Another semester gone...

...throwing my sleep schedule out of gear...There are few things as annoying as not being able to fall asleep...I know that the time is right I know that I must I d really really like to but I simply cannot effing fall asleep!Argh I am so annoyed I dont even want to blog about this.Hrmmff.

Like really reallly Randomly...

From around the time called evening today, I have been rethinking memories...The first one was the soundtrack of the movie Lekin which mom used to love listening to when I was young... I remembered the cassette, the player we had, the cover on the cassette of a woman staring off into the distance wearing a yellow lehenga skirt thing..I remembered mom singing along with the songs, Lata Mangeshkars voice which I liked and Gulzar lyrics which I did not because I din't understand them... I came home and downloaded the songs and still din't understand the lyrics...The second one one was of me not understanding Dads coin collection and using one of the coins to buy candy..Not even candy it was elastic I needed because one of my dolls heads was coming off I think...I always felt very sorry about this later...I am not sure why I thought of it today...The third which I remembered minutes ago and which was strong enough to make me restart my poor run down dell and throw off the blankets was the picture of a black oriental looking swan standing on one leg on a red background stuck neatly on a yellowed page.This was my dads childhood card collection...he used to collect when he was young, all kinds of playing cards which he could find.I remember us moving to a new house and me unearthing a rusty green metal trunk...And a maroon book which I opened to find on each page a card with flowers,flowery things, swans, jokers, cars, mountains, trees, rivers, skies and whatnot printed on it.I am not sure why these three I suddenly remembered..The first seems pretty simple I simply miss my mom I think and also maybe my mind considers itself now grown up enough to understand gulzar lyrics (I think if i took the effort to decode all the urdu or rajasthani or whatever that is the bloke writes, I probably will understand them but hey I have a job here and dishes to do in the morning)...the second because I still feel sorry and I would really do anything to get the coin back..Maybe it is a lesson I am learning 10 years late?I wonder which random person on this planet has that coin right now.The third confounds me...Maybe I just saw a lot of birds today or the color red...maybe it has some hidden meaning...I think I thought of it because I like things the way they were when I was a kid...Filled with wonder at discovery of a book full of cards.Like maybe my Dad was when he at ten years of age was putting together a book full of cards.And sadness that he dint find them half as exciting after he turned 50..And maybe I wont either when I am 50..So then is this the same as nostalgia..
Oh hell I think I am just a little homesick.And now I must pray that I fall asleep otherwise tomorrow I might find myself trying to find philosophical meaning in how I dint get much work done in lab.

summer stuff

My roomate moved out and I contemplated inviting the squirell family who lives next to us to use her bed if they wanted but then decided not to I mean think of all the hair in the bathroom and stuff....Sigh OK I did nothing of the sort...If I could talk to squirells would I be feeling depressed over bad data at 5 bucks an hour?Of course not... I would be observed by whitecoats as they made a note in their notebook about the new mental development of "patient thinks her bedpost is actually her secret crush"
Summer is not all bad...The weather is not horrible anymore...It experiments everyday raining in the mornings, climbing to 65 in the afternoons and windchills at night...I have seen 9 movies and even stargazed..But the fact that I am chronicling the weather should indicate the level of boredom I find myself up against..Boredom by itself is not detrimental..But boredom leads to B.B King and Rod Stewart songs..Boredom leads to going thorough old pictures.Which eventually leads to eating a lot of cake and putting on weight.And hence I am probably a little sad and want to go home.
But maybe I don't...I mean I do of course...But Its a 2 way ticket and maybe I dont want to go through that anymore...Oh who am I kidding I need to eat pani puri.Oh sigh.
Stuff in lab is looks like Colin Farrell...Its not George Clooney yet but atleast its not Suniel Shetty anymore...I might even get something real out of it this time around.Not so long ago I had a fight with a friend...Depends on what you call long.This was 5 years ago I think.Well we never really had a fight.We just don't talk anymore.And 5 years later(which works out to"right now" if you are as good at math as I am) it is frightening to put oneself out there to be shot down.Not as bad as maybe being shot down by a moosetracker or secret crush but getting shot is getting shot.With friends its strange.Its not like being in love its not by default like with family its not mutual like the street dog in India I never quite got along with but always desisted from offering the biscuit to in case he decided to bite me in the leg...When things with a friend go wrong it seems to not matter so much in the beginning.I mean theres plenty other friends, theres a boyfriend/girlfriend theres stuff to do college to goto job to look for.So its like having an ugly wart on the nose..It doesn't bother you but you d rather it went away.And maybe when dying you d wish "Oh if only I were dying without this ugly wart on my nose!" The point is clear I think.
But yes...It isn't going to happen this summer maybe it wont happen ever.Sunshine that is...Real sun for once.Hairless squirells, good data, fat free cakes, summer weather and reconciliations with friends simply dont happen.

To be unaware.

This post sort of feels like I am defending my judgement, my sanity, my idealism and my belief of what I think is right, from sidelong looks, glances, hidden smiles of amusement, untrue smiles of sympathy and sometimes the butt end of many a joke.It stems suddenly because in the near past I have run into a surprising number of people from whom the aforementioned looks etc etc were received. I wonder now if I am really crazy, if I am living in a distinctly detached from normal world sort of a plane where only I can see what normal people simply donot and hence I was being made to feel like a pain in the behind. Sort of like the crazy cat lady to whom cats are of such vital importance that many a time, the only man in her life will be a counterpart-crazy cat gentleman who can understand the importance of the felines and cannot understand why anyone would keep dogs or not keep 23 cats up their sleeve and stocking. In the same way, I cannot understand why or how people would not want to turn off the faucet while soaping dishes. Aah, yes you realise now where this is going....Are you also smiling to yourself and shaking your head in an exasperated sort of a way?I can't believe I spent all those minutes reading about the pet peeves of some idealistic idiot who wants to save the world?Well keep reading anyway...Next to saving water, one more admirable cause is to listen to crazy faucet turners and cat ladies.It makes them feel that they are maybe getting through to atleast one person about how very very crucial how important, how indispensable cats and water droplets are...And they really are! I remember my household help once came into moms room at nine in the morning all work being done. She said to mom "Amma I am done with work..Can I fill the plastic bottles in the store room with water from your tap the tanker hasn't come for the past two days to my colony so I haven't cooked and I want to give my kid a bath." I mention this because recently I was at a friends place as he happily soaped away at a stubborn piece of pie stuck to a bowl and the water was running flowing gurgling frothing away into the sink.I turned it off just at the same time when the piece of pie, having irritated its master enough decided to detach itself from worldly things as bowls and flow away.The friend gave self a very irritated look and said as he had to turn the faucet back on "yes I am sure someone could have had a bath in that much" Ha Ha said another friend standing near the stove. Ha Ha said first friend very amused at the anecdote.I din't say Ha Ha at all!And I am so prone to laughing I even laugh at Pink Panther movies!I remembered!
Russell Peters says that Indians are it seems the most penny saving of the lot.He says a lot of things some of which I wont agree with.As a graduate student I myself almost never say no when someone offers free grub.I grub away like I haven't grubbed in ages(I will later offer to help with dishes though).But I will not understand the logic at all when I hear people say "We have free water as part of our lease.You don't have to turn the faucet off while you soap these thirty dishes and spoons" And then I have also seen people who cannot also resist succumbing to the again free outflow of opinions when they visit India...."No wonder I like to stay in a developed country" "That is so unhygenic" "These spoons at that restaurant obviously haven't been washed" "God people here are sweaty they only take a bath once a day?" "Such dirty bedcovers you must fire the maid" "Whats with the powercuts every day?Can't the government provide electricity" "I want to get back to my place where I can leave the faucet on and take a walk.We have free water you see.24 Hours"
And so on so forth.
Why do I feel like I am not entirely illogical if I want to keep turning the water on and off after I soap and wash every dish?But then again I don't understand what the big deal with cats is.





Unless....

Growing up.

Now that I am here finally living by myself and stuff, I thought I d take this chance of salvaging whatever dignity I have and writing my "I grew up" blog at the age of 21 and a half. I have been feeling quite grown up for the past couple of weeks but din't know what this meant quantitatively and what kind of a difference it makes really. Kind of like a definition you know...yes a definition was what I was looking for. Papa actually realised it before I did.I took my own loan(my name on the document not his!) to pay for grad school and cancelled the loan he wanted to take for me.So there he had his "my daughters all grown up" moment. I think he had trouble dealing with it because he still tries to force money on me, finding all kinds of excuses to wire it.
But to me it was just a paper I signed like many others. It was not a definition with enough strength. I could sense something there.. like when you are writing one of those exams where you know the answer you know it you know it damn it but dont know what exactly its called that stupid formula you saw on that page with the doodles, but the light refuses to glow...
Then thanks to bacteria the light glowed like it had never glowed before and glew away to all its glown glory. I know now that growing up, to be described in a sentence which could be interlinked to many other definitions and in its whole does not represent the process as such, but gives a pretty close approximation is this : "When you fall sick, its your own problem." I shall explain.
See I have fallen sick a lot. I have had typhoid, chicken pox, viral fever about four times(I think) and malaria about seven or eight times(Seven to be sure eight I dont know, one tends to lose count). All these times it was somebody elses problem.Mom shakes her head and says "you can stay home from school today" Its her problem to pour hot milk down my throat with me squirming all the while. She talks to the teacher and its the teachers problem to make sure I catch up in class. Its my brothers problem to finish my homework. Its the schools problem to adjust my attendance. The only problem I have is trying to fit as much candy as I can into one day under the pretext of nutrition.
And now that I have a cold and a fever with a bit of a cough thrown in for good measure, suddenly its my problem. I am paying for my classes (not paying peanuts either) and its my money down the drain if I miss em. Its my job to get my homework done and to get those credits. Of course the professor doesn't mind that I might miss a class or two. Its my problem, making sure I follow whats going on in class. Its my responsibility to catch up or stay back another semester. The mice in my lab don't care its none of their business. They need their daily dose of research and they will get it. Its my problem to get better and I find myself boiling my own milk and adding turmeric to it and pouring the whole disgusting glass down my own throat without squirming. So then growing up is when I(not mom) started thinking of whats good for me and acting on it, disregarding the seemingly astute judgement of my tastebuds. And when someone falls sick I say to them "have a glass of hot milk with turmeric in it" and I sound so much like my mom. I sound like a grown up. Know what i mean?

Defrosting of a blog.

I realised the other day that I havent blogged in well over a month. That kind of a realization hits one pretty hard, its sort of like a cannibal watching a pie eating contest on television and realising he’s been having leftover frozen fingers for the past two weeks. For a moment I was possessed by this rather ridiculous idea that maybe blogging has left me. I soon chased it off though, not allowing myself to dwell on the implications of this possibility. If I forgot how to blog then I would probably have to start partying, go to dancing classes, join bridge clubs, become a orinthologist, learn how to play the piano and download movies back to back till my PC burnt out. But the next thing I thought of was that there isn’t any space in the refrigirator the four of us share to put my blog if I started it again. This is when I stopped daydreaming and chuckled. This is what being a student in a shared apartment does then. So then unlike food, I can store all the blog I want.Yay.

Then after 2 weeks on long island I get up from bed and decide to write down everything I have noticed about long island. Sort of like those people who keep diaries and whatnot. So the major areas of my interest we d have to cover would be as follows.

Long island is like an island that is rather long. Seen from a plane, it looks rather like a long gash in the sea made by a particularly big whale who got a little carried away with the surfing. Not that I ve seen a big whale surfing, but you know. One can tell. There are angry cold winds here. One can cover up everything one can think of covering up in variegated kinds and shapes of cover up clothing but they still go after you like Dharmender goes after Amjad Khan when Amitabh Bachchan dies after blowing up the bridge which the bandits use to get at the little village where Hema Malini stays. And one feels rather like one would after going to an aquarium and accidently falling into the piranha tank. There are green geckos. My apartment mate told me something very interesting. She was out jogging in the evening listening to music and not really noticing where she was going and suddenly she sees, about ten feet away looking at her in a decidedly incensed manner, a gecko of alarming proportions. The gecko looked at her and she looked at the gecko and it was an awkward situation. At this point the gecko decided to make things more interesting by starting to run in her direction all the while having a menacing look to the eye. She took the cue and did a palti. So she ran and the gecko ran and it was unpleasant she says. Since then I ve been keeping an eye out hoping to see one myself. But I don’t think even I can get that lucky.

There are beaches here the nearest one a forty minute walk away. Its not a beach where you d go wearing a sunny bathing suit and tropical flowers on the top. More a rocky, pebbly beach with cold cold waves. Like one would go to if one had to cogitate on serious stuff like heartaching or baldness or homesickness. Or like they shoot Bollywood heroes who stare into the horizon seriously while the song meant to depress plays. Nothing like a rocky beach for thinking purposes.

Then there is a big hospital one simply cannot miss. It has three buildings each has about eighteen floors above the ground and a couple under. With lots of little ones scattered around. I went in there once out of curiosity. It took me quite a while to get out and I whack curiosity in the head now if it tries anything of the sort again. Finally theres my school. It’s a lot bigger than I had thought and I never go anywhere without the map. Theres a village nearby called Stony Brook Village and a city called New York and a port called Port jefferson. I havent seen any of these but if they are as interesting as an infuriated running gecko then I know I am going to have fun here.

warming up..been long.

Been so long since I did this. Thought of a few things in the middle but they were against my rules of blogging. yes I have rules too. I dont blog about my feelings. Or things I feel strongly about. Like being a vegetarian. Lets just not go there.

My first week back in the USA. It really isn't that bad when you get used to it. I mean sure you miss them lizards and dirty fast food and the smog and not having to study and the national language etc but its alright.Theres more cheese.Don't get me wrong its not like am regretting this. I want to be here I know I am very lucky. The education system here is great. Especially for average people like me who stare at people who say they got "only 96%" (I ve come across quite a few back home.)

People say this to me all the time; "So how do you feel coming here to the US?" I guess its something you ask people who come to the US. And I say, like people who ve come to the US should say "I am very excited.The opportunities for my field are tremendous."

A lot of other people seem to feel a lot more than I do actually. Mummy for instance. I ve come to a country where no offence but obesity is a bit of a health problem. And every morning when I talk to mummy she says "You are not eating. God knows what you are eating. List out all the things you ve eaten today." Sheesh.

My grandmother says "You are coming here alone all the way this is so great your grandfather would have been so proud. He too came all the way to America and
did his Masters. We are all so proud." I convieniently keep forgetting to tell her that 79,999 more people from Andhra pradesh come here every year besides me.

Scout is happy too. he is on a bit of a diet because he is getting fat. He isn't allowed anything other than his everyday pedigree. But I am me and I give a dog whatever food a dog asks for. I come and he drools and thinks about how nice it is that "that girl I can scam is here again."

Most of my friends are extremely bummed out, one of them was even hospitalised. Ok fine maybe not because I left but still.

So how do I feel then?
The rule comes into effect here.
"I am very excited to be here there are a lot of opportunities in my field." Really.