LHC!!! A career mistake?

I am sure by this time you have heard all about LHC. What? You haven't? Well, LHC is The Large Hadron Collider, the biggest and the most complicated particle physics experiment ever seen! Now, you may ask, why should I be interested in, what is it, oh yeah, particle physics??? Because, I have realized over the time, that it is my first love (not in the sense of it being my boyfriend). I was reading the weekly review of Scientific American newsletter on 'How the Large Hadron Collider Might Change the Web', and in general about the Large Hadron Collider. And I realized that I am still in love with particle physics! I just couldn't stop reading all about particle physics and the coming revolutions in particle physics. Now I feel why the hell did I go for Molecular Biophysics! Sure it's a hot and emerging field, sure it has a lot of job opportunity (much more than particle physics) but its not for me! Even after spending 6 years in this line I don't quite feel at home in this field. Now it's like I am dangling between these two areas of Particle Physics (my love) and Molecular Biophysics (my reality)! I wish I could go back in time and continue with my love. Well, that's not gonna happen, so I have to make the best out of whatever is available at present. And thats when I stumbled upon Astrobiology! Lets see if I can make my future in this line...

Update: Just checked this Rap video on youtube, a must see :)

Two big trips in August!!!

We went for two wonderful bike trips last month: one to Colorado for one week and the other to Oregon for 3 days (Piyush joined this one on his VFR). The details of the trip can be found on Joy's blog. (I will try to write my own account of the trips when I get bored of writing my thesis!) For the time being let the pictures of the trip tell the story.

Weekend rides

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Just came back from a half-day ride to Santa Cruz with Piyush on his VFR. We started around 3:30pm after a nice lunch at Erik's Deli Cafe with wonderful soup and sandwich. Took some nice roads (Shannon road, Hicks road) to reach Morgan Hill. From there CA-1 to Santa Cruz; the road was lovely one, sometimes becoming dark because of the tall trees. Reached Santa Cruz around 7 and after a short snack-break with donuts, we started back for home. CA-17 was full of traffic and Piyush took off lane-splitting. Joy first tried to do the same but didn't continue after sometime. However, after sometime traffic cleared and we were back at home by 8.30pm (of course, Piyush reaching way ahead of us :))

Well, almost forgot to mention: Piyush had bought a bike-camera and wanted to try it out for the first time while riding. He installed the camera on his bike with Joy's help and tested it riding around the apartment parking area. The movie looked fine except that camera had some inherent vibration, so a little fixation and we were ready to hit the road. He kept the camera in the picture mode (which took pictures after a fix interval, automatically). Back at the apt, att the end of the ride, he took the camera out only to see that the memory card is missing!!! A little search and it was found in the camera-box which was left behind at the apt. It seems after testing the camera in the apt parking lot, he had forgotten to put the memory card back in the camera. And all the while, I was waiting to see the nice pictures taken by his camera :) Well, another ride is needed soon...

Click here for the pictures of the ride.





Last saturday (26th Aug) we went for our first group ride with the CA2Q chapter (Dublin) of GWRRA (Gold Wing Road Riders Association). We rode almost to Lake Tahoe, to a forest cabin owned by the Sacramento Chapter Director. He had invited several members to a barbecue lunch. We had a fun time with the other members. After lunch we went out to the nearby river to check out the cold water; it was very refreshing. I went in and soaked my jeans completely :) Now the worry was how to get on the bike since I didnt have anything to change to. So, I wore my biker-pant over the wet jeans and it actually turned out to a bliss since the day was very hot. The temperature rose to 104F at around 3pm! And my jeans, under the biker-pant, was completely dry within an hour :) While riding my upper part was feeling the heat of the day while the lower part experienced the AC effect of the wet jeans :) Need to do the same thing again when riding on a hot day!!!

Click here for the pictures of the ride.

MS and its .pub files

The other day Joy got a .pub file from one of his friends, Ja (from Stony Brook). Joy had done a lot of photography at SB and Ja is writing a small article about him. So she wanted him to review what she had written. But Joy couldn't open the .pub file since there is no free software for this. I searched the internet for some site which can convert .pub to some other format, say .pdf. I came across pdfonline but here file size was restricted to 2mb only! After a little bit of more search I stumbled upon zamzar which allows upto 100mb files... Well, I uploaded the .pub file and after some time a link containing the converted .pdf file was sent to my mailbox. The job was done that easily...

Well, while I was waiting for the converted file to be delivered, I found out that I actually had the 'Microsoft Publisher' to open that .pub file! Uddhav had installed it last year, and I had never used it before and hence didn't know of its existence in my comp :)

Anyway, one can never depend on MS... Long live the internet :)

Driving lessons...

Have started taking driving lessons this week. The first class on Tuesday was as it should have been for someone who has never tried it before! It took me some time to grasp the small intricacies of brake, gas and steering wheel... and I could barely follow the instructions of the instructor. I was really scared to drive it on the road and made several mistakes and the accidents were averted with the instructor's extra brake :) He kept saying 'you just hit the parked car' or 'you most probably killed that pedestrian' (I was learning in a low-traffic area, thankfully)... In the second class yesterday, I improved a little bit. Learned to take right turn and even that needs more practice of handling the steering wheel. Next class, its the left turn practice... hope to be confident enough to drive without mistake within 5 lessons...

Lake Tahoe...

Like last to last weekend, this weekend also we had a nice short bike trip. This time the destination was Lake Tahoe (around 220 mi). Our aptmate Piyush took his parents to Tahoe on Thursday night and they rented a nice furnished apartment. Friday night Uddhav (another aptmate) and Sarvesh joined them, while we rode down on Saturday morning. We started at 5.30 in the morning and reached Tahoe around 11am with a few stops. Had a fun time at the air-show being held at Tahoe airport. After that had a nice lunch at an Indian restaurant and then headed to beaches for water sports. We were seven of us and there was no boat available for seven in the first beach we went. The next one, Zephyr cove, had power boats and we rented one. Joy was initially scared to go for the ride but eventually enjoyed it. We had a great time riding the boat and we all tried riding it. It was already late by the time we returned to the shore and didn't have time for other sports like parasailing and water-skiing! Next time...

Back in the rented apartment, we enjoyed some nice tea and the lovely sunset. Had a fun time jumping and taking pics :) After a hearty Thai dinner, Uddhav and Sarvesh headed back for home while for the rest us it was time for 'Om Shanti Om'!!! It was already quite late by the time we hit the bed. Joy wanted to start quite early in the morning and I simply refused to get up early :) And it was 10.30 in the morning next day when we started back for home, while Piyush and his parents headed for Yosemite. They arrived at 10 that night.

All and all, it was a nice and relaxing trip for me. As for Joy, he enjoyed the Tahoe water and the boat ride, but didn't enjoy the ride as much as he had wanted. So ultimately he decided to sell off his bike and move on to the ultimate two-up tourer, the Honda Goldwing! Lets see whats there is the future...

Pics are at my flickr gallery.

The new life in the US of A

Its already more than two weeks since I have arrived in the USA to join my husband. Though it's not my first visit to this country (I have been here twice before in the past two years) this visit is definitely different than the previous ones: I do not have a return ticket this time. Now I have to get used to the ways of life in USA. The first thing is definitely to learn driving. So after 2-3 days of brushing some knowledge about the driving rules here and taking some mock tests, Joy took me to the DMV today morning for the learner's permit. There are 36 questions you have to answer and you can make maximum 6 mistakes. Even though I had gone through all the test questions given in the DMV site, some of the questions were vague to me :) When I came out after answering Joy was waiting outside. He asked how it was and I told him I wasn't sure about some of the questions. He whispered and asked whether the alcohol question was there or not! I said yes it was and I found out that I had answered it wrong. He asked me to correct it. I went to the counter where they check the answers and give the temporary learner's permit if one answers 30 or more questions correctly. I asked the lady If I could change one of my answers. She said I could and I did. And that saved another round of answering the questions (you are allowed to take the test two more times if you fail to pass it the first time). I had exactly six questions wrongly answered excluding the alcohol one :) Phewwwww!!! That's a relief!!! So within half an hour of reaching the DMV I was holding my learner's permit :) Well, now I am licensed to kill :D

Finished colloquium...

It took almost 6 years to reach this stage of PhD! Even after three days of giving the colloquium, I am sometimes unable to believe that I am actually done with it. In all these past six years I don't remember how many times I have thought of quitting PhD. But now I am at the end of the PhD tunnel and can see a faint ray of light. I just hope that this light doesn't belong to an incoming train and I don't get run over by the train which I have somehow been able to avoid all these years. I just need two more months to keep my sanity and get out of this place.

Life in IISc generally teaches the students a lot of things. I have not been an exception. I too have learned my share of things. But the question is: Is this teaching always helpful? Does it help us to improve our personality, day-to-day and finally overall behavior towards the world? How many people change with a positive attitude? I can't answer for others but I know what it has done to me. It has made me a more impatient, depressed, and maybe frustrated person. But I am going to overcome all these problems soon and try to be a a little better person. I have been told that I am still childish and sometimes I have been told that I am unreasonable also, as well as selfish. We never see the wrong in ourselves and always believe that 'I am the best' or 'I am perfect'. Well, nobody is perfect and nobody is 100% good or right. First of all, the definition of 'good or bad' or 'right or wrong' is relative. What is right or good to me, might not be right or good to someone else. With all these years of so-called professional life, I guess I have come to know what I thought was good in me, which in fact is not good to others. Recently I read a quote by Leo Tolstoy : Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. Something of this kind I had read before also, but this time it struck me hard, maybe because I found several people trying to change me. I tried to do that to keep them happy but eventually I think I started becoming unhappy. And if I am unhappy, I can't expect to make others happy. So I guess I need to look back and see where things went wrong and try not to repeat them. I believe in not brooding over the past but while not brooding over the things which went wrong, at least I can learn my lessons and try not to repeat a mistake.

In my colloquium I acknowledged my guide for always trying to encourage me in not quitting. I thanked my father, saying that without him I would have been a housewife in a conservative Marwari family and the audience laughed! My father laughed when I told him this later over the phone. I thanked my husband for having the patience to endure a 12-years long-distance relationship. I have done a lot of things which I wouldn't have done under normal circumstances and I just hope to have a peaceful happy future in spite of all the things which have gone wrong. I hope to have a better understanding with the world and regain my patience...

I had thought our bad times would be over with 2007. But that was not to happen. My brother is still not well! And that's not the end of it. My Tauji (father's elder brother, he lives in Bhilai) has gone through bypass surgery on Wednesday! Some 3 weeks we got to know that he was hospitalized following some pain in his heart. Doctors there told him that nothing was very serious and he could get back to his work after some rest. But father insisted that he gets himself properly checked up (we didn't want to take any risk after what happened to my uncle some four months back). Since my Tauji's daughters are in Bangalore he came down here to be checked in Narayana Hridayalaya, one of the best heart hospitals in India. After angiography 3 arteries were found blocked last week! The only solution was surgery as soon as possible but Tauji was refusing to go through it! But finally he agreed and the operation was done on Wednesday. I went there to be with them. He was taken away for surgery around 8.30am and around 5.30pm we got to know that everything went well and he was shifted to ICU. Everybody is quite relieved now...

Now some facts about Narayana Hridayalaya. It is is one of the world's largest pediatric heart hospitals. It has become quite popular because of the low cost of the surgeries. More information about this can be found at wikipedia. There is a temple of Hanuman in front of the hospital. People go there and pray for their relatives in front of this Hindu God. What was nice to see was that, there were three other 'Gods' on the other three sides of the same place: Christian, Muslim and Sikh!

Anyway, today I am going to Madurai to attend senthil's sister's engagement. I was not feeling well and thought of not going. But now I am feeling better and wouldn't like to miss this chance. Will be back with the experience of famous Meenakhshi Temple and Tamil engagement!!!