Typically American

A Swiss guy, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two Americans are waiting. "Entschuldigung, koennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?" he asks.
The two Americans just stare at him.
"Excusez-moi, parlez vous Francais?" he tries.
The two continue to stare.
"Parlare Italiano?" No response.
"Hablan ustedes Espanol?" Still nothing.
The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted.
The first American turns to the second and says, "Y'know, maybe we should learn a foreign language."
"Why?" says the other. "That guy knew four languages, and it didn't do him any good."

Reservations continued ...

One of my recent posts talked about reservations for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh. This article discusses the same issue and points out some very relevant logistical problems with the scheme. These problems of course, only serve to highlight the impromptu nature of the promise and are a reminder that rigorous planning is needed before making poll promises.

Deja Vu

Dontcha feel you've been 'ere before? Well, you actually have! I decided to switch back from my brand new template Harbor to the good old No. 897. But not before I had "fixed" it to suit my tastes. Being the HTML guru that I am, I delved right in midst of the labyrinthine miles of tags and stylesheets that make up a blogger.com template. Tearing my way through loads of ASCII gibberish with knight-like speed, I came across an innocuous inscription which read:

#content { ... width=744px ...}

With the consummate grace of a high-flying eagle and the dainty elegance of a ballet dancer, I changed the width to 844 and the job was done!

Two template changes in two days. Many would call me fickle. But O Revered Critic, what more is fickle, but a mere synonym of adaptive. I have always maintained that Jesus was misquoted when he said that the meek shall inherit the earth. Jesus' actual quote was noted down by an obscure historian named Idios. The writings of Idios later became known as the "Idiotic Scrolls" and were placed at a secure and unknown location to hide their existence from the Church. Not much was heard about these documents until a little known British naturalist by the name of Charles stumbled upon the hiding place. One can imagine his amazement when he read that Jesus had actually declared: "Those who adapt, shall inherit the earth"!

Feeling disoriented and despaired at being so suddenly deprived of the shelter his religion and its teachings offered, Charles decided he needed to get away from it all. Soon enough a ship by the name of HMS Beagle was to sail on a scientific expedition across the Atlantic and our British friend decided to hop on. Sailing in the ocean is a perfect time for introspection and Charles did just that. Soon enough, he was convinced of the truth behind the Idiotic Scrolls and by the time HMS Beagle turned around for the journey back home, Charles had decided that the world must know the Truth. Upon his return, the man wrote a treatise called "On the Origin of Species" and the rest is history! Ladies and gentlemen, the British naturalist was none other than Charles Robert Darwin and it is a carefully suppressed fact that his theories on natural selection and adaptation were in fact inspired by what he read in the Idiotic Scrolls.

And I told you all this because ...


All ye men, who call me fickle,
Your poor souls, shan't get a nickle,
Nor dime, nor quarter,
Nor anything shorter!
While I shall have all the mirth,
'Coz I adapt, and shall inherit the earth!


By the way, did I tell you that I have this impossible deadline coming up tonight?? Gotta run now ...

f : Human --> OperatingSystem, f(Priyendra) = SlackwareLinux

Just came across this cool website which provides a function to map humans to operating systems. The website's asks a number of personality-test style questions - the answers to which serve to guide the iterative mapping algorithm implemented by the website's creators to the OS that most closely resembles you. In my case, here's the answer I obtained.



So what'll come next? Well, maybe some smartass will come up with a way to identify which is the microwave that you most closely resemble. And then maybe some smarter-ass will come up with a book titled, "I, microwave!"

New and shining!

Notice something different? I decided to change the blog template for two reasons:

- I was bored with the earlier one
- I noticed my posts were getting longer and I needed a bit more width on the lines - otherwise the posts just kept scrolling

So here you are. Cerebral Mines just got a brand new makeover!!

Among other things, I have been following the Democrat convention in Boston with some interest. A must see is Bill Clinton's speech he delivered on Monday. I particularly liked the humorous manner in which chose to attack Republican policies by presenting himself as a member of the super-rich elite that George W. Bush supposedly serves.

Of bikinis and Lord Rama

If you feel that the heading's been lifted straight out of TOI, I would not blame you because I actually lifted it from there :-) About a month ago, there was a controversy about some UK company which had released a line of bikinis which had been imprinted with pictures of Lord Rama (or maybe Lord Krishna). Nowadays, since several Hindu organzations act as watchdogs against such debasement of Hindu religious symbols, a swift protest was lodged and the line was quickly removed from market. This however was not the only incident. More recently, a line of slippers has been spotted with the sacred symbol Om on them. Before this, there have been toilet seats featuring Lord Shiva and recital of sholkas from the Holy Gita at inopportune settings like the orgy filmed in Eyes Wide Shut.

So why does the West insist of taking our religious symbols and putting them on the strangest (that was the only adjective I could think of) things? One explanation of course could be that they are not aware of the myriad religious symbols us Hindus possess. Everything from the cow to the much defamed Swastika is holy! But I do not think this is the reason. After all, it does not take a rocket scientist to comprehend that Lord Rama is a God worshipped by most Hindus. Why then this insensitivity to Hindus? After all, no Indian company would even think of releasing underwear bearing images of Christ. Or even images of a God with no followers in India.

I think the reason for this difference in attitude lies in the way Hindus think about God and holiness. In India the concept of God comes attached with many preconcieved notions. Footwear is unclean - so no footwear inside temples. Meat is unholy - so no meat inside most Indian temples, no meat on holy festivals etc. And it is because of this that when we see a pair of slippers with Om imprinted on it, many of us feel hurt. On the other hand, to someone who is not aware of these prejudices, our sensitivities to such things would most probably appear childish! The other day, I dropped a book on the floor of my office while my officemate was there. Just to see her reaction, I made a great show of touching the book on my forehead as many Hindus do. She looked quite amused by the entire ritual and even when I explained her about how Hindus consider Knowledge holy, I could see that she hadn't got the point!

So rather than labelling the West "insensitive", we should be calling them "ignorant" of our culture. And we should try to actively educate them about how we feel about and treat things that are holy to us.

The perils of democracy?

The Congress campaign in the recently concluded assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, was based, among others, on a promise to provide reservations to the Muslim community in government jobs etc. Since then, the Congress has won the election and hence, it has both a moral authority and obligation to implement its pre-poll promises. And right away, it started making noises about introducing a bill granting the reservation. So why am I uneasy? Aren't people supposed to get what they want in a democracy? But what if the thing they want is in direct contradiction to overall national interests? Or against the spirit of the constitution?

I ask these questions because I feel the concept of reservations is flawed in a number of ways. Reservations were introduced during the early days of independent India, as a device for bringing about social equality. Though I am not aware of any formal connections, the idea of reservations does seem very marxist in character. Initially, it was estimated that social equality shall be attained by the 60s and reservations will be abolished thereafter. And we all know what has happened since then!

So what are the problems I see with reservations? First and foremost, I have my doubts whether the gains of reservations reach the under-privileged at all. For instance, we shall soon have 5% reservation for Muslims in AP. However, there are any number of affluent Muslims there and I feel it is these upper class Muslims who will reap the benefits. Were they the intended targets of the largesse? No. This is a general problem with caste/community based reservations. It is clear that always the stronger members of the caste/community shall be the principal beneficiaries.

In this context, the idea of reservations based on economic well-being has some appeal. After all, doesn't an utterly poor upper caste youth need help more than a relatively well-off lower caste citizen does? I can never understand why the communal angle had to be added to reservations. If the objective was to help weaker sections of the society, then wouldn't the first most obvious solution be to help all who are poor. Our leaders must have had good reasons for introducing reservations as they are, but I'd sure love to hear about them.

The second problem I feel is that reservations tend to segment a society and go against the aim of overall national integration. When people have to wear their caste/religion on their sleeves to get jobs, it sends a strong message: Being an Indian does not get you a job, but being a Yadav does. Would you then fault a person if he feels he is a Yadav first and an Indian second? The more number of times a person is forced to explicitly think about his caste/religion, the farther he goes from being a mainstream Indian.

The last problem with reservations is that they directly contradict India's secular character. In India's context, secularism does not only mean equality of all religions. In a country like India which has so many castes, the definition of secularism should naturally be extended to equality of all religions, castes, ethnic groups alike. And when the state favors a particular caste, this spirit of secularism is dealt a serious blow. As a result, the utterly poor upper caste youth is left languishing because the state actively discriminates against him - much like a theocratic state would have discriminated against citizens adhering to a different religion.

And that is why I feel communal reservations are bad. And this leads me to ask the question - is plain democracy the best political system for a developing country? We give each one of our citizens a chance to nudge our country in the direction (s)he wants it to go. At the other end of the spectrum are countries like China where a few leaders decide the fate of millions. At times I feel our system is too vulnerable to the irrational decisions taken by huge, ignorant sections of the electorate. It is too vulnerable to politicians who use schemes like reservations as weapons in their vote-bank politics. Wouldn't it be good if only responsible people got to vote! And then I notice the inherent arrogance of the statement wherein I label myself knowledgeable, rational and responsible. What if someone better than me were to suggest that I was not rational enough. And what if he were to say that even I did not make the grade for being a responsible voter? And these ifs then leave me confused ...

Drowsy Dissertations - VOL III

Top ranked American engineering schools are generally perceived to be far better than most engineering universities across the world. I myself have witnessed at close quarters the education here and the one we got back home. This post is an attempt to contrast the two and understand what a university like IITK could do to improve the quality of its students.

The first thing that distinguishes an American university from IITK is the enormous amount of research output these places have. Most professors here are regular publishers in quality international conferences/journals. Of course, that cannot be counted as a shortcoming of Indian universities. It is simply a natural and expected effect of the fact that India is not at the cutting edge of technology while the US is. Also, the insane amounts of R&D dollars that float around in America automatically act to drive researchers forward - a facility that Indian researchers do not have!

My second point concerns the quality and motivation of students. While the quality of students we get in IITs is exceptional, often their motivation levels are not. For example, I know batchmates who were not really interested in Computer Science but since they bagged rank so-and-so in JEE, they enrolled in it nevertheless. In the US, the choice of stream is often dominated by the interests of the individual. As a result, most students here are very highly motivated to do well in the field they have chosen. Once the interest is there, work seems like play and the effect on performance is clearly visible.

These of course are issues about which nothing can be done. For instance, IITK cannot increase its research output overnight or even over the period of an year. Similarly, social attitudes in India regarding career choices will also not change anytime soon. Even then, I feel there are a number of other small improvements that IIT Kanpur can make to improve the quality of education it provides to its students.

For one, I feel that following a textbook while teaching a course is a big plus. Textbooks serve to make the concepts presented in class concrete. Also, the written word is a more precise medium of expression. Verbal communication is good for imparting intuitions, but it is only when an idea is precisely written down that it is conveyed in its entirety. Most professors at IITK refuse to follow books. The most common reason cited is that the stuff they plan to teach is not part of any single textbook. However, my impression is that at least for the basic undergrad level introductory courses in OS, Databases, Compilers etc, the course content is fairly standard and well covered in many books. Even in a course like OS which is taught very well at IITK, following a textbook has the advantage that long after when the course is over, the student has something to refer to!

The other thing which I feel has a great impact on the understanding of students is the use of assignments as learning aids. In most courses at IITK, generally only programming assignments are emphasized and written ones are only handed out in a few courses. Most Stanford courses however, have weekly assignments which test the understanding of the concepts presented in class. In almost all these courses, assignments comprise a significant percentage of a person's final grade. This has two advantages: the student is forced to be up-to-date as the assignments have to be submitted on a regular basis, and assignments are good places to ask questions which are difficult to ask in exams. For example, given an algorithm, perform a dry run on a particular input. Such mundane questions are rarely posed in exams. However, doing two or three dry runs is often critical to understanding the quirks of the algorithm. Then, there may be questions which are too difficult to ask in a timed exam. They also are ideal candidates to be posed as assignments.

I guess these two things shall go a significant way in improving the calibre of IITK students. Of course there are potential concerns. Following a textbook might lead to a further fall in attendance in classes. Take-home written assignments might fuel more incidents of cheating and academic fraud. However, my take is that these are mostly orthogonal issues which need to be tackled separately.

Ironical Tyranny? Tyrannical Irony? Whatever ...

India faces a cruel irony right now. Even as Assam and Bihar struggle with a flood of gigantic proportions, much of the rest of the country is saddled with the prospects of drought!

Assam is no stranger to floods around this time. India's mightiest river, the Brahmaputra, has an unfortunate tendency to overflow during the monsoons. This time around, the situation was exacerbated by a breach in a water resorvoir in Bhutan. As a result, both Bihar and Assam have been victims of a flood far more terrible than anyone expected.

In stark contrast, the rest of India has by now realized that the monsoon is going to be a cropper. Pre-drought preparations are on and the Meterological Department has already warned farmers not to grow long lifecycle crops. Though I do not understand the specifics, I guess the general idea is that farmers are advised to grow crops which have a decent chance of maturing before the meagre rainfall runs out.

It is in this context that the proposal for linking rivers in India assumes significance. I am no expert in the area and from what I have read, there are conflicting views on whether the idea is feasible or not. As an engineer, I see no reason for the plan to not work. Of course, as a few friends of mine say, computer scientists hardly qualify as engineers ;-) Coming back to the point, of course there are issues which need to be sorted out regarding the sharing of waters between states, the actual maintenance of the linkage network etc. But all these issues are, in my opinion, stymied by the one tremendous promise the scheme holds - the promise to decouple the fortunes of our farmers from the lottery that monsoons are! Agriculture accounts for around 27% of the Gross National Product and is by far the most fickle of our three major economic sectors (manufacturing & services being the other two). Last year, with exceptional monsoons our GDP growth clocked an impressive 8.2%. The year before, with average monsoons, our growth languished below 5%. If anything at all could be done to alleviate this uncertainity, I feel our government should eagerly pursue the option.

Historical Hysteria

Ever since the NDA govt rose to power, there have been quibbles about the saffronization of the history curriculum. Supposedly apex bodies like NCERT were "inflitrated" by RSS pracharaks who were hellbent on mutating the history of this land. Now that the "secular" UPA is in power, these concerns have been laid to rest. However, to correct the wrongs of the previous governnment, a review of the history curriculum had been ordered to be undertaken by the NCERT. And what has the erudite NCERT committee decided? That from the next academic session, the older rightful version of history shall be restored. Okay - what about the current session? Hold your breath! Ladies and gentlemen, it was decided that for the nine remaining months of the current session, Indian students will be told that India has two histories - the one in the "doctored" books and the one in the earlier pristine books! Yes, you heard it right. Both versions are part of the curriculum as reported by an HT report here. India can amaze you in ways more than one!

Ha ha!

Lets see if you have heard this one:

A first grade teacher explains to her class that she is an American.
She asks her students to raise their hands if they
were American too.
Not really knowing why but wanting to be like their
teacher, their hands explode into the air like flashy
fireworks.

There is, however, one exception.
A girl named Gita has not gone along with the crowd.
The teacher asks her why she has decided to be
different.


"Because I am not an American." replied Gita.
"Then", asks the teacher, "What are you?"
"I'm a proud Indian," boasts the little girl.
The teacher is a little perturbed now, her face
slightly red. She asks Gita why she is an Indian.
"Well", my mom and dad are Indians, "so I'm an Indian too."

The teacher is now angry. "That's no reason", she
says loudly "if your mom was an idiot, and your dad
was an idiot, what would you be then?"

A pause, and a smile.

"Then" says Gita, "I'd be an American."

:-)

Enough is enough!

Well, I guess that is enough blogging for a day. Got a midterm (Compilers) tomorrow and need to study some for that! See ya laters ...

The Da Vinci Code

Written by Dan Brown, this is absolutely the most amazing book I ever read! An intricate web of historical intrigue woven with modern events to produce a thriller far better than any other I saw. The book's blurb may be found here. Anyone who hasn't yet read the book is advised to go straight to the market, buy the book, telephone Boss to say you will be late for office next morning, snuggle in bed and start on an unforgettable quest for an explosive ancient secret!

Saddened

Yesterday, I read about the following incident reported in newspapers: Hannah Foster, a British citizen was raped and killed by Maninder Pal Singh Kohli who later fled to India and hid somewhere. After months of inaction, Trevor and Hillary Foster, parents of the unfortunate victim, came to India to appeal to the press etc to help in the search for their daughter's killer. And as luck would have it, the criminal was found even before they had returned back to England. The Punjab Chief Minister who was earlier slated to meet with the Fosters to discuss the manhunt has now promised his full cooperation in the extradition process.

On reading the report at first, I felt happy for the family. I still feel happy for the family, but now I also feel troubled by a number of questions that haunt my mind:

- Had a UK citizen (or any Western country) been guilty of a crime against an Indian, would the UK embassy have even issued a visa to the distraught parents? I have my doubts!

- Had he been nabbed, would the UK citizen have been extradited to face charges in a third world country? Given the qualms Western countries have in extraditing far more culpable offenders and terrorists, people who aren't even their own citizens, I am sure the answer to this question has to be a 'no' as well!

- Would the Chief Minister of Punjab have granted a personal meeting to an Indian couple trying to find justice for their deceased daughter? Of course not!

The answer to each one of the above questions is 'no'! And it is this realization that we still bend our backs to please our erstwhile colonial masters that leaves me saddened!

Drowsy Dissertations - VOL II

There are few constants in Indian politics. Governments change, allies switch camps, ministers change positions, leaders switch idealogies and everyone changes statements. However, amidst all this chaos, there have been two things which have been remarkably steady - the Left in Bengal and Lalu in Bihar. The Left has held on to the chief ministership of Bengal for an astonishing 30+ years, while Lalu (or his wife Rabri) has been ruling over Bihar since 1990. And I utterly fail to understand why the electorate repeatedly rewards them, while at the same time much more competent governments (NDA at the center for instance) are summarily rejected.

Let us begin with Lalu. I would really like to understand the socio-political forces that have kept someone as disgusting as Lalu Yadav in political prominence for so long. He portrays himself as the messiah of the poor Bihar population. In fact, there are books taught in schools in Bihar which have entire chapters devoted to Lalu Yadav and his greatness! And then he has the spunk to talk about history being altered by the RSS! As Railway Minister, Lalu Yadav undertakes a slew of populist measures - kullahrs instead of plastic cups, khadi being worn by railway staff among a host of others. Without going into the merits of the proposals, I have no doubt in my mind that it is these clever ploys that Lalu uses to manipulate his electorate back home. To project the image of an earthen Bihari villager. To assure them that he is one of them. When will the poor Bihar population realize that he ceased to be one among them a long time ago? Why is it so difficult to see that there has been virtually no developmental activity around them since 1990 (not me, the Planning Commision says this!)? Whatever happened to the Indian voter who is hailed as intelligent and preceptive? How can just having a chief minister of your caste be adequate compensation for all the basic amneties that the average Bihari villager's life lacks? There has to be something more here which I do not understand. I realize that elections can be rigged, but surely not all seats across Bihar! There is something else behind the phenomenal appeal Lalu Yadav holds for his rural electorate - something that holds even after the decade long rape that Bihar has endured. Its a puzzle beyond my wits and I wish someone could tell me the answer.

About the Left now - for 30 years the Left has been implementing their retro-Communist policies in its backyard. Bengal was a progressive state, a state that had been at the forefront of achievement during the British and post-British days. Not so today! People are fearful of setting up businesses in West Bengal. Why? Well, simply because the miles of red tape involved, the arcane labour laws, the attitude of the government towards entrepreneurs and almost everything else screams to say: "You are not welcome!" One of my friends, the son of a Calcutta industrialist, tells me that he does not know of a single factory being set up in Bengal in the recent past. I am stupefied! How can the Indian Left cling to the age-old Marxist ideals which even die-hard communist countries like China have abandoned? And how can the public be so gullible as to support them in such a misguided quest? Ah yes, the farmers know nothing of economics you would say. Well, are they so indoctrinated that they no longer feel outraged that they need a license in Bengal for everything - including one for selling the rice grown on their own fields!! It is nothing short of a mystery that a government that bottles the progressive instincts of its own citizens has been able to survive so comfortably and for so long.

But this was not the reason I wrote this post. I apprehend a far greater danger looming over India than the one posed by these incompetent state governments. Look at the central government in power today. Its two main pillars are Lalu and the Left! Lalu makes no secret of his ambition to be India's prime minister one day. The Left makes no qualms about its desires to reverse all progress India has made as a free economy in the nineties. And they stand united with their clout increasing every year. Lalu rose from being a regional leader to a leader of unmistakeable national importance. The Left has bagged an unprecedented 60 seats inn the previos general elections. I am immediately reminded of the book The Fourth Protocol by Forsythe. The thriller, set in UK, included a subplot which described a devious plan by the Soviet Communist party to gradually strengthen the communist support base in UK and finally convert it over to Communism. Though nothing as scandalous is expected in the forseeable future, the least we can do is to be catious of the dangers that a team of misguided idealogues and corrupt politicians can pose to our country.

Drowsy Dissertations - VOL I

Fifteen days is a long time. Long enough that in these last fifteen days, I have lined up a number of blogworthy thoughts (atleast three) inside my cranium. So instead of putting them as unrelated posts, I thought of making a series. So I created one and named it "Drowsy Dissertations". Why? Well, most of the things that I am gonna say occured to me last week. And if you read my previous post, you'd know that most of the time last week I was doing just two things - sleeping or feeling sleepy! So much for small talk - on to the main show now...

---------

On Wednesday last, one of my non-Indian friends (Kaan) and I were chit-chatting about things in general when the conversation veered towards Indian food. Kaan is a great fan of Indian food and soon enough, he started talking about kebabs and the various other non-vegetarian delicacies that are part of what one may call Mughlai cuisine. When I told him that I was a vegetarian, Kaan said, "Oh, you too! Hey man, what's it about India that about half the country is vegetarian there?"

My response was: "Well, maybe its just a matter of following what people around you do. I was born and brought up in a family where no one ate meat. So neither do I. I guess its the same for all those half a billion Indians who are vegetarians."

"C'mon! There's gotta be a better reason for giving up all the delicious non-veg stuff you guys cook in India!"

I suggested maybe its because our economy is agriculture based and so it makes sense to be a vegetarian. But Kaan countered that an agriculture based economy might actually be an effect of a vegetarian population rather than its cause. And the debate continued and I kept losing.

The truth is that I did not know why so many Indians choose to be vegetarians. Worse, I did not know why I am a vegetarian. And so I decided to do a bit of introspection. Strong animals eat weak animals all over the world. Why is it okay for a lion to eat a deer and not for a me to eat chicken?

When I tried to uncover the differences in the two situations, I came up with the following - a lion is not morally aware, while I am. In other words, a lion has no choice but to eat the deer. In fact it never explicitly chooses to be a non-vegetarian. It just is a non-vegetarian - a being that is genetically programmed to be so. However, we humans have the ability to choose what we think is correct. Hence, the moral question applies only to us and not to lions or any other creatures. Moreover most of these creatures cannot survive without meat, while we humans have a demonstrated ability to live comfortably off a vegetarian diet.

However, this only answers the question of why it is okay for lions to eat meat. It still does not answer the other half about why I shouldn't. The answer to that was tougher to find. I could not find any fault in the simple process of eating meat. The predator-prey model has infact survived millions of years of Darwinian selection and is still the prevalent ecological relationship in the wild. However, what disturbs me is the complete impersonalization of the process that humans have brought about. If I decide to become a non-vegetarian, I would not go out there to find and kill the chicken I need. Instead, the chicken would be taken out of a coop by someone I don't know, would be mercilessly hacked to death and handed to me in a plastic bag in return for some cash. And all of this would take place in a slaughter-house where hundreds of other chickens do nothing but wait ... just wait for the day when the door of their coop would open and their life would close.

A prey in the wild has a life of its own. It runs, sleeps, mates, fights and maybe someday, it falls prey to a stronger creature. Not them poor chickens! The sole purpose of their existence is to get killed. It is not meat eating that I abhor, it is this idea that a particular animal is doomed to be a piece of meat on someone's plate before it has even hatched out of its egg. Immediately, I am reminded of the movie The Matrix in which humans were subjected to a similar regime - they were reared solely to provide power to the machines. That the chicken gets killed is just incidental. It is the oppression it undergoes while it is alive that bothers me. And as far as possible, I will try my best to not to do anything that supports the meat industry which is guilty of inflicting such oppression.

Longer time no see ...

Well, well, well. No updates for about two weeks. Ain't I regular! Well there were a few reasons for my absence:

-> Last week I did not feel inspired enough to post.
-> This week I was crazily busy. Hence no time to blog!

But now that I am here, let me begin from where I left off.

July Fourth Weekend:

We (Asim and I) spent the weekend in San Diego with Diwaker and Rajaji. The trip was great fun. It included many firsts for me incuding kayaking, camping, attempts to climb a mountain, cooking out in the open etc. IMHO, this kind of an adventure trip sure beats the hell out of the normal sight seeing excursions that I am used to. Extremely enjoyable, tiring and something that I would like to do again and again.

The week that followed:

Call it the July 4th Hangover, or the San Diego Hangover or heck .. just The Hangover, but something happened to me last week. I could not focus on any task at all. So Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I just killed time. Now many people find it hard to understand how can someone kill time for 4 consecutive days. I can't fault them. I myself had trouble imagining someone do that a few years ago. However, with age and maturity, I have grown into an expert, experienced and excellent executioner (killer) of time. Here's the technique I follow:
1) Wake up late
2) Do not brush your teeth - otherwise you immediately freshen up and start thinking about what to do now
3) Get laptop without rising from bed (this may require use of foresight and advanced positioning skills)
4) Check email, delete spam, curse humanity
5) Read every damn news website in the world. Wait ... leave out the Mozambique Daily and the Times of India!
6) Solve all online crosswords
7) Go off to sleep after a good day's work :-)
8) Repeat

See - anyone can do it! The weekend however was a bit more productive since I had to submit a few assignments (compilers + databases) and I worked on them. All in all, a week best forgotten.

Current week:

The contrast could not have been starker. Last week I did nothing. This week I ended up doing an entire week's worth of work in two days! Paulo had given me a job to finish by next Monday. However, due to some urgent changes in schedule, he informed me that the deadline has been preponed to this Wednesday. Oops! With assignments for both my courses looming large and this extra workload, I knew I had to kick some serious ass if I am to finish all in time. As it turned out, after a Herculean effort spread over 53 hours, I managed to get all three things wrapped up. And no I wasn't finished yet. I also read some 50 pages of the Da Vinci Code after all this! And then I slept - from ten in the night to twelve in the morning today.

That was the update guys! Have a whole bunch of other interesting thoughts to share. Will be posting them soon enough.