So, this is not a good week to work. The office is empty, except for me. There is a brooding silence all over the place. Beyond the office, as I go up to the corridors, the same eerie feeling of emptiness greets me. I only hear the heating machines make a continuous humming sound, which adds to the boredom that lingers over the place.
As usual, the morning is pretty much wasted. I arrived late. My eyes are still heavy from the lack of sleep, which is the staple diet on Sunday nights. My body is still recovering from the unruly routines of the weekend, trying to get into pace with the weekday grind.
The tonic that helps best in these dark times, is the coffee. It is great gift of God, without which inumerable promising scientific careers would have been died a premature death.
However,coffee was hard to come by today. Every cafe in the campus met me with a gloomy closed door, when, in desperation,I went to search for the manna dew. Hence,I had to walk up to Starbucks, to buy theit overpriced coffee.

It is time for lunch. I still havent finished my coffee, nor have got any work done.
But I must go home early today.

Last nights, my darkest fears started haunting me again. But more on that later.

Too insensitive?

It was really bad.
A good friend had called me up a while ago. He wanted to vent something. He needs to talk to me in the evening.
I thought my response to the call was extremely inappropriate. I answered in a matter-of-fact way and set up a time and place to meet. But I did not know how to react on the phone.
I felt like an insensitive brute, who is setting up another business appointment. The feeling that I must have conveyed to him was probably something like I do not really care, but since he wants me to come,I am going etc..

And this was not what I meant to say. I am always happy to lend an ear to his problems, and I am extremely emotionally attached to this friend (lets call him B).

But I somehow do not react properly to conversations in the proper way. I am much better in chat, when I can think over what I can say. Also, I feel like I have put my emotional self so far down into the depths of my heart, that it is often difficult for me to give an answer which are more than matter-of-fact responses. It is often a great danger to expose one's emotional self, for you get hurt too quickly. Especially, in the very crass society of Indian Engineering Colleges, one often learns to keep his emotional self, in a storage shelf, that can only be reached through effort.
After surviving such society, it is often difficult for oneself to bring oneself to terms with the "normal" society, and get into deep friendships and relationships.

Anyway,I am wasting too much time. I have a meeting with A tomorrow, and have not done anything. It is going to be tough today.
Let me go get some lunch, and get working. I am going to meet B in the evening. I think I will apologize for my awkward response. I hope he understands, and that he does not shut himself emotionally because of my cold response in the morning.

how am I planning to spend my holidays?
no,I am not going out on ski trips or meet old friends.
WTF! why is everybody asking the same question?
No,I want to spend my holidays in isolation. It is one of the very few times that I get to myself.
Yes,that is my idea of a perfect holiday.I dont care what people think about me because of that.
and I am certainly not going to answer any phone call or be in on the internet to be disturbed by people to go out to see stupid fireworks on 31st. I think that is the silliest way somebody can spend his holiday.
and I am not spending this long due vacation in this terrible manner coming under pressure of my aquaintances.

Anyway,I did not intend to make a long rant in this post. I only wanted to list a few books I plan to read during the holidays. so,lets start.

1. God of Small Things. Arundhati Roy
2. Shadow Lines. Amitava Ghosh
3. Naked Lunch. William S Burroughs
4. Midnight's Children. Salman Rushdie
5. The Sound and the Fury. William Faulkner

Yes, I think this would be a better way to spend the holidays than stupid celebrations in some downtown alley with fireworks and people dancing around. I dont care if you think I am snooty.

Anyway,I am trying to get each of these books from the local library. I have reserved 1,2,4. I have got 3. 5 is available, so I should go get it tomorrow.

Turning on wireless capability in vista

Was not blogging for a few days due to different reasons.
Just logged in to say something important.
Its been a long day at work, and I have got very few moments for myself today.

Anyway, this idiotic fucking vista is plain annoying! I use my wired connection at office. when I come back home, it will never switch on the wireless automatically.It says it cannot find a network. Then I have to repair the connection. Then it says "windows detecting problem" or some shit, and finally, whola! it comes up with the ingenious solution "Turn on wireless capability".
I have been doing this for about 6-7 months now, and it started getting on my nerves.

Finally,I found this solution here.

http://www.vistax64.com/network-internet/184691-automaticaly-turn-wireless-capability-startup-2.html

Will see tomorrow if this does the trick.

I am too pissed to blog right now.
This is Friday afternoon, and I have just sat down to work.
And all this is not because of me. First of all, this is because of UPS, which is the stupidest company I have seen. people have to skip their offices so that they can fucking deliver their stuff :x
WTF!
and they wont tell you when they want to come.

And then there is this very very idiotic friend of mine, who is absolutely inadaptable to the ways of the modern world, who wants me to assist her in buying a laptop,NOW (calls me uo at 12 and says can you come NOW!)
again WTF!
Wait, she wants me choose a good laptop for her, and then, ha! she has no credit card! she's been in the States for two years and she does not have a credit card!
Then, savour this, she tells me, she does not remember her address properly, after wasting 15 minutes trying to make a Dell account.
Again,I dunno, why such people exist in the modern world. And anyway, I dont like her. I would rather say she is just an aquaintance, rather than a friend.

Fuck! I hate the world now. And different groups of my friends also want me to visit them at Christmas. I just want to be left alone at Christmas, catching up on some reading. I don't fucking want to go anywhere, or "have fun" with people. I just don't feel like doing it.
How can I politely tell everybody "Leave me alone.Please"

huh! and now, in the midst of this, I have to work. Another friend will call me up in the evening, for the usual Friday night dinner stuff.
hate it!

No work will get done this way!

Now I just wish I had no friends!

Leave me alone,for fuck's sake

arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I never get stuff done on the day after a meeting with A. Today was not different. Wasted a whole lot of time in a social networking site. This is a site where I have met e lot of interesting people, but I guess I should stop wasting too much time here. For once I start taking part in the discussion, there is nothing else I can do, but keep on writing posts.
Anyway,I started working after lunch. and till now,the only work that I have done is to break a vial of chemical by dropping it into the floor. :(
Yah!I know!

I have this nasty habit of dropping stuff on the floor. I guess I must be more careful while working with chemicals. Just hope I can figure out this experiment right, so that I dont have to work a lot with chemicals.

Meanwhile its been raining constantly since the morning, giving this damp,London-ish feeling to the outdoors, that I so hate. I wanted to buy some 2.99 T-shirts from the local store, but I dont feel like going. One of the things that I hate about rain is carrying an umbrella. I would much rather that it snows, and the its cooler be a few degrees. There is just soooo much difference between the rain drenching you and dampening your spirits, as well as your only "washed" set of clothes, and the soft powdery snow, touching you like the touch of a loved one. And twilight on a snow day is just amazing. One of the things that I love. Its so beautiful, sometimes going out with the camera, capturing the moments, especially in those old-European0-architecture buildings.
How I wish it were snowing today!

Okay, the meeting with A was fine. She seems to be in a good mood these days. A has developed this very curious havit of asking me "thats all" with a tinge of " So that was ALL that you were doing all this while" added in for an effect. The intention in hard to discern for she does not give any visible/audible expression of dissatisfaction with my progress after tossing out this question.
Actually, a few minutes after this, she commented "you are doing good progress".

Okay,off to the gym. I am so happy to hit the gym after so many days! Last time was a brief session at Friday. From the gym, I am off to Supercuts. I do not plan to call on them today. want to peacefully read a book there, not being disturbed by the persistent "need" to check random stuff on the computer.

I got a Solzhenitsyn for a dollar today. I feel so happy when some Russian book is less than 500 pages. :) My forays into Russian literature have always been cut short by the sheer volume of any readable classic. So, I have satisfied myself with Gogol alone. :P
A very embarassing conclusion to make, but who cares. This is an anonymous blog. There is a certain thrill in writing anonymous information publicly, with the knowledge that theoretically, anybody can read this. :)

Anyway, "One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich" is only 203 pages, that, too with a big font, in the cheap paperback that I have.

Also, before I leave, I can only imagine the ire of some my dogmatic Marxist "friends"(or rather aquaintances) when they discover the book in my place. HA HA HA!

Nowadays, I feel some kind of joy in incurring the wrath of dogmatic fucks!

Have been running like crazy since the morning.
Figured this is a great time to take a break, since I am meeting A in about an hour. There is nothing that I can do now to show her. Hence....chill.
Sometimes, you don't know what to show at a meeting. There are no new results, no minbending breakthroughs that have occurred. The project has decided to go at a snail's pace, and even the results seem to be the ones that "you should have got one month before". I am also starting a new set up, and there is nothing to really talk about it, except that I spent half of my day yesterday(or more than that) trying to think of a decent set up. By the end of the evening, I was so tired, that I did not even bother to take the garbles results (which mean nothing) that the machine was spitting out. Such are the ordeals of grad student life!!
The only silver lining is that if I can get everything working from here on, it should be sufficient for my proposal. That's what I am eyeing at right now. It is such a painful experience to lag behind lab mates who hae come with you, and are alreasy proposing. I am almost running a race now, trying to build a proposal from scratch. However, this is better than the beginning of the year, when I was absolutely clueless as to where this is going, and was not even sure of getting a PhD.

Meanwhile, these two days have whizzed past me, like a racing car at its top speed. Thanks to C( the professor I TA for). He is such an idiot. He gives me these bunch of papers (about 120) on Monday, and says he wants them graded "latest" by Wednesday. WTF!
and A has also given me a handful of tasks to complete before Wednesday. For God's sake, professors, consult the TA before you dump the grading on them. They have got a whole lot of "other" tasks to attend to also. and yes, they also have a LIFE. There was not an hout yesterday when I was not working, except for the time when I was having my lunch,dinner or coffee. :x

I was also pissed at his grading breakdown. Again, C wants to basically throw around marks to everybody. "Give 'em all good grades, and they will all be happy with you" seems to be his way ot teaching. I just can't stand it. He throws away marks for people writing inane things such as the statement of the problem, or given conditions, and then he will have a miniscule number of marks for the real solution. For somebody who is grading the exam, it becomes so difficult to distinguish between people with different skill levels. In the end, there sometimes seems to be little difference between those who have done half the problem right, and missed the correct answer (because of some math error, say) and those who have absolutely no idea which concept to apply. Inflated grading is a huge problem with many professors, especially those that do not have any confidence on their own teaching.

Anyway, my hands are smelling of rust iron and aluminum. Let me get up and wash my hands.

I've never quite figured out how to work in the mornings.
have a meeting with A tomorrow! :(

Oh,yes I am pissed at how Indian leftists are not taking the threat of Islamic fundamentalism seriously. They seem to show some kind of covert solidarity with the Islamists since they are in the same side with them, opposing American imperialism.
When will they ever learn?
The threats to freedom are certainly not from one ideology or power centre, but from numerous ones.
Anyway, will write more on that later.
Let me get some work done first.

Another confused evening. Work has just gained momentum, and already the stars are shining, and hunger is signaling me to call it a day. Meanwhile,I cant figure out how to match the oscilloscope reading to the generated static strain in the piezo. There is no way I can report anything substantial to A (my advisor) by day after.
Meanwhile, I have to grade a bunch of papers for my TA. This is going to be the most miserable week. I dont even know when I will find time to do stuff.
There is no way I can go to the gym today. I even forgot to bring my T shirt in the bag. I hate to skip gym! (where are the smileys in blogger? do they not have it? How dumb.)

I am feeling hungry. Must get something to eat first. Dont even want to spend moey in these overpriced university restaurants for a quick snack. BTW, the university announced a salary freeze today. Seems like there is no way even grad students can stay out of this whole financial mess. Arghhhhh! I so hate these Wall Street fucks who have ruined the economy with their free market free lunches!

random! ain't it? well, that is supposed to the whole point of this blog.

BTW, I just figured out with a glance on the google search, that the only frigging way to add smileys is to save them as images, and upload images with the blogger! this is so shitty.

Its about noon. Haven't started working yet :x
This is annoying. Now, I will have to spenfd the evening here.
Ahh! monday morning blues is what they call them. Also, I have not yet had my obligatory cup of coffee in the morning.
kinda driving me crazy.

First Post

My first post here.
I intend to keep this blog as an anonymous journal of my daily life, recording the most intimate as well as the most mundane thoughts, and events. While I do blog under my real name elsewhere, this blog shall be anonymous, for reasons that will become obvious in forthcoming posts.

Right now, its Sunday night, and time to sleep. Its been a rough weekend, with a all nighter on Saturday. My sleeping patterns (which now occupy a considerable amount of concern in my grad studnet experience) have been drastically affected, and it will now be this already lost battle of trying to wake up early on the Monday morning.