Gaurav's Blog

This can usually be found on Twitter.

... is a warm gun, mamma? Hmmmm ... Anyways, am happy now. Don't know why - hmmm of course that is a lie. But I'm not telling, not here, not now. But that's not the question. The question (of-course) is: should I be happy? I could sit here for ages and ages, philosophising to old glory, but I guess my time is better spent watering my flies then returning to my room and typing like in-sanity ... And - well - I believe that happiness is its own reward. If I'm happy now, then, well, that's all that matters. Alright, that sounds a little funny and selfish and short-sighted, but never mind. I don't believe (much) in the future. My philosophy maintains doing the most I can with what I have, now. And yet, and yet. Shouldn't we instead plan for the future? Not so much to be happy now, but to be happy - say - one week, one month, one year from now? See, that's the difference between me and most people. Most people are happiest when their lives are cool and calm and collected, with their thoughts all smooth and flowing like a river in the summer. Me, I prefer my thoughts a raging torrent, threatening to sweep everything in its path, obliterating prejudice and pain and sorrow all at once. And yet, an... but no, not now. Now, my flies need me. Good night. (p.s. for all those non-believers who don't get the first line of this blog, here's a clicky)

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Three days to go. Brrr. I don't know, my reports have sort of always ended up like this only (and yes, I know that's not a good thing). But ah, well, well. Hope to finish off atleast a rough draft of the report by tonight (do I hear naysayers in the audience?). But I want to work at home! Lab is no place for scientific writing, etc. Well, I suppose if it's tonight, it's probably more speed-writing than scientific writing, but never mind. Yes, of course I'm scared, don't I have a right to be? Although I don't really realise it, I must be in the barrel already - the cone of possibilities, where some possibilities inexorably get moved to outside the cone, and move forever out of the reach of human hands. Then again, I'm not so much into this project, really, so it's perfectly possible that the cone of possibility is simply going to be too fundamental to ignore. Stuff to do (I think):

1. Write report (Intro/Materials/Results/Discussion/Conc/References)
2. Collate the accession numbers for everything (still not sure how I'll manage that!)
3. Make graphs for everything (minor, I can postpone that until Wednesday I guess).

Probably want to prettify code too :P although that's strictly a Thursday-job. Think I can do it? Don't have a choice :P. So have to. Let's see, let's see.

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This is going to be fun. I'm sitting here, typing this, here and now, as it says in the title. And I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to say next. Well, as for do next (I'm slightly off right now, so expect tons of italics. This blog entry should probably be removed as soon as its purpose for existance has ceased). Oh, of course, obligatory Engrish page of the day (my comment? Somebody should adopt this as a Philosophy of Life. See where it goes) This sem is so, so wrong. It was all wrong from day one, pretty much, and it just got worse from there. What's wrong with me? Why do I always screw everything up? Didn't I try hard enough? Is it possible to try harder? Am I going to try (to try?) harder next year, and end up - bam! - right here, here and now, again? I don't know. Maybe it's everything. Maybe it's nothing at all. Something has caught hold of my brain, and is sucking it dry of everything - dreams, hopes, et al. Nothing remains, nothing abides, nothing makes sense. Everything is liquid, everything's unreal, everything isn't worth it, everything's weird. Think I'm mad? Yeah, yeah I'm mad. I'm not sure what I'm mad at. I suppose I'm simultaneously mad at everything for being wrong (for being two centimetres away from where it's supposed to be - or is it more like two metres?). This was so not how it was meant to be. I shouldn't complain. I never really had too many hopes from life: just, happiness. However, whichever, howmuchever money, howmanyever years old, whatever, whatever. But it's not happening. Kids, when you're young, wish for something a bit more fun! Let me go on (no, don't try and stop me, let me just sit down and complain and complain and complain, over here where no-one can hear me). Wait, I need a break (where's slashdot when I need it? Some-where, over the rainbow ... ?) Okay, back. Why am I here? In this lovely lab (which smells of horseshit), in this great university (which is going nowhere fast) in this lovely city (of pink slips and cold rooms) on this glorious planet? Why? God, I can only suppose, really has a sick sense of humour. I should have stayed in Bangalore. Mediocrity was always my forte. Am I learning anything? Am I really doing anything different? I don't think so, or, it doesn't feel that way. It feels - I feel - just the same as before I came here: lonely, isolated, alone, afraid, uncaring, unbothered, beside the point, beside the life, beside everything. I don't get it. I just don't get it. Did you know I believe in God? Sometimes. But once upon a time, it used to be the poor-man's-God phenomenon - believing in God when you needed His help. But now, I just believe in God as another name for Fate - for Reality - for the Way Things Are Supposed To Be. For the patterns which underlie all our lives, and which bind us together - as friends, as enemies, as acquaintences, as citizens, as humans, as nobodies. Or, well, I did. Quite frankly, looking around me now, I don't know what the old guy is playing at. I don't know. My head seems - well, okay, dazed, but somewhat clearer too. Insert suitably mysterious phone call here Did you know that Sehwag's 309 against Pakistan was the highest any Indian has ever made in a single innings, ever? Wow. And I hear he said he would do it before the match. That's grit. Anyways, I've gotta go. Work. I have another two hours before I leave this place. Am I in love? No. Yes? Maybe. Maybe, maybe. I can still here her voice ringing in my ears. Maybe it's too late for me already. Maybe, maybe. Maybe. Good night, you all. You've been a wonderful audience. Thanks for everything.

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Note to self: Read this later. O'Reilly Network: Relational Modeling of Biological Data: Trees and Graphs [Nov. 27, 2002]

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So far, so not good. Am feeling extremely zonked, and not surprisingly, the prospects of and in the day ahead do not fill me with glee. On the other hand, have LSM2104 today. I guess that means a two hour nap (unless I skip and take nap in Library instead ... but I want to go! Guest lecturer today!)

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5:35am. My brain was supposed to meet me here. It's late :(.

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Don't know what to expect from life? Apparently, razors do. But it might not be what you expect ... (p.s. excuse all the weird website postings here, certain curses - by certain witches who shall remain unnamed - prevent me from going onto Slashdot. And as for all the Engrish postings ... well .... read this. If you stll think it's racist, get in touch with me. Trust me, if I thought it was racist, I wouldn't put it up; and if you think it's racist, I'd like to hear why)

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What a day. It was pretty much a waste of a day, nothing in the morning and in the afternoon, nothing in the evening and underneath the moon. But there are some things I've got to get out, even though it's 2:00am and my alarm is set for 5:30am and I have a test tomorrow a big test an important test and I'm only going to get about 2 hours to studay for the most important part of the test but I've got to get this out now I've got to I've got I've. Haha. No never mind that, I'm just a little wound up, I guess. It's been a day of endings, mostly. Something happened and something ended - perhaps forever, almost certainly for a long, long time. Strangely (for me), I'm not feeling very depressed. Possible reasons: (a) it's been trying to end for a long, long time now, and it's time just had to come, I guess, and (b) I've been and gotten depressed about it the day before and particularly yesterday, so I'm pretty much done being sad about it. Insert pregnant pause. Oh, what the hell, let me admit it - the lack of depression is atleast partially because the ending was accompanied by a beginning, again, of sorts. Well, not a beginning. A going-back. Oh, I don't know. Maybe - probably (- but if? And then? -) I'm reading too much into it (I always read too much into everything), but then again, isn't it true, that every ending is really a beginning? Then I'm safe, because whichever way you look at it, the ending that was, was definately an ending. I'm going to make sure of that. Endings also mean death, and I've had a bit of that today was well. Was chatting (?) with a friend whose uncle passed away yesterday. I don't know too much about death. Some parts of it - the dead bodies, the final-endings, the knowing-they'll-never-be-around-no-mores - I just can't stand. The only really close death I've known so far has been my grandad. It's funny, I just remembered that that's not the closest death I've known recently. Technically, the closest (or the one which affected me the most) would have to be Sania's cat, Bozo. He was caught by the management of our building complex and abandoned near some police quarters some distance away. We never found him, despite two (or was it three?) days of searching. Bozo was one of those cats who you become genuinely fond of, and who (like some people) was obnoxiously easy to fall in love with. He was an extremely homely cat, and it was really depressing thinking of him dying in what must have been a lonely, painful way. I can't imagine how Sania or her family must have taken it, but it got me feeling down for days. I think it affected my cat, too - Yoko seemed a lot jumpier than usual around that time, and suddenly stayed at home for a couple of day continuously, a feat he hadn't perfomed since he was a kitten. But I digress down the path of Cat, and it is the part of Death to which I must return. (To continue, ) with close people - immediate family (and by immediate, I only meant mother-father-sister-cat), relatives you're close to, close friends, people you love - death is relatively easy to handle (or is it?), because there's nothing to handle (am I wrong?) - it's sadness, depression, loneliness, missing-ness, and no-way-out until finally time (and family) (and friends) heal all wounds. But with people you're not so close to - or people you have ambiguous feelings towards - it's weird. There are quite a few people in my life to who's death I wouldn't know how to react to (relax - if you're reading this page, odds are you aren't one of them). But yeah, they exist, and they're going to die some day. Perhaps I should make sure that if I'm not sad that they've died, I should atleast be happy - not mixed, twisted, wound-up, in a weird intermediate position. I just don't know. I never fully figured out my granddad's death. I can't remember my other granddad. Okay, "granddad" sounds weird, so let me just use one of the only Marathi words I use often (Ajoba, n. sometimes shortened to Ajo or Abba, meaning Grandfather. Pronounced with a 'z' sound on the 'j' which is impossible to speak if you don't know Marathi). I'll write more about this some other day (I have to be in bed in ten minutes, tops), but - yeah. I never quite figured it out. I like the way my family handled it - quietly, matter-of-factly - but perhaps I was just too far removed from the scene (of Death, the final scene of the play of life). I had a choice, you know. To go or to stay. I chose to stay, and I don't think I'll ever be able to think of death without wishing I had gone. Ah, well. Maybe - who knows? - I made the better choice after all. I should ask my sister, she went, but she didn't have a choice. I should ask my sister. I remember trying to be sensitive about it around my Aji (n. fem. grandmother, and guess what, the 'j' is just an ordinary hard Hindi-like J now! Haha, isn't Marathi fantastic?), but I'm not sure it either helped or hurt in any way. I suspect that that's how I'm going to be dealing with death from now on, though. A closing of books, a closing of doors, a closing of eyes, a closing of lives. The end. Thank you for watching, you've been a wonderful audience, now turn me into ash and feed crows one day every year, there's a good lad. I'm going to sleep now, won't be up for a while, but don't let that get you down. Good night, sweet dreams, and God (yes, he exists, I've met him already!) bless you. Yet, I don't think I'm going to be able to deal with it that way when my closest-of-closest pass away. I really truely have no idea how I'm going to handle it when and if that happens. But then again, who does?

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Hope, as they say, spring eternal, and in a matter of half a day I've got hope! Atleast in theory, it's even a fail-safe hope - the sort of hope that will, even if the thing hoped for does not materialise, still be good for me. And hell, it's hope - yesterday, I would have swallowed the sweet juices of hope even if they were mixed with the fire of hell, but today, I have gotten real, actual, viable, possible, imaginable, hope. Wow! :) But there is still a very, very, very good chance that ... err ... the "thing hoped for" won't materialise. The goal for me - for the next couple of months - will be to focus on something else, anything, until I find something which turns me on so totally, so incredibly, that I'd be willing to give anything up for it. Something which, no matter when or why or how, I can turn to in the times when I need something to inspire me, but at the same time, something that I can chase with all the strength I can muster ... until the very end! (A day of ends and beginnings, it must be noted. A day of starts, stops and finishes. A day without completing Cell Bio studies. Yelp!)

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All I can really say right now: :(. There's tons of work to be done, there's very little in my life to "inspire me" or that I'm aspiring to right now. Nothiness. Zilchiness. Nada. I think every body needs something to aspire towards, some image in the sky to try to reach. I just don't have anything like that in my life right now. I think I just truly believe I'm hopeless, useless, with no redeeming qualities whatever. Every minute is another minute of nothingness, with a nothingness-of-a-minute behind and up ahead. Might be posting again very soon, so watch out.

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Do YOU look behind you before you pass gas? What about when your smoking? Have you ever thought about the poor people who must suffer?

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Synopsis 3 Hmmm ... interesting. Some of the stuff is quite cool (how many times have you wished you could use

if $roll == 1|2|3 { print "Low roll" }

in your program? But a lot of the stuff (-> becomes ., like the rest of the world uses) is not very nice. Getting a little worried about how weird Perl 6 is going to turn out. You know the old joke about how a camel is a horse created by a committee ... :) Then again, Larry Wall is involved, so it still ain't over until the fat lady sings!

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Just realised this blog just isn't living up to its name. "Worldz Unlimited " - and we've barely looked into one world (the one inside my head and in front of my eyes), let along any number of worlds unlimited. But I can't, I just can't. I'm so tired. I'm so sleepy. I'm so completely out of it. All of it. Yeah, well well. What's new, you'd say. Lazy. I don't deny it. I don't have the strength. I'm sitting here listening to the radio now (believe it or not), when I should be doing aligning on all my sequences. All my sequences. All all all all all. How can a small, three-letter-word be so depressing? I don't know what it is. The run-down-ness? The work? The boredom? The lack of focus and goals in my life? Ugh. Whatever it is, it's sickening, and I want to go. Ah, that beautiful phrase again. "Want to go" ... I want to go! Why doesn't anybody just "know" what I mean? Why do I have to explain it out? Okay, should stop typing here ... it's just getting me depressed ... I should be doing aligning so I get bored and sleepy and then go sleep :) ... right? Right? Right?

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It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis

The only times I realise how much my opinion of computers has changed whenever I read this line :). Remember reading it a while back and thinking about how true it is. Tonight, I look at it and wonder, "Gee, what's so weird about that?" I don't like programming for the exact opposite reason that I fall in love: because I don't like who I am when I'm programming. I become obsessed with the problem, and sit and try to solve it for ages. Honestly, that's not what I want to do with my life. I want to do thinking stuff (though, of course, I never think) and working stuff (though, I never work, either). Somebody once said that if the documentation and code of a program differ, they're probably both wrong. In my life, right now, my goal and my situation differs tremendously - but then again, they differ in ways that I want to change: I want to (or need to) become harder-working, more focussed, more determined, more mature (sorry, love, i just had to put that one in!); but I don't know how. Or maybe ... oh, I don't know. I need time out. I need to think and mull and figure out things. I need a vacation! I'm going back home in December, I don't care if just for a week or something. I need time off. I need to sit back and - I don't know - re-evaluate my life? Reprioritise? Or just sleep on open meadows, watching the clouds go by overhead? This is no good. No good. I'm seriously worried how bad this sem's gonna get. In the midst of all this, also getting worried about recess week. Hehe ... I wonder what'll happen then and there this time?

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We have decided it best the Gaurav 3.1 be brought out. The following new features may be found:

1. More acceptance/gratification of his hacking side (including, perhaps, a shift towards bioinformatics and the like?)
2. More interactions with friends. Perhaps become a bit shy at (trying to) making new friends.
3. Atleast one not-work realistically deadlined thing to do every day.

Various other features, like "working hard", "growing up", and "living the life fantastic" will be considered for inclusion into version 3.3, hopefully this can be released before the exams. Note that this is an odd-numbered version - please be on the lookout for bugs! All bug reports should be sent into (insert-e-mail-address-here). Bug restricted is, not surprisingly, restricted to those who know me already :). Everybody else can jsut wait until I've hacked a webpage commenter. We hope you enjoy the new Gaurav 3.1. For more details, please refer to the product page. This page is an paid advertisement. Yours sincerely, Gaurav's brain cells (much pained and stressed, not be mention very very stupid, but otherwise in good shape)

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Here we go again. Again, mind. Not once, not twice, but just bally again. Argh this is just so frustrating and irritating I could scream. Or cry. Or both. Never mind. You probably don't get what I'm saying. That's perfectly all right. Okay, a bit you will (hopefully) get. (Yeah I know I'm being sarcastic, but can I help that? Dun think so. Plus, this is a blog, ain't it? The goal is to get your e-motions out, ain't it (and btw, if you think that I'm using a lot of italics, bear in mind that as I'm typing this, I have to type 'em' in square brackets, then '/em' in the same. So it's a lot more irritating on my side, but it feels nice to 'get it out' and all, so never mind (oh, brackets within brackets; excuse me. It's a hacker thing))). Went off, had a chat, got back. The answer: to not stress, to not worry. To wait patiently for the One True Road. To not stress, for to be stressed is to be miserable. If you are miserable, you have already lost in the game of life :).

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Warning: The following post might contain computer and hacker terminology. The author exercises his right to be a geek, and to be proud of it. Apologies to all you non-geeks out there. Bootstrapping might well be my favourite word in the computing world (but only because Perl isn't just a word!). "Bootstrap", I've been told, comes from the phrase "to life up by [one's] bootstraps", meaning to ... well ... I never quite understood the phrase, actually. But to bootstrap something, is to get it into a half-working state, and then activate the half-working state to go and finish the job. Never mind. The point is, right now, I think I need to bootstrap my life. Go from zero (my present state, atleast before dinner; although if studies is the number one thing on my mind right now - and it is! - I probably need bootstrapping too, but i digress), as I was saying, Go from zero to one hundred. Probably (possibly?) by getting to 20% first, then getting the 20% to push me the rest of the way. Of course, I really have no idea what 20% is, or what it's supposed to mean inmy life right now. Then again, with exams around the corner, I guess I really don't have the time. Will leave with a nice quote about what writing (and blogging?) are about:

I often ask people what is their definition of a "writer." They usually tell me: "Somebody who has published books or articles" or "A person who makes their living by writing." I disagree. I think somebody who writes everyday and looks at the workaday world through the prism of literature and words is a writer. Period. If a person everyday honestly strives to get at the heart of a matter and glean the truth out of the complexity of this world and we human beings through the written word, than that person is a writer, in my opinion. It is a matter of attitude and a way of life, not how you pay your bills or whether you have talent or not. Ray Bradbury

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Do this: http://texturizer.net/thunderbird/share_mail.html!

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Yes, I shouldn't be complaining; yes, I should be sitting me down and figuring out something to do or go and try to get myself inspired somehow, but I don't have the time, and quite frankly, I just can't be bothered. Today at lunch, when Darwin had a mango ice cream of some sort, I announced that this was it - I was missing home. That was somewhat weird, cos I never miss home - I mean, yeah sure, I miss it soon after I come here and stuff, but this is the first time that I've properly missed home, right in the middle (end?) of a semester, and totally don't know why. Even walking through Science, to come to my lab, I was being throttled by the wet-wet heat of Singapore and longing for either the cool of Bangalore (which isn't cool anymore), the ocean breeze of Bombay (which is Illegal in Mumbai) or the dry thirsting heat of Pune (in which nothing but lying around in air-conditioned rooms - when you can! - matters). I figure it's probably the fatigue and the stress and the fear and the underachievement (noachievement?) and the lack of a motivating factor in my life. The feeling that suddenly, somehow, nothing really really matters, and it's all an illusion. Maya, maybe, the Illusion of Life; and right now I'm trapped in treacle-thick strands of Maya, and nothing is real, nothing to get hung about. But without something to get hung about, you tend to get hung about all sorts of minor things :) or is that just me being tired? I know. I want something to matter to me but right now, nothing really matters to me, I think, and that feels not-good. I should be happy, I suppose, happy that atleast right now (I think) my happiness doesn't depend on anyone or anything, but just on me (I think). And (I think) that's good. But (I feel) not so good. About it. I'm tired. I'm lonesome. I'm trapped. I want to go back home :(.

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Bug 233525 - Background of Download Manager looks like one-finger-salute

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Decided to study/work. Got some stuff done, and already feel better about tomorrow. Why do I suspect that I'm not going to feel so good about tomorrow when I actually wake up? (Unless, of course, I wake up at 12 or something, in which case might feel good about it after all .. hehehe). Giggling on a blog should be made illegal, shouldn't it?

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No, this is the last post for tonight. Promise. Just a thought: as this website gets more and more ... "me" ... does the google adbar reflect this? One day, if I were to come to my webpage, would I find my life reflected - mirrored, compressed - into one single google search keyword? And would that keyword be "jobless"? The fear ...

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Ok, excuse me - I've been fiddling with the strings-and-bolts behind here, and I'm not quite sure just how well everything's working now. A choice: sleep or work, sleep or work? My body says sleep, sleep, for the love of God and Body, sleep. Work in the morning. Work when you're fresh, when you can think, when the work will (might) amount to something. My mind smugly reminds me that - since it's me - this probably translates to work when you can't push it forward anymore, when you can't put it off onto or blame someone else, when you can't do anything good by it. (Suddenly, I'm glad I don't have commenting up yet - my lord! What lectures I'd get for this post! Or at any rate, "I knnnnnew it!" posts ...). My mind hates my body, and wishes it could be exchanged for a new one at the supermarket. A better looking one. A better *working* one. One which didn't insist on going flip-flop all over the place when it's tired (like now). One which could hold a beat, which could atleast move in time with a rhythm. One which didn't need everything taught to it step by step by step. Was about to write how my body hates my mind, but, ah-ha! - just remembered, bodies don't think. Or maybe they do. I don't know what my body wants to tell my brain, if they do. Probably "Relax! One step a time!" and "Don't get so distracted! There are only 24 hours in a day, and I want to be able to sleep for atleast seven! Please!!!!!" And what do I make of all this disharmony? This opposite of "Mens sana in corpore sano"? Ummm. Mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm. Good night, y'all.

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Everything's stopped working! Is it back?

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Now that the excitement of "First Post" has worn off (and the new house of my thoughts tidied up, cleaned out, and the welcome mat put out), I suppose I should say something, something monumental, something profound, something to kick off this blog with a bang. Ummmmm. Blogfright kicks in, 16 minutes into my first blog. This cannot be a good sign. Of couse, I can delete this entry as and when I choose :D. So it can't be all bad, right? Haha ... this is funny. I'm suddently remembering all the other times I've "moved into" a house. Funnily enough, the only one coming clearly into my house was moving into KE last-to-last year (has it been so long?). The same feelings of homesickness, of newness, of excitement-damped-by-fear-and-isolation. Then again, it might be just tonight. Crazy sleepy tiring tonight. More details tomorrow, if I feel like it. This thing still doesn't allow me to have comments? Oh, man.

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Hello. My very first post, my very first externally hosted public blog. Another world is brought, almost magically, into existance. Life obviously can't be as bad as it feels right now :).

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