Solstice

As it happens every evening, I come out of work with a lot of ideas to write about. Nothing groundbreaking but just recording my thoughts if I may call that. As enthusiastic as I come out, it is immediately quenched; the cold winter wind or the occasional sleet winning over the ever present tiredness, the mild confusion caused by the green-tea high mind in a caffeine dehydrated body intensified by the awareness that I have timed the walk to the bus so closely that if I stop to tie my shoes, I might miss it. If and when I manage to get into the bus and defrost my hands frozen as a consequence of not bothering to wear gloves in my hurry to the bus, i do manage to  type what's on my mind. Not very unlike what I'm doing now.

Some people hypothecate that the world will end tomorrow quoting the age old long-count calendar of the mayans. A friend aptly put it as "it's the mayans' Y2K". Which in my opinion is the best way to look at it. There are two ways to look at the matter at hand, the good way and the bad way, there are goods and bads for everyone involved. Let's say the world ends tomorrow, then it is good for the mayans, imagine them looking down upon us from the heavens only for six billion people to go "ha ha!", wouldn't make a good entry on their CV. They'll be spared from that embarrassment. If it does go the other way and this all turns out to be a misinterpretation of their calendar or just that they didn't bother to make a further one for the next 5000 years from tomorrow, then the world survives, and that's good for us. In my opinion, the mayans aren't quite clever as they're given credit for, if you were hired at a mayan university to design an algorithm for a long count calendar and then build it, in all the godforsaken meetings and discussions with the scientists of that time, wouldn't the question "what happens when it runs out?" pop up? It probably did in other civilisations, our own for example, we didn't bother hiring people to design stuff with an expiry date, we got rid of it all together by making time cyclical, it's the perfect calendar to keep time. Why bother with bank accounts at that time if they sold gold on the streets. If someone asks "why does it go round and round?", the answer "imagine building a new clock every 12 hours to count the next 12 hours, well, i did this instead of that and you're welcome, i'm going home early today". It's as simple as that. So now, the western civilisation proudly proclaimed, as we are rightfully taught at school, that the wheel is the most important invention/discovery in the entire history of civilisation because it avoided hiring a hundred slaves to pull your chariot and another hundred to build new ones because they keep rubbing the old one into the ground every two days. So, they proclaimed the wheel, something cyclical, to be the best invention, then went on to prove that time is linear claiming the laws of physics and then dismissed the concept of cyclical time as…. well, nonsense, found a linear calendar and are now scared that it ends!

What it means for the common man, is this; there is a lot of hype given on the radio stations by enthusiastic and yet seemingly sad RJs, sad that the world is ending, asking people how they are going to spend it and urging them in ernst to party. What that means is that some young men, the sort who wear green pants halfway down their buttocks, yellow shoes with the laces always undone and a cap backwards are going to get really lucky with the sort of girls who wear a differently coloured stocking up each leg and corsets with the laces very tightly done, thinking the world is going to end. while in reality, will lead only to guilt and/or remorse and/or regret when they find themselves alive in the morning or, to children who grow up looking at their parents wear technicolor clothes. With enough of those, the world will end anyway regardless of the calendar.

On the other hand, if it does end, i'd like say see you all on the other side, and a big hug to the missus, who has been for years, the only person with whom i never have to be the least bit technical and an engineer about anything i discuss with her and hence always fun and relaxing to be with, wish to be with you on the other side. Happy winter solstice!

The importance of having broken feet at elevenses

A friend of mine quite long ago made the decision of quitting a software firm and joining the huge army people serving the Indian government. At that moment, given how things were, i was of the opinion that he had just digested a bad lunch which led him to the decision. Five years hence is this year and I find myself in a similar position only for another government. It was indeed a bad meal five years ago which was partly the reason. As hated as governments are as policy makers, they are quite popular, as boring as the prospect sounds, as employers and not just in our vast sub continent. Right about now, one would imagine it to be a tedious job involving pushing files into big file cabinets, meetings with coffee and biscuits and turning up with a polythene bag full of coriander and green chillies won in a bargain during a lunch break. To lay it down straight, it is, but luckily for me, a bit more than that. The prospect was good enough for me to move from the university city of Gottleib Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach to the university city of Karl Benz and Emil Skoda (who wasn't the founder of Skoda Auto but whose company later acquired the Laurin-Klement company from where stems the Laurin-Klement version Skoda Octavia, which was launched as a limited-edition sedan in the years 2004-2005),  one of the homes of the 49th north latitude (they're quite serious about this, they even have a monument to mark it.), Karlsruhe, minutes east of the french border and about half an hour south of Hockenheim, where from 2007 the German round of the F1 championship has been held every alternate year. I am no longer associated with the university, at least not at the moment. what i do at my new work is not interesting to anybody and i myself don't haven't got my head to bear down on what has to be done exactly to explain further, not that anyone would want to know. I did however had sort of a strange two weeks.

I arrived at the first of december to my new place, a freeze-frame from the 70's, kind of like the house in the movie goodbye lenin with strange wallpapers, a vinyl player, novelty switches which you flick up to turn on and roof and furniture made of enough wood to send greenpeace into panic mode. Plus points, the house is cold so i don't have to worry if i forget to keep the cheese back in the fridge, which was helpful since the fridge broke the day i moved in, i have front and back yards, a supermarket i can see from the window and mostly retired people for neighbours. The first day at work was a bit strange, I arrived on time with frozen feet from the cold and my attempt to dress up a little formally leaving the winter shoes behind. Many people to greet and remember especially when being introduced personally to two floors of people having to explain to everyone where i studied, what and how well i can speak german. The next couple of days went smooth, got a new fridge and then one fine morning the main door decided it wouldn't close behind me, since it's an old construction, not only does it weigh a ton, it sits in a kind of rifle-bolt kind of journal bearing which goes up an down a helical axis facilitated by a rod sitting in two socket joints, one on the door and the other on the frame, like the human hip, but at both ends. With the lack of hands and tools, had to call the SOS service and cough up money for them to just lift it up and put it back in its place.

From then on, it has been meetings, introductions invitations to office coffee right after saying i am supposed to take only 45 minutes for a pause and spending hours on learning how to write down what i spent my hours doing. I immediately saw an infinite loop coming. At this point, i wouldn't go as far as thinking it might mean anything boring. just that these people don't wear watches, but they have calendars. And i and breaking into my new shoes, or rather they are breaking into the bones of my toes trying to get to work fast enough so that i can get to my desk and slow things down as early in my day as possible. That, brought to the second problem, food. The alarm is at 6 in the morning and breakfast with caffeine is immediate to switch the internal heating on. considering the short range of my stomach and the cold, i am hungry almost as soon as i get to work, so i introduced another routine into my day while everyone is away for the morning coffee, or may be a little later, elevenses. ok, it is actually around eleven. They have their way of working, they aren't used to the constant job hopping and coming and going of employees that bigger companies are used to, so it takes a while before i get a clear idea what they want from me as much as the other way round. this is already the last week and that means while they are more worried about who will water the plants while everybody is on vacation, options of getting studded tires for the snow, for their bicycle and what to cook for the next coffee break, i am left fed and watered reading literature to get myself oriented to the bigger goals of the department; plus disinfect the kitchen, counter, shelves, washing machine, window glasses, buy six different cleaners and be a proper housewife about being at home. The new year then, considering the mexicans let us live, will be the proper start of work or so it seems. 

Where do you come from?

A few times in a person's lifetime does he meet another which makes him thinks why certain people exist in the first place. Today was one such day for me, also a day which made me think whether working for the government does indeed make you lose all logic and reasoning. I had travelled, in the freezing cold, form Stuttgart all the way to Karlsruhe to document myself and satisfy the german bureaucratic monster which lives by filing name and address of people written on some officially looking, but quite useless until you murder someone, piece of paper.

The job at hand was fairly simple, for me and for the government slave. Go there, flash some ID, write name and address on a piece of paper, sign, get out. Simple? I wish. I went in there, usual greetings exchanged and flashed the ID and stated my purpose. Change of address. Here's what happened.

me: "i need to change my address from Stuttgart to Karlsruhe"

slave: "so you come from Stuttgart

me: "yes"

Slave: "and you don't live in Turkey anymore?"

me: "i am from india"

Slave: "but you said you lived in Turkey"

me: "Sorry, but see my passport, i am from india"

Slave: "yes, i can see that, but you said Turkey"

me: "no"

After a small silence, the rest of the process went smooth. That early 30's scoliotic fingered, deaf waste of hair and makeup called a civil servant was probably sniffing thinner from her nail polish remover before coming to work today. The problems numbed people have include, among others, missing the big front cover of the passport failing to ignore the bright golden emblem with three lions and the fourth sitting across her table, clearly having not a clue of what accents across the world are like. There is a punishment for such people, firstly, 7 million bedbugs should appear in her sheets one morning and then she should be shot by a marksman in the head for being a racist and then in the genitals for being an idiot by getting the races mixed up.  

Lost in Translation

We are ze Men In Black. Our mission is to monitor extraterrestrial activity on earth. If you look into this shiny little object, you'll get all the explanation you will ever need. *poof* 

Aging

The signs that you are really getting old now: when you find a white hair...... in your nose! 


Nature's giving a warning to change my wardrobe and to stop living in the student dorm.

Downing's Street

Lately, some history teacher in Italy came up with a theory that people have been sexists from ages because she thinks almost all streets are named after men while very, very few streets are named after women. My first thought was, why would women want to have their names on something which is regularly walked upon? Besides, we in India named the rivers after women, names of houses in India are after women, ships are named after women and tornadoes are named after women. 


On a serious note, the names of the streets were after men probably because back then women stayed home, and if i am doing business with a man named Robert Downing, it is easier for me to name the street he lives as "Downing's street". Harder to forget that way. No?

Bus Driver

Once I was traveling southern Europe on a bus for a week. The driver Beno and I somehow ended up at the same table discussing things over coffee. Apart from me getting to know he is diabetic which left him cursing through most of Italy where they had bread, honey and marmalade for breakfast instead of Sausage and cheese, he got to know I am vegetarian which made him pull my leg, given a chance. We settled it elegantly, which involved me laughing at him at all the breakfasts in Italy. But, i've been given this look and lecture many times, and Beno was sensible enough not to. But sometimes these conversations don't go straight at all. Example, Beno laughing at me for being a vegetarian is like me laughing at him for being just a bus driver. Different worlds, no idea to each what the other is missing/gaining.

Haircut?

Q: When do you know you're up for a haircut?

A: When you can no longer feel the jet of water from the shower hitting your scalp.

Looking shabby like I do doesn't necessarily mean being shabby. For example, people look smart and intelligent all the time!

I'm back, well, almost, but not quite.

Feels like forever since i've been here. I see the follower's count hasn't increased. That is, perhaps, a little too much to expect when one isn't blogging. I have to see how to make this thing work on the phone so that i don't have to sit in front of the computer to do this. Or, so that i can write paragraph after paragraph every morning on the loo and post it at the end. I'm consider myself quite healthy not to finish an entire blog post in one sitting. Thank you.

One of the reasons why i haven't written about anything lately, is quite simply because there isn't anything to write about. Some other parts in life, like culinary skills, running, a small matter of my thesis and not to mention the new found interest in languages are happily munching away my time. My "writing time" as well has been taken over by the fountain-pen. The pen, indeed is mightier than the sword, or here, more aptly, the keyboard. Finding new pen friends, having a mom who loves to write and a new found interest in making people take up philately by sending them new stamps, also consume time, especially when people set themes for what stamps i have to send them. Gladly, but takes time, you see. But lately, a person totally unrelated to my blogging sphere asked me whether i still keep writing. It was also inspirational and a reason to start again. Thank you Thomas.

Lately, my life has gone towards drooling over academic titles like "Model Concepts for Non Isothermal Compositional Liqid-Gas Flow and Transport" By Holger class or "Multiphase Flow and Transport Processes in the Subsurface" By rainer helmig. Firstly, because of this, i don't have enough time to read other stuff, like a normal book written by a non-acadmeic author. Secondly, i cannot write about what i read here, because, (a). I will have to cite everything, an annoying activity I try to avoid doing because it might lead to someone revoking my degree ten years later because of improper citation. See, german politics for example. (b). I need LaTeX and i don't wanna do that here, too many equations.

I sometimes try to put out a post on my culinary achievements, later realizing that it would be a hundred times in the internet already (see my explanation about citations and relate to this).

So, for the next months, i will have limited access to normal literature, normal english literature, normal non-academic english literature and hence a reduced posting frequency related to it. It's sad, but somehow i wish to get through this phase with my interest to blog still intact at the other end. Your wishes and inspirational words are warmly welcome! Till my next post! Ta-ta!

Thoughts

Here's the thing with weekends, they just end even before you get into a grove! And if you're in my phase of life, not to mention; part of the world, you'll spend it panicking about the week ahead, if you're good, or the entire month; and thats when you need professional help. Mind you, not worrying, under certain circumstances, will also be eligible to necessitate professional help, but in most cases a long whip will solve that trend.

The interesting part of the weekend is how you can come up with seemingly unrelated stuff and worry about it for hours together, losing sleep and sometimes forgetting to cook and eat until your thought process dulls down and you realize you require some fuel. That's when i usually have several bars of chocolates to choose from handy, to take a bite from each would mean you get half an hour before the mind and body goes on strike to cook yourself a warm meal (if you're not used to cold sandwiches that is; I'm not).

One of the thing i was wondering so much about the last weekend was, apart form my assignments and presentations which're coming up; and the exams too, was how civilizations seemingly managed to destroy themselves usually at the most advanced phase of their development . Like the Indus valley for example. They had water conduits and public baths and roads and everything. Some say the river dried up and so everyone died. But still, that was probably just one reason among many.

The fact that mesmerizes me is that, in ancient times, every civilization, without being in touch with each other, went through the same phases of development, in the same chronological order, this is somewhat beautiful and in a certain way mysterious and, for the lack of a better word, fishy even! I say that because, all civilizations were not exposed to the same set of resources. Each civilization had a different set, some had more ores, some had more rocks, and some had more trees, and some had more sand. But the people with ores did not come up entirely with metal underwear, people with rocks, didn't exactly make everything with rocks, people with sand didn't come up with glass (if you look at it, that was how metal was discovered, when they had a fire, the ore melted and they found molten metal, but the same analogy doesn't go with sand and glass). Each one searched out for something particular, found it somewhere far away and dragged it all the way back to do something that meant something great to them. That's just one incident. But if you look at the bigger picture, almost without knowledge of each other, all civilizations, went through the same phases, the discovery of clothing and shelter, the evolution of language and script, the concept of God or a supreme being, formation of society and the workings of that, the concept of after-life, of building structures which are of seemingly no other use than to please some supreme being that they allege exists.

It wasn't like they sent a pigeon saying "dude, we built a temple....... Losers!" and the other guys replied saying, "HAha, we built one too, and you know what, exactly on winter solstice, the sunlight comes straight into the inner temple, beat that, Suckers!". Think about it, doesn't seem right, does it?