One of my other characteristic posts...

Whyy do sum ppl have that irritating habit of telling u negative things even before u actually start sumthing/ fully venture into sumthing?? Its annoyyinngg. Seriously.
The guy and gal (MR and MS) I have in mind arent really bad ppl to work with. They arent bad scientists either. Mebbe its just me... mebbe I'm just over reacting or probably just reacting!! But sumtimes u really need a motivating environment especially when u have to dig out and find sumthing which nobody else has actually seen. I'm not gonna go on n on n on relentlessly. I know this blog is turning out into sumthing grim with scribblings about frustrations and lab and grad skool life. But this is sumthing I probably need to remember...

Wed-thurs last week: Get results totally deviant from the hypothesis. Reason: New technique tried. MR scares me a lot saying probably this is the correct result and not the ones I've got previously and so obviously I'm in deep trouble b4 AHA-summer. (Ironically MR works on the same topic of interest as me. And its only me and him that know the details and intricacies of the topic in the whole lab of 18. In a big lab, the prof has no time to micro-manage and analyze every single result. So you take the help of postdocs like MR.)
Fri: i spend time trying to plan expts with different techniques and different users. MR is included along with another nice chappie. Spend time until 2:30 am working on the darted western blot. Meanwhile I also figure out that my invivo (inside the mouse) and invitro (outside the body, in a manipulated environment) data dont seem to match at all. So now I am myself jittery with my results.
Sat: Walk in to my prof's and discuss with him the results. I ask him..
1. Is the hypothesis wrong since data dont match? "No. I think its ok."
2. Can we still publish with contradicting data? Wont people question us blah blah.. "Oh noo.. dont worry. We'll figure out a way to publish. Its ok. Just carry on working. This is science. Everythings not straitforward. We will figure it out. You should be happy your project and results are actually not letting u sleep and keeping u awake all night!!"

?????????
.... Anyways.. so the green signal's out from THE man himself.

Tues: I discuss with MR. I tell him invivo I dont get the same data for which he yellss.. "OHHH noooo.. thats really bad. Its IMPOSSIBLEEE to publish with opposite data. i dont believe your data. I dont believe your hypothesis. I dont want to be a part of this at all. Dont include my name in the paper. I've never seen anyone publish like this. I dont think its going to be ok. Its just not possible. Your data and your results dont make any sense."
Well let me just say that MR always is in a nervous state of mind. The smallest of things can irritate and excite him. U can see his blood pressure, his adrenalin and possibly a lot of his "stress response markers" shoot up every now and then. If there is anything different from the way he thinks.. and if he cannot understand it.. and espply if the data is from me... he is ready to have a nervous breakdown with a bout of screams and facial distortions and animations. And almost eventually he'll either look out for MS or the nice chappie to discuss and crib about the inconsistencies of my data or probably how I am generating wrong data... and all of this is done in languages I cannot understand.. either Japanese or whispers!

So at the end of the day.. when you are yourself a wee bit scared about how you are actually gonna pull it off till the fag end with such variable data the last thing you'll want to hear is a post doc coming and yelling at u the way MR did today. It just stresses you out a lot more.

Neways, the key is to NOT REACT. just dont care about such people. Simply carry on with the faith that someday He will show you His way of making things work, which then ironically you can claim as your discovery and write papers about and be lauded by a few and criticized by most others.

PS: The problems I have with a highly nosy and prying MS will be posted when they get on my nerves more!

The spiritual me -1

I've always wanted to make another blog called thespiritualme@blogspot.com or sumthing like that. But havent done it yet.
Neways.. heres an article I wrote about complete surrender to God. Wrote it for a news letter that came out as part of a Sai Temple.

REF: http://www.thesaifoundation.org/saiJoomlaProd
/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=131&Itemid=79

True Surrender – The easy way to live life

Almost every religion that exists, that I know of, believes in complete and total surrender to God – the concept of Poorna Sharanagathi as can be said in Sanskrit. So what really is “total surrender”? And what is the purpose of doing it? I just searched for the words “to surrender to God” in Google and I found a good explanation on one of the sites.

“Surrender means to yield ownership, to relinquish control over what we consider ours: our property, our time, our"rights". When we surrender to God, we are simply acknowledging that what we "own" actually belongs to Him. He is the giver of all things. We are responsible to care for what God has given us, as stewards of His property, but by surrendering to God, we admit that He is ultimately in control of everything, including our present circumstances. Surrendering to God helps us to let go of whatever has been holding us back from God's best, for our lives. By surrendering to God, we let go of whatever has kept us from wanting God's ways first.”

http://www.allaboutfollowingjesus.org/surrender-to-god.htm

Complete surrender is one of the most difficult things to do in life. It’s simply impossible for most people to just “give up” everything to God and tell Him that He is the one who’s got to take care of everything; the biggest obstacle in the way being our ego. Ego is a conscious feeling of your self and identity, the knowledge of ‘I’, the thought that ‘I am me’. It is when we start thinking that we are the doers of the action and we are the ones to bear the fruits of the actions. It is one of the root causes for most problems and confusions in life. Very few people actually get the courage to acknowledge the fact that in reality there is someone up there who is actually controlling our reins and executing things according to His will and wish, and we are nothing but mere instruments in the process. So is there any need for all the ego and fights when there is only He?

What does it really take to surrender? To surrender is to simply have 100% faith and confidence in the Divine that He WILL take care of you. He may toss you around through different really difficult situations in life, from which you believe that you just cannot come out. But all you actually need to do is to simply surrender to Him and tell Him that since He is the one that’s putting you through all the problems, its His responsibility to get you out of it as well. And well, believe it or not, He will do it! After all His whole purpose of creating problems in people’s lives (and eventually getting them out of them), is to show that He is there. We just need to believe in His presence firmly, with a lot of faith and trust. Surrendering is like a magic potion. It is the one thing that can keep you stress free, and keep you happy despite the turmoil you may face in life because once you surrender to God, you want His will to be done and not yours. And so you are prepared for anything to happen. You leave aside your opinions of what may be the best or worst in the situation and you start being open hearted and open minded. It silences the confusions in you and keeps you ready to accept anything that may happen. You just learn to accept it without much ado and complaints, and rather happily that, that was how things were meant to be. And so you start looking at things beyond the problem/ confusion and start living up life.

And so, how exactly do we surrender? In my personal experience I have seen that writing to Him is the easiest way to do it. One way is to keep a diary and write letters to Him in it. Make it a habit to jot down all your thoughts, dreams, problems, confusions, prayers whenever time permits. Try and share everything with Him- the wildest dreams to the deepest fears. Usually when you look back at your previous diary entries or your previous letters, you WILL find that He has taken care of most of it. Suppose you reported confusion in your life and didn’t know how to handle it then, after you write a letter of surrender to God, the problem usually will get solved or answered by the time you actually check on it again. Here at Kalpataru Sai Nilayam, Rev. Mira Sai Maa graciously reads out letters of devotees in private to Shri Baba. You can just visit the website at http://www.thesaifoundation.org/ and submit your prayers there. Just write down whatever you will and please, and it will be read out very soon to Baba. And before you even realize, most of your problems will be attended to and taken care of by Him. It is our great fortune to have Baba listening to all our prayers here at Kalpataru Sai Nilayam. So, even if you are in the middle of work and are just completely frustrated with something, don’t let it nag you inside out. Just submit your prayers there, surrender everything to Him and leave it. He will attend to it. Of course, we have to learn to wait patiently for Him to act on it. Don’t let the mind run wild while you are waiting on it. Simply believe that He will look on to it. And once you think that He has solved your problem or confusion, let’s not forget to thank him for it. Thanksgiving to God is extremely important. We should tell him periodically that we are happy for everything He is giving us and especially for taking care of us.

So, just surrender to Him. Leave all your problems aside with Him, asking Him to take care of them, and learn to live life happily and to enjoy even the smallest of His creations. Surrendering is probably the healthiest way to deal with stress and to live life happily and it definitely is the right thing to do.

Sai Ram.

PS:

Ok, I know a lot of people actually thought that I am completely frustrated in life after reading my last post. Well, I was frustrated just before I wrote that post, but blogging it all out helped me calm down a lot. I know I've said this before.. this hobby of blogging has become more of a habit to vent out frustrations, disappointment, happiness and so on. I find that it brings clarity to my thoughts and helps me think of one thing at a time. And 5 years from now.. when I get outa this phase called PhD, I am sure I will want to read about all the blahs and frustrated AAAHHHs that I went thru to get the darted degree. Neways, I just thought I should include this postscript b4 I write my next post.. cos quite a few friends actually thot that I might drop outa the degree in all the frustrations. Hopefully She will gimme the strength to face it all.
"Nadukadalil sendre vizhinum, karai ettrugai Nin Thiruvullame" !

Piled Higher Deeper in frustrations

AAH!!! This post is gonna be a quick gist of the frustrations most students go thru while doing their phd..

1. Lab work - When u really want sumthing quick and fast, things wont work. u'll haveta end up troubleshooting from scratch. Change the buffer, change the reagents, the antibodies, the samples. And when you finally get results after a week or 2, the prof will no longer be enthused to hear about that project. He will want to know your progress on sumthing else which will be on the bottom rung of your priority list. and so ull remake your "To DO list".. only to realize that ull have stacks of them around u and that they are never gonna end.
2. Personal life - If you are in a relationship while doing your phd... oh forget it please. You will really not have any time on the phone or on the myriad messengers or in person. And every time u want to do sumthing, u will end up thinking about lab work in the background. Everything will be consciously timed according to the lab clock.
3. Parental pressure - When you are a single PhD student (espply an Indian girl), forget it. Your parents will call you and tell you that all those other "chamathu" girls and even guys are getting married while you haven't even settled down in life as yet. You don't have a job. You don't know when you will graduate. They will ask you if they can start looking out for you, and quite unfortunately when the boys side get to know that the girl is doing a phd..the first question they will ask is "When will she be done?"
4. Spousal pressure - If you are doing a PhD after you are married, a lot of times, the guy wont understand why it is soo important for u to be in the lab instead of just cuddling around doing nothing or just cooking food at home. Not to forget the pressure of having to bear children.
5. Pressure from friends - You think that most of your friends will understand when you say its a phd. But no.. they will be tease you for having such a miserable life..and a lot of them will also mean it that you are probably not fit enuff to have fun cos ur always stuck in the lab. And then youll also have those one or 2 "Namoone"s who'll think that you break appointments with them intentionally. They cannot understand that you were stuck in the lab with experiments. they will think u did it intentionally out of dislike for them or to back snap them or sum crap.

So ultimately what does a phd do to u...
it makes your life completely miserable. You can no longer have a peaceful stress free life. Everything you do revolves around conference deadlines and abstracts and papers. You think of experiments day in and out. You lose every tinge of romanticism in you. You look at things from a point to point perspective and try to work on things in the same manner, while some people expect you to look at the whole picture. You will defly not live upto anyones expectations.. Ur profs, ur parents, ur spouse or boyfriend/galfriend, ur friends...and so to say it.. ur own for after all you will have some expectations to live ur life in a more jolly n happy manner.. but trust me u cannot do it. Just dont expect yourself to be normal with the amount of pressure and stress you go thru while slogging ur butt off for this degree.

Well I know everything that goes wrong in life is not cos of the phd.. but a lot of times it is. Just accept it and live with it. Thats all the sacrifices you've got to make for this God forsaken degree. Its a hugee sacrifice and a hugee thing and probably a few who are there in it with you will understand it.. (trust me..again not all phds will understand what other co-species go thru! some will try to make ur life more miserable by either telling u that ur not just as good as them cos they were very successful and things went very easy for them)
So to the few of u thats reading this.. U really dont want to do a phd. And if you do plan to do it, then get geared up to have a total rollercoaster ride. Only that this ride is down in the dungeons with no light except sumwhere right at the end.