This can usually be found on Twitter.
Tentatively renamed 'Simhgadh' (it was a toss-up between that and 'Mumtaz': I guess I got all patriotic and stuff all of a sudden), my new laptop is finally here! It is truely beautiful: backlit keyboard, wide screen, lovely colours, and the new microphone I bought myself a few days ago.
After waiting for days, not only does it turn up when I'm in bed, but when I'm awake in bed. I go for a shower, then go out, where Ifty tells me of her arrival.
I, err, I wish I had more to say, but I don't really. Beethoven over real headphones sounds amazing. Other than that, it really is largely just business as usual. Really.
I can't wait to get developin' though, although I have no idea when/where that's going to happen. Let's see, let's see.
Labels: bathsheba, laptop, simhgadh
This post was posted by Unknown at 7:41 pm | 0 comments | Post a Comment
My stomach's acting up again. I've gone back to wondering whether lack of continuous sleep is the key to the whole "fatigue" thing. It's been about two hours since I woke up, and it's still hurting something awful. Maybe I should go and see a doctor about this. Maybe I should eat less spicy food. Maybe, maybe.
Bathsheba still hasn't arrived yet. Darnit.
Labels: bathsheba, sick, sleep, stomach
This post was posted by Unknown at 2:45 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
My new MacBook Pro (Bathsheba, remember?) has shipped, and is On Her Way, and should be here within two working days (i.e. Jun 29). And my right hand is numb from having slept on it, while my left hand is RSI-sore, and now as the numbness wears off, my right hand is joining in.
Oh, happy day.
This post was posted by Unknown at 3:36 pm | 0 comments | Post a Comment
Okay, first the really big news: my MacBook Pro (tentatively named "Bathsheba", or daughter of the oath) should be shipping within the week, which means that by next weekend or so, she should be in my hands, and then the fun can really begin, I hope. Also, I'm getting a bit of time off at the moment, since most of my labmates are out of town on conference. Things should get a whole lot dodgier next week, though.
I was hoping that the lack of stress (relative lack of stress?) might help with my weakness fits/heartburn issues, but no such luck. Had a major double whammy yesterday/today (slept early yesterday night, woke up at 2 with usual heartburn, stayed up until morning, then went back to sleep, had weird dreams. Woke up feeling awful, ate a bit, hung around at home until eight-ish when I had a pretty bad attack of the weakness. Like, I walked over to the food court slightly shivering, and guzzled by cola up pretty bad. Rest of the day (popping over to lab, then to SPS, then Clementi, and then back home) was fine, except for the staying-up-all-night bit. I'm not sure what to do about that; try and keep going for the rest of the day, or just forget about it and go to sleep, possibly with the aircon running.
One nice thing about all this is the further strengthening of my position that a "normal" job is just not going to work out for me. I'm feeling pretty weak as I write this, but atleast I don't have anywhere to go tomorrow, I don't have omg-I'm-going-to-be-late anxiety or anything. Well, a bit. Sigh. I don't know, maybe it's all just a bit of a waste.
Maybe it's like some kind of reverse depression. Maybe I need to be happy more. Maybe I ought to get out more.
One nice thing about staying up odd nights is being able to watch late night movies on TV. So far I've managed to catch Grizzly Man (in two parts) and My Date with Drew. They're both really amazing movies, and I'm really glad for the chance to "meet" Timothy Treadwell and Brian Herzlinger.
I wonder who I'll have the pleasure of bumping into next?
Labels: fresh durians, life, movies
This post was posted by Unknown at 5:27 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
I'm all groggy and so on, but definitely feeling good to have gotten a full day's sleep. Today's my last official day of work. Later, there will be a party. But: I don't feel so good.
So. Let's see.
Labels: last official working day, today
This post was posted by Unknown at 11:33 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
Labels: coincidences, fresh durians
This post was posted by Unknown at 5:36 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
So, here we are: Sunday, Jun 17; less than a week before Independence.
I've now got a very vague plan of attack. It's not much of a plan, mind, but then I was never much of a strategist, so I'm going to start things up and see where they go. It would probably be a good idea to bring a real strategist on at this point.
The plan - in a nutshell - is to start by developing small, helpful, free software; move on to small, helpful, free software which depends on other people (Starhub, maybe some international organisations, etc.), and then move on to medium-sized, helpful, non-free software. Hopefully steps 1 and 2 will get us an audience of bits, so when we start putting things up for sale, we're not complete unknowns.
Just finished watching A Passage to India (lots of movies this weekend, I know! And tomorrow shall be Ocean's Thirteen, maybe). It's a decently nice movie. Alec Guiness is unbelievable - I didn't recognize him at all until I IMDB'd it halfway through; only then can you see the slight slips in his accent (well, okay, his character also talks a whole lot more in the second half). On the whole, a fun movie to watch - hey, it kept me going for almost three hours. Not bad, not bad.
Labels: a passage to india, fresh durians, plan, today
This post was posted by Unknown at 4:03 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
So, for the second time in two days, I'm up at 6am, writing something.
Yesterday, btw, I didn't wake up until after 4pm. 4pm! You see why I need to stay away from "conventional" job so badly.
After that it was all pretty crap for a while, as I struggled with the possibility of walking into lab at six p.m. (I eventually copped out; after generally shabby reporting times this week -- although I would then stay pretty late, too -- it was too much to bear). Went out for Black Snake Moan with K. and Y. Later hung out with same and W. Had a little wine. Nice, nice. Promised myself I'd go in to work today, but hey, I was up all night again, too. It's odd, I can't remember being up all night, but I guess if I'm still awake now, I must have been. Right? Right. I mean, I got home at around half past two, so I suppose it wasn't all that long or anything, and then there's the salad and all, but that's later. So, yes.
I like inevitabilities, as I believe I've mentioned before. There is something very rest-your-shoulder-against-the-wall relaxing about them; you know they're coming, and so you're ready, and once they're actually here you can just lean back and watch as things unfold. There's no need to actively do anything - it's inevitable, anyway, right? You just lean back and watch, wonder what's coming next, and - I don't know - think things through or something, I suppose.
The other disturbing thought I've had is: do my crushes run on autopilot now? Not that I don't enjoy them or anything. But it seems like all my crushes run along nearly identical lines now. Is this the discovery of a pattern that works? Or a lack of creativity leading to the playing of the same old comfortable notes? Or is it just that I've found my half of the Dance?
No, how stupid. There is no half of the Dance. The Dance is whole or nothing.
Salad. I had a salad-sandwitch for breakfast. I need to eat this much more often, otherwise my vegetables will all go bad and die. The problem is, salad-sandwitches are so filling, two are more than enough to keep you going for ages. So finishing the vegis can become a bit of an ordeal.
Okay, that randomly meandered for much longer than expected. Should go to sleep now. Well, no: should go to work now, will go to sleep now. Or something like that.
Labels: crushes, inevitability, salad, sleepy, the Dance, today, vegetables
This post was posted by Unknown at 4:09 am | 1 comments | Post a Comment
Yes, I know, I know, lots of angsty posts recently. I'm sorry, and I really hope that as things change, this is going to come down slightly, although I don't right now have the slightest clue how things much change, or in what way, or with what cause. But I suppose if I knew, it wouldn't really be a surprise now, would it?
That is I think one good thing about getting bored: eventually, some deep-seated survival instinct kicks in and you start trying out new things, just to escape from the brain-numbing boredom of what is. Anything, anyhow. I suppose in my case I'm waiting for the 21st now; whether things really change, and how much they change, doesn't really matter: the psychological milestone of finishing with the latest spate of deadlines will be enough for me. I guess the idea is something like: normally, I should be slowing myself down, so I'm just overworking and overstressing myself here. But since I've only got a week to go, I'm just sort of running myself into the ground, since I'm this close to getting out anyway.
Of course, I'm not, not really. Neither this close, nor actually 'running myself into ...', etc. I'm just stressed, and tired, and sleepy, and my sleep schedule is whacked, and I don't really have anything to do when I am awake.
Other than that, everything's A-okay.
Labels: bored, stress, tired, today
This post was posted by Unknown at 7:42 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
Bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored. Work ends in seven days.
This post was posted by Unknown at 8:41 pm | 0 comments | Post a Comment
If you're ever running MPICH or mpirun or whatever, and you see errors regarding your semaphores, something like:
p4_error: semget failed for setnum: 0
This means you are running out of semaphores. The answer? Simple: run the
cleanipcsprogram to clean up your semaphores on every one of your cluster servers.
So it goes.
Labels: cleanipcs, mpich, mpirun
This post was posted by Unknown at 4:53 pm | 0 comments | Post a Comment
All things considered; hmm, yeah. Not bad. Not awful, at any rate. I:
Still, I am starting to get over my butterflies a little now; figuring that when you've got to survive, you will do what you can to make it through. Let's see, let's see. This summer solstice should be pretty interesting for everybody.
Labels: nice day, plans, today
This post was posted by Unknown at 6:12 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
In another 11 days, I will once again be officially unemployed: which, apart from meaning I can stay up this late more often, means that I'm going to have to start jobhunting again, which can get pretty depressing, all that rejectioning and all.
This is, I must say, totally cool, though, all this back-and-forthing. I love it! I hate it! I love it! I hate it! Good stuff, really. God.
The plan, atleast, is to start spending real money somewhere around July 22 - because that's my date for when I'll know which way things are going. Hopefully. It's a nice deadline, though: a month and a half.
Speaking of deadlines, I'd really like to talk more about how cool it is that this extreme deciding phase of my life will begin on 21 June: the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice. And the world spins on, I guess.
Speaking of money, it is truely depressing and disappointing how much money I have been spending in this month and the last. Lots of things coming up, obviously - two different sets of plane trips, for one! - but that's no excuse. Sigh. There will have to be some belt tightening for quite a while because of this. Lesse, lesse.
Labels: career, job, postjune212007
This post was posted by Unknown at 5:26 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
Bad news first: I didn't get any sleep last night, despite doing all the right things (some amount of exercise, getting into bed around midnight, etc). I should probably be grateful my stomach didn't really act up much until today morning, so there's that. And not going to work today morning is not an option, since there's so much to be caught up on. I guess I might be able to come home early, though, so there's that. And I'm currently getting an acute attack of the sleeplessness heebie-jeebies (difficulty concentrating or focussing, cannot imagine doing the stuff I need to do at home, since it's not immediate absolute top 100% priority, nor the stuff I want to do, like ScriptFrenzy, and of course a general sickly feeling in my upper sinuses). So, yeah. Not in exceptionally good spirits, or anything like. And, as the above implies, not gotten anything I needed to done: clothes washing, photo uploading, ScriptFrenzying, etc. Just, you know. Lying here for now.
Good news: am still high at the thought of leaving my job in fourteen days! And hopefully I'll get to come home early today and get some sleeping done, or something. And maybe if I can come back early enough, I can get some of my other stuff done, too! Also, Apple has finally updated the MacBook Pro line. We were laptop hunting today; and although there's some really beautiful comps on offer, I might end up going for the 15-inch MBP after all, just to give OSX a try, and since after the education discount, the price is almost right. And I've been doing a fairly decent job of keeping myself busy, both at work and at home. So, umm, yeah. So far, so good.
So far, so good. I like that. Must remember to use it more often.
Labels: bad, good, sleepy, today
This post was posted by Unknown at 7:02 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
Total waste of a day, obviously (between packing, getting to the airport and on the plane, watching random movies and sleeping, getting off the plane and through the airport, to the house, and into bed). Made slightly worse by the time difference, which exactly located itself such that I left Bombay around lunchtime and got to Singapore about dinner time, despite only being in the air four and a half hours.
Anyways, am sleepy, apart from the which my acidity is also acting up something crazy. Have plenty of curds and grapes in the fridge, though, so let's see.
Labels: acidity, home, singapore, travel, waste
This post was posted by Unknown at 10:51 pm | 0 comments | Post a Comment
So, back home again. So it goes, so it goes. Not that I'm complaining or anything: it's been one long, exciting, interesting vacation. Seriously. No complaints.
Not that I'm going to be all that sad going back, either. There's things to be done, small things, big things, the whole scheboodle. Mainly, getting (back?) onto my feet post June 21, although that's only one angle to what is, at the end of the day, a very large, complicated puzzle. But hey. I've got - do I, really? - time.
I suppose if I don't know -- then when? When else, but now?
Not that this is, y'know, It. Not by any stretch of the imagination, and particularly not after this particular trip (aiyee, the lectures!). But, hopefully, this will an interesting path, which will lead on to - to? - well, to God alone knows what. But - as mentioned - an interesting road, nonetheless. Surely, something to learn, something to write home about. Lesse, lesse.
Other news? Sigh. Don't want to sleep - it's been a long day, and tomorrow's going to be worse, and sleep just seems like such an interlude in such matters. That I really am pretty exhausted doesn't, surprisingly, actually help. That I really have no idea what to do next (in both the grand sense of Next, as well as the immediate sense of next) doesn't do much for my nerves, and hence sleep, either.
Heh. I know what I'll do. I'll exercise. I'll quit my job and go off and exercise for a while. Lesse, lesse.
In passing: a pro-Singapore blog post for once, and the Auditor-General's report in Singapore. Also a painfully honest post on bullying. Challenge you to read this without cringing, at least. Extremely well written, too, see this bit:
When people hurt me, I became upset. I cried. This only handed her more ammunition. I was, she said, a crybaby. And others agreed with her. I was sensitive.
Being sensitive is even worse than "having a good vocabulary."
I wish I could advise her (him?), but I really don't know what to say. I've been bullied, but never ever half as bad as that. I'll go back to it tomorrow or day after, and think about it some, maybe. Meanwhile, if you have anything to say, go and say it. It's never too late the save the world entire.
Labels: bullying, india, links, singapore, tomorrow
This post was posted by Unknown at 3:49 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
First off, I need to point out that ScriptFrenzy 2007 has started! If you're taking part, come find me!
Secondly, the Brilliant Month of May has finally come to an end, with no serious injuries or anything, which is good. Lots of travelling. Lotsa. Lotsa eating of weird meals in stranger places, and the like. Well, no. I exaggerate. But it's still been a disproportionately large amount of travel, particularly for me.
But it was nice. Lots was done. Lots was visited. Lots was seen. Lots - lots lots - was eaten. And - the best bit! - it's not over yet. And and and - better, even better! - once I get back to Singapore, fun (with a lowercase 'f') kicks in with a vengence. Mmmm, vengence.
Okay, I'm sleepy. But I'm also edgy. Real edgy. No idea why. Very odd.
Hopefully things will be better once I get back to Bombay tomorrow.
Labels: aundh, pune, scriptfrenzy, travel
This post was posted by Unknown at 3:30 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment
"A beach house," he said, "doesn't even have to be on the beach. Though the best ones are. We all like to congregate," he went on, "at boundary conditions". "Really?" said Arthur. "Where land meets water. Where earth meets air. Where body meets mind. Where space meets time. We like to be on one side, and look at the other."