Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Birthday 25

So I hit 25 years this year. The last year has been phenomenal. I have achieved two of the three things I wanted to do. I will elaborate.

1) Pass my qualifying exam - After a particularly uninspired academic stint at IITM, I was glad that Prof. Krishna Vasudevan inspired me in the final stages of my studies to consider a PhD. IT was then that I decided that academics shall never take a back seat. I have performed exceedingly well in my stint at Purdue so far and have cleared my qualifying exam in the very first attempt. A small but well deserved pat on the back to myself.

2) Physical fitness had not been on my priority list till I came to the US. But after I came here, I realised how much fun I was missing out on. Prasanth, my roommate, introduced me to the wonderful sport of badminton and I became decently proficient with practice and some amazing training from my Malaysian and Indonesian friends. It was after this that I discovered the joy of running. It is liberating. It is simple. It is joy. I love it and it has given me something to indulge in when depressed over my pathetic love life(next point). I just recently finished running a half-marathon in 1 hour and 54 minutes. It was an exhilarating experience and I am very proud of myself for having trained with discipline for the last 2 months.

3) Sandya - Psychologist/advisor/friend, told me that the reason I was still single and without a single experience of romantic love was, to paraphrase, " You have never spent time around those you had feelings for. Never given romance a chance in your life because you were afraid of feeling like an idiot." So I tried, but this is one thing where the result is totally not in your hands. In other words, I failed. It was illuminating to see what was happening to me, but to be fair to Sandya and to myself, I did feel like an idiot. This is one thing I have no idea what to do about. So I have conveniently decided to ignore this aspect for the rest of my PhD and concentrate on my research. Perhaps, like they say, you really cannot do too much. Also, I was over-ambitious.

For the next year, these are my objectives:

1) At least one publication. Work hard on research.

2) Work on improving running time and concentrate on building upper body strength - biceps and triceps.

3) Concentrate on work and avoid those periods of unproductive self-pity for not having found that special someone. Or even having found a special someone in 25 years.

Lots of other things in life have worked out great for me and I am truly grateful to the forces that are for that. It is best to stop denial and start accepting the truth. Keep improving! Keep fighting!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Happy Birthday Harish ! ( 20th Oct, 2008 )

I had one of the most "kickass" birthday parties ever ever ! A picture is worth a thousand words, so here is an essay of a few thousand words. Thank you, friends, for making it such a memorable and amazing experience. Special thanks to my roommates, Prasanth and Aditya, who are the bestest roommates one can have and to Jalaja "P" for having walked for 45 minutes to get my cake. Thank you, Shalini and Mehernaz for the amazingly tasty cake you made, which I devoured. Thank you Leela for the super sweet video you made for me. It totally made my day ! A big thanks for everyone who shared this wonderful day with me.







THANK YOU !