If this is a dream, please dont wake me up

QoH walked into my office like 2 mins ago, and handed me his edits/comments on the latest draft of the book chapter. There were only 18 comments in the entire 43 page long manuscript. Either I am getting better at writing, or he is losing it. Either way, I am happy. I am starting to think that I might actually get this chapter accepted for publication. If I can convince QoH that it is worthy of publication, how hard can it be to convince an editorial board?

Please kill me.. kill me now

It is about 12.13 AM on Sunday, and I am desperately trying to get some work done and this absolutely incorrigible officemate of mine is making suicide/homicide look like the only options. He is on the phone with his girl friend for the past 25 mins and yapping away to glory. Usually I dont mind this, but he is the worst of all kinds.
First, he and his GF are one of those couples who just about have to tell the rest of the world how much they love each other. Every single sentence either starts or ends with sweetheart, something even more annoying. Oh.. would some please tell me why they have to keep reassuring each other with a “I love you: I love you too” every few mins. I absolutely adore it when they have their “you hang up first” contests. Why god why? Why me?
If their mushy talk wasnt enough, they are one of the much dreaded cat people. I personally dont see why anyone would ever want to have a cat. All they do is lie there and demand attention. As I am typing this, my office mate is telling his GF on the phone how cute his cat looked when they were lying in a pile at the foot of the bed today. Oh my god, HOW did they let such idiots into grad school? Did he actually apply for grade school and someone misread the application as grad school?

Where is our scientic temper?

I cannot help but think that these days its more important to be politically right than anything else. Take the cases of Larry Summers and Ward Churchill. Both of them just voiced their opinions on issues, and they are being persecuted for that. Whatever happened to scientific temper? I thought the whole idea of having Universities is to promote discussion, not ensuring conformance to “accepted” values.

Passwords

It is interesting to note how much control a few measely charectar sequence can have on us. Really, if you think about it, they have more say than anyone else. I hate passwords, and I hate forgetting them even more. The thing I hate the more is the walk of shame all the way to the sysadmin’s desk. Everyone in the office knows you forgot something or couldnt figure out how to get something to work when you walk up to the sysadmin. They dont show it, but I know they are thinking it. How dare you judge me, you judging mocking nincompoops. But the creme-de-la-creme of hates is the “are you that stupid?” look I get from the all powerful sysadmin when I request him for a password reset. I will show you all you password junkies. I will show you.

Counter Envy

So I have been blogging here for a while now, and I am not happy. I have had only 76 visitors in the short 14 days this blog has existed. Thats about 150 visitors a month. Or a meagre 1800 visitors a year. In my random walk through the blog world I often come upon sites that have an average of 500 visitors a month. I get 150, and some idiot gets 500. me 150. other 500. See what I am saying? How do I get more visitors?

Have I met my match?

Ya I told you I was going to work but the T1 connection was too precious to let go waste. I was randomly browsing through blogs and hit upon this gem of a post. What a wonderful way to pass time on the road. Hulai is a worthy foe.

Back from Hiatus

Hello World. I bet you suffered for the past few days without your daily dose of my rants. Fret not, I am back, and I am here to stay.

Basically I was feeling a bit blue, and was tired of posting “life sucks” posts. So here is a brief update on the past few days. I spent all Friday doing NOTHING other than sulking. On Saturday I figured the best way to lift my spirit was to do something “nice” for me and out came the credit cards. Six hours, an *expensive* haircut, one image stabilized lens, 1GB of RAM, and close to $2000 later my mood took an upward look. Hmm.. it was worth it. I was starting to annoy me with “feelings”.

Now I am terrific mood, and ready to kick some ass.

Day well spent

I got up this morning feeling all burnt out. So decided to take the day off. I was in bed till early afternoon. Cooked myself a wonderful lunch. Watched TV. Listened to music. Basically did a whole bunch of random stuff. I took absolutely no phone calls all day. In the evening I had dinner with a good friend of mine. It was fun meeting him after nearly 2 months. After that I went to a movie by myself. And now I am at home. I feel refreshed.

So, QoH called earlier this evening. In keeping with my no phone call theme of the day, I let it go to voice mail. He left a 2 min long message basically saying he liked the latest version of the book chapter draft I had given him. It was really nice. He had never called before to say any thing positive. Maybe he is coming around, or may be its the calm before the storm.

So what’s behind the shroud?

Earlier this evening, we had a fallow up session for the support group I had mentioned earlier. Well its not so much as a support group as a forum for people to develop their intangible skills and discuss their issues.

This person, who we shall just call “A”, who had sat next to me during Saturday’s workshop turned up to the meeting. Based on our interactions on Saturday, I had imagined that she was this enthusiastic, self confident, go-getter who had complete control of her life and was steering it towards a goal she had well envisioned. Anyways, so today she comes to discuss issues she has been having with her project supervisor in terms of the feedback or lack thereof. “C” who was our facilitator for the workshop was leading today’s discussions. He asked “A” a lot of seemingly harmless questions. After a while “A” opened up, and she was talking about how important it is for her to have someone tell her constantly how well she is doing. She was looking for external affirmation of her competence. When asked of her biggest fear, she said it was failure. I was touched by it. Never would I have imagined that behind the powerful image she was projecting was this wonderful soul which was so vulnerable at core. I don’t remember the last time I was moved so much.

We in academia have lost touch with our inner-selves. We interact with each other only on a professional level, and never bother to get to know what the real nature of the other person is. In my case, I go to great lengths to shield it from others, lest they see me as being weak.
I am confused now. Should we open ourselves to others and let them actually be a part of our lives? Or by doing that are we just making ourselves more emotionally vulnerable?

I thought I had it bad

I have often told you how sometimes my adviser can be difficult to deal with. Honestly, there are instances where I have considered changing advisers. Till date, I thought I had got the rawest deal in grad school history.

I went to a meeting of a support group this afternoon that put things is perspective. I cannot discuss the details coz of obvious reasons, but there was this visually challenged person whose adviser was so un-cooperative that the committee members had to actually step in. The person was talking about the hardships her adviser puts her through.

At the end of the meeting, I truely started appreciating how accomodating QoH has been to me. He has his moments, but in general he is not that demanding. Even when he is, he near always has an excellent reason for it.

We as grad students do not appreciate our advisers often enough, and I think its time we did something about it. How about we write to Hallmark and request them to start a “Adviser appreciation day”?