Memorial Day

So I went whale watching yesterday. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Perfect to be outside and perfect to take a cruise. I was dressed for the summer. Lathed with sunscreen. Shades were out for the first time this year. And the cruise was fun. We saw 3 different species of whales...Humpbacks, Minke and Fin whales.

The guide was knowledgeable and made the trip more enjoyable. But I have had it with the whales. This is the 3rd time I've gone whale watching in 3 years. And it grows old after the 3rd time. You have to squint and look really hard to see them, unless you are lucky enough to be standing on the same side of the boat that they show up at. The catamaran lurches. And yesterday was a windy day. So it was kind of choppy. I got a teeny bit sea-sick.I am officially swearing an oath to FSM that the next time I go, I will have a kid (my own, not someone else's!) with me. There can be no other good reason to go again. None. 

Plus, I didn't really like my lunch yesterday. Japanese food. Bah! So, I'm still a little crabby from that. Also, I saw a movie that sounded promising but turned out to be a bit of a let-down. Before the rains, it was called. Rahul Bose and Nandita Das star. A few observations:

1). RB's Malayalee accent sucks! He tries, but it just ain't Malayalee. Nandita Das is better.
2). Why is ND always doing these sleazy servant girl roles? (Witness: 1947, Earth)
3). Santosh Sivan makes it look pretty as only he can. 
4). Its too darn slow. And its only an hour-and-a-half long!
5). Men are pigs!

PS: No one really reads this stuff, but if you were with me yesterday and you are reading this, I had a wonderful time. Really. The company made up for everything. FSM promise.

Mmmmm...yummy!

I went to a one year old's birthday party last week. (Yeah, yeah..so my friends have kids. I'm getting old!) This necessitated the purchase of a birthday gift. Since parents are notoriously finicky about the stuff they let their kids play with/put in their mouths/wear, I pitched on a gift card. This meant a trip to Borders. And therein lies a story.

I was at the checkout counter, when I saw this book of recipes of chocolate based desserts. And it only cost 3$. I have recently developed this thing for recipe books. And chocolate is not something I can resist. So I bought it. And then I read it. So of course I had to make something. I spent 3 bucks on the book, after all. So, I picked the simplest recipe I could find. Chocolate truffles. Its Tuesday. I have mid-week depression. Plus I have had to cancel a weekend trip that I was seriously looking forward to because I have to work! I deserve chocolate truffles like nobody does.  

I would put up a picture but they look kind of innocuous. Like mud almost. But they taste heavenly. You'll just have to take my word for it. I swear to God, I could make a living out of this. Like Juliette Binoche in Chocolat. I almost felt like her as I stirred the chocolate mixture and took a tiny lick from the spatula after I was finished scooping it into a dish. It was molten and thick and smelt oh-so-good. Like chocolate (duh!) and cream and vanilla and rum. Mmmm! Most excellent, I say.

Star wars!

Snarkiness from Aamir!

And veiled snarkiness from the Big B.

The gloves are off. The knives are out. Stardust and Filmfare will have to shut shop at this rate. I mean...if the stars can say everything they want to on their own space (with no chance of saying they were misquoted), why would they grant Cine Blitz an interview?

I for one, will cry tears of blood when that happens. I was an avid reader of Stardust and Fimfare back home in India. Once every month, my friend and I would head to Papillon. Our favorite "beauty parlor". And we'd get all the things that girls have done every month, done. And while we were being pampered with pedicures we'd read Filmfare. I couldn't stand Femina or Cosmo. I much preferred reading about Kareena Kapoor's cold war with Preity Zinta than some armchair psychologist's advice on how to make your struggling marriage work.

I remember that I never actually believed those gossipy rags for the longest time. I thought they were making stuff up. Then Sridevi went and married Boney Kapoor. That did it for me. If they weren't lying about that, there's no way they were lying about anything else. After that I believed everything they wrote like it was the gospel truth.

I miss reading that stuff here. Reading the same stuff on Rediff doesn't quite cut it. Besides, you can't really enjoy the pictures unless you can flip through the pages at leisure. But I think the blog version is kinda fun. They are bitchy. They are putting themselves out there. I like. I can't be reading "The origins of genome architecture" all the time, y'know. A girl needs some light frothiness. A Latte if you will. As opposed to an espresso.

I'm currently ODing on lattes. After the last 10 days or so, I don't plan on ever having an espresso again. Ever.

Sunday evening by the lake...

Lake Q is almost at its best...mellow and soothing. Quite lovely!

Ha!

TOI takes WTFness to a new level. But, on the other hand, it does make for interesting reading on a gloomy Friday evening. Makes you think...

1). Maybe there's hope!

2). Nah! Not really!

Life this week....

1).Cooking is therapeutic.

2). Washing dishes is most emphatically NOT. Though I am probably building up some good karma with all the dishes I have washed.

3). I have a most excellent, very helpful advisor.

4). Lately, I have been a most irresponsible grad student. This will change pronto. Now. Today.

5). Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice-cream is most definitely the best. Especially with gulab jamun. Yummy!

6). Apparently, 30 slides is NOT enough for a committee meeting. How many's enough? Guess I'll find out on Tuesday.

7). I make a mean salad. I mean seriously. I'm a good salad maker. Look..doesn't it look appetising?

8). My home looks mellow and quite beautiful in the evening when the sun is setting and there is a gentle breeze blowing and I have a hot cup of chai in hand. Bliss!

A few questions..

So the weekend was pretty foul, weather-wise. Rainy, cloudy, chilly. Not particularly nice weather to go outdoors. (Which I did anyways!) But come Monday morning, and its bee-yoo-tiful. Glorious sunshine, 65F. Not a cloud in the sky and all that. So...the question is, why?

Do the weather Gods not like me? I mean its winter 6 months of the year anyway. Would it be too much to ask for a summer sans the rain?And if you must rain, could you please do it during the week, when I have no chance of going out?

Why can't grad students have secretaries? I need a secretary to organize my notes and my data. I just want to do the interesting stuff. The cool experiments. I hate spending time collating data. Oh wait....thats a PI!

And God...please grant me a vestige of shame. I went 30 minutes late to a meeting with the boss. I hadn't planned on what I was going to talk with him about. I looked, felt and acted like a fool. I need to stop having fun in the weekends. Aren't grad students just supposed to kill themselves working? I think the rulebook says they have no right to a life outside the lab. I am breaking the rules left-right-and-center. Gotta stop having fun. Now. (But its summer...can't I have a leetle fun in the summer?)

Food for thought!

I came across this post on Scienceblogs today. Thought it interesting and thought-provoking. As a very naive grad student, when the time came to make a choice as to which lab to join, I just went with gut feeling. It has worked out well thus far. The advisor is a decent guy with a sense of humor. He is patient and willing to teach. No complaints there. I do know of students who joined labs just because the PI was really famous, and they thought it would be a fillip to their careers. Then they spent 6 years hating the lab they were in. Work sucked. PI was a jerk. Colleagues were terrible.Whatever. I have a classmate who switched labs after 2 years because she couldn't stand her advisor's temper anymore. Getting yelled at on a weekly basis was becoming more nerve-wracking than she could take.

I have to say though, that the best motivation to work is guilt. Your advisor doesn't need to yell at you. Just give you that disappointed look. The one that says, "You're capable of so much more! I have such hopes for you!" I have been shamed into doing things more often than scolded into doing them!

The one thing I do miss in my lab is someone to bounce ideas off of. Apart from the advisor. The other post-docs are nice people, but not particularly communicative. In fact, I'm probably the only one who talks. I think when/if(!) I leave the lab, my voice will echo in its walls for years to come. Its kinda hard to shut me up. And with my PI, the problem is that frequently he goes too fast for me. Then, I need to dodge his ideas faster than I can bounce mine off of him, if that makes any sense!

Finally, if you think the letter in that post was pure fiction, I can tell you it is not. I received an email yesterday from the Graduate director of my program requesting the pleasure of my company at a student's defense tomorrow. FYI, I was planning on going anyway..so I didn't need the gentle reminder. I produce the transcript for your perusal below. (It was sent to all the grad students in the department)

Hi all,
One of your fellow students will be graduating (presumably) this Friday. I think it is appropriate for the rest of the students to attend in support of your colleague. I hope you agree and will make every effort to attend. However, if you happen to disagree, I'd like to pass along the sentiment that you should attend anyway, after all, someday you will be holding a defense, and it will be nice to have someone in the room other than your parents and your committee.

Thank you, and I hope to see all of you there.

I happen to like my graduate director very much. He is on my committee. I have the highest respect for him. The fact that he would send out this email, tells me 2 things:

a). He has previously found that students don't go their colleagues' defenses. Which is stupid. You should go. You might even learn something. Plus, then you won't look stupid when you go to the mandatory party after the defense and enjoy the free booze!

b). He thinks mildly threatening emails might work!

When I received it yesterday, I just thought it funny. And it seemed relevant in the context of the post I linked to. So, I couldn't resist the temptation to reproduce it.

I'm off to drink tea and laze on my lawn in this gorgeous sunshine. Weekend's almost here...Yay!