Strip Clubs

First, let me just come out a little. I am Indian, as some of you might have already guessed. Thats not too much of a coming out anyway, since Indians make up the highest percentage of foreign grad students in the United States. But it helps to understand some of my cultural references.

I have started going to the strip club for a few weeks now. It seems to be the only safe, affordable, legal way of getting rid of some of my sexual frustrations. Also, I am "feeling" women for the first time in my life. Its kind of sad that I have never felt a woman's touch (not the motherly or the auntly one) in my life, and of all places, it is a strip club where I have to go to experience it. However, it is helpful to me for a number of reasons. It gives a safe outlet to my frustrated sexual desires, which keeps it from going too kinky and all. I am slowly becoming more vanilla, or so I hope.

Anyway, so I was thinking of going to the club today (I find it really funny that they call it a Gentleman's club) but dropped the idea because of the rains. Also because on Sunday there's a student discount on the cover in a more upscale place(again I find it funny, student discount in a strip club), so I thought I may as well waste my one dollar notes there.

So, my bus was going along the street where the joint is. I suddenly remembered the conversation with a stripper I was having. This stripper, who was particularly kind to me in letting me touch her, told me her name was Kendra. So I was searching for the name in the club website,but could not locate her in the dancer schedule. So that reminded me of an old old Hindi movie I saw in my childhood, where the herione is a "wasted woman" who asks the hero "mere naam nahi puchhoge?" (Wont you ask my name?) and the hero answers "Poochne se faayda, tum jaise ladki to kapre ke tarah apne nam badalte ho" (Whats the point in asking, girls like you change their names as frequently as they change dresses"). I also remembered how strict my parents were about watching Hindi movies. Apparently, watching such movies were supposedly going to spoil your character. huh!

I had a silent chuckle about their conservatism, and what that has led to. Simple entertainments were not permitted since they would spoil the child's character, and here is the child, a few years from that, going to cheap strip joints and spending money on a stripper. I was wondering what they would think of the success of their parenting! :-)

Socializing at Conference

I am at a conference, like some top conference in my field. I am still not comfortable with a lot of stuff in the field. In terms of science, I feel like I will have to learn a lot before I can really go to most of these talks and understand stuff. I understand some of the stuff, but a lot of it still eludes me.

Anyway, what eludes me more is the socializing at conf. thing. Important people talking to each other etc. Advisors are supposed to introduce you to people, but A doesn't. And I don't know why. A knows almost everybody worth knowking here. But she has not introduced me to anybody, not even her own advisor. This is ridiculous! A is not really a bad advisor in many ways, but I found this totally totally rude. especially because this is not the rule. She is introducing my former lab mate to a lot of people. So, i was majorly pissed throughout the conference, trying to go about like some outsider standing in a corner.

Whatever, my talk went okay. Although I would have liked to go to a conference more directly related to my work. People here are sort of excited about the work but they don't understand the nitty gritties of the work. So, I did not get extremely relevant questions. rather it was more like "I saw X happening in the movie you showed" or "what happens if you do Y experiment"

Its again one of those Monday mornings, the way Monday mornings should never be.

I came in late. Was partying with friends till late in the night yesterday.

I am checking out social networking sites on the net since then.

I need to do a lot of work, but havent started yet, and its already "late lunch" time.

Yesterday, there was a lot of discussion about online romances that friends and acquaintances are having over these social networking sites. Over the years, I have become severely dependent on social networking. One of the major reasons for that is the absence of an offline friend's network that I can rely on. I am kind of a shy, bookish kind of boy, and socializing has never been my forte.Online social networking seems to be the ideal way for me to socialize.

However, I sort of felt frustrated to know, that inspite of the endless hours that I "waste" on the sites, I have not been able to come up with a single semi-serious fling!

I guess I am to serious to flirt or something.

Anyways, I want to to change that. I need to. Its not easy being a a single grad student in the US when you are a foreigner. First, race and skin color become an obvious barrier in dating. Secondly, it is also difficult to find somebody of your own liking, in your school. Its much easier back in my native country. I dont think I explained myself properly there. Will try to write more about it someday. But I guess the only chance that I have now is through online socializing.

Other than that, I dont see much hope for myself.

Also, my PhD is in tatters but I will talk of that sometime later.

Furtive Glances

I am sitting in the library, trying to wrench out data from a set of experiments.Bored and feeling sleepy. One of the advantages of sitting in the library is that you can catch glimpses of the legs of nice girls. Right now, a fat white girl with glasses on, is sitting beside me. I am staring at her legs.

Slowly, this PhD which is sort of falling apart (or has always been like that), and the absence of a significant other, is making me sick. I am thinking of going back to my higschool sweetheart, with whom I sort of broke up. She doesn't seem sexy enough, I also have a lot of fetish issues, which makes it difficult for me. But otherwise, she is a nice girl. This semester is sort of the litmus test for me. Both academically and personally. The life of a "loser" looks interesting for some time, but there is also a time when beating off to varieties of internet porn and other's sexual experiences becomes so boring. I have never loved somebody in my entire life, it seems. It also is rather sad...

Anyway, I have to collect a few data points and try to draw a graph it seems. Hence, I will take leave for now. In the following days, I plan to give you a glimpse of my sad "single male in an unhappy PhD" experience. There are very few places where I can rant as freely, and talk my mind out. Hence, I will use this space for that.