Blissard

I've been a tropical person all my life; never more than 15 minutes away from the beach until I moved to Florida - you get the picture. Naturally my first real temperate winter here in Indiana brought some gloom in tow. But over the last week I have "warmed up" to it. I guess I have a new addition to the like list.

How to sleep at night

While a large fraction of us between the ages of 20 and 35 have no trouble claiming that we are night birds and even insomniacs, most of us do not really know what a true nocturnal or an insomniac even looks like. Should we really pride ourselves in being that? As much as it is a great fad to claim our differences from regular society, to show that in irregular eating or sleeping habits has an awful cost to benefit ratio. While a structured life is seemingly dull, you will be surprised how much a structured life can do to allow you to do your favorite awesome things better. A low effort high reward means of structuring is to just sleep at the right times. They need not be fixed for everyone in the world, but they need to be fixed for you and they need to be normalized to your surroundings. Here I present the one thing that I have through years of not doing in grad school.

1. Physically exhaust yourself

If you are reading this, chances are you are not someone whose job description is "heavy macho-ness". You work, drive, and unwind in the same position with a screen in front of you and at the end of the day, you have put your mind through a cane juicer. Physically you probably have given your eyes a heat-stroke but nothing more. The discrepancy between your mental activity and physical activity is what makes you toss around even if you force wrap yourself into your sleep-face. But if you could have some sort of physical activity for an hour or two (you have to sweat) to end your day, the physical  exhaustion should automatically lull you to a good sleep.

2. Eat 

It seems alright and even fun sometimes to skip meals. But starting with your mood, it could go on to determine if your grandchildren live to be 30 or 60. It may be hard to whip up mom quality meals four times each day especially if you are single. A bare-basic meal will suffice but it has to be there. When you have your meals is also crucial. Start with a 7-day program where you eat at the same time each day and eat enough quality food and the difference will start to show. Preparing the meal and cleaning up later could be part of your physical activity.

3. Make yourself comfortable

In some cases this could be a luxury but it is obvious that you need to be in a nice relaxed position to doze off. A lot of times however the determinant of comfort is mental. You could be in the best therapeutic bed and still toss around with all the thoughts running through your head. Empty your mind. If ambient noise is your thing, have that work in your favor. Stop analyzing. If you survive to to see the next morning, you can think about it. If you don't, it doesn't matter anyway. A lot of times though, the mental wandering is because of something that fuels the itch, which brings us to...

4. Tune out


Turn off that computer. You really do not need the music running. Those youtube cat videos, those facebook updates, those not-that-funny memes, all those tweets and blogs that just came up will not change your world forever, though a good night's rest could. If everything were to disappear when you ignored it and went to sleep, you'd never take a vacation ever. Oh you don't? Never mind.


5. Have a partner


I found that when I had my sleep irregularities in grad school, I kept a perfect 11 pm - 7 am sleep schedule when I visited my parents on vacation. I definitely was not working hard though I was eating better and stayed disconnected from the interwebs. But mostly it was simply because everyone else in the house was doing it. It worked as some sort of group therapy where I was comfortable with sleeping at 11 pm and springing out at 7 am because the others were. Having a partner for sleep works just like having a partner at the gym. Now you don't have to work too hard and find someone that will live with you. You could just have an agreement with a similarly afflicted friend and work the program from where you are. 

5. Plan it

You will find that as much as sleep can help organize your life, organizing the rest of your day will help you sleep better. Make your sleep time that important to you. Do not skip that crucial time point that you are meant to retire at. For anything or anyone. Not everyday is an emergency. Those emails can wait until the morning. If they can't then it is too late anyway and the repercussions can be dealt with tomorrow. A good night's rest is a great reward to sleeping on time. Reward yourself for waking up in the morning too, with the thought or the song that you itched to listen to when you had to retire. It will give you something to wake up for.

You will find that a great many things will start looking better. Your health and energy will be on the upward trend. You will be able to restrain your need to do things impulsively. You will be able to channel your mind and body better. It is really all about the self-love. Once you have one important thing figured everything else falls in place automatically. If it doesn't, we'll deal with it tomorrow morning.

Commencement

August 15 2008

Rob walked in with a gimpy dance and an impish grin.

"What is it?"

I grunted tiredly. I did not want to stare away from my computer screen.

"Apparently it is the Indian independence day today. But I know one indian that is still ruled by a brit!"

Rob's eyebrows arched as he awaited my reply. But the right look was sufficient. A snort later, I was back to my real space tour through the AAV surface landscape.

**********

April 27 2012

Her excellency, the Indian ambassador to the United States had been droning on for about 25 minutes. 'Wrongest person for a commencement address ever' I thought as I zoned in and out of the speech to grab random words about India, Indira Gandhi and something about a golden sparrrow. Where was that Steve Jobs material? It did not matter; I was getting my forty winks for the day. It was excusable though. The one thing I had developed through graduate school was a large attention span for dry talks. If her excellency was able to lull me to static, she deserved to.

Just as I zoned in one last time, she had to talk about how the british were driven out of India. I felt a nudge on my left rib. It was Rob. He smiled and released an invisible bird from his hand. I chuckled. He turned back to the her excellency but I kept staring at him and Mavis on his side. This smile will not leave.

Testimonials

For the next few months I plan to post a testimonial every friday about one special close friend. Yeah thats that.

Yaay life.

Rob reminded me on Friday to bring my passport to TN. He forgot his on Monday when I waved mine in his face. So he went home and bought his green card but Mavis' passport. After a last minute check we went to his house to correct the mistake. He now has Mavis' green card and his passport.

I have the need etc...etc.

So I was driving Srividya back to MCO this afternoon. I had the car cruising at 75 mph on the 70 mph limit I-75. 'Anjane' by Strings was playing on the speakers and we were taking in the pretty Florida wetland scenery. Suddenly, Mr. Know-it-all driver on a chromed-out metallic green suv, zipped into the extreme left lane right behind me. He waited about five whole seconds after which he cut into the middle lane with the deft skill of a seasoned freeway zipper and sped up to level with me. He then let out a shrill horn blare to let me know what he thought of me as he readied himself to gain velocity and leave me coughing in his awesomeness dust.

Exactly then I heard a familiar siren go off somewhere behind me with some all-american light effects. A green and white car with 'SHERIFF' displayed proudly on one side closed in right behind Mr. know's chrome monster. The latter slowed down as it crossed out much more respectfully to the extreme left part of the road with torn tyre bits on it. As I passed Mr. know, I vaguely caught him punching his steering wheel. I gave him my eastwoody smile, adjusted my glasses and continued to MCO at 75 mph.

Peace out.

"All the same"

Amongst a dozen other things, sensitivity fail.

"This is my daughter...from the US." "Oh my son-in-law too..."

A year ago, I had made a post confirming my revulsion with the induced overt-awe of an academic degree. Obviously there was more to the matter than what I picked up naively back then.

--

I had settled on the bean-bag after a power lunch to watch a matinee telecast of 'Veerasamy' on KTV with a bowl of jelly and a cold glass of mango juice in attire that would make Mahatma Gandhi proud. Mom and dad left to see someone and Pammi decided to give up on stealing the remote and retired for the afternoon. The bell rang A middle-aged couple with their smatter-stache tall-than-me high school son showed up to see the apartment we planned to rent out. I was a bit twitched about being interrupted but tiwo had finally made it to Tata Sky cable so I led them towards the apartment, remote in hand.

"Hi, I am buzz-buzz-blah", said the gentleman as he shook my bony hand and took notice of my skinny build. His wife nodded and his son looked away. I lead them to the apartment and told them to feel free to look around as I parked on the sawdust-layered kitchen counter. The mom examined the apartment in great detail as they noted each point and nodded to herself and looked to the head of the house for his approval grunt. The son occasionally did a slight dance with his feet and said something to his dad, all the time looking at the ceiling. My saw-dust house sketch was nearly complete when the gentleman walked over to me and asked me, "Are there any elders in the house?".

To this day, I have always had the distinct privilege of receiving a semi-dismissive comment on my age and how it poorly fits my current degree of study when my parents introduce me to someone they know. But even as a hardened player, I was not happy about getting that from Mr. Buzz. I reached for my beard to stroke it but I realized that it had been discarded, in part to help me resemble my passport photo. Nevertheless, I was a 25-year old and I was going to stand up for myself.

"You can talk to me, I own this place" I said. Maybe I had over said something there in my moment of irritation. But I was still going to stick with it. I did not call you balding Mr. Buzz, even though I noticed it before I shook your hand.

But Mr. Buzz was not convinced at all. He still had control on the conversation. So he took a deep breath and let it out loudly and responded, " what is the rent?"

"We quoted it on the newspaper ad", I responded coolly.

Mr. Buzz gave a sly smile perfected by the average Indian negotiator and started, " I know but what is THE rent? See, basically I am from Mumbai. I have been living there for 20 years. I lived in Juhu. You know, Juhu beach? It is a posh area. We had a proper society apartment with amenities like a swimming pool and a club house. Even there I only paid 28,000."

A number of thoughts swam in my head. Alright Mr. Buzz. You have just knowingly or unknowingly, in perfect Indian fashion, thrown some mud on my ancestral home that we all blindly loved. Generations of our dogs have marked their ownership of this place with so much uric acid that it would fill your swimming pool a dozen times. The colony that you have somehow found your way to, is an equivalent to Pali Hill or Malabar Hill in Mumbai. And Juhu is NOT a posh area.

I gave a tired smile and responded, "Just tell me how much you wish to pay".

"Thirty thousand." He had read my expression and was now losing some of his confidence.

"Alright. Just give me your number. I have your name and your quote. If we decide to negotiate on the rent, we will get back to you." Mr. Buzz was visibly displeased with how he had to do this routine with a cold little skinny kid but I was the oldest person he was going to meet that afternoon. He said, "Ok" with a grunt towards the end and started heading out as the rest of the family shuffled after him slowly. I retured to the bean bag to continue what was left of my afternoon.

--

Four hours later, the phone bell rang as I just returned home from walking Scoobie. I picked it up,

"Good Evening."

"Uh. Hello?"

"Yes please?"

"Hi. My name is Mr. Buzz. I had come to see an apartment this afternoon."

"Yes Mr. Buzz. Tell me."

"Uh. Are there any elders around?"

I handed the phone to my father without a response and sped off to the kitchen to report to my mom on the caller. Dad joined us in a few seconds, "He is coming over to see us. Wear a shirt Harish."

I had stopped arguing with my parents a couple of years ago. I walked to my closet and returned in a t-shirt that misspelt New York and Brazil and had a tea stain on it. Mom and dad exchanged a glance but said nothing.

--

I was revising our photo album for the nth time. Scoobie and I had retired to my bedroom for similar reasons. Mr. Buzz had been sitting with dad and mom for the last half hour and judging from the level of noise and the topic of conversation, it was clear that they had hit it off well. The phone rang.

Mom answered, "Harish. Its Abi for you."

I cursed and sped out to pick the phone up and bring it back to my room. But mom had picked up the dusty, abandoned supply phone that could only be used the old fashioned way.

One ten-second phone call later, I quietly tried to slink away, when dad turned to me, "Harish...This is my son Harish. He is studying in the US too."

"Oh.."

That was a chorus by both Mr. and Mrs. Buzz. Mrs. Buzz's expression turned from shock to one that reassured her that all the kids of these days end up there anyway and it was nothing special. Mr Buzz's expression turned from genuine shock to a substantial regret that dripped from his expression as he nearly dropped the dry snack he was holding. Sonny boy kept looking out the window at our neighbor's abandoned old garage.

--

Amongst other things that can be concluded from this post, I think now that it may have been interesting to rewind the evening situation to change what my dad said to, "This is my son Harish. He is pursuing a doctoral degree." I guarantee a lesser shock. It think it can sometimes be a bigger social deal to be elementary schooler in the USA rather than a graduate degree holder in India.

"Have you no ambition? Don't you want to study well, go abroad and make your country proud?"

-some nameless R.K. Laxman cartoon.

All in ten minutes

I really hate babies. They scream loudly and can't be reasoned with. Especially when they are seated next to me in airplanes. Which happens nine times of every ten flights that I board.

I was glad the ordeal was mere seconds from being over. I unbuckled my seat-belt and leaned forward to look out the window again. The baby-mama next to me that borrowed my pen smiled at me, thanked me for my patience and asked me what I do. I am a graduate student, I replied with a confident smile. She nodded knowledgeably but asked me which college I plan to join after my graduation. My smile degenerated a bit as I told her I had graduated from college. Her smile grew wider as her eyebrows arched. '"Are you doing a masters?", she inquired pleasantly. I barely nodded as Jeanne seated right next to me blurted, "PhD". Mommy let out a loudly approving 'Oh!' as I blushed uncontrollably and looked away as I shifted uncomfortably on my seat. I do not enjoy those anymore and quite justifiably so.

Fortunately, we were cleared for exit and I quickly picked my bag up and joined the line. Baby Pavarotti belted out one more number. I hastily dratted past the people attempting to join the line in front of me without a thought for courtesies as I heard Jeanne and Miorel laugh. I half-ran up the aero-bridge and finally stopped once I was in the departure lounge hallway to wait for the rest of the band to join me. I thought back about my uncomfortable moment with the lady.

It is not that I am not happy with my life right now, quite the contrary actually. I love my work and I love my lab. But I am tired of the overt effect of the title. It is just another degree and people my age in the industry are working harder. There is nothing special about it. Don't fool yourself or others - it is NOT more brain work than other lines and no - it is definitely not the job for geniuses. Yes, others work just as hard or harder. I feel guilty.

I remember a similar situation a month ago back home.

***flashback to a month ago***

"Protein Engineering", said dad with a proud grin.

I shot a half-amazed, half-annoyed look at him. I definitely do not do any such engineering or related work. I was surprised that this person had actually attempted to get a PhD in biology at some point in his life and actually published a paper before be left half-way.

"PhD, University of Florida", mom added.

"Oh!", said the family friend. "Then you must know my ......"

***a little later***

I accosted mom before she made her way to the laptop to start her afternoon Scrabble session with the bot. "Why did you have to say that?". "What else do you want me to say?", she asked back with mild annoyance. I stayed determined, " you could say graduate student". "And how do you expect them to understand that?", said mom tiredly. I smiled and said, "Precisely" but mom did not wait for me.

I grabbed dad a few seconds later. "Protein Engineering?!!". "Isn't that what you do?", he asked in amusement. But I wanted this to be serious, "I do crystallography. I told you that so many times." He replied, "I don't know too well what that is and surely others do not". "But Watson, Crick and Henry Bragg were crystallographers. It is a very old field. Nothing swanky new and cutting edge." Dad laughed just like dad does and walked away with Scoobie (who spared me an indifferent look) trailing for their mid-afternoon siesta. How is it that an "important" area of science sticks around for nearly a century and is not as known as protein engineering?

***present***

John joined me and pointed at me with a 'ha-ha' like a Simpsons character as the others pitched in with wide grins of their own. I rolled my eyes and looked away. Rob and Mavis walked over. Mavis said nothing but Rob's sinister smile pulled my attention to him. "I knew where you were seated sir", he let go and acknowledged the snorting from the group for his joke. They had all travelled with me long enough to discover my wonderful luck with yelling babies on flights. Yes there is something called luck and I haz none of itz.

I did not wait for their maturity to kick back in and sped up the hall behind Mavis. Toronto airport was nowhere as pretty as Vancouver but then again, Vancouver airport was the best I had seen. Toronto seemed much more travel worn, bare and cold. Probably only because of the strike, I thought. I had a very positive opinion of Canadian cities. The were US cities in a better state of prosperity. Maybe it was not going to be such a bad day despite the start.

I had reached the short queue at the Canadian immigration point. A lady with dull make-up and bright clothes waved at me and told me to head to counter 11. I smiled at her and mouthed a thanks as I headed to the counter. A well built officer with short hair and lots of gel leaned over the counter , took my passport and customs forms and asked me how I was doing as he turned to his computer screen and typed with quick jabs. I shared basic pleasantries with a broad smile. He then raised his eyebrows and looked at me with a smile, "So you were in Vancouver last week? I am from Vancouver. Did you find it beautiful?". I smiled my best yet. "Yes. Very".

"So what business are you here in Toronto for?"

"A science conference"

"What kind of science conference?"

"Crystallography". I was still grinning to my molars.

He frowned. "What is that?!"

I had a fleeting visual of mom, dad and Pammi laughing as I dropped my grin and my ears reddened. John must have noticed it despite my dark skin because I could see him smile behind me through the back of my head.

"Virus". I blurted. "Maths....Physics...Bio...Biophysics."

The officer's frown did not leave as he stared at me suspiciously. "So where are you staying?". I stared back blankly as I went redder. "A hotel".

"Which hotel? Is your conference at the same place?"

"Umm...I don't...I can ask my boss. She's just at the next counter.Mavis..."

He looked over at Mavis and Rob who were having a hearty chat about socialized medical systems with their counter officer.

"Are you all a group?"

"Yes. I nodded. We are all students. They are our bosses." I realized that my nervous word selection was getting more and more incriminating.

"Have a pleasant stay", he said as he tossed my form and passport back to me, the frown sustained. I strode past hurriedly. I did not wait for the others as i made a dash to the conveyor belts and parked at a seat. It was going to be that sort of a day, I agreed with myself.

The others arrived quickly as the conveyor belt squealed to life. I waited at my seat for the others to finish and come over as someone just walked up to me and said, "nice shirt". She was a conventionally pretty-looking girl, presumably in her late teens. I looked down at my t-shirt, recognized the Tux logo on it and looked back at her with a smile and said thanks. "I use Debian", she said. I was suprised but I cleanly masked it and mustered a pleasant "Gentoo". "Cool! Nice to meet ya", she said and glided away to the belt. I chuckled to myself. The others joined me and continued their banter but I wasn't listening at all. As we exited the airport the Debian girl was climbing into a chromed-out Mazda. She smiled again and waved at me and I waved back. It was going to be a great day.

We walked to the taxi pick-up point where a lady with a strong french accent quickly mouthed code into her walkie-talkie and ushered in two taxis for us. "Eet weel take a meenit", she said. "Thats alright," responded Mavis pleasantly. The lady smiled at us and looked curiously at the poster box I was carrying.

"Where are you going to?" , she asked Jeanne.

"A conference".

"What kind of conference?"

"A science conference"

"are you scienteests? Oh...!"



FML

Dedications

Since i found out that I am a extremely self-centered person today, I am going to keep this post about some of the other people in my life; so I may feel better about myself. Music video dedications will be made to them, in the lines of MTV select - meaning it may be about them, it may relate to them, it may be songs I sing with them or it may just be something random that I feel like hearing right now.

Yeah, its still about me and I. Whatever; onto the dedications.

Snowie - for being a girl

Gautam - for being the jackass that called me out for the last many years

Archana - for being positive control

Blue - for energizing

Dennis - for bringing cool back

Affi - for sharing the treasure

Scoobie - for being master and commander of the far side of the world

Pa and Ma - for being different

Al Gator - for being leader of a religion of choice

Audi, Nayan, Geetha, Sridhar and Mumbai - for not changing

Matt - for crossing lines to pull over

Pammi - for keeping it real

This one is not a song but it fits here better than everything else I came up with

Subbu - for being the bitch partner

Manohary - for being special

Vid - for teaching without trying

Ibt - for important lessons

India - for some right decisions

Adi, Abi and Vaishu - for being friends

And finally music - for empowering

"Your favorite song comes here"