Sunday, January 24, 2010

Woe is me.

You know what the secret horror of every scientist is?

That they cannot, try as they may, reproduce their work.

Actually wait, I take it back- there are two horrors. First is that of reproducibility (if you can't reproduce what you did a few months ago, then who can?).

The second is this: getting brilliant results, then realizing there was a problem with the experiment design, expecting that results with the new and improved version will be even more brilliant and then realizing that nope, your results with this version are exactly opposite to what you predicted and what you got last time.

Ethical dilemma! Do you stick with original design because it gives you what you want, even though you cannot entirely explain why it worked that way? Or should you be good and swallow the bullet and admit that perhaps your entire hypothesis is incorrect?

But then, what if the assumptions made while forming the hypothesis were incorrect? Then, the results from the two designs should give you an unanticipated insight into the whole process. But then! What if you can't reproduce the damn results in either case? AAARRRRGGGHHHH

Where does that leave one? Cursing oneself for not writing down EVERY single detail in lab notes.

Humph.

Friday, January 15, 2010

San Jose, Honduras

This is the village in Honduras that Ram goes to every year as part of the Shoulder to Shoulder (Hombro a Hombro) group. They have a clinic in this village, which is up in the mountains, and this group has run it for over 10 years. And twice a week (I think), some of the doctors get on a caboose (ass) and travel to the neighboring villages, which cannot be accessed any other way. Ram broke the camera on his very first day in the village, when he attempted to jump across a river, slipped and dropped the camera. But these were the pictures he had clicked before that happened.





I love his stories about his trip to Honduras. The village has no electricity, so every night, all activities end by around 7pm. Ram and his friends would tell each other ghost stories for hours and hours, and then be terribly scared to have to get up and go to the bathroom at night. Every morning, they would get coffee from beans plucked from a field behind the building, freshly roasted and ground every day. And Ram would try out his Spanish on the patients who came there. He claims that Spanish sounds just like Hindi and that he would end up substituting Hindi words for words in Spanish that he didn't know, and would still be understood by the locals :)
Here's a picture of the examination room at the building

Pongal in Bangalore







Nice, no? Look at how warm the day appears to be. What I wouldn't give to be there instead of here.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Prenatal Yoga

I have not attended my prenatal yoga class in 3 weeks and I have NEVER felt better.

Going for the yoga class meant that I'd take the rest of the week recovering from it- everything hurt. And my labmates teased me about how I waddled about even though I wasn't terribly far along in the pregnancy. People say that attending the classes regularly and performing those exercises every day are a good way of preparing and practicing for child birth. So what's the logic- you are undergoing a good deal of pain every week during the yoga class, so that your pain threshold increases and so the process of delivering a baby no longer feels as bad?

Yoga was tolerable when we had a particular teacher in the class- she was in her 50s, she had given birth when she was 47 (!) and she understood all the attendant aches and pains of pregnancy. Best of all, she was of the opinion that all most women wanted, was to stretch a bit, relax a bit and listen to some soothing music while letting go of all the stresses of the day. Unfortunately, this teacher was only the substitute. The real teacher came along four weeks ago and literally ripped apart this mild, soothing visage of prenatal yoga and gave it an aggressive, aerobic avatar.
The result? I was completely out of breath halfway through the class, but grimly held on till the end. My legs wobbled and I nearly lost my balance while walking back home from the class and I was in acute pain for the next two weeks. I couldn't turn over in bed without an acute terror of the oncoming pain, I couldn't breathe deeply because my ribs hurt and I couldn't walk without wincing.

Now I'm just pissed off. Fine, so maybe I'm out of shape, but who the heck says that anything has to be this hard? Who, in their right minds, would deliberately go about ruining their self confidence like this? It's bad enough knowing that you're no longer able to fit into your clothes, that you can't stop your stomach from rumbling every 4 hours and it's bad enough having to worry if your little kid is getting the right nutrients and having to juggle housework and real work and everything else. WHY would anyone want to put themselves through the torture of a workout that leaves one physically and mentally exhausted? And what kind of a twisted mind would think that experiencing pain during pregnancy will make one better prepared for child birth? The only thing it does is leave a lasting dread of the whole experience.

Prenatal Yoga, I wash my hands off you.

And today, striding along the corridor at a pace that definitely was not possible when I was doing yoga, I feel incredibly good about myself.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Gazing at Bangalore

Gosh, am on a blogging spree these days.

My new activity to pass time has been to gaze at the road map of Bangalore. During the years I lived in Bangalore, I never did that- even when I knew I was going to get hopelessly lost. It was almost as if looking at the map of a city one considered one's hometown was admitting to being a wuss- much better to get lost or overpay the auto rickshaw driver. Perhaps other people can live in a city for a while and figure out how to get from place to place without looking at a map, but such skills are beyond me. I was the laughing stock of my cousins, especially my cousin sisters Madhu and Mridl, but hey, at least I could hold my head up high because I wasn't one to resort to a map.

But now, gazing at the old Bendakaluru (I thought that meant "city of boiled beans". Apparently not. It means "city of burnt rice"... kalu means beans, no? Anna means rice... so at the most it can be "city of burnt beans"- surely my Kannada isn't that totally off?), I suddenly realize, hey! Many of these places aren't all that far away from my house as I thought they were.

Here, let me show you:




The red circle is where I live: Rajajinagar.
Things in black and green are places that have a special meaning for me.
The orange lines are even more special.
Let me tell you about these places:

Shivajinagar: supposedly, it's the closest place to Rjrngr. But I swear, it takes a good hour to get to the place! I thought it had to be MUCH further away than it actually is. It seems like a single road connects the two, doesn't it? Hah. If only that were true.

Why is Shivajinagar so special? Because you take the bus there and walk about 15 minutes (less, if you don't get lost) and you find yourself at Commercial Street- my favorite street for shopping EVER. The women of my family have gone to that place for our clothes shopping from even before I was born. I think, personally, that it became such a 'staple' only because my cousin Madhu used to love going there. Madhu is an indefatigable shopper. If I had to explain why she got into the habit of going there, I would say that she probably discovered this place when she was in college, and then began dragging her mother and aunts there for everything. They would have put up with her because she would know all the places to get inexpensive, but good quality clothes and would know whom to haggle with. And of course, by the time Mridl and I were born and were old enough to take shopping, she was the unrestrained and unchallenged Queen of the Shops. My memories of Commercial Street, and really of Bangalore, are firmly linked with shopping (oh, and how could I forget eating? Madhu, in addition to knowing the best clothes shops, also knows the best eating joints) trips with Madhu.

Anyway, if you have never been to Bangalore, go to Shivajinagar without fail. You will find EVERYthing that you will ever need there. Really.

Next stop on the tour: Jayanagar. Where Madhu lives (really, this post is becoming more about her than anything else!). Jayanagar is SUCH a beautiful place. It's got old trees lining the streets, it's got gardens and parks and it's got true character. See where that red ballon with an A is on the map? Somewhere there is the big bus stand called "Majestic" (no, I lie. It's called Kempegowda Station now), where you take bus number 2 to get to Jayanagar. When you get down at the Jayanagar bus stand, there's a Nandini milk outpost, where you buy flavored milk to cool yourself down before trying to figure out how to get to her place.

I was going to do this by distance, but let's do South Bangalore first, and then move up north. See where it says Ramagondanahalli? Don't know what 'gondana' means, but 'halli' means 'village'... so it's supposed to be a village somehow connected to Rama.
Anyway, that's where my youngest aunt lives (except "village" and "rusticity" are the farthest things from your mind when you see where she lives). Her place is very nice, of course, but the halli isn't too bad either. There's a shop selling coconuts right outside the compound and the bus stop isn't too far off. So you can get yourself a coconut water drink and wait for the bus (which can tend to get a bit crowded, but hey, you're moving, so it's not too hot). Honestly though, I have probably taken the bus ONCE in my whole life from her place to mine. So, my impressions of the halli are a bit vague. I mention this place because I have a big huge soft spot for it- it is THE most serene place in all of Bangalore and I have the happiest memories there... errr.. I'm talking about her house, not the halli.

Much further south is marked "Sarjapur", where another of my aunts lives. Actually, I have NO clue where she lives, but I know you have to take the Sarjapur road and then ride off into the wilderness. Her house is built on what used to be a farm, far far away from the city. I love it, not because I have actually been there too often, but because in my head, it's like an escape- from the city, from tension and stress and everything else.

Now wheeee... let's zoom up north to the orange arrow on National Highway 4. Guess where that leads? To Kolar! That's where the man is from... well, technically, he's from Bangalore too, but he lives in Kolar. And really, NH4 is THE closest road to their house and runs behind it. I like their house- it reminds me of my own.

Further up (man, this is getting tiring. But I will finish) in green: Jakkur Layout and the vicinity. Why is this important? Because of NCBS! National Center for Biological Sciences is where I did my undergrad projects for 2 years and JNCASR in Jakkur paid me to do that research! To get to either NCBS or JNCASR (they are two different places), you would have to take a shuttle from that almighty temple of science, IISc. What a place! And what a place NCBS is! It's where I had my first taste of independence and I loved it!

Okay, maybe I should actually go do some work now, instead of constantly writing on my blog.

Thoughts about the Future

I've been giving some thought to what I ought to do after the PhD for the past few weeks. I hope to be done by the end of this year, but I guess it's never too early to plan. Also, a few of my close friends who started their PhDs around the same time that I did are graduating soon and while that's always melancholy, it's also very interesting to hear their thoughts about what they want to do next and why.

I decided to do a PhD for all the wrong reasons. My main wrong reason was that I wanted to get out of my home, hometown, country and everything that was familiar and safe and live life by my own in a totally new place. I also wrongly expected that a tepid liking for research would be enough to dedicate 5-6 years to it. There was peer pressure (and how! Nearly 35 people out of 50 in my class applied for PhD programs in the US, India and UK. And our undergrad teachers practically brainwashed us into thinking that a PhD was the only thing of worth that could be done), a significant superiority complex (how could I, with my scores and recommendations, think of doing anything as measly as a Masters?) and a conviction that a PhD would give me the expertise and authority to be able to dictate my terms to others. I guess there is some truth to that last bit, so I wasn't 100% misguided in my wish to join a doctoral program.... perhaps 99% misguided, but not a complete 100%. That makes me feel slightly better.

I'll save the process of getting a PhD for another post. Let's just say that it's like one of those clothes dryers- it wrings everything out of you. At the end of the process, you are left with the unshakable truth that no matter how bad things get: a) they might just get worse, and
b) somehow you will be able to get out of it- with or without dignity intact.

Anyway, I don't want to make the same mistake of entering something after the PhD for the wrong reasons. Which is why I am so leery of doing a post doc- if I do one, will I be doing it because everyone else is, or because I really, truly in my heart want to do one? And I don't want to join something with that lamest of excuses: "There are no other options. I can't do anything else".

So I am writing this to clear up my head about what I would like to do after the PhD.

What are the aspects I would like to promote in my professional self?

a) I think I would like to teach- from whatever little teaching I have done, I find it fun and I think I am good at it. And thinking about teaching doesn't give me a secret fear that I will not be adequate for the task, it makes me feel rather warm and happy and excited- even the thought about grading or setting exam papers. So, definitely, this aspect should be present in whatever avatar I take post graduation.

b) Writing: I am pretty darn good at it. Sorry about the lack of modesty here. I'll be a bit more objective: I am very good at writing about my own research and my own scientific thoughts in a simple and concise manner and I am very good at editing other people's writing. And while I am not truly excellent at critiquing other people's scientific work, I'm not terrible at it either. I haven't done well in scientific reporting, I regret to say. My writing tends to become wooden or worse, fake sounding. Perhaps that is because of lack of practice- don't have too many occasions to write in detail about someone else's work.

c) Research: has two aspects to it- the thinking about, and the actual conducting of. I'm good at thinking about research. I can break down a question into smaller objectives and I can think of the drawbacks to measurement techniques and find a way around them. Which is why I can write a research proposal fairly well. What I cannot do without great fear of failure is actually conduct these experiments and measurements. I am not terribly good at lab work. Isn't that a sad admission from a bench scientist? And I know why. It's the same reason that my cooking sometimes is brilliant and sometimes fails quite dramatically: I cannot follow a recipe. I improvise and I make excuses for it. And sometimes, I'll admit, I'm just plain lazy.

So it's these conflicting attitudes to research that make me love it some days and hate it, fear it on others.

I think the best option for me is to do something that doesn't involve a great deal of bench work, that involves thinking and planning research experiments, and that involves teaching and writing.... I should just skip the whole post doc experience and become a principal investigator... haha....

Anyway, this has clarified that the standard post doctoral experience, with its focus on bench work and lab skills, is not for me.

What are the alternatives? I could teach- in an undergraduate college or a medical college. Both these places do promote research, but to a smaller degree. And in such a place, without the pressure to perform magic in the lab, I might actually find myself becoming better at bench work. In fact, in some place like this, I could, in addition to teaching, start a grant writing course or an introductory course to research. This would involve a lot of thinking and writing initially, of course, and then would gradually proceed to lab work, by which time I might be prepared for, and even excited about, it.

Industrial jobs- scientific writing, post docs, media relations etc- really don't thrill me to bits. I wonder if I am a product of that class of academia that puts its nose up when it comes to the industry. My adviser is a bit old fashioned like that. Maybe I take after him.

Phew! Enough thoughts for now- my brain is getting tired.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Obama's weatherization and my apartment

I finally get Obama - like, totally, really, like completely "get" him - and his weatherization. First time I heard that word, I raised an eyebrow- having never heard of the word before, I figured he, in an unexpected salute to Bush, was making up his own vocabulary. Then I cringed a bit, like a teen would when her normally sensible parent says something silly in front of the whole world. Googling "weatherization" didn't make much of a difference to this feeling of embarrassment because the only people who seemed to be using it were from the Federal government.

Anyway, today made a difference. It is -3F here in Pittsburgh and my house is drafty. I have, with militant vigor, attacked every window and every crevice to track down the source of the draftiness, but to no avail. As I sit at the computer, which is next to the window, I feel my fingers and my feet getting colder and colder. Try as I may, I cannot abolish the tendrils of cold that creep inside through invisible spaces from the windows.

This darn heating-leaking apartment has illustrated one more point of basic thermodynamics for me: cold air sinks and hot air rises. Keeping the heaters on "high" makes my face feel warm, but my feet are still cold, because I place them beneath the heaters. The feet have to feel the cold draft coming downwards from the window above the heaters.

My fellow PhDs from the engineering department: what the hell are you people doing? Stop designing bridges or construction equipment or whatever it is that you do, and figure out a way to stop the draft from entering my house, or to keep the heat from escaping out of it. I'm DYIN' here, I tell ya.