Abysmal Jokes (AJ's) Part 16

Colleague 1: hey...my computer stopped working all of a sudden.

Colleague 2: did you kick something by mistake? a wire might have come loose

Colleague 1: hmm...im sure i kicked something AFTER it stopped working ...

Home Sweet Home

To travel half way across the world, return after a year
and feel like everything happened just yesterday

To eat like a king who has everything in the world lined up for him

To sleep like a simple man who has nothing in the world to worry about

To see with delight how people have changed
and how people have not changed

To realize with surprise how I have changed and remained the same

To return back home

Only so much

Its 1.00 am in the night
All my roomies are still up alright
But for keyboard strokes and mouse clicks, the air is quiet

Such is the fate of people in grad school
Let it not for one second fool
You into thinking all's well and cool

Its bloody cold, sometimes its quite hot too
In this silly place Purdue
The weather can be irritating like nose goo
About this theres only so much you can do.

Fall colours

Flow - The Neurobiology of Excellence

Here is a very interesting excerpt on the concept of "flow" - from the pages of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman :
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A composer describes those moments when his work is at its best:

You yourself are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as though you almost don't exist. I've experienced this time and again. My hand seems devoid of myself, and I have nothing to do with what is happening. I just sit there watching in a state of awe and wonderment. And it just flows out by itself.


His description is remarkably similar to those of hundreds of diverse men and women-rock climbers, chess champions, surgeons, basketball players, engineers, managers and even filing clerks-when they tell of a time they outdid themselves in some favoured activity. The state they describe is called "flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the University of Chicago psychologist who has collected many such accounts of peak performance during two decades of research. Athletes know this state of grace as the "zone" where excellence becomes effortless, crowd and competitors disappearing into a steady absorption in the moment. Diane Roffe-Steinrotter, who captured a gold medal in skiing at the 1994 Winter Olympics said after she finished her turn at ski racing that she remembered nothing about it but being immersed in relaxation: "I felt like a waterfall".

Being able to enter flow is emotional intelligence at its best, flow represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performance and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. Yet flow(or a milder microflow) is an experience almost everyone enters from time to time, particularly when performing at their peak or stretching beyond their former limits. Its is perhaps best captured by ecstatic lovemaking, the merging of two into a fluidly harmoniously one.

The experience is a glorious one: the hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture. Because flow feels so good, it is intrinsically rewarding. It is a state in which people become utterly absorbed in what they are doing, their awareness merged with their actions. Indeed it interrupts flow to reflect too much on what is happening-the very thought"I'm doing this wonderfully" can break the feeling of flow. Attention becomes so focused that are aware only of the narrow range of perception related to the immediate task, losing track of time and space. A surgeon for example, recalled a challenging operation during which he was in flow; when he completed the surgery he noticed some rubble on the floor of the operating room and asked what happened. He was amazed to hear that while he was so intent on the surgery part of the ceiling had caved in - he hadn't noticed at all.

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A beautiful day in Purdue

row your boat

Row row row your boat
the journeys' half done
the morning is yet to come
still time for the rising sun

Dark doubts cloud over the horizon
a trace of fear, a hint of uncertainity
add more meaning to the black eternity

But all these fade away
no more with the wind you sway
when you conjure up an iron will
and push like hell towards the distant hill

So you row row row your boat
the journeys' half done
the morning is yet to come
still time for the rising sun

In the pitch black darkness you see clearly
the green grass the dotted trees
the temple on the hill and the monkeys
on the beach kids play and scream
all vividly in your dream

Your doubts were mistaken, you realise
you'll always have good company
never did you think you'll come this far
but just look up, theres always with you the northern star

So you row row row your boat
the journeys' half done
the morning is yet to come
still time for the rising sun

...

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

-Steve Jobs

Been a month

Its been around a month since I arrived at Purdue. So many things have happened in so less a time. The ability of humans in general (and me in particular)to adapt to surrounding environments constantly surprises me. In just a few days things have started to turn from the extraordinary to the routine. Im no longer overwhelmed by the different sights, sounds and smells (or the lack of them by Indian standards) around me.

You cant help being inspired by the professors and the research happening in this place. You begin to realize how much more there is to learn. By learn I mean really learn.. and not "get good grades" or "pass an exam" and the like. The teaching in class (for most part) makes you think. Which is good.

Not being in contact with people back home is like a dull persistent body ache. You can talk on the phone or chat online, but there's never a good time to say goodbye. Some things will just take some getting used to, I guess.

Of course as a grad student you have no time. There is always something important to do right away. And more often than not (at least in the beginning of the semester) the tasks are very interesting. Very difficult and time consuming, but interesting nevertheless. This is one of those rare occurrences when I don't feel guilty of spending time writing a blog.

More to come later. Fervently hope I get the time (and the clear conscience) to blog again!

Bull****

I dont think my blog's all bullshit. But simetimes I might get quite close to it, dont you think?