I can’t think

Honestly. My mind has drawn a blank. I have been working non-stop for past 3 weeks and my mind has finally given up on me and I still have things to do. Anyway, as I can’t think at all today, I thought of posting another photograph today. This one is from an year ago taken at Grand Canyon. I guess it’s a typical Grand Canyon shot..

BTW, can you see the people at top of the peak? No? They are tiny dots at the top. Look closely. Now you get the scale of Grand Canyon. It is really Grand! It’s a breath taking beautiful and still very depressing place.

Tuesday Tag: In a word

I stole, er I mean, I borrowed today’s tag from PB.

There is only rule for this tag. You have to answer the question in one word. So here it goes:

1.Where is your mobile phone? Bed
2.Your hair? Shoulder-length
3.Your mother? Psych-Major
4.Your father? Lecturer
5.Your favorite food? Home-made
6.Your dream last night? None
7.Your favorite drink? Coke
8.Your dream/goal? Happiness
9.What room are you in? Bedroom
10.Your hobby? Varied
11.Your fear? Breaking-neck
12.Where do you want to be in 6 years? With someone I love
13.Where were you last night? Home
14.Something that you aren’t? Inhuman
15.Muffins? No thanks
16.Wish list item? Hasselblad
17.Where did you grow up? Roorkee
18.Last thing you did? Checked mail
19.What are you wearing? Clothes
20.Your TV? Normal (?)
21.Your pets? Pleo
22.Friends? Life-line
23.Your life? Complicated
24.Your mood? Varies-by-the-minute
25.Missing someone? Always :)
26.Vehicle? Toyota
27.Something you’re not wearing? Newspaper
28.Your favourite store? JC Penney
29.Your favorite color? Blue
29.When was the last time you laughed? Today
30.Last time you cried? Last week
31.Your best friend? Puja
32.One place that you go to over and over? Stanford
33.One person who emails me regularly? Administration
34.Favorite place to eat? Home

Again, it’s free for all tag. :)

Claustrophobia

I don’t remember having claustrophobia. I never liked elevators though but it had more to do with motion sickness, rather elevation-change-sickness, that made me uncomfortable. I place it in same category of my air sickness symptoms. I am not comfortable moving up or down an elevation. However, I am not afraid of heights. I am not scared of roller coasters either. I think it’s simply the unknown force moving me up or down an elevation that makes me sick (not scared but sick).

Anyway, that isn’t point of the post, is it? I was talking about claustrophobia. So I never had any incident of claustrophobia in my life. However, few months back I had my MRI done. I spent around 30 min in the machine for that. And ever since then I get slightly anxious if I see anything enclosed in small space as someone being buried alive or such. I don’t like to think about me being in any situation like that anymore. As it turns out there have been a study that indicate that people actually become (okay 30% of them) claustrophobic after an MRI exams. You know they should have this as a warning for this exam.

Anyway, my recent discovery of this new fear make me wonder why aren’t we all born as a claustrophobic, after all a fetus has to spend 9 months of its life in an enclosed space? How can spending 30-40 min make me claustrophobic then? Was I braver when I was a fetus? Or maybe I was simply dumber to realize the fear. Either way I don’t fancy being a fetus or, for that matter, being Anarkali at the moment. The idea sends chills down my spine now..

Nothing to post today…

…so I am posting a photograph. I took this one recently, well, it was taken in Stanford so it is at least 3 weeks old. The subjects are two daughters of a friend of mine. They were playing when I took the shot… P.S.: It’s 10 min to midnight and I can’t come up with anything to write in 10 min.

If I were a baby again

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 4; the fourth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Well since everyone is doing it, I thought I should write something about it too. But honestly I don’t like the topic. I don’t understand how and why people are writing about this? You see, if I was a baby again, I would have no control over most of the things I do. Even toddler don’t have as much control, how can you expect a baby to know what he/she is doing? As a baby, I would have a very short term memory. Though I think my attention span hasn’t change much since I was a baby, so hopefully that will remain the same. As for my daily activity, I would lie on my back whole day and wait for my mom to guess correctly what’s making me cry. Rest of the time I would sleep. Hmm…on second thoughts, I guess I wouldn’t mind being a baby again.

Anyway, I digress. So I don’t get the point of this topic, “If I were a baby again.” I understand if they have said about being a kid (age 4-12) or, even more relevant, if they asked me if I was a teenager again. That's one time of life that everyone would like to change one way or the other, but as a baby, as I said, you have pretty much no control over any of your functions. You are completely dependent upon your parents. You don't even have any memory of that time, then how can you change it? You might have some memories of being a toddler or the first day of school (I remember how much I cried!) but you aren't baby then. The term baby technically defines an age of 0-1 years old. Once you start walking you become a toddler. At least, that's how I understand it.

And then the blog says that we need to publish the post on November 7, 2009 anytime between 0000 hrs and 2359 hrs. Do you see the problem in this? No? Oh okay, here are my problems:

- There is no time zone specified! I couldn’t find any indication about which part of the world this site belongs to (this is the first time I have visited the site. Sorry if I am being ignorant). How am I supposed to know?

- Second problem I have: I can change the time of posting manually, so would it matter it I cross the time limit and still put it there? okay may be when I comment on their post with the link, a time stamp will show. But again which time zone do they (the comment's time stamp) belong to?

Having said all this, I have read quite a few creative posts on the topic and admire the bloggers for being so imaginative, innovative and artistic. Well,all I can do is to be sarcastic or rather I should say, all I can do is complain so here I am complaining about it. Though I do wonder if anyone else thought about these points too? I mean about the relevance of the topic, and not my ramblings about the time zone.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

P.S.: 1. I am not sure if I should put this in their comment section as they might consider it malicious.

2. On second thoughts, they never specified what people can or can not write. I simply chose to complain about it. So I am putting it up…

Un-Indian

I recently had lunch with couple of newly acquainted Indian ladies. As I don't have a car, these new friends have been very sweet and take me out for lunch and while coming back, we have a short Indian grocery trip. They have really made my life here so much easier. Anyway, I was talking about this particular lunch that we had in a Gujararti restaurant. BTW, I don't like Gujarati cuisine, especially the fact that they add sugar/jaggery in everything including daal! For me, it's beyond scandalous. But I digress again. So we went out of lunch and obviously started talking. At some point, for some reason, I mentioned that I have donatde blood. The reaction to this statement reminded me how un-Indian-lady like I am.

A typical Indian born shudh desi bhartiya nari doesn't donate blood. She doesn't play sports. She will never ever join a martial art group. She doesn't climb stairs, if there is an elevator available. She doesn't go for a run at any odd hours. Arts mean sketching, painting and handicrafts to them and not photography. She won't ride a bike for 10 miles to reach office if there are other mode of transportation available, especially a car.

Like my friend Rachna (she is my high school friend) once commented on this blog and I quote:

"You have lived too long in the US- pata nahi vilayat mein rah kar chhori kya kya sochne lagi hai ;) ”

I didn't think much about it then but now I realize how different I have become since I landed in US. Though I think all these changes have been positive (at least that’s what I think). The environment here gave me freedom to try and realize my full potential in all direction, just not academically. I am far more active, far more social and far more happy. No more inhibitions about what people will think or talk. No more inhibition in trying anything new, whether its physically or artistically or academically challenging. I don't get embarrassed now, I don’t even get annoyed at people on sideline pointing at me (figuratively, of course) while I try something new. I pity them now. I used to be scared like them once upon a time but not any more. 

All these realizations made me wonder about other things as well, like: how different I would have been, if I had grown up in US? How would have my life turned out to be then? Did any of you ever thought about it?

This is hilarious!!

May be you have already seen this one but I found this on FB (thanks Subhash) today. It’s simply hilarious. I never thought about these names before this. It’s brilliant. 

P.S.: 1. I am too tired to blog today so enjoy this clip today.

2. BTW, Condoleezza Rice used to be a professor in Stanford before she joined Bush administration.  On March 1st, 2009 she returned to Stanford as a political science professor!

3. I think the famous “Stanford Arrogance” has finally started to have it’s effect on me. Guess it’s time for me to graduate, I have now acquired the last ingredient! ;)