Random Thoughts

I have been really lethargic this week. Done no work at home, lab or other ECA. My brother it seems has suddenly become this high-flier, winning moots and debates. He earned 700 bucks for coming second in some debate and seems to be making a living from talking and arguing (hang on isn't that what he is studying law to do!!)

Coming to the unphonetic nature of the English Surnames(just like mine), it has been the butt of jokes for years now. I was first taught how to go from FISH to GHOTI. Rather easy transformation. But, notice a few other peculiarities.

Here is the longest surname in the England : Featherstonehaugh, but some lazy guy decided enough! I cant go around calling my best friend "Fea ther stone hau gh" everytime I wanted to call him and so decided to shorten it to "Fanshawe".

Ingenious people! You see when you invent a language and are close to the only people in the world speaking it, you can say anything you want and it becomes language. I mean, look at the Americans. They actually believe they now speak a completely different language : American English. How I wish IBM and Microsoft and were English companies and stopped giving us the option of American English spellings.

Here are a few more surnames, Cholmondley - Chumley and of course the common Beauchamp became Beecham.

Anyway, let us deviate from what appears to have become my obsession with names and move onto some sport news.

Karthikeyan finished the Australian GP!! GREAT GOING. If he can finish 80% of the races this season in his car given all the draconian rules introduced this season. Me thinks the rules are refreshing change to the season and should provide some excitement and competition. I stopped watching formula one last year, when it seemed that people were fighting for second place. I like Schumi, but I think he should lose the first couple of races. I have yet to see Schumi being pushed really hard in the last couple of years, the last person I think to do that was Mika Hakkinen and they had some classic races!! Hope it happens again.

Sania Mirza, the darling of Indian tennis is now ranked a fantastic 77 in the world. However, she finally discovered the pressures of being a crowd and match favourite at the Dubai Classic. After riding on crowd support to beat Kusnetsova (world no.7) she lost in straight sets to Jelena Jankovic. I hope she builds her body a bit and really works on her serve and fitness. She already has an ankle injury and that is after 6 months of serious touring. She really must try and stay fitter. The last thing you want to do is the Belgian Syndrome. Both Belgian women out of action for close to 6 months now and just dropping out of the rankings!!

I have a lab presentation next week and have a few jabs to do and hopefully some exciting results shall come my way. It should be fun!! Immunology is really interesting and exciting. We have some new theories about things discovered 3 years ago and its fascinating to learn about memory T cells and B cells and how we need to vaccinate at different times. It is such a fast moving field and great area to work in. I am learning a lot from my Mexican postdoc, whose Birthday it was yesterday.

Now before I forget and I soon shall I am putting down people's birthdates here that I have learnt over the last couple of days.

Ms."Happiness" - 12th Jan, Ms."Palm Reader" - November 2??, Mr."peace" May 7th, Mr."Halfmoon" - 28th March( for whom I am ordering gift from the land of the free)
Ms."Blue Sky" July12th. SG - April 11th. RA - Feb 16th

Some utility of this blog other than keeping my mother informed about my whereabouts. Ok, I am now off to the lab.

BTW, discovered this great Indian restaurant in Oxford yesterday. The only place in Oxford where you are served good Indian food, with some taste. I went to Mirch masala the other day and the food, service, decor, portions were Awful. In short the place was a disaster. Of course, it was someone's b'day and you put on a brave face and praise their choice of restaurant. Of course, the sad thing is the person had been to the place before and thought the place was good.

I hate Indian restaurants in Oxford. They are not authentic, serve food that tastes awful and are exorbitantly expensive. I have only once been to an Indian restaurant out of my own volition and that was a disaster as well. So, back to point ..... Qumins this great place and shall go there again once Ms."Second para of song"( henceforth in bollywood style abbreviated to SPOG) gets here.

Now I really have to get to work and get my lazy bum to the lab.

My early morning thought for the day :

Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.

and with that I run off to do my myriad other activities