inauguration day

i now have a backpack. this is great, because until now i'd been forced to minimize on what i carried to school, given the limitations of my sling laptop bag. i no longer need to carry my reader in hand, since it has a large backpack pocket to fit into. i can also carry my wallet to school now, instead of carrying loose cash. my trouser pockets are empty, because my phone and keys have a new place to go in. this feels fantastic!

i also made it to my 9 am class on time (this is a first), for i rode my bike to school today. why today? well, my bike was in the repair shop for the longest time. it came out last week, but then i needed a backpack to bike comfortably (though perhaps that was little more than an excuse for postponement). last evening, i got my backpack in the mail. (courtesy beautiful sister.) interestingly, it took some work to remember how to lock and unlock the bike, how to brake, etc. but you know what they say about biking and swimming...

new backpack, (effectively) new bike - i'm a happy camper :).

swamped

gosh. why is the whole world emailing me?! i receive a mail a minute, and i think i'm actually expected to read all of these, but it's just not sustainable. i cannot. world, stop! well, don't stop emailing me, just stop having so much to mail about!

(grumble wumble)

update

it's been so long, and i have so many unfinished posts saved as drafts. life has been really busy, and so fast-paced, that it's rushing off before me, kicking dust in my eyes. like a bull of sorts. or horse perhaps.

anyway, i hope that all my (erstwhile?) readers are doing well. i am alive, but barely. this weekend was mostly spent grading homeworks, and i am still at it. i guess my own weekend homework will need to wait till after the weekend. week 4 sucked. let's hope 5 is somewhat better.

the rules?

what are the rules of etiquette, if any, to be followed when people go out for a dinner or a lunch with a mixed set of non-vegetarians and vegetarians? also, what when there is one vegetarian among many non-vegetarians? and what about the many-one, and the one-one situations? any thoughts? i am a vegetarian, but i was a non-vegetarian for more years than not. i realize it is easy to be biased, given my opinion on the matter in general, so i'd love to hear other thoughts. moreover, i am a perennial believer of the "to each his own" philosophy, but i'd like to know if you can extend it further.

priorities in life

i just took a "priorities in life" quiz on facebook that gives you 10 choices and asks you to rank them in order. i don't know what happens after you take the quiz, because it just gave me the following message -

Sorry, an error has occurred - information regarding the issue has been logged for review. Please retry this page tomorrow. Thanks!

i feel cheated. but never mind that. what i was intrigued by after i took the test was that i had put money last - right at the very end. convenient. i tend to freely mention that money matters little to me, that i'm not good with it, etc. suddenly, i feel ashamed to be that way. it's not that it doesn't matter. perhaps it's ok to not stress about it, because it's best to not stress about - or lose sleep over - anything, in general. but i do think it matters. for instance, it would matter very much if i weren't wealthy enough to fly to india to see my parents every year. it would matter very much if i couldn't get the best kind of health care for the people i love because i didn't have enough money. it would matter a significant amount if i didn't have enough to send my children (when i had some) to a good school.

i've decided i will be more cognizant of this in my 'money talk' from now on. and it will come 4th after love, family, and children. not 10th. definitely not 10th.

wednesday

and rainy. i really want to stay in bed and wake up to thursday.

:(

evolution

in my college days, undergrads weren't as worried about sustainability as they appear to be today. this is great. go world, go!

rachmaninoff

many years ago i saw the movie shine. though the movie didn't achieve a popularity high, i was really moved by it. it is about the pain that genius brings with it, sometimes.

a few years ago i had borrowed this cd from a friend. the cd played in my car for many drives to and from school, in my undergraduate days. every time i heard the rachmaninoff piece from the movie, i'd be filled with pain, for the pain the movie depicted. i still loved listening to it, because it was a beautiful kind of pain. more importantly, it wasn't mine.

i still marvel at the effect it has on me. more, it brings back a lot of memories that would otherwise remain hidden in the back of my mind. memories of random conversations with the friend that would otherwise be forgotten, or of drives back home that would otherwise hold no significance. i am always fascinated by such levels of association.

it's raining outside, and i am not in the highest of spirits. of course, soon it will be time to retire (though bedtime seems to get more and more delayed these days) and i will have a torturous wednesday to look forward to. perhaps a torturous and rainy wednesday. torture != fun.

back to associations. it is interesting to observe how songs heard in the past (and not always for the first time then) have so many associations to them. when i think "fast car", i think tracy chapman singing it at the grammy awards. i also think of a drive i went on with a friend some years ago. when i think "leaving on a jet plane" i am always reminded of a friend playing this on the guitar. this and "jamaica farewell". "romeo and juliet" reminds me of bonn zentrum - the town-center of bonn, where i first heard it on my (then) new sony walkman. "wonderwall" brings to mind a friend who sang it - very, very badly :). of course, i could keep going. (sentimentality, after all, is not something i ever run out of.) neil halstead, david gray, shawn colvin... all have strong associations.

this blog hasn't seen much focused writing in a while. well, so much of the day is spent focusing, really, that it's a treat to not have to focus while i ramble here.

ok. i'm done.

yesterday

in my understanding learning environments class, ray (one of the professors) mentioned the following quote -

you can't call yourself an adult if you haven't ever contemplated suicide.

intriguing, yes?

week 3 low

it's cloudy outside and cloudy inside. i feel disillusioned by the world in general and unable to keep my spirits on their usual high.

sigh.

i wanna go home!

brrrr...

it gets colder by the day. i just took a hot shower (before going to bed) in the hope that the cold that had found its way inside would make a forced exit. i'm out of the shower, and the cold is slowly, treacherously, finding its way back in again.

moral 1: no matter how long you stay in the hot shower, the cold is right outside.
moral 2: if nothing comes in the way of you and the shower, then stay in as long as you like. never mind the darn cold!

week 2

is officially over. friday afternoon, and i just walked home in the deceivingly chilly sunshine. now for project weekend: i have hundreds of pages to read, eaters to interview and observe, research areas to explore, a cs course to catch up on before i teach it, freshers welcome to sing for, a team to 'launch', a birthday party to attend, groceries to shop for, an aunt to visit, the gym to go to, and those are just the things that come to mind at first thought. for a second, i wanted the weekend to be over already, before i realized the horror that awaits right after.

my d.school project this week is on rapid eating and sustainability, and how the two can possibly be combined. the observation phase is this weekend, when we go out into the world and study individuals' consumption patterns, and get to know the user audience. the question i like to ask most is "what does sustainability mean to you?" because it gets me a fascinating response each time. sustainability, for me, is not my work schedule. that is not sustainable. i feel like i'm in one of those crowded trains with no breating space and no way to get out before i get to my original destination, in this case - end of quarter.

after all that complaining, i sheepishly admit that i did have time today to indulge in some photo-taking. mostly in interview pictures, but also of campus in general. as i wrote earlier, the campus is beautiful enough that there is much to photograph no matter which section of campus i'm in. photos on smugmug.

on to project weekend.

beauty, thy name is...

shaktimaan is back after fighting torturous forces intent on ruining the lives of poor, innocent souls. victory to the innocent, and all is well with the world!

campus is beautiful these days. especially so because the rains are going to start soon, and the world will turn wet and grey. i like it when it's warm and yellow. it's the best kind of world. there are leaves in the air - in various breath-taking shades of orange, yellow, and green. last week, there was a student activities fair in white plaza and the place was immersed in song and dance. the clock tower is actually audible on my side of campus now, and i see the gorgeous quad all day long. the only thing i could complain about, ever so slightly, is that it takes so long to get from one place to another. i am mostly on foot these days, and every walk - home to school, school to home (duh), class to class, to lunch, etc. - is so time-consuming, especially with stanford's distances. despite the forced lack of efficiency, i can't say i'm not enjoying it though. it is exciting indeed to look up into the blue sky and feel an overwhelming sense of peace and calm.

oh, and home is beautiful too. it was a pig sty for the last few days, but we took measures to clean it yesterday and it's all brand new again. going to bed is a beautiful experience, thanks to the rug and lamp that do wonders to the cosiness ratings. waking up, however, is super hard :(. i am yet to figure out a way to make myself jump out of bed, unless it's a monday or wednesday (when classes start at 9).

and then, there's the beautiful school of ed building. it's one of the oldest departments on campus, and one of the oldest buildings. naturally, i guess, since education must have existed before the school was born. the bathrooms are especially beautiful. they are just so beautifully lit. massive windows let in unobstructed light at all times of day (when the sun is around), and the tiles aren't boring and white but have a nice beige look about them. a most pleasant contrast to evans/soda/gates/packard/ms (all the department buildings from my previous life). perhaps that means something. perhaps one must like the bathrooms in one's department to know that one is in the right place. (no, i'm kidding.)

oh, and my class. i love my class. everyone is friendly and makes pleasant conversation. i've gotten to know them a lot better in the last few days, and the thing i never realized about small classes (because i was never in one) is that they give you a chance to know everyone personally and well. we know what everyone's interests and passions are, we know what classes would interest them and what wouldn't. we all suffer torture in the learning environments class, and that brings us closer too.

my d.school team is pretty cool too. it's a team of four, and we just got assigned to each other yesterday. i know i'm going to spend 12-14 hours with them every week this quarter, and it's a nice (and new) feeling to really be looking forward to it.

ok, i'm going to stop writing about my life now so i can go live it instead. thanks for reading. pardon the excess sugar and cheese. it's thursday's fault. the week is cruisin' going forward.

boring details

it's been a while, i know. my noble intentions of writing a post a day to keep track of my days and progress at stanford in the ldt program are now down the drain. that's sad. all it takes is a day to falsify all one's hopes. isn't that sad?

i had a crazy weekend. redesigned the ramen experience (bootcamp project, sounds pretentious doesn't it?), wrote my first econ paper in centuries, and read (and presented to the class) ed-psych of the hardest kind on the senses as perceptual systems. not fun, but illuminating. i felt reassured to find that even the professors thought gibson's theories were hard-core.

tuesday was the manipuri dance recital. although i've tried to keep myself away from spicmacay and sia commitments this quarter, i ended up dedicating ten hours straight to spicmacay on tuesday. all in the celebration that my three deadlines were over. as though they were finals instead. the recital itself was magnificent - i.e., the 30% i had the chance to see and understand. the rest of it was spent ushering and trying to understand but failing, all at the same time.

and then i had a trying wednesday yesterday. the classes were all interesting, for the most part, and i realized how they actually made it ok that the day was so packed. know what i mean? i love my classes, and feel like i am learning just those things i would have always loved to learn, but got pulled into other 'more important' stuff instead. that was my past life, and i have learned - i hope.

ok. i'm done with all the boring details of my last few days. over and out.