In keeping with my mood, a Japanese death poem :
Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going --
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.
Kozan Ichikyo, died February 12, 1360, at 77
You can read more beautiful Japanese death poems here
Sunday, 29 April 2007
sunday evening whine
Sunday evenings are so terribly depressing. End of the weekend and the Monday morning looming ahead, unavoidable. And like L and I were discussing once, Sunday evening is the time when you don't want to meet up with anyone, go and out/do anything in particular. Its when you want to do 'Great gooey goops of nothing.' as the ever-audacious Ms. I put it.
Don't want to go out. Don't want to meet up with ABC XYZ.
BUT
Don't want to be alone at home either.
Its when I feel most lonely. Coz its when I'd like to be with someone AND at the same time be at home and feel at home. I want to laze around and do my own thing, feel rested for the week ahead. AND at the same time, have someone around as well, someone who's also doing their own thing.
I always feel like there were SO many things I should have done over the weekend but never did.
- should have got my passport-size photos taken .
- should have submitted documents for Hutch phone number
- should have done my grocery shopping for the week
- should have got some work done
hmmm . I really should be more positive.
Things I did get done this weekend
- did clean the house
- did mail Aa
- did mail prof 1 about plans for further studies
- did call people I had promised to call ( though this was more to try and get myself out of depression) . Called Mr.C who has fallen in love..again, I really hope he doesn't get hurt..again.. Called J, who's phone his messed up and who's going to be back in B'lore (yaaaay!). Called N, who I've invited over next weekend, to supposedly help out with logistic regression and SAS (hee hee hee, she's in for a shock).
- did practice my guitar
- did not succumb to terrible urge to call The Ex. (still 2 more hours to go, but I WILL SURVIVE)
- did meet uncle , aunt , cousins and eat a scrumptious lunch.
- did cook a nice dinner for cousin
I feel a little better. I do. I think I'll work for a while. 5 more days and it'll be Friday evening again !
Blah
Don't want to go out. Don't want to meet up with ABC XYZ.
BUT
Don't want to be alone at home either.
Its when I feel most lonely. Coz its when I'd like to be with someone AND at the same time be at home and feel at home. I want to laze around and do my own thing, feel rested for the week ahead. AND at the same time, have someone around as well, someone who's also doing their own thing.
I always feel like there were SO many things I should have done over the weekend but never did.
- should have got my passport-size photos taken .
- should have submitted documents for Hutch phone number
- should have done my grocery shopping for the week
- should have got some work done
hmmm . I really should be more positive.
Things I did get done this weekend
- did clean the house
- did mail Aa
- did mail prof 1 about plans for further studies
- did call people I had promised to call ( though this was more to try and get myself out of depression) . Called Mr.C who has fallen in love..again, I really hope he doesn't get hurt..again.. Called J, who's phone his messed up and who's going to be back in B'lore (yaaaay!). Called N, who I've invited over next weekend, to supposedly help out with logistic regression and SAS (hee hee hee, she's in for a shock).
- did practice my guitar
- did not succumb to terrible urge to call The Ex. (still 2 more hours to go, but I WILL SURVIVE)
- did meet uncle , aunt , cousins and eat a scrumptious lunch.
- did cook a nice dinner for cousin
I feel a little better. I do. I think I'll work for a while. 5 more days and it'll be Friday evening again !
Blah
Thursday, 26 April 2007
Counting the moon(s)
I think I would have been around 6 years old and my brother 7 years.
I'd stand in the garden in the front of the house and my brother would be in the backyard.
" A***a , there's a moon here. I can see it " , I'd yell, looking up at the night sky.
And my brother would shout to me from the backyard,
"OH! There's one here ALSO. I can see one here as well !!"
:) Happy days, those were...
I'd stand in the garden in the front of the house and my brother would be in the backyard.
" A***a , there's a moon here. I can see it " , I'd yell, looking up at the night sky.
And my brother would shout to me from the backyard,
"OH! There's one here ALSO. I can see one here as well !!"
:) Happy days, those were...
Friday, 20 April 2007
Don't Let the music die
I've only recently been introduced to the online radio and I toally love it. I was absolutely thrilled when I discovered Pandora and I listen to it ALL the time. Thanks to Me, NPR has become my evening source of news. Not having a T.V at home ( a conscious decision) meant that Pandora and NPR became my best buddies. Which is why I didn't think twice about signing the below petition. I know I'm not in the US , but since when did online radio have boundaries ? In any case, if my signature can be of even the tiniest help , I'd be more than happy. Which is why I ask you to please sign this petition as well. If you do listen to online radio, then I'm sure you wouldn't have a moment's hesitation signing this . If you don't , then please do listen, it's amazing. And come and sign ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hi, it's Tim from Pandora,
I'm writing today to ask for your help. The survival of Pandora and all of Internet radio is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. The new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays, and broadcast radio doesn't pay these at all. Left unchanged, these new royalties will kill every Internet radio site, including Pandora.
In response to these new and unfair fees, we have formed the SaveNetRadio Coalition, a group that includes listeners, artists, labels and webcasters. I hope that you will consider joining us.
Please sign our petition urging your Congressional representative to act to save Internet radio: http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/issues/alert/?alertid=9631541
Please feel free to forward this link/email to your friends - the more petitioners we can get, the better.
Understand that we are fully supportive of paying royalties to the artists whose music we play, and have done so since our inception. As a former touring musician myself, I'm no stranger to the challenges facing working musicians. The issue we have with the recent ruling is that it puts the cost of streaming far out of the range of ANY webcaster's business potential.
I hope you'll take just a few minutes to sign our petition - it WILL make a difference. As a young industry, we do not have the lobbying power of the RIAA. You, our listeners, are by far our biggest and most influential allies.
As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.
-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)
------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not sure if the decision affects NPR. In any case, Pandora's worth a fight !
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hi, it's Tim from Pandora,
I'm writing today to ask for your help. The survival of Pandora and all of Internet radio is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. The new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays, and broadcast radio doesn't pay these at all. Left unchanged, these new royalties will kill every Internet radio site, including Pandora.
In response to these new and unfair fees, we have formed the SaveNetRadio Coalition, a group that includes listeners, artists, labels and webcasters. I hope that you will consider joining us.
Please sign our petition urging your Congressional representative to act to save Internet radio: http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/issues/alert/?alertid=9631541
Please feel free to forward this link/email to your friends - the more petitioners we can get, the better.
Understand that we are fully supportive of paying royalties to the artists whose music we play, and have done so since our inception. As a former touring musician myself, I'm no stranger to the challenges facing working musicians. The issue we have with the recent ruling is that it puts the cost of streaming far out of the range of ANY webcaster's business potential.
I hope you'll take just a few minutes to sign our petition - it WILL make a difference. As a young industry, we do not have the lobbying power of the RIAA. You, our listeners, are by far our biggest and most influential allies.
As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.
-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)
------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not sure if the decision affects NPR. In any case, Pandora's worth a fight !
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
turn ons
I get my kicks from reading poems and beautifully constructed theories. They're both loaded with such tremendous meaning and so much promise.That's what attracts me to them.
I love reading mathematical theories and proofs. I never fully understand what they're about and I can never grasp them 100%. But I love reading about century-old mathematical puzzles being solved, elegant proofs laid out for complicated problems, complicated proofs to solve seemingly simple problems...
Recently, an Indian mathematician was in the limelight for winning the coveted Abel Prize ( == the Nobel Prize in Mathematics). The following was a conversation I had with a colleague from work. I am yet to figure out most of his explanation, but I was still totally turned on by this conversation.. (yes, honestly)
its about some special type of markovian/stochastic processes..
for example you know about central limit theorem .. right?
that a distribution becomes Normal when there are enough population..
me: yeah yeah i remember that one
right.. so this theorem tells us that eventually a independent and identical distribution will become a normal distribution..
that is... if we compute the distribution on ENOUGH number of samples then we will get a normal distribution. but it was not known HOW MUCH is ENOUGH
in other words.. suppose we have a sample.. now we want to know how close we are to the true normal distribution.
.. OR ..
How fast we can reach the true distribution if we go on collecting samples
... Large Deviation answers these questions.
so that we can practically and effectively know how much data we need, how much is sufficient, how far we are from true distribution.. ..and how to detect rare events... in case we get erratic distributions as we include more samples
i.e., we don't see any particular convergence. Now that can be interesting in detecting fraud..or validating traffic ...there are hardly any mechanisms known till date to detect rare events of large data just by considering a small sample Large Deviation can provide a solution to this...and if it does... traffic estimation and computations will be highly real time and effective...
And reading poetry is my other fascination .
There's T. S. Eliot
"Let us go then you and I ,
when the evening is spread out against the sky,
like a patient etherised upon a table"
and Neruda
"...Mother of stone , spume of the condors.."
and Dylan Thomas
" Rage , rage against the dying of the light.."
and so many more brilliant pieces.
I wish I could spend days just reading such brilliance, being repeatedly fascinated and turned on (for lack of a better word).
I love reading mathematical theories and proofs. I never fully understand what they're about and I can never grasp them 100%. But I love reading about century-old mathematical puzzles being solved, elegant proofs laid out for complicated problems, complicated proofs to solve seemingly simple problems...
Recently, an Indian mathematician was in the limelight for winning the coveted Abel Prize ( == the Nobel Prize in Mathematics). The following was a conversation I had with a colleague from work. I am yet to figure out most of his explanation, but I was still totally turned on by this conversation.. (yes, honestly)
its about some special type of markovian/stochastic processes..
for example you know about central limit theorem .. right?
that a distribution becomes Normal when there are enough population..
me: yeah yeah i remember that one
right.. so this theorem tells us that eventually a independent and identical distribution will become a normal distribution..
that is... if we compute the distribution on ENOUGH number of samples then we will get a normal distribution. but it was not known HOW MUCH is ENOUGH
in other words.. suppose we have a sample.. now we want to know how close we are to the true normal distribution.
.. OR ..
How fast we can reach the true distribution if we go on collecting samples
... Large Deviation answers these questions.
so that we can practically and effectively know how much data we need, how much is sufficient, how far we are from true distribution.. ..and how to detect rare events... in case we get erratic distributions as we include more samples
i.e., we don't see any particular convergence. Now that can be interesting in detecting fraud..or validating traffic ...there are hardly any mechanisms known till date to detect rare events of large data just by considering a small sample Large Deviation can provide a solution to this...and if it does... traffic estimation and computations will be highly real time and effective...
And reading poetry is my other fascination .
There's T. S. Eliot
"Let us go then you and I ,
when the evening is spread out against the sky,
like a patient etherised upon a table"
and Neruda
"...Mother of stone , spume of the condors.."
and Dylan Thomas
" Rage , rage against the dying of the light.."
and so many more brilliant pieces.
I wish I could spend days just reading such brilliance, being repeatedly fascinated and turned on (for lack of a better word).
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
A tin of sardines with A Purpose
7.30 A.M. : I don't want to go to office. I don't , I don't. I want to stay at home and I know I'll get more work done if I'm at home. I will, really. But I don't have any reason to Work From Home. It'll just seem like I don't want to work and hence...
8.00 A.M. : Ask for the cab to pick me up at 9.
8:20 A.M. : Warm up 2 slices of bread and some sweet corn. Open a tin of sardines... OUCHOUCHOUCH.. Neat little cut, right across my right thumb. I rinse it under the pipe for a while. Bleeding refuses to stop.
TAN TA DA !! Stroke of genius ! There's my excuse. Bleeding thumb, very messy , cannot type. Will Work From Home !!!
No cab for me, thank you very much !
Right now, I truly believe that everything happens for the best. Everything. And for everything there is a purpose. Even if it's just a tin of sardines.
8.00 A.M. : Ask for the cab to pick me up at 9.
8:20 A.M. :
TAN TA DA !! Stroke of genius ! There's my excuse. Bleeding thumb, very messy , cannot type. Will Work From Home !!!
No cab for me, thank you very much !
Right now, I truly believe that everything happens for the best. Everything. And for everything there is a purpose. Even if it's just a tin of sardines.
Monday, 9 April 2007
Move move move
"...and right now i'm really broke to call you. my brother A*** is staying with me for some ten months and he has a phone where you could reach me .... 9______. "
From my ex-boyfriend. After 3 weeks, I got a reply to my mail. I don't mind that, he hardly ever checks his mail. It was always like that , even when we were together.
I SO want to call that number. I'm scared that I'll do it in a moment of weakness. I'll have my guard down and say things out of desperation. Maybe I should just delete that mail and forget about the number. Maybe I should prepare myself properly, call up and get it over with.
Or maybe, just maybe, I should move on....
UPDATE : It was a very nice conversation. Did a lot of catching up. Few awkward silences , but no moments of desperation, thankfully.
From my ex-boyfriend. After 3 weeks, I got a reply to my mail. I don't mind that, he hardly ever checks his mail. It was always like that , even when we were together.
I SO want to call that number. I'm scared that I'll do it in a moment of weakness. I'll have my guard down and say things out of desperation. Maybe I should just delete that mail and forget about the number. Maybe I should prepare myself properly, call up and get it over with.
Or maybe, just maybe, I should move on....
UPDATE : It was a very nice conversation. Did a lot of catching up. Few awkward silences , but no moments of desperation, thankfully.
Friday, 6 April 2007
My brain is steadily degenerating.
I'm not sure what the exact manner in which this is happening is. It could be crumbling into little pieces and just falling off , it could be getting dissolved and getting mixed up with my blood stream or it could just be plain dying out and dead and lying in my skull, serving no purpose.
Spelling mistakes, careless mistakes, forgetfulness, lack of co-ordination, spoonerisms, stuttering , all these abound. Zero concentration, inability to focus... Everything reinforcing my sincere belief that my brain is degenerating. And my daily almond intake is unable to compensate for the high degeneration rate..
I'm dead serious....
I'm not sure what the exact manner in which this is happening is. It could be crumbling into little pieces and just falling off , it could be getting dissolved and getting mixed up with my blood stream or it could just be plain dying out and dead and lying in my skull, serving no purpose.
Spelling mistakes, careless mistakes, forgetfulness, lack of co-ordination, spoonerisms, stuttering , all these abound. Zero concentration, inability to focus... Everything reinforcing my sincere belief that my brain is degenerating. And my daily almond intake is unable to compensate for the high degeneration rate..
I'm dead serious....
Thursday, 5 April 2007
Playing it safe
One of my biggest fears (besides cockroaches and men dressed as clowns and Santa Clauses) is the fear of failure. Till now, whatever I've done, I've done it well. If I know that I'm not going to be good at doing something, then I just won't venture into doing it. Simple. Taking risks, for me, is like suicide. I'm scared that if I take a risk, it might be a huge mistake. What if I've made the wrong decision ?
I fear making the wrong decision. When I've made a wrong decision, I hold on to the regret and the pain that accompanies it, because I'm scared that if I don't do that, I might make that same mistake again.
I know that these fears of mine are doing me more harm than good. I know that I need to take a few risks, take the plunge, make mistakes , learn and move on. But just the thought of all that makes me feel queasy.
I fear making the wrong decision. When I've made a wrong decision, I hold on to the regret and the pain that accompanies it, because I'm scared that if I don't do that, I might make that same mistake again.
I know that these fears of mine are doing me more harm than good. I know that I need to take a few risks, take the plunge, make mistakes , learn and move on. But just the thought of all that makes me feel queasy.
Monday, 2 April 2007
Sunday, 1 April 2007
The Great Gatsby
I finished reading The Great Gatsby yesterday. I had heard so much about it and was waiting to read it for myself. And I loved it, absolutely. The story is nothing spectacular. Tragic, yes and very revealing. But it's incredibly beautifully written.
These are some , just some, because there were SO many, of my favourite excerpts from the book.
"Anyhow, he gives large parties", said Jordan, changing the subject with an urban distaste for the concrete. "And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties, there isn't any privacy."
Urban distaste for the concrete. Beautiful, that was essentially what it was all about.
"A succulent hash arrived, and Mr Wolfsheim, forgetting the more sentimental atmosphere of the old Metropole, began to eat with ferocious delicacy."
And 'ferocious delicacy', I can SO picture that.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
Its so smooth and lucid in the way its written. I'm definitely going to try and get my hands on more of Fitzgerald's work.
These are some , just some, because there were SO many, of my favourite excerpts from the book.
"Anyhow, he gives large parties", said Jordan, changing the subject with an urban distaste for the concrete. "And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties, there isn't any privacy."
Urban distaste for the concrete. Beautiful, that was essentially what it was all about.
"A succulent hash arrived, and Mr Wolfsheim, forgetting the more sentimental atmosphere of the old Metropole, began to eat with ferocious delicacy."
And 'ferocious delicacy', I can SO picture that.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
Its so smooth and lucid in the way its written. I'm definitely going to try and get my hands on more of Fitzgerald's work.
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