Spiderman

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దించిన తేది: జూన్ ౫, ౨౦౧౦ (June 5th, 2010)

My jinx with Electronics

I remember those days from school when I was a chronic loser of things. Tiffin boxes, water bottles, spoons, tiffin Box lids, pens, pencils, stencils, rubbers (eh, the eraser kind), geometry boxes (does anybody use them anymore??), books, currency notes, and what not! Not even a happy day as my b'day was immune to my losing. A Rs.50 lost on July 17th, 1989 is one of the worst b'day memories I would like to forget. But, I grew out of that phase. I simply stopped taking water bottles, so removing the potential chance of losing them ( I guess thats why I don't intake so much water, now), store my precious stuff at home, and relied on friends for their extra pens, pencils, and some times, extra geometry boxes, much to the chagrin of my teachers, my parents and sometimes of course, my friends, God bless them. Sometimes, I would realize that I had to pay my due to my friends, and would venture to share my stuff, but invariably I would face the loss of an item every once a while. Was I an insufferable amnesiac? Not exactly, cos I had most of the answers for most of the tests at school. Surely someone with poor memory wouldn't do so good at school! But, there I was, suffering the humiliation and deprecation caused due to constantly forgetting my stuff, facing the awkwardness of having to raise my hand in the middle of a test and having my teacher disrupt the blissful silence and gibberish whispers to declare, "Anybody has an extra pencil box"? God bless those poor souls who shared their stuff with me. Where would I be today without them?

As I grew up, this trait still has it's trail on my history. But it seems to me that it has evolved. I just don't lose stuff anymore. It is almost like I push them out of my life, aa, no scratch that.... I push them out of my reality, the dimensions that I inhabit, and make them one with a universe that I am not a part of. Ohkay, you probably realize that is an exaggeration, but live with me and you will sense my predicament. I am just not good at keeping stuff. May be I have the curse of the Midas touch. The bad kind. Now before you start your psycho-babble about "mr-looking-for-an-easy-way-out-by-labeling-self-a-loser-than-doing-anything-about-it", hear me out. Let me list the things that I have lost over the years, in recent memory:

1) Canon PowerShot A520 Camera: July 17th. 2005. A midnight cake with 24 candles blown, and yours truly blown away. An amazing, the-then-state-of-the-art-of-point-and-shoot-photography-camera was given to me as a Birthday gift, by some of my closest friends. I went to a fateful canoeing trip on that day, and as is my habit (for a second I thought habit spells like rabbit with an h. Whose spell am I in!) when am in the company of water, I couldn't stay dry for too long. As our boat capsized, my camera drowned in so much H2O, and mouth dried from my 'OHH!!!'....or more like a dramatic 'nnnnnnooooooooohhhhhhhhhh'.
2) My Sony Ericsson handset: Same day, Same story. Same canoe. Same water. Different electronics.
3) My Sony Ericsson handset: Same brand, Another instrument. Dont remember the day, but the phone slipped from my hand and fell through three floors of housing onto concrete ground. And I thought me and my phone shared a concrete relationship.
4) My friend's camera, Canon Powershot A510: Around July 25, 2005. Right within a week after losing my camera, I borrowed a friends (who was one of the ones that had gifted me the lost one) cos I wanted to snap myself with a friend who was visiting me. And guess what. Though we didn't go canoeing anywhere, the camera lost me in a library.
5) My first laptop: (Demise date: sometime in August 2006) I didn't exactly lose it, it just became unworkable. A Dell laptop that let me push its buttons (ohkaye, I will call it the keypad), got so charged up, that it refused to get charged by its adapter one fine day. The problem, was not in the charger, or the pin. It was in the motherboard that simply refused to accept the charge from the pin.
6) My second laptop: (Demise date: sometime in September 2008) A Dell 710m laptop (I should have known better, you'd say), but this was my favorite one. A small light laptop that was my light pal that worked fine for a couple of years. It still works fine, except for the small matter of its display. I think it was the inverter thats gone wrong (or whatever it is called ) but the display just wouldn't light up! That prompted me to buy my third!
7) My third laptop: Fortunately no demise date has been set, though there was a scare around March 2010.
8) and 9) These are unmentionables. These may not be even objects, they might as well have been people. I have not yet gotten over losing them, and it will be sometime before I get over that.
But I ask myself: Can I ever hold on to anything! or Anyone!!

You know how you are always looking over for some deep inner meaning behind everything that happens in your life? and opens up your mind!!! I keep wondering what lesson I must learn. Obviously, the biggest lesson is to NOT lose stuff. To be careful. To be self-aware. To be un-negligent. In Ross's (from Friends) terms, have "Unaagi" (or was it Salmon roll!!) But until then, may be I should stay away from electronics. Because of my jinx.
But underneath it all, may be there is a deeper lesson. May be All is not lost! May be Nothing in the world is lost or gained, but merely changes hands (the law of conversion of hands??)! Out of lost pencils and geometric boxes, I found friendship based on sharing. Out of wet cameras and cell phones, I learnt lessons about .... staying away from water as much as I can. Out of demised laptops I learnt not to trust Dell too much. Or any laptop older than 2 years, too much. And amongst them all I found friends and family who trust me inspite of all that I lost. May be thats what I was supposed to find. Everybody loses something sometime. Some more times than others. May be electronics will never find a safe haven in my life. And thats why I am happy that my friends are not charged. And their friendship will always be safe with me, because I don't own it. It owns me.

Scrubs – The Season Finale… The Series Finale!!!

Change begets change begets change.  Begets Change.

I could never be as funny as the guys that are behind Scrubs.  Or the guys in front!  For about 2 years now, I have devoured every episode I could think of Scrubs that has been on syndication.  And tomorrow will be the finale of this very popular, beloved show on abc.  And I’m starting to feel like the sensi - the ‘sensi’tive guy that JD is.  I hate to see this show go off air.  I hate not following the lives of JD and Turk (did I just refer them as a couple), the rants of Dr.Cox, the who-has-two-thumbs-and-doesn’t-give-a-care Dr.Bobbo Kelso, the neurotic Dr.Reid, the sexy latina puerto-rican (or is it Dominican) nurse Carla, the weird Janitor and his endless strategies to get to JD, the uber confident Jordan, the Brain trust, Ted’s cappella band, The Todd’s endless innuendos (in-your-&%^os), Dr.Murphy’s trysts with the dead (Dr.Murphy’s laws), their friendship lives, their love lives, their hate-lives, their truths, their lies, their wisdom, their stupidity, their cupidity, their fantasies, their discoveries, their… their… uh oh!!! did I just get into a weird summing up sort of thing that would have killed Jordan and made JD proud!  May be I just did.

Anywho, all said and done, it feels like moving on.  JD has got a kid, Turk and Carla are on their way to two, Dr.Cox and Jordan are already there, Elliot is taking the next step to be with the love of her life, Ted found the love of his life, the Janitor married his lady love, and Bob is retired.  And like all good things, Scrubs has to split.  The lesson?  Friendship is for 8 seasons.  Love is what is left after all the seasons.  Love is what is left when everyone’s settled.  After everyone’s “moved on”.  Remember FRIENDS, the sitcom?  Remember your own friends?  The only sitcom that didn’t end friendship to end on love was probably Seinfeld (that I know of).  And I hear that Seinfeld series finale sucked.

So now, I ask myself why was it that I liked Scrubs?  Was it because of the hilarious way that they looked at the serious profession of doctors, nurses and life savers, and humanized them with know-it-alls, backstabbers, narcissists, crowd pleasers, egoists, egotists, and hypochondriacs?  Was it because of the way relationships and life lessons are the same whether it is in Friends, Scrubs, Sex and City?  Or was it because it seemed so personal, as if JD was narrating my own life, my struggle for an identity, my ambition, my struggle, my friendships, my friend’s love lives and marriage lives, and my struggles with a love life, my lessons, my compromises, my hypocrisy, my honesty?  What could it have been?  Waaa…haaaa…t could eeeeeet haaaahhaaaave bbeeeeeheeen (make Dr.Cox proud)! 

I think ultimately, it comes to the hope that the series represents.  That amidst the blood and death and loss, it is still possible to laugh your way out.  That amidst failing relationships, falling ambitions and fallible successes, it is still possible to rely on your friends and lovers and enemies that makes it all worth it.   That every sitcom can hope for a finale, with a happy ever after assumption.  And so, I will bid another friend good bye tomorrow.  I will fondly carry memories of you, through network syndications.  And hope you don’t come back, for that will keep my hope alive that all characters have a happy after.

Nadal – The King of Carlo

 

It was one of those days when I prayed earnestly for the victory of the King of the clay.  Like all other fans, I knew he is the juggernaut on clay. But with Raffa, I felt everybody would fancy their chances.  Inspite of his invincibility on clay, his recent exploits on hard courts were bound to take their toll.  And I do respect a murray, n djoker.  I am not putting Roger in the same sentence as those, but Roger too.  And on a very good day, Davydenko can be a handful.  Nalbandian and Nadal never met on clay, but Raffa confessed he is scared of Nalby on hard courts.  So, I knew the semi final would be a test.  I knew the final wouldn’t be easy. 

It hasn’t been Raffa’s best start to clay season, since I have started to follow tennis seriously.  I remember last year, Raffa entered the pre-French open tournaments with a double aura of invincibility (was it Verdasco or Lopez who said that Raffa was destroying everyone in practice matches!!!).   Except for that setback due to blisters in Rome, Raffa pretty much roller over everyone, losing perhaps a set here or there (the memory of the second set of Hamburg 2008 springs to life).  But this week, I was watching a different Raffa.  Not the one whose service improved by leaps and bounds on hard courts.  Not one who would risk blisters on his feet before risking an unforced error.  Not the Raffa of 2008.

And so, Raffa’s current and future rivals have found chinks his defensive armor that can get them close enough to take a set off of him.  Especially on his second serves, I noticed that the Djoker today was attacking from inside the baseline, swinging with abandon, and all the while pushing closer to the net.  I worried about Raffa’s serve, I worried about Djoker’s shots that were clean winners, I worried about Djoker’s strategy at the net (because he was successful).  In short, Raffa was falling short, and the djoker was executing his attack first, defend later strategy brilliantly.  If he could only hold his serve, he would come off a winner.  Raffa was struggling to hold his serve, he was struggling to attack for the whole of second set and a better part of the third set.  But as always, his defense and his will pulled him and Djoker’s offense started to crumble.  His set morphed from better with the break he got back, to bitter when he tried to end the points too quickly, and paid the price.  And my prayers were answered.

I was watching a discussion on one of the tennis forums about how Raffa’s level was strangely subdued that allowed Novak to come off as a brilliant player.   Some Novak fans (in fact one) took extreme offense at this.  And I was wondering, if, as fans, we are always trying to rationalize the performance of the stars we support with labels and grades.  But there are facts and stats too.  None of them alone tell the whole truth, and the whole truth is greater than the sum of its parts.  I have seen a lot of discussions about the Roger-Raffa rivalry, where the interpretation of results have been biased by the discussers (no red underline, so this word exists!! Yay!!) based on who their favorite player was.  The argument usually runs like this - “A won because B didn’t play at his usual level.  All you have to do is look at how B played against other opponents and if he (am talking ATP here feminists) could have played at that level, then he could have won.”  I agree that there is some truth to this.  Player’s level ebbs and flows all the time, and it is difficult to maintain the same level throughout the year.  Some can maintain it for a day, some a week, some a slam, some a season.  The Great players, play through the ebbs and flows, and more often than not find a way to win in dire circumstances.  But I doubt if they can win all the time too.  And the flow of their momentum does depend on who is across the net too.  Nadal on a bad day can roll over Stapenek (no offense to Stepanek), but would find it that much more difficult to roll over a Fed / Murray / Djoker or even a Del Potro (though I still think we somehow slipped into an alternate reality for that result).  But is we talk in terms of what might have been, the only objective way is to talk what the result would have been with the “best” Federer of 2005-2006 with the “best” Nadal of 2008-…. (I am hoping he will have a long streak) with the best of Murray…. and there is no way of knowing that.  All we have is now.  And the instantaneous effect the players have on each other and their results.  So for me, the most objective result is to accept what it is and conclude that A was better than B on that particular day (or A is better than B on most days on this particular surface!!!).  but hey, if I was objective,  I wouldn’t call myself a fan.    :)

The Far End of A Long Journey

I kham kvery khappy!  I suck at Raffa impersonation, but the fact still remains -  I am indeed very happy.  At the end of 5 long years, after innumerable vacillations about whether it was the right thing to do, whether I was the right one to do it, whether it was the right time to do it, I finally went into Harris Engineering Building 3, Rm. 102, at 9:30, on April 3rd, 2009.  I couldn’t help but notice the motif of 3 in the numbers.  9:30 –> 9+3 = 12 –> 1+2 = 3.  My defense was to start at 10 and end at 12. 12 –> 3.  Harris Engineering Building 3.  Rm 102 –> 1+0+2 –>3.  I had 5 committee members, of which 4 showed up, one of whom was my advisor. So I was effectively selling my research to 3 committee members.  Call me crazy, but I guess 5 years of “research” trains to see patterns everywhere.  Never mind if they exist only in your thoughts.  Reality is what you make out of random instances.

Any who… the two hours ending at the stroke of 12:13 (there the 3 is again), I got the approval signatures and… and… and… I have never felt so blank in my whole life.  In a good way.  I remembered those days of uncertainty after I got accepted into the PhD program about what my research would be.  I remembered how I had told all my friends every semester that I was closer to graduation, believing sometimes, not believing it at others.  I remembered my time fishing for a problem and facing problems.  I remembered those days with questions.   And I was glad to have answered all of them on the 3rd day of the fourth month.

People have asked me how I felt after the defense.  I thought I would be overwhelmed with joy, sense of achievement, pride, and all the positive emotions overflowing through my  psyche.  I was (and I still am) surprised that the only strong feeling that I have had, is the feeling of relief.  May be I need my family and friends around me telling me that it is a big achievement.  But somehow, I am just glad it is over.  Glad to be ready for the next phase of life.  Glad to be facing the next uncertainty (did I say that too soon??).

But most of all, I hope and wish that getting this degree finally keeps me on the ground, gives me the humility because one of the biggest things I have learnt through my PhD is that you can’t answer all the questions.  There is so much to learn, so much to answer, and so less time.  The only way to be perfect is know that you are imperfect and give yourself time -  to get better.  I hope I get better and better everyday, learning something new, and enjoying it.

So close….

Just checking the performance of Windows Live Writer on Blogger.