A Toast

Here is to love, that everyone admits is wonderful and necessary, yet no one agrees on just what it is. Here is to Vixen and Dave.

Vacation Plans

I am thinking of taking about 4 weeks off and visiting my family. Its been about 3.5 years since I met them, and I think thats a long period by any standards. I talked to QoH about it and kinda sorta managed to convince him. I sent J (who by the way is vacationing with his family on a tropical island right now) an email about it yesterday, and havent heard back yet. I am sure he is going to create a ruckus about this, but I couldnt care less. I have started making arrangements for the trip. Sadly, the only tickets available for the dates I want are on the airline I dread the most. I would rather swim across the oceans and walk my way through 2 continents than fly them.

Women… AGGGGGGHHHH

So its been less than 48 hours since the date and I have had 8 emails and 6 telephone conversations with ED.. no make that 9 emails.. one just popped in. I am honestly running out of things to say. I mean what could I possibly have to say that would require so much communication? She called me this evening “Just to say Hi.” How does one respond to that? Can I just say “Hi” and hang up? Oh.. then there is the always dreaded “Watcha thinking abt?” call. Is it ok if I respond with “putting my tongue down your throat” or something equally crass? Seriously, I will never ever ever ever understand women and their need to yap.

freaked out

This morning I realized I am 26. Twenty fuckin six. No, its not my birthday today.. its no where near either. It just stuck me this morning out of the blue. WTF? the last thing I can recall was turning 23. where did the 3 years go? I dont know why, but I am a bit freaked out. I am not ready to be 27 yet. Hell I am not even ready to be 24.

I am not able get that stupid smile off my face. M…

I am not able get that stupid smile off my face. My roommates have asked me twice already if everything is alright. I have been dancing for the last 2 hours. Too much girly stuff.. now I have to do something manly… lots of beer and burping comes to mind.

Last evening’s date with ED went really well. It h…

Last evening’s date with ED went really well. It has to go down as one of the wierdest date I have ever been on. We were to just meet at a coffee shop for a quick drink. She had bought a new laptop and needed some help setting it up. So it was basically a part date and part tech support visit. We got our lattes and mochas and sat down at a table. Brought our laptops out and were talking basically crap. Then she sends me an email as we were talking. Have to admit, it was kind of cute. We were having two entirely different conversations simultaneously. Both of us were pretending it was absolutely normal to email the person you are talking to face to face. After 5 hours, the cafe kicked us out and close doors. On the way home she deciedes to kidnap me, and take me to the most romantic waterside park I have seen. Lets just say things went really well and we were there till 2.00 AM. I got up this morning with a smile on my face. Its been a while since that happened. Anyways, now I am going to get back to work and not think about her. Or just get back to work.

‘You’ve got to find what you love,’

This year’s commencement address at Stanford was delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. As I read through the text, I can see what makes him so great. Here is an extract of part of his speech.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

The full text of his speech can be found on Stanford’s website.

During my last session with WR, she was wondering …

During my last session with WR, she was wondering if I was obssesed with being right about everything. I fought her tooth and nail over it. She had a smirky smile in the corner of her lips, now I understand why.

Anyways, She said that we would be better off discussing my personal life over the next few sessions since I seemed to have a fair grip on my career and was more or less able to deal with it. She asked me to think about me a lot more this week. Think about my life. Think about my personal choices. Things like that… and think I did. Since this morning I have been going over the old email conversations with my family and ex-gf. Yes, I have every single email sent and received since June 2001. I have read most of them till August 2002. I am a bit depressed now. The words in my ex’s emails are haunting me. They are so full of love and care; and all I did in return was to hurt her. How could I have been so blind?

You know what the worst part is? I have a date in another hour and half, and I can barely hold back my tears. This is officially going to be the worst date in history. I feel bad for her. Maybe I should cancel. All I want to do now is curl up in a dark corner and cry.

It has been a pretty busy week. We had project spo…

It has been a pretty busy week. We had project sponsors come over for a 3 day visit to our lab to test the sensors I had developed for my Master’s Thesis. The grad student who was working on it while I was on my internship had dropped the ball and I got an SOS last Thursday to salvage what is left of the project. We worked from Thursday afternoon through Monday morning without sleep and got things in shape for the visit. The sponsors were not overly impressed, but they werent dissapointed either. When they left on Wednesday, all I could do was to lie in bed and not think of work. I worked from home on Thursday to get the tech report on the visit completed. I took Friday off and basically goofed off. I feel rejuvinated again. Watch out world, here I come.

History is not a choice its a fact

I have had a list of books that I am currently reading on this blog for a while now, and it so happens that I am reading “Mein Kampf” right now. Note, it is a list of books that I AM READING, and NOT A RECOMMENDATION list. Aparently I have managed to touch a raw nerve somewhere. Wanna be PhD has been taking me to task over this. You can find a discussion on this in the comments section of the last post, and on her blog post where I have been classified persona non grata. I am absolutely fine with her actions, her blog, her rules, however I am not going to take the book off my list coz of it.

I do not think Hitler was anywhere even near the periphery of being right about his actions, ideas, and ideologies. I do not seek to justify them either. I am not fishing around for inspiration in his book. The violation of human rights and the brutal murder of millions under his rule is dispecable, and historians are absolutely right in portraying him as an evil man for the choices he made.

We are academics and it is our duty to question everything we see. Our one true ability is to be able to form our own opinions without bias. The teaching of history should convey only facts and be free from political motives, personal opinions, biases, propaganda, and other common tactics of distortion. Tragically history is written by victors and is inherently skewed. Think about it. 20 years from now history is going to claim Saddam Hussain as devil incarnate and G.W. Bush as the patron saint of peace and freedom. We how live in the currrent times know both the potrayals are flawed. Are we comfortable with the all of the humanity that is to follow us be mis-informed? So why is it acceptable that I go back to the orginal texts to form my own opinions on the people behind the actions?

The one thing that sets democracy apart from theocracies and dictatorships is the freedom of speech. If we had censored every book that was responsible for mayhem how different would we be, and wouldnt we come off as being hypocritic?

“Main Kampf” questionably has had the most impact on the happenings of the 1900′s than any other book from the era and was responsible for much of our history. Do we just neglect the book because of the consequences? Worse yet, should we actively avoid it?

To control anything we need to understand the source. If we dismiss these books, how will we understand where the hatred raises from? If we do not know why people hate each other, how are we going to solve the issue? Arent perpetual wars the only outcome then?