Faissal's BLOG

Fear, Terror and Exhilaration of Climbs and Falls -- 11th September, 2011

2011-09-12T02:00:00.003-04:00

I was up on rock shelf, 6 feet above the ground (below the leopard) -- a rock jumping off of which a few weeks ago I had injured my heel, causing me to limp till almost now, since then.

I looked down. I knew I could do it. I also knew that I was afraid. Very afraid. Limping until only a few days ago, memories of my last jump from there were still very fresh. I knew that I could step down onto the portion 4 feet above the ground and take practice jumps, but I wanted to do it in one shot -- for I knew that in life I might come across situations in which I will just have to make a calculated jump, based on past experience, rather than have the luxury of a quick warm up. More importantly, I knew that I plan, just for fun, on situations in life where I simply have to rely on my training -- with no scope for training from lower, nor higher -- knowing that a properly executed procedure will ensure fun and safety. So, there I stood. 6 feet higher than the road, and 2 feet away from it.

I visualized my move. I imagined that I would have to launch myself, then reposition my feet in mid air, then land, so as to do a reverse block to send my body forward, and then tuck into a roll. I imagined myself slowly moving through the air, relaxing my legs, preparing to coil them like a spring the moment the ground touched my feet.

And yet, in silence, I stood. I was afraid. Between bouts of when there were lots of passers by I practiced going through my motions with my legs, but my legs felt like they were made of lead, and I hardly got any fluidity out of them. Two cute girls lying on the grass, across the street, were cheering me on, and the passers by were giving me smiles. It was all very nice, really -- both, the young ones, who expected a visual treat, as well as the ones who looked like they had sons my age, and were thinking "I know what you're up to -- I've got boys, myself." Yeah, I loved that knowing look on the latter's faces -- perhaps because the looks on their faces betrayed an air that what I was doing was safe, whereas the looks on the younger women were simply almost alluring and inviting, as if saying "If you survive, you'll get a warm hug to melt you in comfort."

Even some the guys there looked up, like they knew they would like what they would see. I felt like I was entertaining the passing crowd. It was amazing. It was the 10th anniversary of 11th September, and everyone was happy to anticipate a cool looking stunt -- no one showed even a bit of animosity to this fully bearded guy. While I stood there, tensed, and afraid, I was truly joyous at how people felt.

I stood there for what seemed like forever, despite my having gone through phases where I felt ready to jump, and barely stopped short of it, and phases where I simply wondered to myself: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" There were periods when I was calm and collected, and despite feeling my heartbeat, and despite breathing heavily from anxiety, I went through the motions in my mind, trying to ingrain them within myself; and there were periods when I was barely short of freaking out, my heart beating like a powerful hammer against the inside of my chest, my temples beating like the drums of muscles on strike (or the strike at the nearby boat house was getting to me, haha), and the veins around my eyeballs pulsing, so I could tell when my heart beat my when my vision turned blurry (I know, dehydration is a bitch!).

I knew that I could climb down at any moment. I knew that I could simply climb up, then walk around the statue of the leopard, and down the hill, but I stayed. In fact, a guy who was there with the two girls resting across the street talked to my friend, who was waiting for me to finish with my little adrenaline fix, came to me, concerned, and told me about the walk around the hill that I had already scouted. Of course, I told him that I wanted to jump simply because I wanted to. It was very nice, really, that the girls whom he was with were cheering me on.

Of course, these things come down to very personal decisions. The guy who had just come to tell me about the walk around path went back, telling me "Break a leg." He was simply giving me a friendly warning about what could happen. Of course, I knew what I was doing, so I replied "You can take me to the hospital", to which his two female friends, and the passing my ladies and gentlemen started laughing. I knew, of course, from the get-go, that a go or a no-go was entirely my own, and that no amount of sincere well wishing cautions from those not in the know of how to perform these activities, and no amount of cheering from even the most sincere well wisher should be allowed to overturn one's personal decision as to whether or not to go ahead with the 'trick' (for lack of a better word), for it is one's own well being that one is dealing with, and weighing the risk of getting hurt versus the reward for pulling it off is a very personal decision, and only the one committing the act can know how well he/she can perform the act, and how much he/she has himself/herself under control. In moments like this, it all comes down to feelings -- how well does one feel about the jump? If one feels well, then he might be able to control himself through the motions, keeping his head cool, and his self safe. If one is hesitant, then he might do something wrong, as part of a reflex, and severely jeopardize his well being. Superstitious as this may all seem, one's thoughts govern one's subtle actions, and hence, one's well being.

At one point the girls across the street even brought out a camera, and that made it very tempting to jump, but I eventually got a hold of myself, for I was still having muscle hesitations right as soon as I placed my center of gravity near the brink.

I made many, many attempts to smoothly, and willfully, clear the brink, but each time I failed, and had to take a rest while letting passers underneath go by. Eventually, I made eye contact with a lady who seemed wilder than me. She was on a bike, with a friend (who was also on a bicycle), and she had a wild look in her eyes, like she was excited at the prospect of what she was expecting to see, while her face showed an expression more akin to "I've seen my own sons do stuff like this, young man; now, let's see if you can be charming with what you can do." It was almost as if she would have a smirk on her face if I failed, for she despite the approving smile I could see a hint of a challenge in her face. For her, I truly wanted to jump, but even then my better judgement held, and I refrained, and she paddled on.

Right after she had passed, of course, I went through my motions, again, visualizing exactly what i would do at each point, and then I jumped; by then, she had turned around to backtrack on her friend, who had fallen behind. I knew that she had watched me as soon as I saw her approaching bicycle, approaching from a slight distance, as I came out of my tuck and roll while hearing a joyous shriek. It had not been my best landing, given that I had almost hit that tarmac with my right knee (I actually felt a slight touch, and almost panicked), but I had not hit any part of myself hard, certainly not my heels. At that point I was far happier that I had made her happy with my jump than I was at having entertained two very pretty girls lying comfortably in the grass -- for I think that for that one moment I had the attention of a like minded individual.

After this, of course, my friend and I headed to my favorite 'rock face' in Central Park (New York, New York) -- the back wall of Belvedere Castle. I had only planned on traversing the rock, from side to side, but somehow I managed to reach (with my hand) the semicircular looking barrier-like artifact, perhaps 12 feet off the ground. Of course, I did try to traverse, but eventually got exhausted, and had to abandon my effort when my right hand cramped up and gave out. By then, I had learned to keep my waist close to the rock wall, looking over my shoulder for find footholds for my down climb; I had started re-learning (from my trips to an indoor rock-climbing gym) techniques of pseudo stemming with my hands, which is very useful in places without a satisfactory ledge to hang from, with the finger tips; I learned that an untrained spotter (my friend) had to be told to request people to not walk right underneath me -- and I learned that a spotter with no experience in things like this also needs to be told to stay out of the possible paths that I would take if I fell, and needed to land into a roll; I learned that I did not yet have the stamina to free solo into high places, and I was seriously thinking about the importance of climbing with a rope, in case I fell, and I was also considering doing the 'hangdog'; I learned that while climbing I was relying too much on my fingers, and too little on my legs, and that that needs to be corrected, for that is becoming a severe handicap; I became acquainted with the terror of the intimate and present danger of slipping off the rock, and falling too far to do a safe landing, given my free running skills; I thus learned the importance of turning back before exhaustion (and I was breathing very heavily to keep my arms going -- hoping that I would be providing my arms a boost in blood oxygen levels as the lactic acid levels built up and started 'burning' through my forearms) compounded the risk of calling, and thus, of serious injury -- for falling while dazed and unprepared would hardly leave a tired me in a position to reorient my body for even an attempt at a proper landing; I learned how to coaxingly caress the rocks, hoping that they would provide some new place to hold with my hands, so that I could grab hold, while still keeping my limbs moving, so as to not get cramps; and I learned the meaning of exhausted anxiety while still on an adrenaline and endorphin high, up on a high. I slowly came down, and not finding too many good hand holds and foot holds, I jumped off when my feet were 4 feet off the ground -- this landing was pretty smooth, too; though it was much more flawed than the one from earlier today, but it felt good in the sense that I was able to walk away without the slightest injury.

Even now, 9 hours after the climbs and the falls (jumps) I can still see in my mind's eye what I saw as I went through the air during both my dismounts. I can see the world floating by, underneath, then getting closer and closer, and then myself blanking out, only remembering a slight touch on my right knee (almost as soft as a Mother's loving touch) as I went into the roll, and hearing the joyful, wild lady's scream as I came out of it. For the roll at Belvedere Castle, I can remember the ground getting closer, and closer, until I rolled to a side -- now that think about it, the roll's lack of smoothness might have been due to the fact that I had neither decided beforehand, nor pre-ingrained in myself whether I would be using a variation of the forward roll, or the back ward roll, and the staccato nature of my roll might even have been due to my perhaps trying both ways at the same time (at this point, of course, I can no longer really be sure).

These activities did not leave me exhilarated, nor does the thought of doing these things get me excited -- any more. I just happen to enjoy them when I am in the midst of doing them. To create a very crude, and tasteless, analogy, it is almost as bad as doing research work like it was mindless sex (but not quite), not even due to liking it (yeah, I know, what would I know, right? Haha), and not really expecting to enjoy it, but rather, only being grateful on the few occasions when one just happens to enjoy it (yes, you guessed it: I feel that studying physical phenomenon from text books is akin to mental masturbation).

So, perhaps life is more than just a bunch of administrative hurdles, punctuated with bouts of pre-planned pleasure -- perhaps life has more to taking the time to enjoy things by doing them, rather than simply expecting a quick high out of them. Just a thought.

Rain Songs, Measures of Dreams -- Friday, 19th August, 2011

2011-08-19T22:39:00.001-04:00

Swimming in Schlieren

Saw the rain and couldn't stop thinking about swimming in schlieren.
The thickening layer of such smooth transition between water and the heavens.
A restive cushion beneath, and a tumultuous pelting above,
Tempered by a thin haze, a fizz
So much more invigorating than a shower
And yet, so unlike the torment beneath a waterfall.
A sensation of floating without feeling a surface;
Poking right through, to breathe
And yet, not feeling that tension when falling back in.
Water above, water below.
Stark sounds above, a subdued, misty trance below.
A cold spa above, and a relaxing lull below.
An invigorating gusto to breathe
To breathe among all the splash and water
And yet, to float without that sinking sensation.
It is indeed the measure of a dream.

Torrents in the Rain -- a Walk to the Prayer Hall.
Saw torrents in the rain, flowing down pavements like tributaries down the hills.
Saw lightning brighten up the earth and the sky with an eerie blue delight.
Heard thunder roaring triumphantly,
Making the pouring rain sound cold as dead stones.
Saw a joy through the soaking wet, a serenity in motion, when the want of that motion would have caused despair;
For my destination I knew, a place to give me calm, and the walk was like a carefree little adventure, over calmed pavements and heavy traffic.
It was a serenity without despair.

P.S. I know that I first posted the above two to my Facebook status, but this way they are indexable, and for future reference, far more accessible.
P.S.S. I know these are not songs, but I needed a name, and these thoughts, for me, have a musical quality.

Sweetheart, you are my drug!

2011-06-26T02:28:00.002-04:00

Hello Sweetheart,

I was talking to our cousin, yesterday -- the one who just got engaged. I was telling her about how my Mom (back, before my kindergarten days) used to sing that old Bengali song
"Orey Mamoni
"Amar Cho-kher-o pani
"Anchol diye muchey diye jaash Mamoni"
(I never quite figered why her fixation with that song, given that she has no daughter)
and my annoyance at the words
"Tui je hobi por
"Jokhon Ashbe-re tor Bor"
because you were always on my mind (and let's face it, I was hopelessly in love with you; and -- in a fraternal way -- I still am) and I did not like the thought that after you got married you would not be part of our family, any more. For many years, after you got married, I rejoiced because I figured that I had been right, and my Mom had been wrong -- after all, I got a DulaBhai to talk to (personally, and professionally), and you did not stop being my Sister (cousin, but I don't know any better). Right then, however, I stopped, just as I got to the words
"Amar e-ghor shunno korey jabi onno ghor"
because it was then that I realized that you had left a void in my life -- you left a certain sense of emptiness.

You see, you did a lot more than just take me out and buy me candy (when I learned to walk) and play "guess who's the pretty girl covering your eyes from behind your back", and sit me in your lap and trim my nails -- you created a persona that traveled with me far and wide -- for even in my darkest days and loneliest nights your thoughts brightened my horizons, and in a sense brightened my skies. You see, when my Mom and I first left our home country, to live with my Dad, I suddenly lost everyone I knew, and I figured that people only came into my life to go away, and that no one was going to stay, and by the time I started kindergarten (at age 5) I was of the mindset "If people are going to come into my life just to go away, then why bother making friends at all?"

Even during those days, however, your thoughts would brighten my days, and I would cheer myself up as I fondly remembered the times that I had spent with you -- something that I ended up continuing to do, without even thinking about it, long after I had started school, and my Mom had successfully forced me to make friends. From what I remember of that period of my life, there was a chunk of time when you were the only positive thought in my life. Sure, as I grew older I got more experiences with things that I liked -- like riding my bicycle -- and the need for thinking of all the times that I had been around you reduced, but it never quite went away. In fact, even when I was an undergrad (i.e., I was doing my bachelors) years I often wanted to tell my Mom "I don't EVER want to like another girl that much again -- but if I do, then I'm going to marry her."

No girl has ever really filled that void that you left behind, and perhaps I have even been the Wandering Aengus about this, but the fond memories of the relaxed times that I have had with you I shall perhaps have forever -- for you gave me a tranquility, a peace of mind from the things that caused me to stay on edge long before I was five (things like how I was treated by my Dad's side of the family and how they behaved with my Mom; things like how our Grandma treated her daughters; the fact that there had recently been a divorce in the family and that since the divorced Aunt was someone my Mom could have a long conversation with I had figured that my parents were next; the fact that my paternal cousins had not changed their attitude towards guns and that I thus risked getting shot at again; the fact that I could not trust my Mom to keep herself safe, given how she had gotten into your pond -- and I had not known that it was too shallow for her to drown in, and she did not tell me that for about 17 years, despite all my complaints about recurring nightmares -- without knowing how to swim, and thus, apparently, risked the life of the person whom I cared about most in the world; and things like how my seemingly sadistically sarcastic Mom used to taunt me about being mad, every time I goofed up on an academic question, thus increasing my, then seemingly rational, fear that I would be sent away to the Pabna mental ward, where I would become like the escaped psychopath whom I had seen from about 33 feet away -- you never forget eyes like his), a longing for human contact that gave me comfort despite my unease with the people and things around me. I suppose the closest analogy that I know of is that famous line from the movie Casablanca: "We'll always have Paris."

Well, a lot has changed over the years. Thoughts of longing for human company have evaporated, and I have found joys in the pursuit of things that I had perhaps forever thought unattainable by me. When I feel a certain sense of serenity, however -- sometimes even mixed in with a slight bit of tension -- I remember you, and all the times we had. It's like peace of mind and you are some times inseparable. You can't exactly blame me for it -- because during my formative years your company was pretty much the only kind of serenity I had ever known. Over the years I have tried many things that I have found extremely pleasurable, and some of these (sports and intellectual activities) have granted pleasures that are not just cerebral, but extremely guttural, and border-line carnal; but while with the years pursuits and sources of pleasure come and go I am left with the thought that you remain like a constant -- not like an evening star that comes and then goes away but, rather, like a navigational constant.

Your company was perhaps one of the few pleasures that I had known in life that did not also accompany pleasure's flip side -- pain. When I ski up a hill I actually have to be at it all day in order to feel the endorphins going; when I look down steep ski slope, or a fall, I have to work for months to ensure that I will survive when I am there; when I feel that tingling sensation, that twitching of my eyelids, that dancing of my eyebrows, that pleasure of elongating my breath through that asphyxiating feeling from a shortness of breath, I actually have to have worked for months to get to feel that excitement that I get when I am finally able to make sense of a physical concept or phenomenon. The pleasantness that I felt from being around you, however, I did not have to work for. Sweetheart, I just realized this, you are my drug -- and I had never thought I would ever condone anything that would confer pleasure without effort, but like a narcotic that delivers a high without the effort of climbing a rock face, remembering you some how delivers a calmness without the pain of working for me -- though thinking about those times just comes to me, under certain (perhaps triggering) conditions, and this is not something that I actively pursue. Come to think of it, that ability to relax to that extent was something that I could perhaps only achieve around you -- and whenever I am reminded of times that I spent with you; no amount of extreme sports, neither any amount of academic pursuit, has ever delivered something like that. I just thought I would share that with you.

I don't know if you can exactly relate to what I mean (well, I hope you can, but from a more accessible source -- especially given that you live with immediate family) but this song, the tune, was one recent thing that triggered your memories, and that is why I felt the need to write -- the song conveys the mood, and the video shows something that I would love to do.

Wingsuit proximity flying by Jokke Sommer

Regards,

The boy who could have fallen asleep in your arms.

Odin's Special Warriors

2011-06-13T07:17:00.007-04:00

He could have sworn that he had killed two of them, he anguished, as the 13th Warrior turned over every stone, brick and piece of broken wood in the large room, looking for evidence -- any evidence -- if not of his belief that he had killed two of the raiders, then at least of the fact that the raiders had even been there -- for, otherwise, the place looked as if he and his friends had torn the place apart. After all, who would believe them that the village that they had been sheltering in had been ravaged by upright standing bears that fought with the agility and rage of highly trained and highly motivated human beings? Of course, at that point in the story, neither he, nor the 12 Norse men whom he was accompanying knew whom they were dealing with.

That was from a scene in the movie "The 13th Warrior", about the adventures of a band of 12 Nordic warriors (and they were as spirited as the stereotypical Irish man, mind you) who took the seemingly nonsensical advice of a learned person that their cause would best be served if they sought the help of a person who was not a Norse man -- and, hence, smaller and weaker than them -- and thus, their enlisting their 13th warrior.

The realization then dawned on these warriors that whoever they were dealing with carried away their dead. Now, that was what was important to me: that these raiders took such great care of each other, to the point that each one of them fought with nearly super-human stamina, agility, and strength, that not only did they train and care for each other in life, but they also carried away for rituals and rites, when one of them was dead. It did not matter that they were in the middle of a fierce fight, and rescuing a person or retrieving a corpse would be risking death; they would be as persistent about retrieving their dead during a raid as they were when training themselves for the fights that would ensue through the course of a raid. What was interesting to me was that these men were training for activities (raids, and battles) that they knew could very well result in their deaths, but rather than shun away a dead warrior as the empty shell of a person who had known full well his activities, and who had accepted the consequences, they would drag away a body, in full battle gear, back home (well, at least to their staging post, anyway) with them.

These near mythical adversaries, whose notorious raids on the resources of nearby villages that this band of 13 warriors had sought to put an end to, were the Berserkers -- a band of warriors who fought in animal robes, to the enemy becoming the animal, itself. The movie, from what I remember, showed Berserkers in bear-skin robes, though in real life they also wore to battle wolf skin. These were Odin's special warriors, a band that went to any extent to get things done, and as a tight-knit group probably spent quite some effort in taking care of themselves, much like today's today's armed services and special forces, and probably used whatever external services they deemed necessary to keep them at their best.

It is this set of tendencies to make sure that everyone is in good shape (physically, and otherwise), this tendency to make sure that nothing will hinder anyone's performance when it matters that interests me, and it is something that I am finding more and more of, as I come forth more and more openly with my problems, in the society that I am living in. To the outsider (I used to be one) it may look like we New Yorkers (and Americans, in general) live mechanized lives, with no one to truly care for us, and with our being constantly being portrayed in movies as going to therapists for help it may look, to those not in the know, like we avail the services of therapists as a substitute for having a person to talk to. While in some cases that may be true, I am finding from my personal experiences, now, that not only are people -- family, friends, colleagues, superiors at work -- open to listening, and to offering pertinent advice, they (well, certainly not everyone) are often surprised when one holds back, rather than puts their troubles on the table.

Coming to my story, many years ago, when I started as an undergrad, I used to be very lonely (and I also had to contend with my being slave to my age-related rush of hormones), and I used to want my parents to spend a little more time on the phone with me. To me, it seemed that they, particularly my Mom, used to close end the call abruptly in the middle of a conversation -- so, I never got to fully answer a question, let alone ask a follow up one, and, more importantly, I never got closure that anything I considered important was really conveyed. To make matters worse, every time I got lonely and called (my parents used to call me through internet telephony, so it hardly cost them anything to call me) I used to hear my Mom say "Your phone bill is rising", and after that, I could never get myself to continue saying anything to her, no matter how important it was to me -- which I sometimes found ironic, since my Mom always used to tell that I could call if I got lonely; and I sometimes thought of as a sadistic torture device, in which she lures me in with the pleasure of a conversation, and then, by making it difficult for me to continue to talk (by abruptly reminding me of my phone bill, within 60 seconds of receiving my call) delivers tremendous pain.

Hey, I was raised without an allowance, and so, if I wanted anything I had to ask for it, justify it, all but write a two page, double sided, single spaced, small print proposal for it, and if I got a 'no' then whatever it was, it was probably not happening, if I got a "let's see," then more than likely it was a 'no', and if got a maybe, it was still very 'iffy', so if my parents ever shut me down in the middle of a sentence, I never could find it in me to start it back up. It did not help that I have always had trouble with words, especially around my Mom -- she bugged me, for many years, about why I always have trouble talking to her, but the fact is, I can't pin-point why; I can only give possible reasons that comes to mind: as a pre-kindergartener, among other things, I always found her painfully sarcastic (and, regardless of her actual intent, her words always made me feel very inadequate), never congratulatory (I still, internally, freak out whenever congratulated, and want to run out of the room), extremely demanding (the accomplishment of any task was never acknowledged, but the next task was always given, so I never knew if I had actually gotten anything done), and her quips (for my troubles with words, which she always treated as sloth, rather than actual difficulties) about sending me off to the local mental ward (we used to live in Pabna, Bangladesh, and we had the country's premiere mental ward) did not help, because I had already seen a psychopath (he, as far as I knew when I saw him, had killed three or four people, including his immediate family) who had escaped from there (it was like the scene from the movie "Great Expectations", where the child comes face to face with the escaped convict) roped up, and being walked away, and having looked at his eyes, and having looked at his face, from within 33 feet away, I always revolted at my mistaken belief (back, when I was a pre-kindergartener) that going there would make me become like him. My revulsion at that thought was so strong, in fact, that from that age I started building up a mental library of interconnected words that I can string together into sentences, in order to hide my difficulty with words (even now, this habit of hiding my difficulties just smoothly and involuntarily kicks in, for me, like water rolls off a duck's back) -- put me into a situation where I have to come up with new strings of words, however (and I have seen this happen) and you can watch me sweat and stammer over words. My trouble with words was so bad, in fact, that in kindergarten I only knew one nursery rhyme (the one that a cousin had taught me many years before, simply because she had been bored -- "Ba ba, Black Sheep"), since I could never understand the words that the other children and teachers were saying, other than that, the only words that I learned were words that I actually read, rather than heard. In fact, I still have tremendous trouble with words, and often find myself drawing pictures and building models from reading the written text before I can understand something. Often, I still don't understand words that my professors say, and my pre-kindergartener training kicks in (I trained myself, for this), and I just tell them that I understand, and then go and read things up, myself. I know this can hurt me in the long run (as my Second-Grade substitute teacher, Ms. Rhonda, warned me), but hearing explanations from my professors and not understanding them (and this has happened) is something that I consider a waste of time.

When I first came to New York, as an undergrad, a few things were important to me:

A career which allowed me to do what I enjoyed, and kept me financially stable -- of course.
My sanity -- and I did not care how many phone cards I had to run through to keep it. In fact, my first purchase, after getting my first pay check, here, was a $5 phone card -- my first call was to my parents, and my second call was to a cousin whom I was very fond of, to congratulate her on getting married.
A permanent solution to my perceived loneliness -- permanent solutions of this sort usually involve marriage, so I told my parents that I would finish my undergrad and then start on a PhD, and that they would have to find themselves a daughter in law in time for me to get married after my qualifiers, since I did not see it possible for me to find a person whom I liked in an environment where all the girls from my country seem to prefer boys from their part of the country (most Bengalis here are from the South East, whereas I am from around the North West, and while the children of immigrants may be more open, a lot of the kids who had spent a lot of time in Bangladesh, whom I have met, were not very open). I always made sure, during every telephone conversation that I had with my parents (and we used to talk once, some times twice, a week), that they had not changed their mind about the timing -- especially since I had to negotiate things down from their original wish that they wanted me to get married after my PhD. This one thing was so important to me that even if I got to say nothing else I made sure I cleared this out of the way before my parents cut me off, or went on to other topics.

In fact, through all the years of not getting closure from my conversations with my parents (which would leave me depressed, so throughout my undergraduate years I spent my weekends depressed, for the most part), and through all the years of arguing with them, so that they would at least let me complete a sentence; or explain that I really had shaved, and that I was not showing the an old picture; etc., the thought that this was all temporary, and that soon after my first qualifier I would have a permanent solution, was the only thing that kept me going. For this reason, the Fall of 2006, and the Spring of 2007 were truly magical for me. I felt that a long journey was coming to an end, and a new era was about to begin. For that year I felt that I could do anything. I took 18 credits for both semesters, including senior designs 1 and 2, I took up sports, went out with friends, and I still had my highest GPA of my undergraduate years. I felt that I was approaching something that I had long been looking forward to. Of course, come August 2007, towards the end of my first internship, and when I reiterated to my Mom that I was going to do my PhD, rather than stay on with the company, the first thing she told me was "You're getting married after your PhD."

Now, I've heard of a proverbial slap in the face, but this was worse than drilling a tunnel up my anus -- and very literally, for I had endured nights and days of enough caffeine to have repeated bouts of diarrhea to keep my bachelors on track -- only with the hope that once I started on my PhD my parents, as promised, would start looking for a girl; because, once married, I would no longer have to feel alone and depressed.

To offset the effects of immediate depression I took up another long term goal that would tax me -- mentally, physically, and financially -- so as to keep myself occupied. Of course, that did not prevent me from questioning every decision that I had ever made, including my design decisions during my internship project -- my boss had to spend some time convincing me that what I had done was through knowledge, rather than incompetence.

Once back in school, and unable to get an answer from my parents, as regards their change of heart (despite repeated queries -- I never figured out what was going on through their minds) I got depressed, and lost the semester (I very literally sat on the couch -- and some times a chair -- for the whole semester). The next semester, I watched my GPA drop like a boulder off a cliff (and I could not be in the PhD program). The semester after that, I lurched onto the couch, again, unable to concentrate on anything.

After that, I decided that the only way to keep me progressing was to let go of my despair. So, I decided that I was going to let go of my dream of getting married, and be content with what I have. I was using an old saying and it might have been Buddhist, and it goes something like 'Heaven is when you reach a state where you accept the reality of what is around you, and you learn to live with it, and deal with it, and learn the love the challenges that it gives.' Now, I'm not quoting it correctly, perhaps, and certainly not succinctly, but I think I am capturing the gist of it.

[I recently spoke to my Mother, BTW, and when I told her I had no plans of getting married, and told her the reason, she said that she never meant to say what she said in August 2007 -- of course, that does not answer why I was not told that, despite repeated queries between then and 2009. Needless to say, my mind has been made up, and there is nothing left to be said, or done.]

Right after that, my GPA climbed up, again, and I was happy, and I soon transferred into the PhD program, and for a moment, I was fine, until I realized that I was being cut away from my little brother.

Now, I had been an only child until I was almost 11, and I had saved up since I was 5 so that my parents could have another child, and I had to watch my Mom nearly die during her pregnancy with my Brother, and then, after my Brother was born, I watched over my Mom (for the suicidal tendencies that she had developed -- I knew those symptoms, for I had acquired them when I was 5) and stayed up till 3 in the morning, every morning (while my Dad slept like a baby) and woke up for school by 6 (don't get me wrong, I used to take 3-4 hour naps in the afternoons, but, seriously, my falling asleep on the school bus should have raised a few eyebrows), and in later years I used to baby sit my Brother,, and I encouraged him to crawl, and I supervised him when he learned to stand, walk, and run, and I taught him how to spell phonetically (which is how he finally learned to spell, after a lot of failed attempts by his teachers and our Mother), and I taught him how to read and interpret stories that he was supposed to have been taught at school.

So, when I found that my parents were consistently calling me only after the kid was asleep, and then making all sorts of excuses for his neither e-mailing, nor Facebooking me, I started getting depressed. Repeated queries to my parents had no effect, nor did repeated requests for them to call me at a time when the kid was awake. Finally, after two years of absolutely minimal contact I found that the kid (by then 16) was no longer listening to me. That, of course, was too much for me, and I blocked him off from my e-mails and Facebook right after his birthday -- as a form of punishment, so that he would answer with relevant information, like he did for others on his Facebook. I unblocked him, and messaged him again, some time after his 17th Birthday, but he had not changed, at all (he messaged me back some weeks after I first messaged him, but he only write about what games and movies he likes, and nothing of any importance -- things like what he is studying, and what activities he is doing, etc. -- I actually found out about his having dropped out of school through his wall post to his friend, rather than from him, or our Parents). Apparently, the changes that my parents had brought about, between his ages 14 and 16, had taken hold. Now, my depressions got worse since I blocked the kid off on his birthday, around February 2010, and from then on I have slept for an average on 4 hours a night (regardless of my caffeine intake) and I have had to use caffeine to remain productive during the day. I found that allowing myself to relax, in order to seep, got me depressed, and I woke up very depressed and more tired than when I went to bed, so I started working till I very literally collapsed into a state of sleep, and that way, when I woke up I was fine. During this period I have been at the brink of killing myself a few times, but letting my Dad know about that has also had zero effect. I also told my Dad about the times when I got into arguments with him, and took to walking on the edge of the roof top to find solace, also to no effect. I just wanted to know why I was being cut off from my Brother, and why were no attempts being made to get the kid to talk to me. Was that too much to ask?

It was during this time that I wrote the following:

There are two ways to get away from something -- one is to develop a disdain for it, and the other is to avoid it, to deflect it, to occupy the mind with another thought. The trick is to make the deflection repeatable, and consistent.
--20th April, 2011
Late at nights, I find so much beauty in so many little things. Late at nights when everything is right, and the laser comes on, dimly, at first, then brighter, then brighter, small spikes and dots, at first, tracing squiggly lines like rumpled cloth. Then, with the laser getting brighter with me moving the orifice in further, and the rumpled cloth-like pattern rising higher and and higher, unfurling like a sail, I finally see the beautiful curves of the laser in its full glory when the curve that I see has fully unfolded, reached high into the sky, and opened up like a parachute, giving me a huge sigh of relief, making me feel safe, and tranquil, and elated. Ah, it is a most beautiful sight! It is the lure of 4 in the morning.
--Tuesday, 1st March, 2011
Whenever I relax (and let my guard down) I want to kill myself.
--Sunday, 3rd October, 2010
Burn all bridges, sink all ships, and bury all roads. Leave no scope for reconnection, and despair not in misplaced hopes and needless recollections.
--22nd May, 2010
Continued:
I have served my time, I have made my peace, and I am free.
--2nd October, 2010
Every time I go home I remember why I don't go there. Relaxation is sin, for it causes relapses into memories of actually having a family, and thus slips me into depressions from simply acknowledging the fact that I am lonely. I need to make depressing thoughts go away at home, just as I keep them at bay when I am away. Kill the thought. Kill the memory. Kill the need. Kill the tendencies. Keep up the guard. Keep up activities. Keep away the loneliness.
--13th August, 2010
Without sufficient pressure I will most likely die. In the end, we're all dead men on leave, but no sense grasping for the point of no return.
--May/June, 2010

In life, I have learned to deal with a few things,

I am afraid of bobbing on water, from my earliest boating experiences, but now I can float and swim;
I am afraid of falling off heights, though I am not particularly sure why, but I have walked on ledges;
I am afraid of fading lights (at a very particular rate), from an early experience with rapid blood loss from an air rifle shot wound to my head, but I am able to hold my own during darkening skies and sunsets;
I have an inborn trouble with words, but I have learned to patch that up with strings of words that I am cobble together to tailor a sentence for a situation -- and I can be a perfectionist at it.

but there are some things that I have not truly learned to deal with:

I still cannot deal with that feeling of being so near, and yet to far, whenever I am shut down by my Mom (every time that happens it takes me back to when I got an air gun wound to my head, as a pre-kindergartener, and while being carried away by my cousin to the hospital I could see my Mother in tow, and I felt so near, in that she was there, and yet so far, in that I was convinced that I was going to die, and that wherever it was that my cousin was taking me I was not coming back alive to see her again).
I still have trouble dealing with the apparent 'loss' of my Brother.

Now, so far, I have tried cutting off all communications with my parents, but last Mother's Day I found that persistent attempts at communications, by my Dad, set me off. So, that is probably not going to work.

It is here that my society's tendency to take care of its own, and that Berserkerish mentality of my professors to do whatever it takes to ensure the well being of their grad student becomes relevant -- for one of my professors noticed my status message, last Mother's Day, and asked me to see his friend, who is a psychologist, at my campus. More recently, my advisers, who had been complaining about my tiredness for a very long time, saw the impact of the stress of my depressions on my academics, and decided to step in. I truly feel special, in that my professors feel so concerned that they wanted to hear what was going on, wanted to explore all possible options, and offered their own suggestions -- truly like one of Odin's special warriors, for here I was, being taken care of by the lead professors on a lab, like Odin must have cared for the men whom he led (I know, I'm blending in different parts of history to convey my point).

One of my professors said:
"You can concentrate on what you do have:

"you have learned a lot -- you make contributions to the research group
"you have the opportunity to pursue a dream -- a PhD
"you have people who care about you.

"Stop thinking about things you can't get.
"Think about the positive side, and make your life better."
I think that was the best advice that I ever got, in this regard, not that I had approached a whole lot of people.

The other one said:

"I need you back to how you used to be."
That was on Friday, 10th June, 2011

The advice that I got was a lot more drastic than, and very different from, the advice "I know it's hard to not worry about your Brother, but you can talk to me when you do feel stressed" that I got from a an old friend who graduated with her bachelors, after my first semester of college (I treat her as an elder sister). I think that this new piece of advice, from my professor, will work out a lot better than other advice that I have received. It even goes along the lines of the philosophy (not that I ever let it interact with my religion) that allowed me to raise up my GPA, back in 2009 (surprisingly, this time it does not feel like last time, when I decided to treat my perceived need to company like a leg that had caught gangrene -- this time, it actually feels pleasant).

I'm going to look forward to this summer, and to getting things back on track.

Happy Birthday, MOTHER! I still love you! (2011)

2011-06-13T07:10:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday, MOTHER! I still love you! (2011)
[The following is what I posted to my Mother (through my Facebook) on her Birthday, 23rd May.]

Here's the song that I dedicated to you, for your Birthday:
http://youtu.be/lBqgxjruMiQ

Rihanna - Sell me Candy [Full HD] live in Manchester

Now, before you go busting my chops for going Sterling Malory Archer and remembering you by watching things that, well, get me a little excited -- and celebrating you with such a curve grazing video and such a sensual song -- all the pulse-racing, breath shortening, eyebrow raising, eye lash dancing slow hip movements of the dancers aside, I must say: I saw their whips and remembered you.

Watching the video, I also couldn't help but recall your free spirit, your love for movement, your fondness for flexibility, and your persistence at things you like, and when I saw the expression on Rihanna's face, I remembered how strong-willed you are, how blatantly unyielding you can be, and how willing I remember you to be to exert yourself, mentally and physically, to get things the way you see fit -- and not just when you thought you were trying to make everyone happy.

Granted, to me you always felt less like a Mother, and more like an overly demanding Mistress (though you have begun to smile your wonderful again, like you used to back before my kindergarten days, recently), and I may always remember you when I see a hot girl with a whip (well, unless she can also make me pull up my lower eye lids, because after that my eyebrows will go wild, if you know what I mean), and though I can count on one hand the number of times I have actually felt safe and comfortable to share anything with you since the time you first told me about lasers, back when I was in kindergarten, I do fondly remember your being very extremely, and grandly comfortable when in a state of flux, with your only then relaxed mind feeding from the freedom you felt in graceful, sweeping movements.

Come to think of it, the colour of the dancers' outfits reminded me of you, too, for at parties you used to wear long black dresses, so looking like girls my age -- and so, whenever I'd go to talk to you all the Aunties would try to shoo me away, looking at me like I was a womanizing guy, going there to simply prey on your innocence. Of course, that was one of the funnier aspects of going out with you. I still remember your trying to match my pace whenever we would walk together, and you were mad fun -- I used to joke that I could not get a girlfriend because 'my Mom matched my speed, so I never learned to slow down.'

I have learned a lot, of course, from being around you -- you're probably the primary reason I can even function in society, thanks to all the care that you took to see that I did not pick up on the ethnic, religious, and other biases that permeated around me. HaHa! I used to be so scared that I would misbehave with people from other cultures, back when I first got to New York, until I realized what a wonderful job you had done, despite all the things that I used to hear, on a daily basis, at school. I still remember keeping a score card, at the time, thinking: "Mom, 2; fanatics, 0!"

You might even remember that you are the only reason that I actually learned to make friends again, back when I used to think that anyone I met outside of immediate family would, very soon, simply go away, and thus had stopped bothering to make new friends. If you keep that in mind, you are the only reason I have ANY friends.

Sure, I have my complaints, I have my deep seated grievances, and perhaps even unresolvable grudges, and tremendous misgivings -- a lot of things that I think should have been handled a whole lot better, a lot of times when I think you should have listened, a lot of things that I feel you should never have said, a lot of things that you should have been very up-front about, a lot of things that I feel someone other than me should have had to deal with, a lot of things that made me wonder if I really ever wanted to see any of you again -- but please don't ever think that I am ungrateful, and you might even be happy to know that, thanks to a professor of mine, I am to see a professional today. So maybe I'll unlearn to hate you guys -- something that I taught myself as a way of coping with that debilitatingly depressing feeling of missing you.

So, yeah, seeing that professional will be my birthday present to you.

I know, it's something that I should have done eight years ago, but you do realize that you taught me not to complain, right? I mean, you didn't even let me complain about the one guy whose bones I sometimes still ragingly want to break (don't worry, I won't -- I like his wife and son, and I seriously doubt that you will be proud of me if I gave into such urges, to put it very lightly -- what, you never wondered why I sometimes avoid my cousin, even when he might be able to help me out of being depressed? I just don't want to hurt the guy -- not even his feelings -- for he is a nice guy, now, and you and Dad like him. In case you are wondering why I have my negative attitude towards him, it is because he and his Brother-in-law paid off the hospital janitors to keep you out of the hospital when I took an air rifle pellet to my head. I watched it all, feeling like a hostage, while being carried on this cousin's arm -- feeling that I was being held by the crime's perpetrator. I felt like a hostage since I had already come to the conclusion that he had planned everything but the actual part where I got shot, which I am still sure was an accident, because for that morning, and that morning only, he had changed the 'route' of his 'morning walk' -- in the hallway -- since he knew I used to avoid his route, and that my avoiding his usual route would have prevented me from walking into his Mother's room, where I had been told that his youngest brother, who was always nice to me, was waiting for me -- this younger cousin was the one who accidentally pulled the trigger, or just pointed the gun in the wrong direction, whatever. There, sitting on my cousin's arm, with the hole in my head barely sealed in a few minutes ago, I felt totally helpless while I watched those janitors, female and male, shove you, put their hands on your shoulder and turn you around and push you, and pull your hair, to turn you around, before giving you a shove on your back. You were a lady who kept at least a two feet distance, even from her own Brother. So, watching guys lay their hands on you, with my cousin's demeanor showing betraying satisfaction -- rather than any remorse, or regret, even in the face of so many guys invading your personal space -- at your getting pushed further and further away, was MUCH more than I could handle.).

Besides, I couldn't handle your sarcasm during my very early life, and so I learned to hide a lot of my problems (it was the first skill I learned, after talking, that I still use -- much to my detriment, but, let's face it, it is a part of my nature that I may forever have to fight in letting go).

It's very rare that I feel comfortable in sharing anything intimate with you -- and even then it is very, very hard -- so rare that the last two times I felt I could tell you anything I wanted (last time being in the Fall of 2009, and the time before that being in the Summer of 2004) I just kept my mouth shut, so I didn't ruin the moment. It's much more appealing, to me, to just simply enjoy the silence, and that tranquil satisfaction, that feeling like I am flying because I feel that I have acquired a freedom that I have long sought after, and for a long time again will probably not get. It is very rare that I actually feel free when talking to you, safe from the thought that I will get shot down before I complete a sentence -- and you know how we're trained in our culture -- "Paradise lies under the feet of the Mother" -- so, once you say one word it just does not feel right to say anything further, any more. Since this is one of those rare moments when I do feel free, however (yeah, I know, this is probably make belief, at best, because I don't even know if you will ever even know that I wrote this memo), let me get something out of the way. In life I have learned to deal with a certain list of things:

some things were innate, like my love for chemicals (yes, I used to inhale burning sulphur in high school -- until I learned that it was bad for health) and extreme sport, which is something that I think I genetically got from you;
some things were learned despite my wishes -- like, I'm crazy about mathematical formalism now, but I only got into it because I used to think that that's what Dad wanted;
some things I learned as a convenience, which just happened to become useful later -- I used to look over my shoulder whenever I went to the bathroom, as a prekindergartener, only because my cousins were so terrifying and rude, but that habit served me well in evading muggers, and muggers of a different type, back in the streets of Abu Dhabi;
some things I learned as a way of drowning out other, overwhelming, thoughts -- I used to think about hookah/sheesha as a way of resisting the urge to look over my shoulder, too often, and this sort of thing, as it turns out, actually helps when overwhelming fear can lead to disastrous mistakes when performing the task at hand (you can imagine how dead I would be, if could not handle myself at altitude);
some things I simply admired, and tried to acquire, like Dad's ability to remain calm under severe duress;
some things I learned for religious reasons, long before I even knew why -- in my case, I learned to temper one of the most severe forms of self-destructive urges (ironically, becoming self-destructive seemed the most logical course of action at the time I picked up that attitude -- but what does a five year old know, right? Haha! Hey, when you're not allowed to complain, then how you were treated was probably alright, and the right thing, to start with -- so when you suddenly feel unwanted at home, too, you start wondering 'why do I even exist?' right? Only just, it's kind of terrible that early impressions leave such lasting attitudes);
some things I learned to tolerate, and then, eventually, to enjoy -- whenever the sun's light fades at a certain rate (owing to moving clouds; or the landscape, as it used to happen at places like StayBridge Hotel, where I stayed during my first internship at Corning) I still feel that I am, very quickly, going to die because that is the rate at which my vision darkened when I took an airgun pellet to my head (and I had never heard of anyone surviving a head shot, at the time -- I was astonished, at the time, that I was even alive, Haha!). For years, I felt a little queasy, and short of breath, under those lighting conditions (yes, Mom, you always asked why I sometimes looked out of it during even the most beautiful sunsets -- I now think this is the reason why), but when in college I learned to enjoy controlling my breathing under that sort of duress -- now, that sort of asphyxiation makes my eyebrows dance, and make my eyes look like I'm in an enchanted trance;
some things I learned to simply throw myself into, despite loosing sleep to them -- I woke up from nightmares about drowning for more than 17 years, after you got into a pond after me (during my prekindergarten years): neither of us knew how to swim, and while I felt that at any moment I could go under (I was too terrified to notice that I was being held up by someone, at the time), I watched in horror as the possibility unfolded that rather than extend an arm and help me out of my misery you chose to get into the water. At that time you were the only person I really knew, and loosing you was the worst possibility I could think of -- some times, Mother, I really do feel that you are a most inconsiderate piece of work! You never told me that you were walking on the floor of that pond for more than 17 years, despite my repeated complaints about those nightmares many times a year. So, for more than 17 years I kept trying to tame that sickening feeling of bobbing in the water. Now, even with the nightmares gone, that sickening feeling, whenever I enter the water, remains. It may be something that I will always have to deal with, and I may never truly understand the joy that Dad gets out of being in the water. But you know what? I learned to put up with that sickening feeling -- to the point that it gives me an asphyxiating high. You know, I was once in the swimming pool, at Corning, going from one side of the pool (it was a small one) to the other, when the sun slipped behind a hill and the skies darkened at that magic rate. So, now I had the fear of bobbing in the water, coupled with that light induced near state of panic -- and I did not want to stop until I got to the other side of the pool (I was too stubborn to put my feet down, and stick my nose into the air).

It was EPIC! It actually felt great! It felt SWEET, and FANTASTIC, and it was a high.

‎

--->Now, why am I telling you all this? It's because I want you to know that despite all that I have learned to deal with, and everything that I have tried, there is at least one thing that I ABSOLUTELY cannot deal with: it is the feeling of being so close, and yet, so far. I'm sorry, Mom. I don't see how I can learn to deal with that any time soon. You see, every time you called me, I felt near. Every time you shut me down, not even allowing me to complete a response to questions that you asked, I felt far. Being so close that even a whisper could travel to your ear, and yet, so far, that you could be anywhere, but near? Now, that was, and is, WAY too much for me:

I can handle a setting sun -- worst case scenario, I run through Elton John's "Don't let the sun go down on me" through my head (I am not kidding you);
I can handle bobbing in the water;
I can smile VERY Warmly at my cousin and then immediately want to pierce his head with the sharp, two pronged back end of a hammer -- without so much as even batting an eye (it's a VERY good thing that I do not wish to put his Mother through what he put my Mother). Now, don't even bother reprimanding me for that -- both, you, and my high school teacher, Mr. Sunil, have already given me that lecture that "Thoughts lead to words, words lead to actions, actions lead to destiny", but I'm witness to what he has done, and feel free to hate me for this, but, while I don't plan on doing this, I still reserve the right to hurt him with Extreme prejudice (and I'm talking about prejudicial actions that would make my treatment of poedophiles on the streets of Abu Dhabi look like kindergarten stuff -- okay, fine, elbowing their nuts was kindergarten stuff, but it can't be anywhere nearly as gratifying as blowing a hole in the head with a sharp object might be).

‎--->I cannot, however, deal with that feeling of being so near, and yet, so far; because every time that happens I end up remembering when I just got shot, thought I was going to die, and despaired, thinking that I would not survive the walk to the next room, where I could feel safe and comfortable, and die in your arms. It reminds me of next, when this cousin whom I hate so much (and don't get me wrong, I'm not ungrateful, I just don't think he should have arranged for his Brother to try to use the gun to scare me -- and the stuff with the janitors, don't even get me started on that, again) barged into the room in the realization that something had gone wrong, and hurried me out of the house, which is when you caught a glimpse of us while writing your letter and came running out and frantically following us, flustered, and wondering what even happened, and me having a dying man's gripe (and let me paraphrase what I was thinking, back then, since I didn't know how to word such strong feelings, around age three): "I'm fucking going to die, God damn it! Why are you fucking taking me away? You're not taking me to some fucking graveyard, yet! Fucking ass, put me back into my Mom's room, and let me stay in my Mom's arms until I fucking turn into a fucking corpse! You fucking jerk! Why the fuck are you taking me away from the only person in this fucking house that I even fucking care about? FUCKER! She's the only person in the whole fucking World whom I fucking care about! You fucking want to take my life, and now you fucking take me away from my Mom and make me feel deprived? How fucking depraved can you fucking possibly be? Even the fucking birds you killed for dinner, with that gun, got to spend some time with their own kind, when they were dead, ALL the way until they got cleaned and cooked! I'm a fucking human being, for God's sake! Why can't you grant me a little bit of respect?"

You see, Mom, there are things that I do can deal with. There are things that I do not regret -- you put me at gun point with my niece again, and I will PROUDLY risk getting shot at, again, just so the gun man has more targets to choose from, so that he is slowed down in choosing a target -- hopefully, slowed down long enough to get overpowered by the arrival of help [I know this may be hard for you to swallow, but I do not leave my people behind. To quote Gary Claud Stokor, a pilot from back when flying was an extremely dangerous thing, "Should my end come while I am in flight, Whether brightest day or darkest night; Spare me your pity and shrug off the pain, Secure in the knowledge that I'd do it again;"].

That feeling of being so near, and yet to far, however? NO! NO WAY! Frankly, I would rather die than have to deal with that thing again. I hope you understand. I'm sure that causing me to remember this feeling is not something that you ever intended -- and it's okay. I just want you to understand where I am coming from, and why my mind works the way it works, and why I get set off by certain things. It's the little things that make for extreme ways, isn't it?

But, no matter what happens, in the end I still love you. I love you like an abused three year old eagerly runs into the open arms of the abusive care giver (no, that's not something that you did, it's something that I did -- to your little boy) -- I think it means a lot to have that kind of love, and I want you to know that you have it.

Who's afraid of the big vargulf?

2011-05-17T22:10:00.000-04:00

Dear Kids,

A certain professor tells that you guys are afraid of pursuing a PhD after seeing the kind of life I lead. Now, hear this: like this I am, and like this I have always been. I was like this even early into my bachelors, long before I started pursuing a PhD.

Unlike me, most of you guys have access to immediate family, so you guys have other things to do besides pursuing side quests of gaining esoteric knowledge for the gory details, not just the nitty-gritty.

At the end of the day going home is something you guys can look forward to. For me, it is something that I dread -- for you guys have a sense of longing, while for me, it is just agonizing loneliness, and despair.

Better to collapse in the middle of a math problem than to sink deeply into needless thoughts. At least problems, whether mathematical or physical, have a way of delivering their own rewards.

So, pursue whatever it is that you want to pursue. Do whatever it is that you want to do. Don't bother with whether it is easy, or whether it is hard. The fact that you like it should be the only thing affecting your decisions, not even fears about not having the academic smarts.

Remember, unlike me, your struggles will be known to your immediate family, and with intimate knowledge of your blood, sweat and pain they will be a willing audience when with your stories you want to have them regaled.

Never again give off your lame excuses, for they are moot. Don't get scared away by this big bad vargulf.

--Thursday, 12th May, 2011

My Colleague Called Me A "Hard Ass"

2011-01-14T05:09:00.003-05:00

This is a sanitized and updated version of what I wrote to AE Dreyfuss (of http://www.pltl.org) on 6th December, 2010:

My colleague called me a "hard ass." She said I was too hard. She said I forced students to work too much and solve every assigned problem during (Intro Chemistry) workshops. She said I had no heart (or something like that), that I showed no lenience. She said I rode my workshop leaders hard and made sure they solved every assigned problem, lest they become lenient (she was referring to the time when I was her workshop coordinator).

In my defense, I had the best intentions in mind. I had chosen problems (working with the course' professor) that would expose the students to a range of problems, so that they would be fully equipped with the tools that the course was supposed to confer to them by the time they were done with it. A little lenience, as I saw it, could make a student a friend, but it would result in the students' suffering from a lack of a tool in their belt later down the line. The students' not realizing what tool was missing, or how they were misusing it, would cause them further pains. That is a message I could never get my workshop leaders to understand.

Right now, that workshop leader and I are both grad students in the EE Department. What's more, my first assigned undergraduate helper says he first saw me when I barged into his workshop leader's session (no, his workshop leader was not the one that called me a "hard ass," but he was a student in the same time frame) to give some instructions about some question. When I see how hard working he is, and how much he had to struggle because his workshop leader had been 'nice' and had skipped certain questions -- despite my explicit instructions -- it just makes me mad. A person who works so diligently, and perseveres in the face of extreme academic and work pressures should not have to suffer because his instructor decided to play the nice guy.

Now, here's why I'm writing all this: Do instructors who take the time to cover every aspect of what a student should know, and who try to ensure that their students are well prepared, all end up as people whose colleagues call them a "hard ass?" It bothers me. The instructors with the best lectures in the EE Department are not the most popular graders. The most dreaded math instructor in all of engineering school (and one of the students got up in this full professor's class and called him a "jackass") delivers the best lectures that I have seen anywhere -- and yet, I tremble in fear in his classes; I have been more composed walking along the edge of a rooftop:

In fact, I have been less frightened at gun point (though, that happened a very long time ago) -- and his lectures are a real draw (I'm making a drug reference to illustrate my affinity to his lectures). You see the two extremes that I'm talking about?

What I am wondering is what kind of a person will I become? I now also have a new undergrad, from another college, courtesy of a professor who is also on my research project. When I deal with this student I realize I have developed some of the traits that I used to hate in my professors. Some times I intimidate even my friends when I tell them my attitude towards accomplishing certain tasks: "You do it, you live; else, you die." Some times, I feel like my own father, when he calmly just stood back and watched his son swallowing water, and nearly drowning -- simply for a lack of following simple, extremely explicit instructions. I find that I make certain demands of students, based on their past lecture material (i.e., I expect them to recall material quickly, or to look them up -- repeatedly, if necessary -- and solve problems independently), I expect them to fill in the gaps in their knowledge very quickly (it is a demand I make on myself) and I expect them to apply that knowledge towards the understanding of research papers and advanced concepts, as well as the setup and conduct of experiments. I find that unlike the professor who first trained me to work in a lab, I don't like to wade students into the water, letting them adjust their feet to the cold -- I prefer to just dump my students off the side of a speed boat, to watch them struggle, and to push their heads down into the water if they are not struggling enough (I think this is a remnant of my workshop days, when I was only to ensure that they learned to find their way around problems, so that they could solve them, themselves -- I still insist on never providing solutions). I find that I am harsh, I am cruel, and I give them extremely strict rules.

I find that the more effort that I put into presenting material to my students the more demanding I become of them -- and I think my presentation is not too shabby, because my former students still tell me they learned a lot from me, and (while I was not supposed to do this) I still get compliments for giving clear lectures in the area of quantum chemistry -- the students say that I demystified, whereas their instructors had left them convoluted; in fact, I often found that I could not get them to understand enough to solve a single problem if I did not give that lecture, myself. I tend to feel that I deserve the students' attention, given how much effort I put into the delivery of material (and I treat my professors with the same respect), and I think this is part of the reason that, when it comes to theory, I can be rather demanding.

Of course, my being a what my student from the other college referred to as "Army Major" I am not worried about. Given my bad experiences with ill-advised procedures I do not want my students performing a procedure that could very well detonate like a bomb (which could have happened, but never did, thankfully), nor waterboard themselves (in a sink) to wash toxic chemicals from their eyes, nor strip stark naked to check that they did not spill cancer causing, vitriolic chemicals (by nature, not just by name) on their clothes -- I still remember the horror in the eyes of the guy who witnessed me in the act. The way I see it: If it can kill you, then treat it like it will. There's a reason my friends, in the US Marines, have gun rules like (a) treat a gun as if it is fully loaded and ready to fire, unless you have confirmed otherwise (b) do not point a gun unless you intend to shoot (c) do not put your finger into the guard unless you are ready to shoot, so on, and so forth: mishandling can get people hurt. The same goes with things in my lab: the lasers can blind you -- they can also burn you, as I found out the day I saw a Star Wars style space battle being fought on my hand -- while the chemicals can get you light headed, nauseous, drowsy (take my word for it), and high, and can make you pass out, and they can give you cancer, not to mention take away your (at least a guy's) ability to have kids. Not to mention, some of my chemicals are also volatile, and explosive. So, I think I have ample reason to treat the things in my lab as dangerous items that need to be dealt with with due respect. My student from that other college may not understand (or she may not want to understand), but in order to earn my trust, so that I allow a student to work with something potentially hazardous, that student will need to be able to perform tasks at the drop of a hat (and I mean that very, very literally). I have no problems with allowing a student to perform a procedure that he/she has never done before, as long as (a) the student has been briefed about the dangers and (b) the student is able to follow emergency instructions under duress -- if the student hesitates to wonder what went wrong, or if the student feels a personal affront at a snappy instruction (and thus, hesitates) then that is going to be a big problem. I am not willing to loose a perfectly good batch chemicals (one that will last for months) just because one student did not take the instructions seriously, and suddenly stopped and became gloomy as soon as I told her to stop and to get out of the fume hood (the place where we put our hands, to work with dangerous materials). Nor am I willing to compromise a student's personal safety just because she is not willing to take the risks seriously -- now that I think about it, I wonder why she, as a professional model, is not concerned that her mishandling my chemicals could burn her skin.

I know I can be very rough when it comes to enforcing rules about safety (personal, as well as the equipments' -- and I would rather cut off a students' access to equipment, rather than allow a careless one to handle them, for those things are the tools that I will use to write my thesis, and the professors have placed them under my responsibility; not to mention, I wish to train my successor to use some of them when I graduate). I have no qualms about screaming and yelling if I see my student in any sort of danger. Sometimes, I act much like a paintball referee, in this regard. Personally, I think I have a severe disdain for fearless people -- happy go lucky people, if you will. I cannot stand it when people do dangerous things without acknowledging the risks. I mean, if a guy wants to jump off a building, the least he should do is come equipped with a proper parachute which he has ample training with. Any idiot can jump off a cliff, but it takes a smart idiot to make it repeatable. I hate it when people act like dumb idiots [my definition of idiot: someone who does it because it feels good; someone who follows the 'id' -- so, technically, all scientists and engineers are very systematic idiots]! I once went skiing with a friend who did not pay much attention to the risks, and nearly got himself, and a little boy, killed while skiing backwards (care free) into the trees. Personally, when I take a friend out, somewhere, I want to bring this person back alive and kicking -- not in a body bag. I'm not sure, but maybe after watching my friend have repeated near misses that evening I developed an extreme intolerance for people disregarding risks (of course, I had been shot with an air rifle when I was a child -- and I did not think I would survive -- so that intolerance could have originated there, only to be bolstered by my skiing experience). So, perhaps it takes very little to set off my short fuse, when it comes to keeping within certain parameters of physical safety -- not that I am in any way keen to change that behavior, but this does add another layer, bolstering my image of being what my colleague called a "hard ass."

So, I am still wondering exactly what kind of a person I will become. I sometimes feel that I am like the old fashioned teacher who greets the student with a tablet of instructions and says something along the lines of "These are the rules. You will learn them. You will live by them. Under my care you will learn the tools that you will need to survive, while you learn to infallibly follow every instruction, under my watchful eye." In fact, when one of my students flouted one of the rules of laser safety I just burst out: "(You know) the rules. You will live by them. You will die for them." Well, I guess I finally let out how I feel about it, for myself. I actually use my personal rules for safety in extreme sports when I work in the lab. I think it works out beautifully -- until someone starts pretending that the risks are not there; and at that point I become anything but friendly.

Do I think that there is room for being friendly? ABSOLUTELY! Just, that it is very important to remember that an instructor is in charge of getting people ready to do certain tasks (be they doing stoichiometry, or aligning laser beams), and letting a passive attitude get in the way is tantamount to failing that friend that one is training. Under most cases, that student that one has failed becomes someone else's problem; but in some cases that student whom one has wronged becomes one's own problem. So, while it may be okay to add a student to one's Facebook, or other social networks (though I refrained from that until the very end of the semester), and (after discussions with the relevant professor) it may be okay to invite students for skiing trips (which I have done), I don't think being a friend amounts to being lenient. Personally, the more I consider a student a friend, the more I want to treat that student the way I treat myself: I become more and more demanding of them (perhaps my optics lab's instructor's attitudes rubbed off on me, as he was a friend, and he rode me very hard, and given how useful I find the things that he taught me, I truly admire his attitude). In fact, when I got the two undergraduate lab course students (some months back) with whom I had the most fun, I personally asked the professor if I could torture my friends (they were my friends since before that class, so I felt free to do whatever I wanted with them) -- and I ended up having a lot of fun churning their brains, since the professor said "Yes!"

Sheltered, high on a purposeful serenity, on a floating barge

2010-11-29T03:26:00.001-05:00

I just had a strange and wonderful dream.

I was on a barge, of some sort, monitoring a coastal storm, watching as the ocean blew in large chunks of houses it had pickup up from some place else, crashing them into the large houses on the shore that I was watching.

I was part of a team of old friends, from high school, with a certain tranquil serenity ensuing from a focus on purpose. It felt cozy, sheltered from the rain, spray, and debris, in the ship's large open space, and it felt great -- refreshing -- feeling that cold wind, slowed down, and going through those spaces.

It felt great seeing an old friend, who is recovering from a road accident, out there, in full vigor, and being his usual self (I think his being out of the hospital is the reason I even had the dream). I know I'm not the only one who saw him that way, for another of our high school buddies on that team also noticed that our friend was back in action.

It felt fantastic as we heard the claps of destruction on the shore, as the large debris hit houses on the shore, while we were protected by the ship's structure. From time to time members of the team went to fully sheltered areas, to take breaks, but I was always there, at least audially witnessing the destruction -- I guess I dreamt during my shift.

I heard the wind's howl, and the ocean's roar, and the tremendous claps that accompanied each shore-front house's destruction. There were at least two occasions when I had to take shelter from the resulting debris, for we were, somehow, close to shore.

O, it was reminiscent of those monsoon nights I had enjoyed as a child -- only, much more violent, and I was 'outside.' I saw a big chunk -- a complete set of three adjoining houses -- washed in, from elsewhere, as it raced towards the shore-line, giving my friend and I barely enough time to seek shelter by backing up against the wall of the ship that was closest to shore, as we heard tremendous explosions, and we gingerly tried looking around the corner, trying to glimpse the ensuing destruction. All we had to do was to monitor the storm, and to monitor the destruction, while keeping ourselves alive.

O, the serenity of cold, wet winds, the security of the ship's bulkheads, and that high, that tranquil clarity of mind at pursuing a simple goal, with simple rules.

Seeking "Dangerous Methods of Therapy"

2010-11-29T03:19:00.009-05:00

"but u just seek dangerous methods of therapy," a friend said, many hours ago, in reference to my activities in parkour. Well, I felt the need to talk, and she was a very good friend, and so I opened up:

Your comment about me seeking "dangerous methods of therapy." It's interesting, if you think about it. When I was a very young my Mom used to worry that I was too scared, and used to force me to climb a tree (of course, she used to make me climb from the roof top of a 2 storey building, and I used to worry about falling all the way down, and she used to wonder why I was afraid of falling barely 6 feet, even though a good hold would guarantee that I would not fall). Of course, I used to have no problems climbing up onto, and standing on the edge of, a railing-less square on that roof that ended at the edge of a more than 4 storey drop to the ground. I used to go there, alone, and with my cousins, all the time.

Then, when I was in kindergarten, and in elementary school, and in later years, she used to be amazed, and bothered, by my habit of bicycling fast into very tight turns, so that I would lean quite a bit into the street, in the direction in which I was turning (I still love how that maneuver plays with your sense of gravity, and I still try play with it while skiing); and she used to be impressed by my cycling off the edge of higher (3 feet) pavement (for which I think she was being too scared) and my using my cycle to jump off of ramps (no, those were very small jumps -- you can only do so much on a mountain bike). I think I had found that I liked that sort of thing (speed, gravity, and anything that plays with the sense of balance of the inter ear) by somehow discovering them while carrying on with my sports activities.

So, it was not a complete surprise to my Mom that I liked jumping off of places, and skiing, and things like that, though both, my Mom and Dad, were surprised that I was getting into these things at age 23, after having spent pretty much all of my time since 8th Grade as the good little nerd who was always in his bedroom. Of course, what I did at age 23 was mostly a way to relieve stress (and I had watched too much YouTube, thank GOD!), as I was getting frustrated with my senior design project, and the lecturing professor had told me: "Let it out. People who keep it to themselves end up shooting random people." It was also partly because I was trying to develop the kind of body control required to stand and walk on my hands. That was something my Dad could do at the time he married my Mom (hey, maybe that's why my Mom liked him -- I still do not understand how a serious-looking girl like my Mom ended up marrying a playful-looking guy like my Dad; judging from their photos from that time), and I was trying to convey a message to him that I was reaching that point in life, and as we had been talking for four and a half years, they would start looking for a girl after I graduated, and I could get married when I had less than 3 years left (after my first qualifier) to complete my PhD. I was so happy that I was on the road to never being alone again (and that I would never have to scream at nights in the hallways again, to let it out) that everything felt good, everything was serene, everything was so much more bearable -- I felt like I was king of the world, and that anything was possible. That year was, by far, the best year I've had in my life, and even during the darkest days of my senior design, even during my most vulnerable and desperate times (I had compromised my GPA to learn how to get real work done, and so I needed a butt-kicking outcome to my senior design project, or else I was not getting anywhere) I was in a state of a permanent high. I had never felt so close to reaching my goal. I felt that I was at the cusp of attaining that one and only goal that had kept me going for four and a half years. I felt: "I will never be alone again." That tranquility that I got out of that security allowed for quite a bit of clarity, and these 'moments of clarity,' as I like to call them, allowed me to take 6 classes during both semesters of my senior year and still get my 2nd and 3rd highest semester GPAs of my undergraduate years.

At that time I just happened to discover that I liked parkour (by trying it, after watching YouTube) while I relived the stress of senior design, trained to show off to my Dad (and Mom), and (my most pressing concern, in the beginning portion of that senior year) partaking in acts of controlled aggression (my jumping techniques were wrong, and I had to be very aggressive to put up with the stresses of carrying them out) to vent out my pent up frustrations with a trio of quantum mechanical modeling projects that I was doing (mathematically modeling). As it turns out, many famous physicists were into these extreme sports. Dirac used to go rock climbing, others used to go surfing, skiing, etc. I think the only deviation that I know of (though there are others) was Richard Feynman -- he used to go to strip clubs.

You see, I got into activities like street gymnastics because they allowed me to loose myself in the moment (a kind of escapism from what gets me stressed, and my mind convoluted), and they allowed me (as I later found out) to train myself to calm my mind, so as to achieve clarity of thought -- look, praying calms me when I am suicidal, but I needed something that would force me to focus my thoughts; and GOD is too kind to make me focus by commanding me to stand on the edge of a precipice, so I had to take this step, myself. Not to mention, activities like these gave me a kind of high -- not that subtle, long lasting one that I get by praying, but a shorter lived, but very intense one, which neurology research has found to be the same kind of high experienced by people when using cocaine.

During the second semester of my senior year I felt that I had trained enough (though I hadn't -- but thank GOD I did not get injured) to jump off an 8 feet high wall that I had wanted to jump off from (for thrills) since my freshman year. When I jumped, and I felt that weightlessness, followed by the sheer terror of that sinking feeling (growing ever stronger and stronger), coupled with the rush of watching the ground rush up at you, when your vision gets narrower and narrower, like you are entering an ever constricting tunnel, and all the time you are instinctively bracing for impact, while you are (from your training) trying to stay relaxed (you know, for a fact, that that is the right thing to do) and trying to position your body (and especially aligning the shoulders, hips, knees, and feet --especially the feet) for a proper landing that will minimize impact, and you are preparing, mentally, to execute that landing maneuver of the tuck and roll). When I first went through that, my first thought was "How nice it would feel to fall THOUSANDS of FEET!" That's when I started wondering about BASE jumping. Of course, I still had marriage on my mind (no sense getting married if you are going to take up a sport that could -- unlike skydiving -- very well KILL you), and so I left BASE jumping as just a wild fantasy. I did buy the book "BASE 66," by Jevto Dedijer, just out of curiosity, though.

Fast forward to two months past when I walked at my graduation, to early August, 2007: I was talking to my Mom, and I had gone back and forth deciding between doing a PhD and staying on at Corning Inc., where I was interning, and this time I told her, for sure, that I was going to go back to school for a PhD (in other words, I was sticking to my original plan of going all the way to my PhD, and getting married while still a grad student, as I had discussed with my parents -- and especially Mom -- at least once a week for four and a half years). So, imagine my dismay, and agony, when, on hearing this, the first words from my Mom were: "You will get married after you finish your PhD!" There! Four and a half years' of effort gone in less than 4 seconds. Beautiful! Utterly fantastic.

Beautiful cruelty from a woman aside (and this is where the title of my BLOG piece 'Cruelty, thy name is woman!' came from), there was nothing that I could do about it, because I had not been able to find a girl who would have been willing to get engaged, and most of the Bengalis here are from the east and south, and I am not aware of them liking to marry someone from the north (we north Bengalis are a small, scattered bunch of people, here), and so I would need my parents to use their connections to find me a girl -- a fact that I had made explicitly clear at least once a month for four and a half years.

Now, I knew I was in trouble. I knew from previous experience that when something that I had worked towards for more than 2 years (and I mean really worked -- as in compromised food, physical well being, and sleep to get it) gets taken away I get extremely depressed. I could feel the onset, already, and I needed to move fast. I needed a new goal -- anything to keep me alive. Anything that would challenge me mentally, physically, financially, emotionally; anything that would test my will to the breaking point (much like my undergrad years had, but preferably more). The PhD process, in and of itself, would not do it, for I had lived the life of a PhD student pretty much from my freshman year, and I needed something very, very quickly. I looked around, while still on the phone with my Mom. I found, on my bed, the book "BASE 66," and I decided, right then, that getting a BASE number would be my next goal, as a side goal to my PhD. It would fulfill all the requirements of what faculties and capacities of mine I wanted taxed and it would provide me with some much needed enjoyment through adventure. So, without a word to my Mom, getting a BASE number (by successfully parachuting off a Building, Antenna, Span/bridge, and Earth/cliff) became my next 5 year goal.

Of course, I was not out of the woods, entirely, and over the next few days, until the end of my internship (24th August, 2007) I felt my performance level declining, getting lower and lower, and and I noticed that my superiors were actually taking time to convince me that I was not disappointing them, and I felt I was loosing the joy that I had felt with life. Over the next year things got worse and worse, and on two occasions I did not show my face anywhere for extended periods of time (I still do not know what to tell my professors about that, when they ask), and I watched my GPA slide, as I failed to concentrate on my courses, nor do well at my research work. There were lots of times when I was barely keeping myself from killing myself. Praying allowed me to remember not to kill myself, and extreme sports afforded me a few moments of clarity. It still bugs me how, some months ago (late, in 2009, I think), my parents claimed they had no idea why their finding me a girl was so important to me, even though, for four and a half years, I had had them repeat back to me what I had told them. It's like nothing is important, and anything I tell them is just a series of words -- words with no meaning, and no consequences. I lost interest in talking to them, after that.

After about one and a half years of being in a near constant state of depression (and feeling listless, and goal-less, not yet feeling really committed to any long term goal) I decided there were two rules to being happy:
1) ALWAYS get what you want.
2) NEVER ask for what you can't get.

So, if I was not going to get out of the rut of always being lonely, then I would actively seek it, and I would seek out any activity that kept a person lonely (and completely cull -- not just kill -- the idea of marriage -- unless someone tips my mind over). Activities like jumping off of places at the envelope of what one of capable of, walking on the edge of a precipice, etc. induce feelings in a person that he or she cannot express, and that feeling of being there is completely lonely (even when in a crowd) and thus, activities like these because ones that I pursued more aggressively. I now play with a skateboard, I play with a bo, I wield a hammer, and I pursue activities involving being on the edge -- it just happens that they are dangerous; I do not do them because they are dangerous, I do them because I can get unconveyable feelings out of them, and (more importantly) I can loose myself in them [it just happens that danger is a requirement for an activity to fulfill these qualifications -- hey, "You haven't truly lived until you have almost died."].

As I was telling another friend, a year ago, when looking down from a high perch I feel all alone, and such fears are always faced alone, no matter how many people you have near you; for no one can feel what you are feeling, and you can never truly convey what you are thinking. Well, I'm so used to being alone that being scared up there does not feel all that different from my everyday life. Well, it does feel different: when I'm up there, alone, looking down and feeling scared, I'm actually very happy. I've developed this strange affinity for situations that are not comfortable, are forbidding, and demanding of patience and perseverance -- situations that give no rest, and make me feel weary. Perhaps I've been reading too much into "Seven Years in Tibet" (among LOTS of other true stories), or perhaps I have been listening too much to Moby's "Extreme Ways," or perhaps I have lived my current lifestyle too long, where I am constantly alone (who even cares about listening to what motivates a guy to go paintballing, or skiing, anyway? -- even my Mom does not want to have to listen to those tales), have very few things that make me happy, and monomaniacally chase some narrow and very well defined goals (goals like: I WANT TO GRADUATE!).

So, in the end, yes, the pursuit of these activities is very therapeutic (and I now am productive in my lab, and I am doing well in my courses); it calms my nerves, it gives me that "cocaine" high (that whole thing with the moment of ecstasy and elation -- you can read Garrett Soden's book, "Falling: How Our Greatest Fear Became Our Greatest Thrill--A History," for that), and that clarity of thought, and it gives me something to live for, and something to look forward to. The way I see it, engineering is for GOD (so, come Day of Judgement, I can tell GOD I have been of some benefit to mankind, and then maybe I won't be that scared asking Him to be merciful to me), and the pursuit of extreme activities is for me, so that I may live to serve GOD.

I find this attitude to be quite robust, and scalable, as in recent months I have lost contact with my Younger Brother, and my parents have been of no help (they all live together), and I don't even get an hour a week from that kid (well, he is 11 years younger than me, so I can call him that), and I have been able to cope with that added component to my depression. Sure, I stay awake for as long as possible, concentrating on different aspects of my research, and watching science fiction (I have watched Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Babylon 5) -- and, sometimes, comedy -- pretty much depending on caffeine to keep me productive -- all so that my mind does not relax and wander off to feelings of being deprived of company, by family, which can really get me down, to put things very lightly. Sure, I have needed research papers as lullabies to fall asleep, since last February. Sure, as I found out about a week, or two, ago, only cigarettes allow me to sleep for anything more than 4 consecutive hours (while also allowing me to relax my mind, without letting it slip into depressing thoughts -- and don't worry, I know they are harmful). Sure, in the last seven, or so, months my appearance has aged a lot, according to a friend of mine. I have, however, been very productive (in terms of what I have learned) since last February, thus I think I have been able to manage myself into a most beautiful depression.

Since I can't keep jumping off of places all the time (or do other activities) -- that would increase the possibility of muscle overuse injuries -- I keep my mind occupied in reading research papers for my lab work (and courses) and so far (since last February) it has been a most beautiful depression. I never told me boss about my own state of mind (though he is right in his conclusion that I should be fine, given my what he called "activities, climbing mountains, and all"), but given that one of his former students who cracked up is being kept alive through medicated sedation -- which prevents him from applying his mind towards any serious research output -- I would rather have complete control of my faculties, and carefully address the possibility of every kind of mishap, so that I am productive for as long as I am well and so that if something bad happens then it truly is an accident that I could not avoid.

Thing is, as I was telling my other friend, a year ago, supposing I do do it (get into BASE), what next? What do you do after pursuing a sport in which carelessness will kill you, but you know that doing it over and over will make you careless? What do you do that can keep you away from this sport? Or, do you just take the next step, and go into wingsuit BASE? Maybe I'll become like Odysseus (Ulysses), from the story of Troy. Maybe I'll live an exciting life forever. I'll remember to be careful.

Well, that is my outlook on what I do, and how I live. While I would not want any more members to this club (and I don't mean the BASE club), I think it is pretty practical, given my situation.

Cheers!

Volatile and Decentralized: How to get your papers accepted

2010-11-29T02:02:00.000-05:00

Volatile and Decentralized: How to get your papers accepted: "Like most faculty, I serve on a lot of conference program committees. I estimate I review O(10^2) papers a year for various conferences and ..."

To Pursue, or Not to Pursue, a PhD

2010-11-11T03:49:00.004-05:00

A friend asked me the following:

"Do you honestly enjoy doing your PhD work? How are you managing financially? What about after you are done? How is the job market? Is it very competitive? Do you expect to be paid more than the average Joe working in a company?"

Here is the reply that followed:

Let me put it to you this way: in the summer of 2007 I went for an internship at a company that I really liked, but the kind of job that I wanted required a PhD. Every member of every group that I wanted to join had a PhD. PhD provided the specialized training that they required to even get started on jobs of that type (I interned at a research and development facility). So, when I spoke to them (at their labs, over lunch, while hanging out, etc.) they convinced me to just get a PhD. So, here I am. The company likes me, and they had me intern there again, and they want me to come back (they want someone with my specialization right now, but I don't have my degree, yet), but I have to ride it out until I finish the PhD.

Look, PhD is a specialized kind of training (depends on the field that you are in) that prepares you for certain kinds of job functions (think of it as a highly specialized job training which confers skills with wide applicability). You do it (the PhD) if that is the kind of job that you want (typically, to work in R&D). Otherwise you don't do it. The money is meager, as you have to live on a barely livable stipend (actually, it's not that bad, but I like to go skiing, skydiving, and the like -- I'm a wild man), but it's a means to an end.

I hope you have strong motives if you want a PhD, for otherwise you will get killed by the pain, the trouble, the strive and strife. The respect that our society accords to a PhD is not worth the things that we have to go through -- even the homeless guy has a more enjoyable life. But, the PhD period is transitory, allowing a person to get the kind of job that one likes (assuming the motives and actions were right), and that makes all the troubles, tribulations and frustrations worthwhile.

I cannot tell you that guttural joy of getting something to work, or that sheer ecstasy of figuring something out, but those are things to look forward to in this line of work.

She then said:

"The researchers here have a gleam in their eyes and are so excited and I find this very fascinating. Sometimes I wonder whether my interest in pursuing a PhD is a product of being here in uni. I am not too sure."

My reply (to this, and other posts) was:

That reminds me of a line from the movie, Riddick, where a girl tells Riddick 'I've killed so many people, but I still can't get that look that I see in your eyes...' well, she sounded despairingly exasperated. Look, if you like actually DOING the kind of stuff that that these people do then go for it! If you like simply reading what they have done, but would not like going through the drudgery of actually doing these things, yourself, then you might have a few things to figure out.

It's like this: my professors like to watch people jumping out of airplanes from the comfort of their seats, but would not like jumping out of an airplane, themselves -- I, on the other hand, like to jump out of an airplane. Now, you don't need me to tell you which one of us (between one of my professors and myself) needs to go to school and get a skydiver's license, do you? ;)

Personally, I was never too big a fan of the kind of experiments that I have been doing -- until I started understanding what the hell was going on (trust me, I would start cursing if I even tried to show you the full extent of how I feel). You see, I like figuring things out. My mentality was cut out more for being a physicist, than an engineer -- the two groups feel a different kind of "Aha moment" from their work (physicists feel a more subtle, more sublime, but longer lasting sigh of the chest, while engineers feel a more gutteral, more intense, but shorter lasting moment of satisfaction; but both groups feel 'high' when it happens). So, while I had my gripes, and my deep seated despairs, agonies, misgivings and regrets, I finally found my satisfaction when I took the initiative to understand the physics of what I was doing, and how I could use that physics to engineer the devices that I am to be making (I can engineer what physics happens in my devices, if you will) -- an initiative that paid off at last Friday's presentation, which my professors were very satisfied with (I think I now finally understand why my group's work is called 'applied physics,' rather than simply engineering).

So, given my better understanding, I am now quite happy, and I now finally feel that I am getting what I signed up for when I started with my PhD. This has been the longest 'down' in the ups and downs of the PhD process -- for me, anyway. Now, I feel that I am doing what I like -- I am figuring things out, and then implementing my understanding for a practical purpose. I used to see experimentation as a necessary evil to justify the theoretical work that I do (spending 7 hours doing a boring experiment is still a pain in the ass -- and I know a pain in the ass, for Mr. Yusuf Shareef used to cane me there), but I don't want to be a pure theoretician (I like 'working with my hands,' if you will, and I like to bring forth the fruits of my cerebral work, rather than limit myself, and have somebody else do the work that makes my theoretical work USEFUL to society), and I actually enjoy working with lasers and optics, and I derive tremendous pleasure out of working my systems under very tight parameters (my philosophy is 'always enjoy a tight squeeze,' and I follow that philosophy whether I am working, or skiing), and now (with my better understanding) I see the experimental work that I am doing as actually being relevant to my interests and actually being aligned with what I get joy out of.

So, if you misunderstand what the work of your professor entails, or if your PhD advisor's work does not align very well with your interests, then you could be in for a VERY SAD Life. When I started I used to think that I should simply like the end result of the kind of work that I will be doing (rather than the long periods of doing the actual work) in order to be successful as a PhD student, but the fact is, seeing something accomplished lasts a very short time, and you soon have to move on to the next step; on top of that, I cannot truly enjoy an accomplishment too well, for when my professor started clapping the day I finally was able to make high quality transparent optical quality films for my solar cells I actually squirmed inside, I felt extremely embarrassed, and I did not like it at all -- I later told a friend that I much prefer being grilled at the meetings and I am telling you that instead of facing so much compliments I would rather jump out the window; I think I do not handle compliments too well. So, it is VITALLY important that you like the journey, rather than the final destination, in order to be successful as a PhD student.

If you like Sharjah (and say you live in Dubai, United Arab Emirates), for example, you can take bus (i.e., if you like the final destination), but only if you like the act of taking journey will you take a backpack (with supplies, like water, some food, etc.) and actually walk the route, enjoying the breeze, the walk, and the sights (bad example, I know -- the desert is too hot -- but I hope you see my point). The PhD is like the journey, and you will not spend much time in Sharjah, once you get there, and you will just keep hiking/walking to the next destination. So, you should only pursue the PhD if you like taking the journey. Of course, for any PhD work it is important to know what is the destination, and what is the journey :)

O, and I must warn you of the PhD jokes, for there is a lot of truth to them. Besides the corny ones that I came up with (the ones on my BLOG, that I linked you to, earlier), there are ones like: "A PhD student should be poor, hungry, and lonely, so that he/she can spend his/her nights alone, to think." Of course, here is the United States, statistically, you are more likely to complete the PhD if you are married, rather than single -- don't ask me why, because neither I, nor my professor who told me this, can explain it.

So, there you go. Now you can better evaluate your motives for doing a PhD. The decision is a very personal journey, and telling a person about why one chooses to do it, or to not do it can feel very intimate and personal, and can make one feel being very wide open; but I would appreciate your letting me in. While the factors influencing the decision may be personal, they are certainly not the kind of personal stuff that one cannot talk to a friend about. In my case, I don't make any effort to hide them, at all. Sure, you are the first to know some of the stuff that I have written above (and, yes, I was looking for someone to talk to) but I have spoken about this stuff before with a lady who took my psychological profile (she studies the learning process in adults). In any case, knowing what factors influence you, and in what way, I would be better equipped to help the next person who asks me whether or not he/she should pursue a PhD.

BTW, have you ever heard of Shangri La? I once saw an episode about it on a show called "Lonely Planet" (also known as "Globe Trekker," and the theme is enclosed). It is a mythical city in the Himalayan Mountains where everything feels great. The show failed to find it (it is mythical, afterall), but when they found the ruins of a different city, by following the legends, they found something truly mythical. I felt elated, myself, when I saw just the video of what the show's travelers were seeing. Sure, it wasn't what was described in the myths, but when you see so much beauty, so much tranquility, such wide expanses surrounding a beautiful city, you cannot help but feel a sigh of relief, a joy that I cannot describe, an inner peace the like of which I had not experienced in a while, and I have not experienced since , you suddenly all the pains, all the troubles, all the inner strife, and all those feelings that you get while you strive fade away, and it is as if you are feeling a different version of the runner's high (to put it very, very lightly). When I saw that city on a high plateau, surrounded by hills (hence, making the place unreachable), approachable by a sandy beach from one side, and a shallow lake on the other, I could not help but feel an inner peace.

I think that is what you saw in your researchers' eyes. I think that is the reason for their eyes' gleam. I think they found their Shangri La, after traveling through vales and hills.

I once told a friend:
"Love is when you are willing to pursue the object of your love; to get to know better that object of your desire; to be willing to go hither and thither, near and far, over mounts and vales, ever inching closer, even in the face of going further and further, all in the name of appreciating what you are so willing to fulfill in terms of its wishes and desires; love is being able to think what is better for that someone, not just yourself; but love can also be possessive desire."

Well, I think they have found their Shangri La after all their ups and downs and despite the satisfaction of their perhaps possessive desire it (the look of that, rather selfish, satisfaction) is overcome by the process, that pursuit of that desire, to the point that now you only see the satisfied gleam, that inner tranquility, that fulfillment that no one can take away. It is a satisfaction that I am lost for words for, and it is indeed something worthy of desire -- it is worthy of years and years of pursuit, and it is perhaps worthy of a lifetime of pursuit, and it is worthy of pursuit from one goal to another -- for when you find it out to accomplishing one goal, and you bask in the glory of a private celebration, it is worthy of pursuing again, and again, and again. Simply writing this, I feel a certain satisfaction of that desire, for right now I am reliving that moment again, when I saw that episode of Lonely Planet. I could go on and on, but I am sure, by now, you know what I mean by the worthy pursuit of an all but elusive desire.

The true Shangri La, that tranquil oasis town in the midst of the dry mountains, far from civilization, and to get to which you have to cross wild terrain, still eludes me. It's like my happiness is 'over the hills and far away.' I am still out in the cold, cold, morn, feeling the tingling in a metal rod. Ever inching, closer and closer, not knowing how much more I will have to wither. I have come to love that tingling sound in a hollow metal rod, a rod like those railings that bridges have got. It's like every sound is an intimate moment; pressed against my cheeks I savor, and to myself I comment. I've come to love what is cold, what is forbidding, and what takes one away from pleasures a society considers innocent. I have lived for 8 years away from family, away from intimate contact, away from feeling open. Now, to block these needs it's as if my adrenals have swollen. An angry man, a wild man, a kind of beast, a man of the mountains, a talkative one, but a mountain man, nevertheless, I have become. Like Odysseus, who could not stay with his wife, and had to return to sea, having spent 10 years getting home from it, I may very well one day take off, take to the skies, and fly off. Sure, I may land over hills and vales, and while Shangri La I may not even seek, but may find en route, when least expected, I am sure from my adventures I will have many tales.

That was just me sounding off some of my deepest thoughts, some deep seated regrets, some deeply harbored desires. I hope you shall never burn in such kind of fire

Good luck with your endeavors. :)

~Faissal

New Ways and New Places to Die -- A Journey Through a Beautiful Depression

2010-11-11T02:57:00.004-05:00

"...each new frontier has brought new ways and new places to die. Why should the future be different?
- Col. Corazon Santiago, from the computer game "Alpha Centauri," by Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds

A friend asked me: "Why are you killing yourself with work?"
To which I replied: "Because when I'm not, I'm finding new ways and new places to die."

You see, I cannot sleep unless I work myself to sleep. If I stop thinking about work, or parkour, or stop keeping myself heavily occupied by something then I very quickly sink into a depression, and I want to kill myself. I feel deprived that I cannot have a satisfying conversation with my immediate family (long story, don't really want to talk about it, right now) eventhough they are still alive, and a mere phone call away -- I just don't feel it's right, and to avoid getting depressed I try to block them out of my thoughts. This has been going since before this year started, and for many months things have stayed the same.

So, I try to keep myself occupied at all times (I read research papers -- which helps with the fact that not knowing and not understanding what is going on in my experiments bothers me immensely no matter what mental state I am in, play with a skateboard, jump down the stairwells, play with a pole/stick, watch sci-fi shows on HULU, etc. -- anything to keep my mind from slipping into its intrinsic state of missing family). Over time I have filled my Facebook info with little things to keep my mind on track, and to avoid slipping up, because relaxing my mind, and letting it wander gets it back into its intrinsic state.

I think it is a most beautiful depression, for I doubt that I would have gotten as much done as I have gotten done had I not been in this state of depression, and all this reading, and thinking over my experiments has kept me from coming up with new ways to die. It still bothers me that I contemplate death by hanging (that started happening either early this year, or late last year, and until then my favorite method of death was jumping off a balcony -- not a bridge, not a rooftop, not a cliff -- without a parachute). I think it happened since I started wondering how it would feel to take up the sport of rope jumping (where you climb up to high places, attach a long rope, and swing down, feeling the exhilaration of freefall).

My thoughts resonate, a bit, with those of a Jeb Corliss (American BASE jumper and wingsuiter), in that in activities that could lead to his death (owing to the extreme danger) he has found a joy of life ('You have not truly lived until you have almost died.' -- as a soldier wrote to the Soldier of Fortune Magazine) that keeps him alive. I, too, like activities that are very demanding, and require things to be very simple, as they need to be done perfectly. I remember clearly, a time (well, three years ago) when the desire to live to get a BASE number was all that was keeping me alive. I still harbor that desire. It keeps me going through depressions' fires.
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P.S. It's a good thing that I discovered the intrinsic joys of pursuing demanding activities (like skiing, working with lasers and optics, etc.) long before my current, and long standing, depression. The human mind is an amazing thing. Every desire can be killed. Like bones, which can change shape, size, and even their intrinsic structure, the human mind can be tailored, over time, to suit the prevailing needs. Of course, it is relatively easy to learn to give up something -- quite something else (if, at all, possible) to learn to like it, instead. As a guy who has suppressed suicidal tendencies 9 years of age (when I found out that my religion forbade suicide) I am sure I can put this problem away. Thing is, I'm not sure what cost this will incur. By the time I got rid of the suicidal tendencies that I had seen developing in me from ages 5 (another long story I don't want to get into, now) to 9 I had forgotten how to smile. I actually had to relearn how to laugh when I was in Grade 7, because my English Teacher found it offensive that the teacher cracks a joke but the student does not laugh. I never really got past social awkwardness even through high school, despite developing a rudimentary sense of humor (which I developed by reading articles on what makes people laugh, and what makes a joke -- I had to start with definitions) -- and I can still be awkward, at times. I actually developed a very convincing fake smile after I just started college -- a smile that later became my own, as I developed a more sensible sense of humor. Of course, I do get uncomfortable if people are all cheery around me, all the time, and I cannot deal with more than a day without some sort of stress (a few hours if people are really cheerful around me, unless I am involved in some demanding physical and/or mental activity).

I have already made some adjustments to myself, over the last few years. I no longer worry about goals that I cannot realistically accomplish (well, I've turned my back on it, and when I turn my back on a goal I just do not look back for a long, long time -- perhaps 10 years), I had toned down my expectations for how fulfilling (loneliness-soothing) my conversations with immediate family could be, and I had extended the goal of simply getting a BASE number to actually wingsuiting off of mountains as a hobby. All that helped, of course, until the day I realized that no matter how important anything was to me (and I never mentioned anything to my parents over a phone conversation, even once, unless it was important to me), and no matter many times (or for how many years) I had said it, it never actually registered with my parents. That, to me, was a far stronger slap in the face than their completely shutting me off because I wanted to elaborate on things as a way of helping me cope with loneliness. So, for the last several months (if not a year, already) I have completely lost interest in sharing anything with my parents, and my blood boils simply at the thought of talking to them. So, I don't really talk to them any more.

Now, I'm not sure what further adjustments I am going to make to my own personality (shutting off the need to talk does not seem to have worked, and that attempt actually led to me starting this BLOG, and to my screaming on my FaceBook Wall), but I am thinking about adding a partial dedication to a daily session on parkour or tricking, just to ensure that I get tired enough to sleep (not too sure how well this will work, though it used to work until last year -- of course, I am not going to risk relaxing my mind in an attempt to sleep, for letting go of myself sets me up for depression). Now, I may have to cull (not just kill) the idea of talking to family -- which would mean lesser contact with cousins and to my thinking of them as friends (just so I can keep in touch with them) -- which would be fine. I will probably need to become more comfortable with the reality that a life of wingsuiting and BASE jumping will probably be a short life -- of course, I have been adjusting my mentality for that, for the past few months, and my current thinking is that while I may live a short life I need to make it a most productive one. Hey, better to live a risky life, than to risk killing oneself -- at least, that is how I see it.

With these changes I shall hope to be better able to survive, and still function in society as any other human being, so let's pray that things go well.

Cheers!
~Faissal

To Take On The Extreme

2010-11-11T02:00:00.000-05:00

There is an extreme side of me that I always try to control. In fact, Islam IS my moderating influence, for it keeps me from requiring others to keep things as simple as I would like things to be.

I have an extreme side, and I try to keep it away from my religion, for Islam is a path that is some sort of medium path -- one that is not leaning towards either extreme (a moderate path that leans towards neither lax flexibility nor towards morbid rigidity). That is why I gravitate towards activities that allow me to channel my extreme side in positive ways (as my high school Physics Teacher used to say: "Constructive, not destructive!"): laser alignment work (and the like), background reading, and designing experiments for research are very demanding, and allow me to be extreme and be useful to human kind, as I think Allah wants us to be, and skiing (and the like) allows me to be extremely demanding on myself while doing something personally fulfilling.

The way I see it, some people are just born extreme, and it is their duty, and their lifetime challenge to be useful (I don't think Islam encourages us to live as hermits, so I take it that we have to live in society and be useful) and to either tame their inner extremism, or to simply channel it in a useful manner -- well, that is just my take on it.

Will We ReWrite Science Fiction? Or, When Will We, About Crystals and Polymers?

2010-07-18T00:15:00.001-04:00

I've been watching Star Trek (various incarnations), Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis (I won't insult these shows by including them in the same pack as Stargate Universe, eventhough I liked Dr. Rush), and now I am watching Babylon 5, and what I consistently see in these shows is that information (from computer programming instructions, as in the various Stargate series, to information media, to messages, as in Babylon 5, for example) -- and even energy (as in Star Trek's Lithium crystals for the ship's engines) -- is stored in crystals. Now, all that is great, but all that also feels ancient (no pun intended about the Ancients from the Stargate series), in that these shows indicate yester-years' infatuation with crystal technology, from back when the transistor was invented, since that invention was followed by tremendous technological development that almost entirely depended on the use of crystals to control the flow of electrons (and holes) for the various purposes of information technology.

Some time since the invention of the transistor, however, humankind has come up with using various organic technologies: technologies that have led to the development of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and other devices that are grown from organic materials. Even photonic materials and photonic crystals can me made (at least partially) using organic materials. Sure, devices made with organic materials need hermetic sealing to prevent their degradation, and they tend to have lower damage thresholds than crystalline material technologies, but they also have the advantages (like lower power consumption in OLEDs) that entice researchers to develop their uses further and further. Far more importantly, of course, organic materials have the advantage that devices can be grown using molecular self assembly, opening up possibilities for engineering materials and devices with tremendous versatility. I, for example, make quantum dots (yes, they are crystalline, inorganic quantum dots, but bear with) that are spherical only because they are grown inside organic chambers: not only do organic materials provide growing chambers that are easily controlled (and difficult, at best, to produce otherwise) but they allow for the molding of the external extent of my quantum dot crystals. Back when I was working on OLEDs, to give another example, I found a paper whose authors used organic chemistry to deposit a single layer of molecules at the interface between two OLED layers. Now, that level of control over how a device is made -- down at the molecular level -- is something of a holy grail of materials and devices engineering, and a dream of researchers worldwide. I remember a piece of science fiction in which this dream is mentioned: in one of the clips from the computer game 'Alpha Centauri' there is mention of a material that acts as a nano factory that grows battle tanks if left alone. I do not remember that clip mentioning organic technology, however, and I have not seen organic technology being widely prevalent in science fiction.

Sure, I have observed the mention of organic materials (polymers, in this case) in the computer game 'Deus Ex,' but even that was a bit dissatisfying in that the game mentioned organic materials in the contexts of locks, medicines (though the game's concept of the 'Ambrosia' vaccine is reminiscent of how I use organic materials to make quantum dots), and biomedical engineering: my gripe is that even this game did not mention the tremendous possibilities that organic technologies open up for my field of electronic and photonic materials and devices. The only piece of fiction where I found anything satisfying, in this regard, is the mention of organic matrices being used as high density memory devices (computer storage) in the fan made mod of Deus Ex, called 'Zodiac.' That is a singular case, however, and I am yet to see the possibilities that organic materials and devices can render to information technology being expounded in a major TV show.

I can understand that Babylon 5 came out perhaps thirty years after the invention of the transistor, and so it might be another thirty years before organic technologies are talked about in a science fiction show, but I think that that would be very limiting, as by then the scientific community might be working on something else (don't ask me what that something else might even be). Personally, I would rather that the science fiction writers write shows that talk about what is being developed now, since their shows may very well influence the career choices that their younger audiences make. I don't want the kids growing up thirty years from now getting into college, all excited by the possibilities of developing OLEDs, only to find that their Dads saw OLEDs at Times Square (in New York) when they were young. Sure, the information technology aspects of crystalline technologies being shown on the modern sci-fi shows are still nowhere completion, but if you are going to influence the kids, it might be nicer to give them something that they can look forward to in the foreseeable future.

Wouldn't it be nice to get the kids interested in molecular self assembly, organic electronic and photonic devices, and the like so that the kids can look forward to these things when they start college? I certainly think it would broaden their horizons more than if the major sci-fi shows stayed fixated on crystal based technologies. Just a thought.

~Faissal

Maybe I'm just looking for something human -- Friday, 2nd July, 2010

2010-07-02T00:53:00.000-04:00

Scattered thoughts:

For the past few weeks I have been binging on Stargate Atlantis, and Dexter (two TV shows). I have been going from one episode to the next, unable to get off of it, to do anything else. I feel like I want to empathize with the characters inside. With Atlantis I find it cerebral, a bit like Star Trek, in that it presents situations, and dilemmas (not necessarily of a technical nature, like would you make another group of people vulnerable, so as to make them more tempting to a raiding party), and with Dexter, I just like it because it looks like me: a person with something hidden inside, something that one is afraid to share, something that no one will like, but something that one wants to get off of one's chest; kind of like Detective John Amsterdam from the TV show New Amsterdam.

About a week, or so, ago I went with a friend and watched The Karate Kid (though this movie should have been more appropriately called The Kung Fu Kid), and watching the kid leave Detroit and his friends behind my eyes welled up, for I was happy to know that I can feel. It made me aware that I may not have been all that much of a cold stone when (my Mother and) I left my extended family, back home, to live with my Father in another country. Maybe I was feeling it, but did not have anything that was conscious. Maybe I simply had everything that was human about me hidden in my subconscious. I'm not sure how else I could possibly have felt any empathy for the kid leaving Detroit whereas I had never really experienced much of anything when I first left home.

There, I feel a little better, now. Perhaps this is how John Amsterdam felt in New Amsterdam, when he wrote down his deeds in notebooks. Perhaps my watching Stargate (the series and the movies) is my drinking problem (though I prefer the time when my addiction was to extreme sports, until a few muscle injuries put a halt to them-- though they left me feeling alone, for not having anyone to talk to about my experiences; certainly not family). For long (the last few months) I have tried to suppress my need for human contact (the whole intimacy vs. isolation aspect of intro psychology theory) for want of having close family members who would even care to listen to what I wanted to talk about. This is a bit like when I was in middle school, when I tried to do away with emotions, entirely, for emotions always left me in a permanent state of hurt, only that this time I am only trying to get rid of my need to have someone to talk to (which was part of the reason that I came up with this blog, so that I would have a wall to talk to). You can't predict the future, but I don't think I want to be able to return to a more normal state, in which a person is actually willing to share. Back in Seventh Grade actually tried (at the insistence of a teacher) to learn to smile and laugh again; something that has resulted a whole bunch of forced reactions (fake laughter, and fake smiles) to humorous situations (I still need to analyze situations to find the humor, whereas most people crack up immediately). It's one thing to fake a smile (though it is much more natural now, and I have gotten a lot better, over the years), but to fake being open is something too unethical, too immoral, for me. Sure, lying is perhaps one of the first things that I learned, since I was slow in understanding language, as a child, and I did not enjoy the resulting jokes my family cracked about me, and I was always afraid that I would get dragged away, with violence, like the guys who sometimes escaped from my home town's mental hospital, and I was afraid that people would treat me badly, like an outcast (in a best case scenario), if they ever found out that I could not process language like all the other kids, and so faking my ability to understand language (and taking the verbal beating for when I didn't) was among the first skills that I actually learned (in fact, I still have problems processing language -- despite my grades from when I took English), but actually faking being close to a person, when I am not, is something too much for me. It's something uncalled for, something dishonest, something that I don't even need to survive. You have to love places like America -- you can be dyslexic, but as long as you work hard you can still be a professor (I may not be dyslexic, but I certainly do have learning difficulties) -- maybe I wouldn't have learned to lie, had I been raised in a place like this, for maybe I would never have had to fear how society would have treated me for my difficulties. But, that's, of course, speculation.

There. I feel better, now. I don't want to talk anymore; for now, at least.

~Faissal

600 Feet!

2010-01-17T21:56:00.001-05:00

I played navigator to a friend, while driving today. I had to be most alert during the short stretches that led to turns. I noticed that the GPS reported distances a bit after they had been reduced. At one point the GPS system (we used a Tomtom system, which we like very much) chimed '900 feet,' after we had passed the point where the display had said '900 feet.' Just to throw in some numbers, I guestimated (i.e., I estimated the distance, though it was more of a guess) that we had passed a little under one-third of the distance in question by the time that the GPS system chimed in. So, just for simplicity, I guessed that by the time I heard the chime we had about 600 feet before the next turn.

Well, guess what? We weren't going fast (certainly not fast, by free fall -- skydiving -- standards), but we crossed those 600 feet incredibly fast! At that point I wondered how Mr. Jevto Dedijger might have felt, looking down at the ground from the Kockertalbrucke Bridge (pardon my spelling -- I do not have his book, "BASE 66," here with me), near Heidelberg, Germany, right before his 'S' jump in BASE.

Okay, okay, the whole point of my exercise was to get a feel for how he might have felt, but I got more than I had bargained for; for when we whizzed through that distance I was left with a knot in my stomach as I tried to fathom how much discipline Mr. Dedijer must have had to pull his rip cord during the jump. It was quite scary, and I cannot truly imagine that morbid feeling of watching the ground rushing up faster and faster, to meet you, eventhough I have watched the ground rush up when I jumped off an 8 feet high wall, and when I put my parachute into a tight spiral during my first (and so far, my only) skydive.

Should Flying Men Look Back To the Flying Darts?

2010-01-06T23:16:00.013-05:00

Flying man minus Wingsuit: Maybe the first wingsuit landings should be done on skis, right off of a Nordic style ski jump. Perhaps the real challenge will be adapting the ski bindings so that the parachute (during testing, and for emergencies) does not get entangled in them. After that, maybe wingsuiters will start jumping out of airplanes with adapted (perhaps shorter) skis.

But, of course, I have never seen telemark ski bindings, my entire life, nor have I BASE jumped, nor wingsuited.

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I got this idea from watching Jeb Corlis' appearance on The Colbert Report, and the wonderful cinematography in the above video, starting at the 6:41 mark.

The above clip is taken from Werner Herzog's documentary "The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner," perhaps more properly translated as The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcutter Steiner.

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A few days after putting up this piece I found this clip on YouTube:

So I take it that I'm not the first to come up with the idea of learning to land a wingsuit using a telemark ski jump setup. In my defense, though, I did come up with the idea independently.

7 Days Later: A Little About My First Snowboarding Trip

2009-12-28T23:02:00.033-05:00

On Monday, 21st December, 2009, I went to Mountain Creek, my sporting home, for winter sports, for that is where I learned to ski in the snow. This time, of course, it was not the skiing that I went for, though it was still for the snow. More particularly, it was World Snowboarding Day, and that gave me a free pass onto the slopes.

We were given snowboarding passes, equipment, lessons, and a lift ticket!

After about an hour and a half of lessons we hit the only slope where free previewers were allowed to go. It was fun, dealing with the undulating curves down the mountain slope, despite the disorienting feel of my head swinging to and fro -- my by was facing sideways, so my head was really going left and right, given the direction of my glide. Of course, I could not sustain that kind of a ride, and had no intention to, for I, as a control freak, wanted to first be able to control my flow -- if the flow can't be ours, it can't be, for I intend not to hit a tree and see floating stars.

Some parts of the slope were soft -- much of it, in fact, -- but the uncrowded part that we took had a hard, icy patch, towards the middle of the ride. Over there, I fell a lot more than once, or twice. The falls in the soft snow were always nice, but falls in the ice were a pain in my behind. I knew not any proper breafalls, for the snowboard's design -- a feature that had deterred me from snowboarding, all this time. Adapt my side breakfall to the board, I did not think too thoroughly, in the cold, and a back breakfall I had ruled out, given my skill, long ago. I, at one point, thought I had adapted my technique for falling to the side, but fell and realized that that fall made me roll, resulting in my hearing a snap in my arm, on my right side. I soon realized that such falls would be unwise -- more stunts, than prudent actions of the wise. So, I kept falling on the side of my behind, some times on the left, and some times on the right. It's a wonder that I finished the day walking upright.

In the days since that time I have warmed, and stretched, and stretched again, and then stretched again, till I got bored to the point that I wondered if I would stretch again. Persistent, preposterous, tenacious, asinine, whatever you choose to call it, I will pursue it till I can squat like I used to, and practice jumping like a Nordic ski jumper -- anything to shred the slopes made by man, or the Divine.

I shall hope to fully recover before this winter sports season's end is nigh, and while I still feel the tug on my hind, on the right, I still dream of jumping stairwells, walls, and anything high.

Mom, I know you said "Always use protection..."

...but I don't like the plastic bag!

I think I like the unprotected feel of the snowy slopes,
simply grinding away under my snowboard.

I need to give new meaning to my life

2009-12-28T22:57:00.005-05:00

This could give new meaning to my life,
And they'd need people with the tenacity and skills,
Not sure if I should set my heart on it, though;
But it still beats plunging off the Eiger in deep snow,
For, right now, life's not great, knowing that you will develop skills
That, once they achieve your short term goal, will have no place to go.

Rants of a Lonely Graduate Student, 15th December, 2009

2009-12-16T01:01:00.006-05:00

The girls are getting prettier by the day,
but I feel like a flat lander
enjoying the blue mountains, far away.

I feel the desire to look,
but that is all I care,
for with them I wouldn't know what to stir, or to cook.

A deep desire has died within,
Perhaps prospects for companionship are bleak, and grim.

...and, where was I, when this happened?

2009-12-15T02:45:00.073-05:00

Yesterday (well, day before, rather), I formally met, for the first time, a person who grew up with me, in Abu Dhabi, thanks to my friend of mine. Her (the person I met for the first time) Mom and mine had been long time friends, and she had known about me, from her Mom. Given that, and the fact that she is not the first girl I met 'from' Abu Dhabi who knew of me without me knowing much about her (I had only seen her, a few times, as a kid, but had never officially met her), I now think that a lot more people from there knew of me, than I knew people. I feel like I was an information node that produced signals, but never received any. But then, again, maybe it was just the girls who were told by their Moms who was who (maybe even with the tone of "Stay away from that big bad wolf," just kidding), but I cannot know.

While my New York friend (well, formerly a New Yorker) and I went around the city with my new friend (and her sister) two talked with fun reminiscence of their earlier days, back in Abu Dhabi, back when they were so young that a boy could get into a pillow fight with a girl. I must say, I quite enjoyed all of those conversations. In the end, though, I got to wondering, "Where was I?" Where was I when my friends were having so much fun? How many of them did I even know, back then? It was, at first, saddening, then sobering, in that I remembered that the circumstances back then (which I will not get into) did not allow my parents much time to socialize with their friends, which is why I did not grow up playing with the kids of their friends.

Perhaps I should not complain, however: I must remember that much as I like to complain that my Mom did not take me to her friends places, and did not have them over, much (resulting in my having only very limited experiences of actually socializing with people my own age), the fact is, it was my Mom whom I am grateful to (and very rightly) that I even have friends. I must never forget that it was she (along with an almost equal commitment, effort, and perseverance) who even made me have friends, in the first place. It was she who I have to thank for my first friend, for by the time that I started kindergarten I did not want to make friends, anymore.

You see, I was born in Bangladesh, in a small town called Pabna, and almost everyone around me was part of the family. Everyone, of course, knew that I would eventually go, with my Mom, to Abu Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates) to live with my Dad, before I started school. So, every once in a while my cousins on my Mother's side would say something like "You're a foreigner! You'll go away!" While they saw it as a privilege (people back home see living abroad as having the good life), their words, along with my not feeling welcome around my paternal cousins, made me feel like people just wanted me to go away. I actually felt unwanted, and when my maternal cousins said anything about me being a foreigner, it really hurt. Of course, I was very fond of my maternal cousins (and one particular paternal cousin -- probably because he was closest to me, in age), and while when making the final preparations for my travel to the United Emirates, in Dhaka, I was too caught up in the excitement to think about how much I would miss them (nor did I think about how close I had gotten to the family members in Dhaka), when I finally got to the airport it hit me, slowly, that I was actually going to go away; much as my Father had gone away from us using the same airport, a few years earlier. Well, the realization had not fully sunk in yet. Some time after my arrival in Abu Dhabi, and I am not sure at what point (since I was still very excited that I would finally be starting school, much as I had seen my elder cousins go to school), I realized that I did not have most of the people I considered familiar, any more. Perhaps the problem was exacerbated by my depression (I am saying perhaps, because I am not too sure at what point I started getting depressed, though I think that happened after a little tantrum I threw at my Dad during my early days -- not that I ever told anyone about the depression), but I soon came to the conclusion that whoever I meet will, at some point, GO AWAY! It didn't matter how close this person was (like the cousins who lived next door to me), or how much we had in common (like the similar aged cousins from other towns), or how much fun this person was (like the cousins who came from Dhaka), or how insanely fond I was of this person (like the person who bought me candy and ice cream), they were ALL going to GO AWAY!

So, as far as I was concerned, if I were to make a new association, it would only be to break up, some time down the line; and I did not like this break up bit, so I just did not want to meet anyone. Whenever I met a new person the first thing I would wonder would be "...at what point will this person, too, go away?" So, I think it was very instrumental of my Mom to actually force me to make my first friend. The guy, very conveniently, lived in the same building, and we met when waiting for our school transportation to arrive (yes, we went to the same school). My Mom, and Dad, were very adamant that I socialize with the guy, that I ask how he was doing, that I ask what he was up to, that I visit him, and have him over, that I find activities that we have in common, even when we (my friend and I) did not see eye to eye with each other. I suppose I should be very grateful to my Mom and Dad that I eventually got comfortable enough with the guy to not ask him at what point he was going to go away; and I eventually got comfortable enough around new people to start making friends with the people I went to school with. Incidentally, this first friend of mine, and my closest, for MANY, MANY years, was the first of any of the school mates with whom I was more than just acquainted with, was the first my friends to actually leave. He left, with his family, for his home town in Pakistan, when I was somewhere around Grade 6; though my memory of the exact time is hazy, because there was a six month gap between my finishing my 6th Grade, and starting my 7th (school transfer reasons). That was the only time, that I really remembered my old thought: "When is this person, too, going to go away?"

I have fond memories (they're fond, now) of how much care my parents took in making sure my friend and I always found things to do that we both liked (I think we were rather different personalities -- I liked climbing door frames, while my friend liked to read story books, I liked to read about science, while my friend liked to watch music videos on TV, I liked to listen to the news, while my friend considered it something for adults, and so on, and so forth), how much care they took in making sure that I did not let my frustration at not having someone who shared my interest in Star Trek, 3-2-1 Contact, and the movie Moonraker, explode. They took a lot of care to make sure that I reciprocated the same kindness that I received from my friend's family. My parents shaped me into a social animal -- they molded me into a human being. For these reasons, I think, I should just accept that my parents did the best they could to make sure I did socialize when I was a kid. While I have the gripe that they only ever went to this one friend's house, while this friend had his social interactions with multiple friends, I should learn to put up with the fact that my parents did not get the opportunity to socialize too much, themselves, and they chose to put their free time (my Dad used to get home from work at 2200) to socialize with a family that we got very close to.

Perhaps it is even a good thing that my first friend was not like me. You see, when I was around 3 years of age I got shot with an airgun pellet (accidentally, of course, by a cousin) and when I used to go to play, during my formative years (back when I was in Bangladesh), some times I would be asked by the other kids about the dent in my head, and the shooting (word get around in a small town). While I would talk about it, I did not really like being spoken to about it, and I eventually became reclusive, and withdrawn. So, perhaps it was better for me that my friend was not as oriented towards facts (hey, he liked fiction) so I never actually got to talking to him about the gunshot, at least not too much. Perhaps this is why I did not become more reclusive than I already was, while in the Emirates. Maybe being around that friend all the time helped me keep my mind off of the topic; though I have thought about it every day, since it happened, till today, and it is perhaps for this reason that my memory of it is still crimson fresh. Who knows? Maybe I would have gotten more self absorbed, had I not had a friend whose interests, relative to mine, were so off? Maybe having friends with similar interests would have helped, for then I would have been more involved in activities in which I could loose myself (I was always into activities that required me to live in the moment, where one slip could end in a fall). We may never know. Come to think of it, when it comes to the guys with whom I used to go cycling (I liked to do jumps, and navigate without touching the handle bars -- and I STILL wake up from nightmares when the drop from a jump is longer than expected, resulting in me feeling the zero g, though the craving of that feeling drives me to jump from higher and higher; I guess Garrett Soden was right is saying that it "can feel like rapture, it can feel like rape"), the sport was all that I had in common with them. Other than that, we did not have much in common (different preferences in TV shows, etc.). While I got along very well with my bikers' gang I eventually lost touch with them when I loved to a new location (some time around Grade 6) -- thinking back on this, I never, once, remembered the firing when I was actually around them, so having them was a very good thing; maybe I need to loose myself, in order to catch myself. My first friend, on the other hand, was someone with whom I did not diminish contact with, no matter who moved to a new location -- something I have to give my parents credit for -- and I have to credit his parents. Just writing this, of course, I am missing my old biking gang, differences and all; though, somehow, I still feel a lot closer to that first friend, with whom I had (and probably still have) more differences. I am not too sure if this closeness is due to our sharing the same religious festivals, or the fact that I perceived him as being more respectful of my folks, though I strongly suspect it is the latter.

Come to think of it, now, I did not have THAT bad a childhood. I may have become introverted enough, from my experiences of being asked about getting shot at (though I very much LIKE talking about it now, and spare no opportunity to talk about it); I may have missed out on varied social experiences with people from my own culture, owing to the limited time that my parents had to socialize (though that situation changed, dramatically, though not completely, past Grade 6); I may have become too absorbed in the hard sciences, and too aloof from fun social interactions, owing to a lack of the latter, but I guess that let me put up with the pains that my circumstances during my college life put me through (I used to loose sleep over nightmares, and this happened consistently for years; I still have pains, but they are project related) [though, I must admit, I feel severe pains, and I get depressed over not being able to make light of situations, like my friends can; and not being able to crack jokes out of the blue, and devilishly put a person on the spot, just for the fun of it]; I may have missed the opportunities to play with the kids who shared the same TV interests as me, the same religious festivals as me, the same level of obedience to a friend's folks, as me, the same interest in video games as me, interest in the same telecast sports as me, the same interest in football (soccer, if you are American) as me, the same interest in food, as me, the same interest in going out, as me, interest in the same kinds of toys, facts (be it general knowledge, specific branches of science, or just, plain, news categories), but you know what? I got to play with kids who enjoyed bicycling around the neighborhood, and more importantly, exploring the underground scaffolding that went into the renovations of the nearby roads (yes, we played 'follow the leader'), and that is something that none of the kids with whom I had so much in common with actually did. So, I got to play with kids who were risk takers, like I was.

So, overall, after all the give and take, my growing up was not that bad, at all. I may not have had experiences that most kids take for granted, but I did stuff that most kids did not do. Maybe I have something to offer society, from that. Time will tell. Sooner, or later, time will tell. [Yeah, I'm still a big fan of Hell March, from the first Red Alert, from Westwood Studios].

_____________________________________________________

My story, here, does not extend beyond the 6th Grade., because after this my life changed dramatically, in the realm of socializing.

How a Laser Works applets from Univ of Colorado

2009-12-06T19:10:00.008-05:00

I really liked the Java applets used for explaining lasers on the University of Colorado's website. I just wanted to see all of the applets on the same page, so I embedded them here.

I do hope that this is not a copyright infringement, since I am only linking content from the website of the original source -- I am not storing anything from the original source, myself. Please let me know if copyright is an issue, here. Thanks. ~Faissal

For the detailed text please go to: http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/lasers/index.html

Light Sources

Light-Matter Interactions

Population Inversion

The End Result: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (LASER)

Feynman -- Last Journey, Pleasure of Finding, Elementary Particles &

2009-12-06T04:37:00.003-05:00

Richard Phillips Feynman - The Last Journey Of A Genius[1988]

THE PLEASURE OF FINDING THINGS OUT, Richard Feynman Interview (1981)

Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics - Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman's Basic Physics Intro

2009-12-06T04:05:00.001-05:00

Richard Feynman's Basic Physics Intro

Part 1:

Part 2:

Richard Feynman's QED Lecture Series

2009-12-06T03:37:00.002-05:00

Richard Feynman's QED Lecture Series

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4: