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?

Glimpses

These are some snaps from the available resources i have in my reach!

#1: is the classroom

#2: left 1/3rd of my table.

Snow!

Finally! My first experience of Snow! well, was nothing special or tears-bringing, but still it was a strange feeling to touch it, cause of the humidity, it is still rough and "sharpy" quite unlike the image it portrays. As things start to get drier, it should soften up! Anyway, my first pics.

Guessing Game!

Some interesting stuff i got my hands on this morning, and really complex stuff i learnt about them in my engineering and also learning a great detail now. Lets start a guessing game, what is it, where exactly it is used. If you can mention it to an accuracy of 5 inches. you're good! :D