For now

A perfect holiday would be away from the smog filled sky. Gazing at the stars. Eating ice cream. Butterscotch with chocolate. No wafer please. For now.
Travelling in a train in conversation with a stranger. Maybe a book or maybe a person. Or just me.
Watching the traffic from a high rise building. Void of thoughts. Or deeply contemplating about stuff. The yellow cheesy moon trapped between leafless trees.

An year or two ago, a perfect holiday was a semester without classes. That's my present. It feels nowhere close to a holiday. Times change and so does our sense of comfort. So does our sense of happiness and joy. And so does our sense of other materialistic pleasures.

Then what keeps us going? These dreams of perfect holidays? The lists of places that we wish to see? The food items that we want to taste? The things that we want to buy? Or just the pleasure of being with people we like, people we love and people we adore?

Duke TIP summer internship

The internship that I did after third year. (Summer 2012).
Well, this was published in our campus magazine, The Fifth Estate. I thought I should have this one on my blog as well, for various reasons. Thanks to the editors for making this concise and decent.

I spent my summer at the Infosys campus, Mysore. I was recruited by Educational Initiatives (EI) as a Teaching Assistant for the course ‘Design Challenges: Physics and Engineering’, for students of standard VIII. The program was conducted by Duke University. My work involved teaching design in theory, setting up practical experiments, executing them, conducting evening sessions, and ensuring all students were keeping pace with the teaching.
I applied for this internship after receiving an email via smail. My resume was short listed by EI and then confirmed by a professor. The next round was a telephonic interview with the HR representative of EI. The questions involved dealing with homesickness, academic pressure and bullying, among others. The experience of being a GCU Counselor significantly helped in the interview, and I was selected for the internship.
The Infosys campus is in the outskirts of Mysore. Apart from comfortable accommodation and good food, it offers a nice environment for academic pursuits. I had an instant bonding with my colleagues. The instructors were from USA. They were highly curious about the Indian education system. My students were an inquisitive and tech-forward lot. I could even sense a generation gap sometimes. Fortunately, they still looked up to their seniors. The cultural diversity in our team led to lots of enlightening interactions.
I taught them the basic design process, and Design for X, which they had to apply in all design projects. Our students were taught to brainstorm and critically analyse ideas. They then had to make relevant calculations and convince us (the professor and TA) about their designs. We also showed them interesting movies about engineering failures.
We designed experiments to measure the acceleration due to gravity, coefficient of restitution, BCD to seven segment display and logic gates. Among the big design projects were Popsicle bridges and catapults built with PVC pipes, which were a huge success. I went a step ahead to help them understand and love mathematics. I asked them to draw triangles and measure trigonometric ratios, and confirm their answers using calculators. They used this understanding to make simple inclinometers to measure the height of buildings.
In the evenings, we had problem-solving sessions pepped up with games to build their creativity. Music, arts, crafts, dance and sports were all focuses of the evening. “Uses of a toothbrush” was an exercise where the students came up with over 30 uses! Weekends were full of treasure hunts, lip-sync sessions, dances with a DJ, and sports fests.
The program was so eventful that time flew, and three weeks quickly passed. Everyone got emotional while bidding their goodbyes. The students expressed their happiness, saying they had fun and learnt a lot. I am proud of having made an impact on bright young minds, getting them enthusiastic about design. I will cherish this experience forever.

The original article can be found here- http://t5e.iitm.ac.in/2012/08/internship-stories-bindu-duke-tip/

In search of answers

Today I had to say things that I didn't mean. I had to do things which I didn't want to? Why?
Well, I don't know. I am still looking for answers that fit in. We find things that we look for.
I have to choose between a run and a trip with friends. I see myself with a book in my hand, hair flying out of the window as I search for things that I want to see.
Why do we make the choices that we make? What makes us do them?
I can't help but wonder how I landed up in certain situations.

Look at this image that I found on the internet today! The colours are so lovely. There is so much more to it than the colours that are attempting to blend and the zig zag words. So much more.

Read, reflect and maybe, run!

I read this article on Medium.
"Whatever problem you’re facing right now, somewhere in the history of mankind, someone probably much smarter than you has written about it. Save yourself the trouble and learn from those who have already figured it out."

Those words right there made me so happy. The reason? I thought about something like that an year or two back. And it felt good to see someone write about it.

I have been spending time reading and customizing my feeds. I have ignored books this month, but I will get back. Very soon. I find reading as a very interesting task. It really connects you to who you are and obviously connects you with some great minds.

Writing helps you in clearing your mind. Remember all those times when people motivated you? times when you made others happy? instances where you put some awesome arguments and philosophy? Jot them down, I say. You may or may not read them later in your life. But you know, just have them there. Reflect.
Also, it is a stress reliever. It is a way of emptying your head with those thoughts. Thoughts that keep bothering you. Thoughts that need attention and thoughts that are just there. Write them down and you will feel lighter.

Talking about feeling lighter, exercising is another way. What challenges you physically and makes you feel accomplished?
I have running and swimming on my plate. The running target for Feb is making me go out there and run. Be it a 2k or a 10k.

Let go?

Getting stressed, frustrated about work that didn't happen, random excuses and what not!

We all have those bouts of guilt. 

I was down with cold and didn't run or exercise for quite a while. It made me mad at myself. I was being very unproductive. All other work was getting affected. Thanks to the negative aura that I was generating. 

In these situations there are few things that can be done-

1. Get out and get your work done.

2. Put peace and accept the current situation.

3. There are more "temporary" fixes which we all do. 

Options 1 and 2 seem to have their own advantages(and disadvantages). See what works best for you. Realising that you are in this situation itself is a big deal. More than half of the problem is solved. Just then and there. Why? Your mind starts working and tries to reach the state of comfort.

My mind told me to just accept what is going on and to go with the flow. Maybe it is also because of the abundant free time. 

Talking of free time, I have a couple of hobby "projects". No deadlines. I am sketching/doodling. I have some small targets on the running front.
But deep down, I know, something is missing and I am looking out for it. 

Paths and Destinations

 "Yesterday, there was this snail going on the road. SiZHky picked it up and placed it elsewhere. It took a moment or two and then kept crawling and running. You know, it panicked. So maybe it tried to run.
What if a giant picked you and put you in Mongolia? What would you do? You are already in Mongolia now, aren't you? The human brain and its ideas. Amazing. Do you panic when your mind wanders? How do you feel when it goes places? Does it fill you with excitement? How active are you?
The more I think, the more alive I feel. So much is there to not feel bored. Yet we feel bored. Ah, these chain of thoughts. "
I penned this in my zimlog around 2 months back. I tried to connect with those emotions and it felt different. Good different or bad different? Mixed emotions maybe. I felt a bit sad for the snail, that day and today.
Did it lose its way? Did it go back home? Or was it trying to get away? Was it just wandering?
It makes me wonder how people change our paths. All the detours and roads not taken.

Writing helps. It lets you peek into the past and helps you reflect. And so do photos!

Fear of loss

I was writing in my log(zimlog, as I call it) about what I would like to do during some of the weekends(or perhaps, weekdays). Traveling, maybe watch movies and definitely read books.
Traveling sounds very cliche because people keep talking about this. But yes, if given a choice between a nice big dinner treat and a weekend away, a weekend away would be the obvious choice. I think so. Now, I hope so. (Dinner sounds yum!)
And movies? I have seen very few movies. Wait before you conclude anything. I saw a lot of TV series and some of them, a lot of times. My friends tell me I am lucky! There are a lot of good movies out there. And we even have a list of movies with ratings and comments. So that is settled.
I am craving to buy a nice bookshelf. Probably, I might make one on my own. That sounds very exciting! I haven't read much either. But I have done some decent amount of reading these last two years.  I also bought some books. That reminds me- I need to be a bit more careful about not losing books. I fear losing my books. My collection of things, in general (I think I would rather use the word "misplacing"). But fine, wherever they are, someone would read them. That seems comforting.
Books, movies, conversations with friends(near and far), traveling. Some lonely time away in the company of people. Solidarity in a crowded place.

Classical evening and TGoST

Paluke bangaramayana and jo achyutananda and TMKrishna and what not. Carnatic music is bliss. So is reading.

I got two amazing books as my birthday gifts, one of which I have been carrying with me, everywhere. So to be guilt free, I will just read the novel. I will ignore the 20+tabs open with all sorts of research papers which talk of, you know, my "research" topic.  The God of Small Things. Yep, as others work on their DDPs, or maybe not.

Work in progress?