Fascinating and brilliant

There was a time when I would have sniffed and turned away from anything to do with computer science. No more! Ever since I took the Learn-to-Program course by Jennifer Campbell and Paul Gries on Coursera, I am hooked.
Now this article makes for great reading and turns a bunch of computer programers into super-heroes.
The right inspiration for me as I struggle to write what should be a fairly straight-forward piece of code but which I cannot wrap my head around...

Travel, climate change and thoughts on recycling

Here's a fantastic chart about the relative carbon footprints of different modes of traveling. It's informal, of course, calculated on the fly, but the graphic at the end really hits home the point of the best modes of travel.

Interestingly, driving a car (according to this guy's calculations) is actually worse than flying a plane. Which sort of defeats the point of the article, wherein the author describes his efforts to reduce his carbon footprint by deciding not to take a flight to destinations any more, and takes a bus instead.

That article, at first reading, made me feel a bit holier-than-thou: we only have one car, we recycle and I take the bus everywhere! Then, on second thoughts, I realized that even our seemingly kosher lifestyle isn't all that green: while we may not fly too much, we are responsible for our parents' annual trips to the US; as a family, we drive everywhere; and our lifestyle in the US is definitely less environmentally friendly than our lifestyle back in India.

The rest of this article is going to make some broad generalizations, which may not be true for the whole country, but they were true in my household and among the people I hung out with, both in India and in the US.

In India, recycling is not something you boast and feel righteous about, you just do. Everything gets reused, from plastic bags to computer parts. Food (usually) isn't dumped into trash bags; it either gets dumped it into a hole in the ground for composting or given as left-overs to people who can't afford a decent meal. Old clothes are given away to someone else, or reused as dusting cloths (I once saw an old pair of underpants on the floor of someone's kitchen, used as an all-purpose mop cloth... perhaps a bit extreme).  Broken electronics are never thrown away; they get repaired. Old newspapers, paper products can be sold in stores for a small amount of money. There is a real market for recycled goods.

In the US, recycling is not a natural way of life. It requires thought and planning. We throw away used or broken furniture, electronics and clothes. Recycling is the 'good deed for the day'.  Earnest college students believe it will bring its own karma. And there is the forced feeling of virtue- one needs an excuse for using recycling goods beyond that of saving money.

I think the reason for these drastically different outlooks are rooted in the approach to money. In India,  it is practical (and expected) to recycle and save money. In the US, it is considered a sign of stinginess for relatively well-off families not to buy new furniture, but to reuse old ones.

Secondly in India, there is a general awareness of waste (maybe because trash isn't cleaned up tidily as it is done in the US). So people think twice about trashing things.

And thirdly, you cannot go anywhere in India without being aware that there are people less fortunate than you are. Even if you drive in an air-conditioned car with dark windows, you will see kids rooting about in garbage bins, people begging, painfully undernourished babies crying. Poverty in the US has a different face. And for an immigrant (and perhaps locals too), the rules of etiquette and political correctness are intimidating: is it kind to offer food to someone who looks hungry or will that be taken as an intolerable insult? Even more intimidating: what if this hungry-looking person has a gun?

Jammin' to work

This morning, I came to work in my pyjamas.

Grad students do things like that, not postdocs. In my defense, the pyjamas were a good sight warmer  and more comfortable than my trousers. And I put the blame flatly on my kids- by the time I got done with my bath (yes, I did take one), the girl was howling, the boy was refusing to get out of bed and so on and so forth.

So while I ran around getting them ready for their respective schools, I totally forgot to replace my hastily-worn jammies with formal wear before leaving the house.

Realized my wardrobe accident when I was well into my work day. But I had an important noon meeting. So went to a nearby shop called Rue 21 which specializes in blingy, tight, and slightly trashy clothes to try to pick up something that could pass for a pair of formal trousers at a quick glance. The only thing I found was a pair of yoga pants that were too long. So then, came back to lab and stapled the feet up so they wouldn't drag on the floor.

Just when I thought I had my life in control....

Confusion

Pitt has a consulting case competition open to postdocs and grad students, which I will be participating in.
So of course, the first thing I did (after quickly registering for the thing... this sounds like fun) was to Google "health care innovation cases consulting". One of the results that came up was this:
"A technology and services division at this global health care and life sciences company was seeking to define an innovation framework with supporting processes to enable it to realize organic growth goals. An initial analysis of the division’s product portfolio revealed a significant gap between its current five year forecast and five year objectives. Portfolio analysis also revealed that a disproportionate amount of resources are being allocated to sustain aging product lines. The client was looking to stimulate its innovation engine and close this performance gap with new product revenue and profitability contribution.

Err.. okay... Wtf is that?? What the hell are these people talking about?

In that whole paragraph of jargon, multiple ridiculous terms leap up, but I challenge any rational person not to blink at the terms 'organic growth' (what's inorganic then?) and 'innovation engine' (do real people in real life talk like this?)

Then, you click "download case study" in the hopes of some illumination and get this:

Do your eyes glaze over as you read their key process elements list? Can any average, English-speaking person comprehend what in the world they did?

I once attended a talk by the great George Gopen on how to write. Should Dr.Gopen ever feel the need to include another paragraph in his list of bad writing examples, I would like to present the above as a potential candidate. I would especially hold up the last point in that list as a stellar example of a sentence that seems to be constructed of fairly serious-sounding words and yet, makes absolutely no sense at all.

Sorry, Kalypso consulting. Maybe you are very good at your work. But you don't seem to know how to advertise your worth.

And today's average temperature is...

... 30F!!! Bring on the heat wave, Nature! Woohoo!!

That's almost 0 degrees Celcius and we folk here are throwing off our winter jackets and dancing away!

Brilliantly effective conversation-starter: laughing about Atlanta's response to 2 inches of snow...

Yes, I know, I know... those folks aren't used to any temperature less than 30C; snow has never ever entered their collective imaginations. It reminds me of my days in Chennai, when any time the temp dipped below 32C, we would all bring out our sweaters and huddle up and make dire predictions about falling sick with bad colds.

But it still tickles the imagination, nonetheless.

A heart-stopping moment on a hill

It snowed like God (or some other Higher Being, for those who feel this might be blasphemous) had an insane case of dandruff-induced itchy scalp.

Our new mayor claimed that the snow shovelers and salt trucks were working around the clock, but neither I nor anybody else I know could see the evidence for this. Certainly one of the major roads in the city, Beechwood Boulevard, supposedly a "Snow Emergency Route", had a thick covering of snow, it was also slippery and icy and every car ahead of us was trying not to skid and crash. God forbid you got stuck behind a school bus on a hill: it would be almost impossible to get the car running straight again.

We crawled our way to work and back. We live on a little hill with very steep inclines on both directions. It's not fun to either drive or walk up it. But I don't think any of us had considered how dangerous it could be with snow and ice piled on it.

Ram revved the car and drove up, only to get stuck in the middle of the hill. The wheels turned uselessly, snow splattered everywhere, but we weren't going anywhere. Ram braked, put the car in 'park' and got out to see how bad the situation was. I stepped out too with Durga in my arms. I started telling Ram that I would walk the short distance back home to pick up some shovels when slowly, inexorably the car started sliding backwards with Ani still in it.

Several things happened simultaneously: Ram hollered, "Varsh, move out of the way!", I yelled, "Ani, hold on. You'll be fine. We'll get you!" and Durga cried. As he realized what was going on, Ani whimpered, a soft sound that clutched my heart and set it pounding.

The car door that I had hopped out from earlier was still open, I was still standing right by it, between the door and the car interior and was moving backwards with the car as it continued its silent and alarming descent. My brain had shut down, I could only think of Ani and getting him out, not realizing that were I to slip or lose my grip in the snow, Durga and I would be in danger. Ram was yelling something, his eyes wide, his mouth moving but I couldn't understand the words coming out of it.

Then suddenly, miraculously, the car stopped moving of its own accord. It ground to a halt near a small pile of snow. "Get Ani! Get Ani!" I gasped, staggering back. Ram was already inside, frantically unstrapping Ani from his car seat. By this time, we had help. A couple of neighbors had peered out to see what the ruckus was and had rushed out with shovels. I grabbed Ani's hand in my sweaty one. Ani was remarkably cheerful about his whole adventure.

"Come on, babies. I'll take you home", I told Ani and Durga. Our kind neighbors and Ram sorted out the issue of the stuck car while I plied Durga with milk and let Ani watch all the TV he wanted, much to his utter delight.

And I prayed and prayed and thanked the great God for my kids and my husband.

The Sweet Taste of Success

I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship last year. This is a big deal for me: most other graduate students write grants for predoctoral work or help their advisers write grants to fund themselves. I didn't have to since my adviser was well-funded. I have also been lucky enough to land up with postdoctoral advisers with funding. So, while my scientific training so far has been fairly smooth and stress-free, it also means that I lack a very basic skill that all scientists should have: how to fund oneself.

So imagine my utter delight when I applied for (an intramural) grant and was funded. I felt that I could at last have something concrete to write on my CV. But during the application process, much to my chagrin, I had completely screwed up my presentation. My written material was good, but I had spoken unintelligibly fast, had a fit of stammering at one point and was not able to provide a concise and clear answer to questions like "where do you see your career going?" So while the committee ultimately awarded me the grant, they expressed grave concerns about my presentation skills and my lack of focus for my academic future.

In the months since that cringe-inducing meeting, in my mind, the members of the committee shaped themselves into scornful, nitpicking, intimidating bullies. In my bad moments, if I happened to encounter any of them in the hallways, I would have to struggle not to give in to complete mortification.

The semi-annual progress meeting came up. I was inundated with work, not research-related, but personal, the kind of work that doesn't seem like much, but drains energy: We had a friend who had been staying with us and had left behind piles of her stuff to sort through; one of our close relatives was in the hospital delivering a baby; her parents were in town and it was important to spend time with them; my husband decided that we had to get to work earlier than we were, so I had to be done with housework quicker the previous night and get the kids to bed earlier than they were used to; Durga caught a new infection at daycare and so on.

I was also terrified enough about the meeting that I didn't feel like working towards it. This is a particular sort of mood that I have become familiar with over the years. The first time it happened was when I was 18 years old, during the interview at Christian Medical College, Vellore. There was such anticipation at home, so many expectations that I would do well, so many scary stories about the interviews that when I went there, I slipped into a kamikaze haze and sunk the interview.
In my dreamy moments, I wonder what might have happened if I hadn't done that, if I had fought to do better and if I had actually become a doctor. I don't think I would have married Ramakrishna then (nor that he would have married me) or had my kids, so I guess it all turned out for the best.

This time though, I was determined not to let my haze slip over me. For one thing, if I lost my fellowship, I would have to bid goodbye to my incredibly awesome, fairly cushy job and I am not at all prepared to do that. So I sat myself down, clarified my priorities and did something that I should remember to always do for important things from now on: wrote up about what I aimed to do, what I had done and how I saw this fitting into what I wanted. Regarding this last and most important part, I was honest: I didn't create a tenure-track future for myself, I instead talked about becoming an expert in the field while continuing as a non-tenure track staff scientist at the institute. If anybody was going to challenge me about that ("why should we fund you if you are not prepared to join the ranks of professors and scholars?"), I wrote up a statement defending my choice. With this blueprint in hand, I felt on much steadier ground. I used this blueprint to modify my CV and to create a presentation.

But it was still lacking an oomph factor. So I quickly drew up the plans for a few experiments, and classified them on the basis of impact. I would have time only to do 2 experiments and I needed them to give me the biggest bang for the buck. I also drew up alternate plans: what to do if I somehow messed up these experiments (a very common occurrence with me) and didn't obtain the data I needed. I scheduled time on various equipment for these experiments: a microscopy appointment, a flow sorting appointment and so on. I called different clinics to get the clinical samples I would need, obtained some on an emergency basis and got to work. In the meantime, I wrote up everything that I wanted to say.

My presentation was scheduled for Thursday afternoon. By Wednesday I had most of the things I needed, but it still lacked something. So, I scheduled yet another urgent flow sorting appointment for Thursday morning, got my samples in place by Wednesday evening. While the samples were being processed for the flow sort on Thursday morning, I ran down to the microscopy department, copied the images I needed, ran back to the flow facility, copied the results obtained from there, ran back to my lab, updated my presentation and with a slightly sweaty hand, sent the presentation to the committee and its secretary.

I still had two hours left. In this time, I printed out a copy of my presentation, found a quiet corner for myself, got a timer and went over everything that I had written down. I also underlined the words that needed emphasis, marked the places where I would pause strategically, and kept note of the amount of time I would spend on every concept that I introduced during the talk. I also made my pronunciation more American so that my audience wouldn't have to spend time deciphering my accent. I noticed that while I was fairly fluent once the talk was underway, my biggest challenge was a smooth beginning. Another challenge was stumbling when I would encounter something that made me lose my train of thought, such as meeting somebody's eyes. So I literally memorized my lines for the first few slides until I could say them without having to think. Were I to encounter the faces of the many audience members, I would be able to say my spiel without distraction.

One hour to go. I went back to my office and browsed the daily news. It was time to rest and let my subconscious process all the things I had shoved into my head over the past few days.

Show time.

I did well. My adviser later told me that my presentation was 'spectacularly good'.

Yes!

Now I can finally rest with the knowledge that I have truly earned my fellowship.