I called everyone in India up today starting with Mother dearest. Plans seem relatively finalised now, except that I am no longer going to Rajasthan. Uncle dear is trying to clean up all the "boo boo" workers( listen to harry Belafonte's "Mama, look a boo boo") in Jharkhand. Seems that the unions have all gone mad on the same day.
Anyway, that only means that I get to go to Giridih, which is always good fun. I love lounging about in Thatha's room with a Louis L'Amour and loads of kheerkadams by my side. Mojave crossing here I come....

Then proceeded to call up sister dearest who without any hesitation began to scold me for not calling me. My advise to anyone dealing with annoying family relations is to attack. A few choice words and I was doing the talking! Anyway, informed her of dates of arrival and departure. News of my arrival seems to have filtered through college already...hmm..
Then spoke to HD and AN and they got me very excited. There seems to have been developments in their lives and I am dying to hear about it. Will be staying with them and am now really looking forward to going back to college.

Memory - all alone in the moonlight.
I can smile at the old days,
I was beautiful then.
I remember the time
I knew what happiness was.
Let the memory live again.

Am back!

Hi! Am back from conference. Harrogate, Yorkshire is a archetypical Northern english town. I felt the difference only when I returned to oxford. In a fifteen minute cycle ride to the lab I saw more multi-cultural faces than I ever saw in three days at Harrogate.
Am really tired, especially as I headed straight to the lab after arriving in Oxford in the afternoon. I thought I was going to do an experiment with JTH but he is leaving Oxford abruptly and my plans of culturing DC's with him are gone for a toss. I still had lots of work to do so am stuck in the lab for another hour or so, after which I go home and crash!

Four successive nights of five-hour-sleeps, numerous G&T's and dancing has only served to place my liver and body under much stress, fun-filled but stress nonetheless. Never though that conferences would be so tiring.

Am off into the lab and shall write about my scientific (and other) experiences tomorrow.

My tickets for home have arrived in London today, so I think the excitement is just adding to my tiredness.

My new favourite song - Amarillo by Tony Christie. Its such a cheesy song.

Am off to Harrogate tomorrow for BSI. Am presenting a poster. Really bad poster with very little data and nothing much to say. I really need to figure out what my story is going to be and pursue it over the next 6 or so months.

Woke up today morning in cold sweat. Realised that I have less than six months to go to get myself a job and step into the real world. After attending the BMJ career fair on Saturday I realised that I have a long way to go to get to the point where I can get myself a job. Its scary! Its also the first time in my life that I have no idea as to what I am going to be doing in the next year. I have always known what I am going to do next. It seems strange that I will no longer be a student same time next year, but the problem being that I dont have anything to do when my scholarship runs out. Where is my money going to come from? Where am I going to stay? what is my affliation going to be?

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere

Rajnikant

I was portering last night in college and decided to watch a Tamil movie to pass the time. I was supposed to be working on my articles and other sorts of things but really how could I pass up on a Southie flick?
I had no idea of the movie and also had no idea of the plot etc. It was a surprise to me as well. So, I began to watch and very soon I was in splits. Admittedly I was not watching one of the all time classics, but it was a Rajni special called "Batsha". The plot is the same as in any other Bollywood movie. Good normal guy turns mafia don because of too much oppression. New don has only one aim - to kill old don and relieve the world of tyranny. Anyway, in a "unpredictable" twist in the movie, we learn that the GOOD DON's father is the BAD DON's right hand man. With the second half of the movie in flashback the truth is revealed as to how GOOD DON extinguishes BAD DON's empire. BAD DON in a last ditch move before the police come to arrest him holds father as the sacrificial bait to GOOD DON. In the melodramatic DON confrontation FATHER sacrifices life for SON - but in return extracts promise of a changed life from SON. SON then shifts cities to MDS and becomes auto driver to be able to marry his sisters and educate his younger brother.

Anyway, to cut a long story short new SOFT AUTO DRIVER persona needs to bring back GOOD DON to kill BAD DON who was released from jail. In the end everyone is happy.

Great movie.. I dont think I could have watched it anywhere else except while being bored witless while portering. But RAJNI is another thing. What style, what charisma, what a MAN!

I cant wait for my next shift when I watch my next tamil movie.

Where is everybody?

I need to fix up accommodation in college and I just cant seem to get through to anyone, even D in Delhi is unavailable. Where is everybody? I also wanted to fix up a class get-together in Delhi especially after meeting both Shalav and Shruti in Delhi.
Anyway, we shall see what happens? Right now I have a hectic schedule and I dont know whether I am going to survive it.

London

Went down to London yesterday to attend the BMJ careers fair. They held it in Islington which is where JW lives, so had lunch with her at a really bad Thai restaurant. I ordered the Vegetable Hot Jungle Curry with rice, except it turned out to be a cross between rasam and sambhar with some ginger,coconut and without any dal! Ghastly stuff. There was oil floating at the top of the dish and it reminded me of my college mess.

Going back to college is really exciting. I am so looking forward to it - but have so much work to do before I go.

1. Finish and plan experiments - this includes VNA, RT-PCR's, bulk-ups and titers
2. Email and set up meetings with - VSC,Swami,NII,Arora,Mala aunty all in Delhi. MRC and TRC in Chennai. IISc and CCMB down south. SS in bombay. So lots of work to be done..before getting there.
3. Prepare talks and articles.
4. Read some epidemiology
5. Prepare my stomach for some dosai. Note to Amma - I want dosai on the day I land.Nothing else will suffice!
6. Buy gifts for people. This is the part I am truly dreading.

Also, need to have a look at finances to see how much I can actualy afford. I still havent recieved my pay from college for portering but I dont think it is going to be very substantial this month as I didnt do a lot.

But, it would be great to get the money from my tutoring before I left for India as I can then use that for gifts.

Either way its going to be a hectic Xmas and I cant wait for the new year!!!

Bad Sex!

Read the article linked to the title of this blog only if you dont wish to engage in a passionate moment for the next few days!

I think that it is a great award - it does indicate the meaningless paras devoted to sex right in the middle of a novel. Its often unnecessary and pointless. I often get the impression that the author just didn't know what to write next and decided to insert a para replete with sentences that can be plagiarised from any porn site.

"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other" - Jane Austen.
I am in the second half after reading these excerpts.