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December 4, 2008
…I joined graduate school. Partially, it was because off the “aaaah factor.” The “aaaah factor” being defined as the moment when you realize that you have finally understood of how something operates/functions/works.
Tushar and I were sitting at Dunkin Donuts working on our respective material. It started off with me asking him what fugacity meant, I knew the context it was being used in, but didn’t know the exact meaning of the word. Then I started asking him about partial pressure and vapor pressure. We were arguing for a while, to what we thought was the right answer, trying to prove each other wrong in an attempt to reach an answer that was right. It was the quest to see what was the correct answer that was driving us (atleast me) to figure out and finally achieve the “aaaah factor.” We still haven’t agreed on the answer but atleast that conversation has instigated questions in my mind to figure out how to solve the problem that I have been trying to solve for my masters.
I also came to realize that it is the basics that matter in solving problems of such caliber. If you know your basics very well, you will be able to solve your problem much faster and more efficiently. This whole process has also taught me that the most important thing is to understand how to frame a question. It is the ability to ask questions in such a way that will help you simplify the problem and solve it by answering the simple questions. You can frame that simple question only when you understand how the whole process works, and if you don’t know how the process works, you won’t know what questions to ask, and you won’t be able to answer anything.
To some this might seem like jibber jabber but it makes so much sense to me right now, which is why I am writing it down in my blog hoping that, if someday I loose sight or I loose the understanding of how to solve a problem, I can read this blog and get my thoughts aligned again.
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September 8, 2008
This morning I had a wonderful dream. I was traveling in a bus whose destination I don’t recall. I had no money to pay for the bus fare, so the driver came up to me and said that she would pay for my fare if I did a good deed in return to somebody else. She tore off a bunch of papers from a spiral bound notepad, on which there were a lot of names scribbled down. She wrote her name at the end of the list and said “Write your name at the end of this list when you do a good deed and pass it on to that person.”
For the longest time I have been inspired by the Help Others organization and what they do, but have never acted upon it. I guess now is better than never.
Yesterday after going to IKEA, we went to eat in Edison. I guess I must have gobbled up the food because I was so hungry or something was up with the food that I fell sick. When I got home I had a throbbing headache and my body was burning up. I couldn’t do anything. I fell asleep hoping that would put the headache away, but that didn’t happen. I woke up watched a little TV, didn’t feel too good and then puked. I felt a little better, but not all that much. So i went to bed and when I woke up felt better, except for this thing stuck in my throat that keeps bothering me all day long. It feels like a thorn in my throat. Every time I swallow it hurts. oh well, I am hoping it will go away in a couple of days.
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July 1, 2008
So yesterday, which technically would be day before since I am writing this post midnight, I was pretty tired of staying at home and having nothing to eat. So I decided that I would go out to Atlantic City and get something to eat. So as I drove through Egg Harbor Township, Pleasantville, and whatever else is in between on the way to Atlantic city on the Black Horse Pike I decided to go to the boardwalk since I haven’t been there once since I have lived out here in Egg Harbor Township. So I drove through the city all the way from the Tropicana down to the Trump Taj Mahal to see if could eat anywhere before I take a stroll on the Boardwalk. With no luck, I parked at the Taj Mahal, and walked down the boardwalk. It was a very calm peaceful night. It was raining a little bit. The weather was perfect (for me), and I walked till the Trump and tehn turned around and walked back and drove back home without eating a morsel. Well, I did stop by a Taco Bell on the way, but it was closed. Now what kind of Taco Bell closes by 11:00 pm. That is just plain wrong. Well, so I went home and made myself some Maggi. It was the first time I had made Maggi which wasn’t a soup. hahaha. I hope I get to walk down the Boardwalk again. Well, I am moving out of this place soon, so it is going to be hard to walk on the boardwalk at night…. but nothing is impossible.
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June 30, 2008
Things they have discovered about kissing, taken from a friend’s blog who took it from their friend’s blog:
Disclaimer: I have not checked this out on snopes.com or anywhere else for accuracy, but in the interest of science, I would be willing to conduct a test of my own.
1. Those who kiss their partner goodbye each morning live five years longer than those who don’t.
2. Kissing is great for self-esteem. It makes you feel appreciated and helps your state of mind.
3. Kissing burns calories, 2-3 calories a minute and can double your metabolic rate. Research claims that three passionate kisses a day (at least lasting 20 seconds each) will cause you to loose an entire extra pound! It’s time to start that kissing diet!
4. Kissing is a known stress-reliever. Passionate kissing relieves tension, reduces negative energy and produces a sense of well being, lowering your cortisol ‘stress’ hormone.
5. Kissing uses 30 facial muscles and it helps keep the facial muscles tight, preventing baggy cheeks! The tension in the muscles caused by a passionate kiss helps smooth the skin and increases the circulation.
6. Kissing is good for the heart, as it creates an adrenaline which causes your heart to pump more blood around your body. Frequent kissing has scientifically been proven to stabilize cardiovascular activity, decrease blood pressure and cholesterol.
7. Those who kiss quite frequently are less likely to suffer from stomach, bladder and blood infections.
8. During a kiss, natural antibiotics are secreted in the saliva. Also, the saliva contains a type of anesthetic that helps relieve pain.
9. Kissing reduces anxiety and stops the ‘noise’ in your mind. It increases the levels of oxytocin, an extremely calming hormone that produces a feeling of peace.
10. The endorphins produced by kissing are 200 times more powerful than morphine.
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June 18, 2008
…to a wonderful day.
Friday, June 13, 2008 I remember a hitting the snooze button at 6:30 AM and then going back to sleep. I woke up at 7 am with the memory of having a very wonderful dream. In my dream I was with my grandfather, and I was holding his hand and we walked together for a little bit and he asked me if I wanted to visit some uncle. I said ok and we started walking again and then I woke up. But that dream just made my day. Although I reminisce my grandfather a lot this was the first time as far as I remember that he was in one of my dreams. He was a great man, and I would love to have him back, but that is not possible. which is why we dream!!
I will see you again. But not yet, not yet!!
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June 4, 2008
This post is from a long time ago, saved in my “to be posted section” which I never got around to. 
This Sunday was quite different from any other Sunday. It started off with me picking up Steve and then going over to Rod’s house so we could go over to Pennsylvania for Steve’s Ikkyu exam. I was Steve’s uke for his exam. It took us about 2 hours to get there. We were headed to a church in Scotrun, which is Barb’s church in PA. They allow them to practice there one Sunday every month. It is supposed to be a black belt, which means that I wasn’t supposed to be there, but since I was Steve’s uke, I got to attend the class. It was nothing special since no other black belts showed up. It was Barb and Rod who were the examiners and Steve and me who were a part of the exam. Steve had practiced his techniques on me the previous Sundays and looked pretty good. Well at least from my point of perspective they looked good. Most of the techniques I haven’t even learnt yet, in any case the exam went pretty well and after the exam was an oral part for Steve, for which I left the room. I learnt that there was a labyrinth outside the church. There was a path near the parking lot that lead to the labyrinth. I kept following the path which finally led to a tree that had the trail sign on it, but I didn’t see the next trail sign anywhere. As I started on the path, I saw the labyrinth on the right but somehow the path didn’t lead to it. At the dead end, I remembered that Steve and Rod were laughing when they mentioned the labyrinth. So, I gave it a thought and wondered if there was a path ahead so I wandered a little further but didn’t see any signs. Then I climbed uphill from the tree and still wasn’t able to find any signs of the path. I wondered if it was just a path made by the church to make the seeker wonder what the real purpose of the path was.
At first I thought that the message was supposed to say that you don’t necessarily get what you want. So I started to walk back towards the church. Then I saw that I had missed a small passageway that led to the labyrinth. So I went ahead and walked through the labyrinth. While walking through I had realized that not everything is meant to be straight-forward. You need to pay attention to the little things. After walking through the labyrinth, I went back to the church to see if they had finished the oral part of the exam. They were done but Steve asked me if I trusted him and if he could do this one technique on me. I was shocked that he asked, but I was like ok. Then he told me that it was a Kapo technique and that he would knock me out (not literally, but as in I would pass out) and then bring me back with this one technique which I have learnt. Apparently there were questions in the way he had performed it. So he knocked me out and then about 30 seconds later I was regaining consciousness. Just to make sure I was alright, they were asking what day it was, and where I was. I answered Sunday, and with a very questionable tone said…”SCROTUN” and they knew I was back. Then they told me that It was scotrun and not scrotun which is what it looks like when you drive by the road sign really fast.
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June 4, 2008
A couple mornings ago I had another weird dream that didn’t make any sense at all. I was getting a haircut at the place I have been getting my haircuts recently. But I was also feeling very tired during the haircut. I think I fell asleep during the haircut. Once I woke up I saw that my hair was cut very well. So, I paid the lady and was on my way out. My sister was there for some reason and she asked why I was growing a beard. I told her that I wasn’t, but once I looked at my face in the mirror I realized that I had a huge beard, kinda like the one President Abraham Lincoln had. But it also had a couple more features. The beard was sort of stuck to my face like someone had cut up a paintbrush and stuck it so that the bristles were perpendicular to my face. All the bristles were stuck in such a way that I could angle my beard at various angles and it would still be like a stiff paintbrush. I though somebody was playing a practical joke on me, but I couldn’t get it off my face. It felt like it was growing from my skin. Shortly after realizing this I woke up to find my face beardless, which was a relief. After a lot of thinking it sort of gave me a wonderful insight to my actual life. I shouldn’t be sleeping when I am out doing something, kinda like driving. An incident you need to talk to me to find out about.
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June 4, 2008
“Aren’t all Indians supposed to be Hindu, like peace loving……….Buddhists…”
I just couldn’t stop laughing when I heard those words. These were the words from a person that had just seen 2 Indian kids beating up on another kid. The kid getting beaten up was underneath a bicycle. She was passing by in her car and noticed the on-going scuffle. She told the kids to break it up, put the bicycle in her trunk, and told the kid beating up the kid to get into the car or she would have to get her hands dirty. She then took the young man to his house and told his parents of his doings. Although the first people she encountered in the house she took him to were “Ancient Indian Ladies wearing the thing they wear”. They didn’t speak a word of English, which is why she had no idea what they were saying. It was the most hilarious incident in the sense that she told the kid to get into her car and took him to his house. It was very brave of her, but kids these days are crazy. She should have just walked him to his house instead of getting him in his car. But, It was also very noble of stopping the incident from getting any worse. I would probably have done the same had I seen such an act on the street.
I just couldn’t stop laughing to the way the incident was described to me, especially with all the remarks about Indians. I just find it hilarious more than it being hurtful. hahaha.
It was a much needed laughter riot.
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May 12, 2008
So, on April 28, I went to the city to spend the day with my cousins from India who were here as a part of their visit to the U.S.A. The day started off around 11 with me taking the train over to the city. I walked over from Penn station to times square which was where they were staying. Once I met up with them we went over to MOMA. We spent about 4 hours at the museum. Although we spent that much time there we could do only 2 floors and the souvenir shop. I liked the 3rd floor which was the architecture floor. It had some really cool displays. You can see some of the pictures I took on my pictures website. After finishing up at the MOMA we headed back to NJ to meet up with my parents and sisters. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant. The kids then headed over to Cold Stone Creamery to grab some ice cream. All in all it was a fun day and I got to spend a lot of time with my cousin, bhabhi, and nephews. I thought I had a lot more to write about this, but I guess not. So check out my pictures.!!
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April 29, 2008
The third week of April was a really good week for me. Lots of things going in the right direction, the way I wanted them to turn out. So basically my spirits were soaring high in the sky that week. I was getting what I wanted to get done in research, played a little bit of FIFA 08 on my PS3 or I should be saying my sisters PS3 which I took over. The week started off really well with a Friday to look forward to. Friday came along and I got to spend a lot of time with someone I hadn’t in a long time. It was quite a night. That Friday started well, I got some research work done, which also was the cause of me feeling bad cause I had made a small mistake which ended up making the whole solution wrong. It is always the small little things. Since I was feeling bad I decided to go to the gym to take my mind off of it. I spent a little too much time there which made me late to the person I was supposed to meet. But in the end, all was clarified and we had a good time. It was just a wonderful time.
Last week was a little uneventful and things didn’t quite go my way, but I was glad to hear from a couple of people that cheered me up. My cousin from Bangalore was going to be around NY and he wanted me to be there when they go sightseeing around NYC. It would mean I would get to spend time with my nephew whom I knew when he was just a baby. That kept me going. I had planned to meet them on last Friday but due to a change in plans that was moved to Monday, which was yesterday. Instead on Friday MAE Inc. went to watch Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay. It was funnier than it’s prequel and lived up to my expectations. I had a wonderful time laughing loudly and obnoxiously. Then on Saturday, I spent most of the time at home due to a cancellation in plans from an unnamed party in New Rochelle. In the evening I got a call from Tushar & co. to go watch a movie. Forbidden Kingdom didn’t live up to the hype that I had expected from two famous Chinese martial artists. We then went to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall right after to wash out the bitter taste left behind from watching Forbidden Kingdom. It was a laugh riot. I enjoyed the movie. After the movie we moved onto our next destination, which was to satisfy the hunger our stomachs had accumulated from watching two movies back to back. Sunday was another day spent mostly at home, and finally I got to return “The Shoe” which did not arrive in mail even though the stupid people at the store said that they had it in stocks. It looked like the warehouse didn’t want to ship the shoe to me. Then he tried to see if I could get a in-store pick up, but according to him the warehouse had sold it to somebody to avoid the confusion. So I tried on the same shoe just half a size larger. I liked it so I bought it. Now I am proudly wearing my RED Puma shoes which I love. At the end of the day I was supposed to go to Jujitsu practice but my aunt and uncle came over for dinner. So I decided I would spend some time with them since I hadn’t seen or talked to them in a while. I also had delicious food that night. Hmmmmm I miss home cooked meal. Then I slept early for a Monday I was looking forward to. I shall write about Monday in the new article after I am done downloading all the pictures i want to add to the blog.
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