot say yes, or take proffered help out of politeness. I don't know how to push or force my way- if someone says no, i step back and desist. I have no way of telling if they meant no or yes, and most of the times, it turns out they meant yes but said no. What nonsense. I also HATE it when friends use terms like "don't take the trouble". WTF.

All the time I bitch about not having company around here or friends to spend time with, and the one time i get invited to join in some fun stuff, I get invited by two different people for the same day and time. Pah. Greedy me so badly wishes I could go to both.

There was much turkey-talk happening in this lab next door where I spend a lot of time using their equipment. I love going there mainly because the lab atmosphere is so chatty and fun-filled. Not quiet and morose like mine. So I enjoy eavesdropping into the conversations in this lab next door and the turkey-talk, even for a vegetarian like me, got me excited about thanksgiving.

Sorely miss the thanksgivings in lutom. They used to be such fun. Over the years, each one that I went to was different and and an experience in itself. My favourite part of it, second to the food, is just all the people getting together, in a great mood, probably thanks to the food. :)

I feel a lot more sorted out as far as all the going-ons in lab are concerned. Nice feeling to be at peace and have a plan and to not give a flying f*** about anything. Hope I can maintain this detachment.

Very nice post: Lessons from a recovering post-doc.

W O M M

2010-11-21T10:23:00.010-05:00

The wedding of one of our closest family friends going on in India right now. Of course as always, I am missing it, but my husband B is attending it along with my parents. I am enjoying getting to hear what a fun time my parents are having, meeting up with people from our childhood days after all these years. Getting to show off their new son-in-law and B being a good sport to all the uncle-aunty humor. :) Hard to believe that my mom hasn't been to Bombay in over five years- unable to visit even while my sister and niece transited there a couple years ago. I am so glad she was able to go now, and what better time than a wedding to be there. As always, I am sorely missing the hungama and so badly wish I were there right now.

I am glad B went and is having a good time with my buddies even though I am not there. It's fun to hear about all the folks from him, and get updates about the wedding going-ons. Its also fun to reminisce back to our wedding, and feel self-congratulatory about the fact that we didn't have to pose for those stereotypical photos to please the photographer and didn't have long ass lines of people waiting to see us at the reception - instead, we flitted about the room- often dragging each other in opposite directions as we'd see someone of ours come in. That had its own comic effect, though.

It's a happy feeling to think about my close childhood buddy getting married. I am happy for him - in some ways its almost surreal and another reason I wish I were there to see it happen. I am really enjoying the excitement in my mom's voice. It was hilarious to have my dad text me to ask me the name of "that gentleman who used to play tennis with Mr. Gupta- he was here and I wanted to introduce B to him but I couldn't remember his name" :) It's fun to exchange gossip with B- "did you meet her husband? - Isn't she just the way I used to describe her? He said that? OMG he hasn't changed one bit." heh. :)

This I know for sure, the next wedding in our family, I will be there for it along with B, stuffing my face with gulab jamuns. :) And, as I crib about not having friends here to hang out with on a regular basis, its gratifying to see that B makes an effort with my friends back home, so that, when I go back, we can enjoy hanging out with people we both know and like and that will hopefully lay the roots of some nice friendships.

W O M M

2010-11-20T14:24:00.003-05:00

There is now the equivalent of "So, when are you graduating?" in my life. It is called "So, when are you going to go back to India to be with your husband?"

Yeah, same people, in case they are aware of having just asked the same question few weeks ago, will turn it around and ask "So, all plans set for returning in March?"

Please either find other placeholders for conversation that do not involve raking up uncertainties that daunt my life, or else, kindly fuck off.

W O M M

2010-11-18T21:15:00.003-05:00

Reminding myself that I can choose what I want to focus my thoughts, energies and efforts on. What is the end-goal? What is the big picture? And how do minor irritants fit in? Answer: end-goal is data, papers. Minor irritants do not fit in anywhere. Should not take up more than 2 minutes of my day. I don't have the time for it.

The girl at the subway sandwich store used to be my friend - in that she was the one person I'd have a social, chatty conversation with in my day. That was enough to make me keep going there, but then I finally put a stop to it because I can't eat that stuff so often. These days, I work late and take the escort shuttle home. The van driver is now my buddy. It's nice to have a real conversation with him at the end of a long tiring, silent day. I wish I had some lunch buddies or something. The thing is, I save my lunchtime for talking with B on the phone, and therefore never made an effort to go out and seek friends to eat lunch with. But I miss having some buddies around here. People to meet and go out with, bitch about work with, explore the city with etc. But I crib about this all the time, may be I need to make a better effort at it myself.

I have been reading about the whole barkhagate shit. More than I should, more than I have the time for. :) The whole thing is so icky. And the realization that it is mere entertainment at best. Tomorrow is another day, everyone would have moved on to the next scandal.

Since I made a conscious decision to reducing eating out, even if its just boiled vegetables at the cafeteria, I am going crazy coming up with ideas to feed myself. What a pain.

Back to work. Kaafi timepass ho gaya.

On self-righteousness

2010-11-14T21:53:00.002-05:00

Self-righteousness: confident of one's own righteousness, esp. when smugly moralistic and intolerant of the opinions and behavior of others.

I have been accused of being self-righteous on several occasions. To reinforce it, let me say that I never understood why it was a bad thing. :) Finally H broke it down to me superbly. That there is no point in arguing for " the right thing" because a) it is extremely relative and b) we don't live in an ideal world. So in doing so, and doing it vehemently, aggressively, I only end up looking smug and arrogant. You'd think I'd have figured it out by now, but perhaps my thick head was in the way. :p

W O M M

2010-11-14T12:25:00.002-05:00

The truth is, I am trying to avoid working as I write this post.

My neighbours- and the only friends I have around here moved out yesterday. We got along really well and I will really miss having them right next door, making impromptu visits and stuff. I also feel really bad that I wasn't too helpful to them during their move. I put in a few hours of taping boxes, lugging them, etc. but that was it. Partly because I am so unfit, I cannot do the heavy lifting work for too long, my knees and back just revolt. Also I had to work in the lab to make a deadline. We do what we have to do, right? But I can't help feeling a bit bad. Especially because I've enjoyed so much help each time I had to move. I remember the time I was leaving lutom, I didn't call my friends to help me because I was such a mess and wanted to sort it all out on my own before calling people to help. Finally, there was no choice. And all sense of shame/embarrassment left me as my friend M was scrubbing my fridge and cooking range while I kept tearing up junk mail and there were 2 hours left for me to hand over my apartment and get out of there. If not for her just coming in and taking charge, I think i'd have missed my flight.

Then I remember the time I was vacating my Philly apartment. I was dealing with an entirely different kind of mess: I was struggling to finish a paper and was under tremendous pressure to get it done before I moved out of Philly, since I was headed to India right away. So while I sat at my computer and worked, B, who I had been dating for a few months then, was sitting and emptying out my apartment into boxes and taping them and labeling them, and, in what I still consider an amazing feat, did not say a word about how much junk I had. :) That was the point I decided I need to marry this guy. :) :)

I think when it comes to packing up your stuff and moving, we all need the "Take charge" type of friends. People who will pick up and do stuff, and not come and ask you every little thing, while your own mind is filled with dozens of bouncing thoughts. I tried to be that friend for my neighbours yesterday, but wish I could've done more of it.

--

As I watch the way couples interact, I imagine how life will be when B and I finally start living together as husband and wife, almost a whole year after we got married. Right now it feels almost strange to say husband / wife in a marriage that has been solely long distance. I foresee a considerable amount of bickering once we get together because we have both been living on our own for so long now, and are quite set in our ways. I am actually looking forward to both, the living together and the ensuing bickering :).

And in spite of all the problems that come with R2I, I do feel that this might be the best time to leave the US - Job cuts, research funding cuts, and the instability that lies ahead. India has its own share, though, so that will be another struggle.

--

OK time to get back to work. Over and out.

Foreigners means copycats

2010-11-11T23:44:00.007-05:00

My boss was invited to write a section of a review article, and like most busy bosses, he passed on the job to me. I gladly took it up because I enjoy stuff like that. Now the main author of this review article is another PI (lets call him Dr. mainauthor) and his post-doc from another univ. Today I sent them an email asking about word limits etc. In the ensuing chain of emails, in which every contributing author is cc-ed (totally 4 or 5 people) I find Dr. mainauthor asking his post-doc for a link to a plagiarism checker with a note

"I'd like to fw it to Dr. tgfiboss. We have to be careful with outside authors".

Then in the next email, he has sent us all a link to dustball.com with a note

"We use this regularly to check all our manuscripts, this is a good way to check cutting and pasting"

.

I got a bit irked by that but let it go. Then, he follows up this with another separate email to my boss alone in which he says

"Dear Dr. tgfisboss, Please dont take it personally, i admire your writing work, i just want to be careful and avoid problems as we have faced in the past. People from overseas have the habit of cutting and pasting"

What is worse is, this dude is a foreigner himself. All the authors on this review are, except tgfiboss.

What is even worse is, my boss replies to him with one line

"Do what you have to do"

- and cces it to me. Thats how I get to read this dude praising my boss and painting all foreigners with one wide brush. I am not even sure why my boss cc-ed me on it.

This whole thing pisses me off on various levels. The blatant stereotyping, the horrible attitude that it is only important to be respectful to the big guy, the small folks can be insulted/stereotyped all you want and finally, my boss being equally non-committal and dismissive of such attitudes instead of putting in some effort to stand up for the integrity of his lab members.

This is what i plan to write back to him and cc my boss on it (ETA: The text of this email is the result of my husband - B's editing, and hence a lot more professional and less frothing at the mouth :) )

"Dear Dr. Mainauthor

I understand your concerns. I am familiar with dustball.com having used it as a TA when I taught undergrad classes, where violations were prevalent regardless of nationality or country of origin. Please feel free to check my work using your resources.

Sincerely
TGFI

W O M M

2010-11-07T19:47:00.002-05:00

Amongst a few hundred milligrams and lots of warmth and fun, I also gained an hour overnight. Love it when that happens.

Fun weekend- just what I needed. Back to work, recharged, and snapped out of all the gloom that I was wallowing in.

Two nice friends of my sister at the Diwali party at my sister's place gave me a ride part of the way home. All throughout the ride I was struggling to remember one of their names. The two hour car ride was filled with me asking pointed and weird questions so that the wife would say her husband's name, and then thinking up some more strategies when she didn't bite. I am wondering if she is one of those people that just doesn't utter her husband's name or something. She always said "him" and "his" much to my growing frustration.

I don't remember anything that we talked about in that car ride. But now, sitting at home, the name comes to me. Why does this happen to me?

Compare and contrast.

W O M M

2010-11-05T08:46:00.002-04:00

Missing being in India big time during Diwali. But i'm headed to my sister's place this evening and that should help.

The zero-expectations policy is helping. No expectations from experiments, from people, from systems..yeah.

I wallow in self-pity every now and then only to snap out of it when I see that I have precious little to complain about. Sure it sucks to be away from B and to be stuck in a rut at work, but really? I have a lot going for me and need to remind myself of it all every time I go down the self-pity party path.

I think of lutom a lot these days. I sometimes miss the security I felt there. A good bunch of friends to hang out with, more money than I do now, and happier lab-life....But then again, there were a different set of struggles then. I have reminders all over this blog :)

I am *this* close to calling in sick at work today, but I will drag myself to work and get busy and keep on keeping on.

W.O.M.M

2010-11-02T21:58:00.003-04:00

Paneer jalebis. Thats on my mind right now. Gosh. I crave so badly now! Anyone in Bombay reading this, please go and get a plateful of them from your nearest Brijwasi or Chappanbhog or..sigh. Enjoy.

Today I went and bought a whole lot of groceries- restocked after ages- only to come home to find that the lift wasn't working. :( The security guard who I chat with every now and then offered to help me bring my bags up. That really totally made my day, as I was mentally preparing to make 2 trips up and down 5 floors each time - with a bad back. She really didn't have to help me out, and I almost hugged her for her niceness.

Diwali is coming up! Happy Diwali to all of you.

I am starved of good blogs to read. Please to suggest. I generally enjoy personal blogs, well-written, argumentative, and don't take themselves too seriously.. :) Know any?

Today while in the grocery I am talking to my niece on the phone and she says "So what is up?" As if that wasn't bad enough, when I tell her I'm buying groceries, she goes "At 8:30 in the night?" and before I could react to that, she stops and then repeats herself "At 8:40 in the night?". :D

Question:

2010-10-30T21:58:00.001-04:00

WHY are people celebrating Halloween in India?

Pep talk

2010-10-30T18:49:00.003-04:00

Lab politics have been unfolding over the past few weeks. I have learned some more lessons. May be someday I'll get very good at playing the game the way it is played. I am definitely getting better at it.

For now, I will keep on keeping on, until I reach the end, turning every problem into an opportunity along the way. I know that sounds terribly cliched, but it really is the only way to go for me, cliches be damned.

And the other thing is, things are only as big as I make them out to be. Two years ago I was obsessing over happenings in the philly lab. It has remained but a blip. This shall too. I need to work on my science, and keep having fun while I am at it.

The weekend that was

2010-10-24T20:31:00.003-04:00

My sis and niece came and spent the weekend with me. I had always thought about taking my niece around the city, showing her all the cool stuff and treating her to some of the best cupcakes I have ever eaten here. I finally got to do all of it and more. On Saturday we hung out in the city pretty late into the evening, taking in the crowds, the craziness and more. Against all my principles, I even took her to that big toy store i won't name and give google hits to.. :) Eventually my poor niece got tired and decided to hail a cab very expertly, all on her own. I was so proud of her taxi-hailing skills. Thereafter, she'd point to every swanky building that came in sight and ask "Is this your building, TGFI-pinni?" :) I wish. :) Speaking of cabs, another high point of the weekend was zipping about all over the place in cabs, as against long-ass subway rides, as that's my sister's preferred mode of conveyance :). Little surprise, then, that her daughter is such an expert cab-hailer. It totally spoiled me and in addition to the sadness I felt after putting my sis and niece on their train home and having to make my lonesome way back, I found myself complaining about the "long" subway ride I had ahead of me (one that I otherwise routinely do) and wished I had asked my sister for return cab fare too :).

On my second twenty-ninth birthday, (just the other day), a really nice guy played sport and brought a cake that wished me a happy 29th. This time though, I got none of that, as my niece insisted on announcing loudly in public that I was THIRTY-TWO years old. Sigh. What to do? May be I'll come around, eventually. Today we got to take part in some fun halloween stuff in the park followed by a yummy brunch in the city joined by my close friend N who was could most identify with my joy of doing stuff with my niece .The gorgeous weather was the icing on the cake, making it a super birthday weekend. Also threw in an impromptu trip to N's house which was even more fun. For probably the first time ever, I have uploaded photos from the day within record time, and couldn't help noticing that all the pics taken at at N's house have the most fun-filled, natural smiling happy faces in them. :) And over the past three years, no matter how rocky or strained my friendship has been with N, she has managed to make each of my past three birthdays so much fun - even the one time she was not here. That takes special talent. :)

On the train ride back home I began getting sad about coming back to my apartment and facing the week tomorrow. Things with nasty coworker reached a new low on Friday and I had a pretty bad blow-out with my boss. But I stopped myself from going down the misery trip so quickly- I was still riding my birthday high. As my sis and B have told me, this is life, this is the real world. I will face a lot more jealousy, pettiness and distasteful experiences as I go on and I just have to keep myself above others insecurities and not let them become mine.

So I go to bed with warm and happy thoughts. Of a lovely weekend- and an exciting week ahead, with a friend visiting tomorrow, bringing me gifts from B :) , and some interesting data waiting to be analyzed. Happy birthday to me. :)

W O M M

2010-10-20T08:40:00.003-04:00

Things have gotten really slow uninspiring and hopeless at work. I am unable to come up with anything positive to say about my project, my lab-life or anything. All my boss has to say is "Keep plugging along". So I will keep doing that. It doesn't help that my lab atmosphere has gotten a bit caustic to be in, thanks to an annoying coworker. That bit, I have finally decided, is mostly part of being in a lab ecosystem. There are going to be some personalities that are unfriendly, inconsiderate and I just have to stop let them bothering me.

My target is to have decent data in two months. It's either that or I call it quits. Then I'll bring the other back-burner project up to the front- the one that I know will get published in a not-so-great journal for a clinical audience.

I don't know- if my life were any different and I didn't have to R2I and I continued in post-doc hell for another 3-4 years like most people in my field are doing would I then have hit pay-dirt and got to call myself an outstanding scientist with a top tier publication? I don't know and I never will. And I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

I sound very bitter and frustrated. I guess I am. But the upside- I am making it into lab everyday early morning. And plugging on despite all the hopelessness I feel. I am doing it quite mechanically, but I am doing it. I enjoy the early morning productivity, I must say, if not anything else.

May be a little detachment from my work is a good thing for me too. If I don't internalize it all and make it about it me, I can stop letting it drag me down and just keep at it. Work smart, work hard, and like I don't really care. That is my new mantra.

You know those combination locks? That say turn thrice clockwise, pass this number, then turn twice anticlockwise, stop at this other number, then turn once clockwise and stop at this number? And then feel the click as you unlock? I have NEVER been able to work those damn locks at work. I have two such lockers, one that I stopped using out of frustration - so my backpack, jacket, shoes etc all just spill over in my desk area- and the other locker I have to use because my clean lab coat is deposited there after laundry, I always get someone near by to open up for me after struggling with it for fifteen minutes. Half that floor knows the combination to it now. I don't care. if they want to steal my lab coat they're welcome to.

So anyhow - in other news, I am taking swimming lessons. (For the second or third time). :) Yesterday I spent my own money and bought such a lock for a locker in the gym to keep my swim gear in. I couldn't believe I was doing it but I had no other choice. So yesterday, before going in for my lesson I decided to stow my backpack in the locker. I peeled the sticker off the back of my new lock that had the code and it just tore up in the process. But I made up a smart way to remember the code. All throughout the lesson I was struggling to stay afloat while not gulping down gallons of pool-water and coughing and spluttering and all that fun stuff, AND remembering to move my legs (we're not doing the hands, yet) - so much work! It doesn't help that my teacher- an 18 year old kid - was telling me stuff like "Nice and slow like this:" and proceeded to demonstrate a slow graceful motion followed by "Not like this" and proceeded to demonstrate a cartoon character flailing and flapping about in the water and thrashing water all around her. Nice imitation, teacher. :/

So, while my teacher was mercilessly mocking my own individual swimming technique, I was thinking about how I would have to struggle again with the bloody lock once I got out. And what if I couldn't get it to open? And worse of all what if I forgot the code? Well - there were signs all over the locker room that said that lockers left locked overnight would be broken, so I figured these guys had a way to pick these locks and I'd just ask them to pick mine so I can get my stuff out. Only problem was it was the ladies locker room so I don't think they'd come in during working hours to pick my lock, unless of course- they had a woman locker-picker.

So imagine my feeling of absolute triumph when I got out dripping wet from shower after the lesson and could manage to finally work the bloody lock all by myself! Yeah! Who cares if I can't swim? I can open these darned locks now without help. :)

Pet Peeve of the Day

2010-10-12T23:28:00.002-04:00

"Inbox" is now a verb? I keep seeing this on facebook "Inbox me your number". Haan? Yuck.

Still haven't found what I'm looking for.

2010-10-11T19:48:00.003-04:00

Particularly disappointing day today. Had a very productive past few weeks in terms of doing experiments- and got back most of my results today. All of them are - well- just non-informative. Pretty, clean, perfect error bars, reproducible, and non-informative. Yes yes, I know that negative results are also results, but :(.

I'm trying not to cloud my approach by going after something which will prove my hypothesis, but the sampling I have done so far doesn't effectively disprove it either. Just tells me I need to look more. Question is how much more and for how much longer? And if I go through all my precious material and keep cranking out negative results, where do I go from there?

A little late in the day to revise the design- but may be I am going after the wrong targets- If I want to address that it would mean redesigning assays, and the whole shebang. An intimidating approach, but one that I need to take a stab at. If I want this to go anywhere.

Data desperation abounds.

Tomorrow I will wake up, bright and optimistic. I will bite the bullet and redesign some assays and see what comes of it. Some intelligent, informed redesigning. May be it will pay off. I will only know if I try it. May be the assays will work out faster than earlier- I have picked up a few tricks along the way- so I shouldn't be so scared of designing new assays.

Onward and upward. Onward and upward. Hum honge kaamyaab..... :)

Nature India

2010-10-10T10:02:00.003-04:00

So I was quite excited when Nature began its Indian edition "Nature India". It has been a source of relevant job opportunities and a way to keep a finger on the Indian science pulse. But I recently happened upon the forum Nature India Forum- a nature networks forum, again, catering to India. I thought this would be superbly useful to me. But check this one thread out . And its not just this one- they are all like that. Seems to me like the Nature India forums is the rediff or cnn comment space of disgruntled academics in India. I have come across an articulate and reasonable post here and there, but most of it is just rediff-y. Sigh. Why is nobody moderating these forums? If I was looking for something to make me feel better about wanting to go into Industry, ~~here is my reason~~ this is definitely not helping: sample this

W O M M

2010-10-09T09:01:00.004-04:00

The day before yesterday I skipped lunch because I was busy. But I had a nice dinner, and woke up yesterday, ate a healthy breakfast. None of that mattered, my body revolted with a horrible migraine around noon yesterday. After a few blinding hours, squinting through my experiments and printing out my notes in big letters so I could see what I had to do, I ate lunch and waited to let the medicines kick in. I really need to recognize, once and for all, that i cannot afford the luxury of skipping meals. The aftermath is just not worth it. Next time I decide to skip a meal, I wish my body reminds me by giving me a tiny migraine-preview. :)

There is this girl down the hallway who is an absolute sweetheart- K. She is extremely pleasant, always smiling, and always chatting me up. I asked her to take care of my experiment for me later at night because I really had to go home- in addition to that, she also gave me a mini massage, which already had me feeling better. So, instead of going straight home, I decided to get a massage at this chiropracters clinic down the street. It wasn't the best massage- the guy was too chatty and ruined the peaceful experience. I tried pretending to fall asleep and not respond but he wouldn't shut up- and what was worse, he was mostly giving self-promotional spiels. Like how people should get massages more often, how he does things, how good he is, blah blah blah. Aaargh.

Usually, the day after a migraine I wake up with a lingering pain in my head and neck muscles. Today though, I woke up feeling great! So I will credit the massage, in spite of the blabber. I wish there was an easier and more affordable way of getting massages more often. And no, not those massage chairs - those are hideous and only good for free trials in shopping malls.

I also woke up to hot steaming cup of poha. Yay for leftovers. :)

--------
I read this last night. Gosh. The nature article touches upon all the points though: the kind of pressures that exist, the reward system in academia- the competition- surprisingly they don't mention the low pay. None of these are supposed to justify the act (A post-doc sabotages his lab-mate's experiments..they eventually catch him after setting up cameras in the lab!) - but they are all factors in the game in which some people do stupid idiotic things like this guy did.

Derek Lowe's post states this

...How often does stuff like this go on? To be honest, I'm surprised that there isn't more of it in academic labs. The competition between individuals is much more fierce than it is in industry (where people tend to work much more in large teams), and frankly, there are more unstable personalities in academia than there are in industry as well. At the same time, this is a thoroughly nasty thing to do, striking right at the basic workings of any research lab. ....

Frankly, I do think this happens very often, at all levels: your coworker gives you a protocol with one step missing, or an aliquot of something that is really old and doesn't work..or spikes your cells like in the story here. Not always do these get high profile coverage like the Nature article. Derek got some backlash for saying that there are more mentals in academia than industry - I don't know what to say to that- partly I do believe that fears of systems, rules and rigor are more in industry- for example you have to write your lab notebook in a specific way when you work in the industry- my paper-towels / post-it notes "to be transcribed" will not cut it. The other point - as was made by a comment in Derek's post - if and when such incidents happen in the industry, they more likely hush it up to avoid bad publicity and plummeting stock prices.

People that do not work in academia or science- what are parallel examples of sabotage in your work-lives?

--------

I am going to capitalize on my good mood and get out of the house- get into lab, go out somewhere..read my book..have fun. Over and out.

The WSJ: "For good luck, More Indians Opt for C-Sections".

2010-10-05T23:19:00.007-04:00

"When the Stars Align, Indians Say, It's a Good Time to Have a C-Section" is the title of a WSJ article by Eric Bellman, with contributions from Arlene Chang.

Really? For a minute I had to glance up to see if I was reading WSJ or the Toilet paper Of India. I thought WSJ was a fairly respectable paper, no?

The reason it took me by surprise is because from my limited knowledge and interaction with moms and to-be-moms in India, I found that most of them do not want a C-sec, and that idea also partly stems from an "old-fashioned" way of thinking- that a normal delivery is a good thing and a C-sec is not. Someone I know had a C-sec and her mom related the news to me almost woefully, even though the baby and mom were fine. There is also some kind of notion that going through the pains of childbirth- particularly labour pains- is apparently fulfilling in some way and necessary.

I also know a lot of cases both in India and the US where the C-sec is the decision of the doctor. This could be due to a host of reasons: A genuine medical reason or A litigation-inspired fear that makes the doc want to cover his/her ass and carry out a C-sec or sometimes, its just a question of practicality for the doctor, his/her calendar, or no time to deal with prolonged labour. Most of the times, I know the mothers to be very keen on natural birth, but eventually give in to the doctor.

Then this from the article:

Indians have been asking astrologers for the perfect time to conceive for centuries. Now, with rising incomes and improved access to health care, many take their gurus' advice to their gynecologists to decide birth times as well.

"In the last three years, it has become rampant. Almost everyone prefers to choose timing," says Rishma Dhillon Pai, a Mumbai-based gynecologist. "It's strange, because you would think that as we grow more modern, this kind of thing would happen less."

While there are no data on how often C-section timings are decided by astrology, the number of caesarean deliveries has surged in India. In the early 1990s, around 5% of births in urban hospitals were caesarean. Today more than 20% are, doctors say, in part because of higher incomes and wider access to health care. (Bold emphasis mine)

In the U.S., the frequency of caesarean sections has risen to more than 30% of births, from around 21% in 1998. The rise has been driven by increases in the number of middle-age mothers and overweight mothers, according to doctors, as well as malpractice concerns.

While the vast majority of Indians still prefer natural birth, doctors say the number of caesarean sections where cosmic timing is a factor has jumped from perhaps one-in-10 a decade ago to as many as one-in-two today. Usually, the timing is chosen only after a C-section has been deemed necessary. But doctors say a growing number of women are opting for the procedure when there is no medical need.

Then the article goes on to describe Indians' faith in astrology, how time of birth is so significant, how in two or three anecdotal cases doctors actually gave in to performing C-secs to suit the mother's superstitious beliefs.

Now I do not expect peer-reviewed-quality in-depth reports replete with error bars and statistical significance from a newspaper, but perhaps the author should have mentioned just how many gynecs he interviewed before he wrote this story. After all, in the absence of any other data, that would've been informative.

To me it seems like the article is conflating all kinds of issues: I am not arguing the bit about how the "time of birth" is deemed important in astrology and how people make kinds of decisions based upon it, but it seems a bit far-fetched to claim that is the reason for increased C-secs in India. If the number of increased C-secs in the US can be explained by more practical reasons ["increases in the number of middle-age mothers and overweight mothers, according to doctors, as well as malpractice concerns"], I don't see why all of those can't apply to India, with the odd section of people who actually want to time their baby's birth so that it aligns with the stars. But of course, its more fun and eye-catching to cater to baseless stereotypes, no?

ETA: see this

W O M M

2010-10-02T00:19:00.002-04:00

It's bad enough that my Ph.D. Advisor and Post-doc advisor try to brain-wash me against industry...now I have my dad sending me subtle hints..like "Why don't you contact so-and-so uncle in ". I don't have the heart to break it to him that I won't make the cut in the mentioned elite institute. Then, every now and then, my dad sends me fws from his alumni e-group, where they are discussing some alumnus who has won a renowned science prize in India, or someone else who has made it famous.

My dad got his Masters from a very prestigious institute in India, and soon after that, took up a job from which he eventually retired after 33 years. But a lot of his classmates went on to get Ph.D.s and quite a few of them are now heads-of-departments at good schools in both India and in the U.S. My dad feels a tinge of envy/sadness that he never pursued a Ph.D... and, I think, would now like me to join this hallowed academic circle. I have told him time and again that I am going to look for an industry job for now and take it from there, and then he immediately backs off, saying "Ok, ok..but no harm in getting in touch with so and so uncle..he may even have friends in his institute in your area with contacts in the industry..". :)

Sigh. I never thought I'd be having to deal with this.

You know how they say in science things come together at the end? I didn't have that happen to me in grad school- it wasn't like i had a 5-year dry spell and then whoosh all this data fell in my lap- I was consistently producing, and wrote up my first first author paper when I was in year 4 or 5. Anyhow, the post-doc thus far has been a dry spell. It's been standardize technique, optimise technique, do assay, no results, go back to fixing technique. And time's a running out. But I strongly feel that it is all beginning to come together now. One technique that me and a coworker were working on for months, trying to adapt to our system, is finally yielding. And as it may turn out, there as no magic trick or quirk - it was just repetition a zillion times until I acquired the finesse it took. In my own project which is woefully data-sparse, I have come up with some "smart" approaches..so that while I take one step back, it might very well end up being two steps forward. I hope so. I am feeling optimistic. I have also learned some important lessons from my grad school struggles- if I have to tack on another author to the paper, so be it, if it gets the job done- and right now god knows I need all the help I can get, so I am not going to even attempt doing each and everything on my own, even though this project is my baby.

In my "copious amounts of spare time" as Ph.D.Adv used to put it (sarcastically), I have been printing out and reading pages from this wonderful resource on Science Careers. There is a lot of good advice in there...may be a lot of it is common sense or stuff that we pick up along the way but reading it in print really helps to fix it in my head, and adopt in my job-searching strategies. And we always learn something- for example- somewhere in there is a tip buried that tells you not to upload your resume to all company websites needlessly. Because, when the time comes to go through a contact you've made at that co., they will not be eligible for a referral bonus if your cv already exists in the company database, so you reduce the incentive for them to recommend you and push your cv in. Who knew?

Time to sleep. Over and out.