Of achievements, debaucheries and myriad randomness

Thursday was a red letter day. No, it seriously was. I, for the first time in my entire freaking adult life, flipped an omelette correctly without breaking it into weird shaped pieces. I know for a lot of you this might not be something. But, this was a major culinary breakthrough for me. I have experimented with a myriad different things now. Have cooked a diverse range of food items which look good and taste even better. But, when it came to reproducing that fluffy, eggy wonderfulness that my mother made for me I have been a failure. I have tried several different things. More butter, less butter, greased pan, un-greased pan, more stuffing, less stuffing, you name it and I have tried it. But, the results have always been the same. Failure, utter total failure. It was depressing and distressing. Looking at that eggy mess on the edge of my plate instead of the neatly folded omelette made me consider going for therapy. But, not anymore, I have flipped two of them now, on consecutive days. And although I am no expert yet, I am getting there. Thought I should share the thoughts and feelings with you'll. Now for some statistics, about a million omelettes are flipped everyday. a couple of million others are unsuccessful at the same venture. I seriously feel like the member of a freaking elite club now. So, that was Thursday. 

It has been a long week and we decided to unwind on Friday. Started at the Globe and did a pub crawl stopping at Little Kings, Manhattan and Max Canada en route. It was a fun evening. Too much drinking, crazy conversations and a little too much nicotine. Well, I guess once in a while such nights are needed. Manhattan makes a rather decent sangria and Max Canada has air hockey. I love air hockey. Although I lost both the games to our new faculty member who helped me stay afloat and drunk in spite of my depleted finances. Well, he is from a country that swears by hockey, so there is that. The night ended at the greasy grill. And it ended at five in the morning. 

And so we woke up hungover on Saturday (why is that a surprise?) and decided we needed to go to Atlanta. And so we did. Walked around Piedmont Park, watched a wedding, headed to midtown, walked up and down Peachtree and down 5th and through parts of GA tech and then drove back. GA Tech has cooler buildings and a much bigger and better bookstore. One of my fellow country-men had made crepes and that was the next stop and then there was the long drive. And all this ended at 4. Thank god I am not hungover this morning because I need to put facts and figures into my system and pump out the same. Going to be one of these adventurous academic days. 

So, that was yet another crazy weekend. It was kinda fun actually. Rejuvenating in many ways. It was mostly random. There was no serious planning and that is fun. Plans kill inventiveness and make life uninteresting. Glad, we did not take that route. Alright, I will shut up now and get on with life. More will follow and soon. 

Piled High and Deep and other general thoughts!

Writing is serious commitment. And the events of March 2009 killed any little trace of that commitment that I might have had. I re-located but for a while I remained moored to the shores that my body had left. It all sounds very strange. But truth is often cheesy, shitty and nausea inducing. However, I believe I have moved on. Not that there isn't that occasional incising pain, but I treat as a remnant of an operation that was not performed properly. So, here I am, in the US of A, a doctoral student. A couple of years (hopefully) from having alphabets before and after my name. I remember that afternoon at the British Council Library, Kolkata when promises were exchanged, this is what I had wanted. It was all uncertain, but this was it. And here I am living it now and boy isn't it god-awful at times. I curse myself, but at the next moment as I get engrossed in understanding what some theorist, researcher, someone has said in some part of the world and how that is shaping the way I feel about my world and surroundings, I feel a strange calm. I don't know if it is natural. But, I feel mighty good. 
I have traveled a bit in these last two years. Have seen a few more things in this planet of ours, which still remains (contrary to technical claims and thanks to border control) rather large for me. Traveling is good, I enjoy it and my only hope and wish is that I can keep earning enough so that I can keep traveling all my life. Work (if I land up with a job that is) will no doubt get in the way. And that is precisely why I want to continue in academia. The pay is shit and you will not drive a fancy car (well unless of course you are saving the world's future by depleting its present resources as scientists often do) or have a palatial home, but you will get summers off. And thanks to conferences and the need to go to them to get and give slaps on the backs (both the sexual and the "bravo, well done" kind), you will see new places and hopefully the university will foot the bill. So, when I get a job, hoping that I will, I can say that I have chosen wisely. Till then, I will drink seven cups of coffee everyday, go to bed at 3 in the morning, drink cheap alcohol and forget the meaning of the word breakfast. And yeah read 200 pages every 3 days and write about 100 once every six months and wank my dick off while hoping to get laid (being a single graduate student is particularly miserable). Ah well, the usual bitterness has crept into this note. I was seriously hoping to take it toward a positive direction but that seems to be difficult given the circumstances. 
Will think of something along those lines the next time I write, which will be (one can only hope) soon.