Eating a bar of chocolate when hungry is a sure shot way of getting the Wiggly Fetus to go crazy with the kicking and the wiggling.
Hahaahhaha
Note to self: Must not turn kid into a sugar addict even before he is born.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The Girl on the Bus
It is a bitterly cold morning as I make my way up the street from my house to the bus stop three blocks away. I'm on the phone with my mom and my fingers are freezing and my scalp feels cold. I hang up, put on my head gear, cross the road to the bus stop and wait. After a few moments, anticipation gives way to desperation. "Please come soon, please", I beg the bus. My lips are frozen, my head feels heavy, my nose has begun to run and the person next to me is coughing.
The bus comes, crowded. No space to sit down. I push my way to the back, my ears ringing from someone's loud and persistent laugh. "Ka-ha, ka-ha, ka-ha", laughs this person, in a weird cough-laugh hybrid. It's a young, black girl on the cell phone, with a baby on her lap. I stare at the baby. The baby is asleep. Not a muscle twitches in his face, which looks like it has been carved out of beautiful smooth wood. I wonder, is that a real baby? Then, I see a small movement behind the closed eye lids. REM sleep! I wonder what he could be dreaming about.
His mother continues her conversation and her jarring laughter. She tells the person on the other line, "Oh baby, I haven't laughed like this in ages" and I think meanly, "Why did you have to start now?" In my stuffy nosed, heavy headed state, I gather much energy in feeling resentful and I pour it all out on this woman, with her head of stiff, glossy black hair that couldn't possibly be real.
I realize that I have seen many young black girls with and without babies on the bus, but never have I seen one who is pregnant. Where do these girls hide themselves when their bellies become huge? Do they not travel during that time? Do they suddenly come in possession of a car, which they lose once the baby is born? And they always seem to have the obligatory girlfriend who helps them out with the baby, carrying the stroller and the blanket and the bottle and such.
"I have had a great morning so far. Don't you go round ruining it by saying things like that", she suddenly yells into the phone. She yanks the phone off her ear, turns to her companion (the one holding the stroller etc), says something and then SHE, in turn, starts kaha-kaha- kaha-ing loudly. The first girl goes back to her phone and starts again.
So many older, white women turn and shush girls of other races when they talk too loudly in the bus. But in the presence of this overconfident, overbearing black girl, everybody is silenced. There are looks and glares and nudges, but there are no souls brave enough to tap this girl on her shoulder and ask her to SHUT UP. Why don't you do it, I ask myself. No effing way, I answer. She'll start yelling at me and then I'll die of embarrassment.
The baby makes a sudden move. How does he feel about his mother? He is able to sleep quite soundly through the racket that she's making, so he must be used to her. I imagine him growing up, 2, 8, 13, 25 years of age. How will she appear to him then? Does she resent him now for taking away her freedom? Does she think of him as a nuisance, to be shoved into other hands while she's busy on the phone? Did she take her prenatal vitamins regularly when he was still in her womb? Did she remember not to drink alcohol or stand too close to people who were smoking?
I feel depressed at these thoughts. The baby seems perfectly fine to me. So many babies are perfectly fine, regardless of the things their mothers do or had to do. Didn't my own ancestors give birth without what we today would call adequate prenatal care? And if they weren't successful in this endeavor, what did it matter, two or three generations down the line? It was sad perhaps, but a baby lost here or there didn't make a huge difference to the relentless pace of humanity.
My mind races down this spiral of dark thoughts, an artery throbs in my head, my eyes burn and my nose feels swollen up. "God, I'm going to be sick", I moan to myself.
The bus stops. A whole lot of students with large book bags descends. The air clears. I yank my winter hat off my head. Immediately the world becomes better. The throbbing stops, the burn in my eyes disappears and I am able to breathe. Jeez, I really need to get something a little less tight for my head, I think.
The bus comes, crowded. No space to sit down. I push my way to the back, my ears ringing from someone's loud and persistent laugh. "Ka-ha, ka-ha, ka-ha", laughs this person, in a weird cough-laugh hybrid. It's a young, black girl on the cell phone, with a baby on her lap. I stare at the baby. The baby is asleep. Not a muscle twitches in his face, which looks like it has been carved out of beautiful smooth wood. I wonder, is that a real baby? Then, I see a small movement behind the closed eye lids. REM sleep! I wonder what he could be dreaming about.
His mother continues her conversation and her jarring laughter. She tells the person on the other line, "Oh baby, I haven't laughed like this in ages" and I think meanly, "Why did you have to start now?" In my stuffy nosed, heavy headed state, I gather much energy in feeling resentful and I pour it all out on this woman, with her head of stiff, glossy black hair that couldn't possibly be real.
I realize that I have seen many young black girls with and without babies on the bus, but never have I seen one who is pregnant. Where do these girls hide themselves when their bellies become huge? Do they not travel during that time? Do they suddenly come in possession of a car, which they lose once the baby is born? And they always seem to have the obligatory girlfriend who helps them out with the baby, carrying the stroller and the blanket and the bottle and such.
"I have had a great morning so far. Don't you go round ruining it by saying things like that", she suddenly yells into the phone. She yanks the phone off her ear, turns to her companion (the one holding the stroller etc), says something and then SHE, in turn, starts kaha-kaha- kaha-ing loudly. The first girl goes back to her phone and starts again.
So many older, white women turn and shush girls of other races when they talk too loudly in the bus. But in the presence of this overconfident, overbearing black girl, everybody is silenced. There are looks and glares and nudges, but there are no souls brave enough to tap this girl on her shoulder and ask her to SHUT UP. Why don't you do it, I ask myself. No effing way, I answer. She'll start yelling at me and then I'll die of embarrassment.
The baby makes a sudden move. How does he feel about his mother? He is able to sleep quite soundly through the racket that she's making, so he must be used to her. I imagine him growing up, 2, 8, 13, 25 years of age. How will she appear to him then? Does she resent him now for taking away her freedom? Does she think of him as a nuisance, to be shoved into other hands while she's busy on the phone? Did she take her prenatal vitamins regularly when he was still in her womb? Did she remember not to drink alcohol or stand too close to people who were smoking?
I feel depressed at these thoughts. The baby seems perfectly fine to me. So many babies are perfectly fine, regardless of the things their mothers do or had to do. Didn't my own ancestors give birth without what we today would call adequate prenatal care? And if they weren't successful in this endeavor, what did it matter, two or three generations down the line? It was sad perhaps, but a baby lost here or there didn't make a huge difference to the relentless pace of humanity.
My mind races down this spiral of dark thoughts, an artery throbs in my head, my eyes burn and my nose feels swollen up. "God, I'm going to be sick", I moan to myself.
The bus stops. A whole lot of students with large book bags descends. The air clears. I yank my winter hat off my head. Immediately the world becomes better. The throbbing stops, the burn in my eyes disappears and I am able to breathe. Jeez, I really need to get something a little less tight for my head, I think.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
A series of news articles
Boom! Hok! A Monkey Language Is Deciphered
-Nicholas Wade, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/science/08monkey.html?em
Good stuff. Would have been better if he actually had some videos/ audios to go with it. Oh wait, they're probably there in the PNAS paper, otherwise that paper wouldn't have got published. Never mind.
Boring article about marriage and how to "keep it alive" (only read the first couple of paragraphs... who knows, maybe it gets better): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/magazine/06marriage-t.html?em
And... an article about my lab!!! http://www.upmc.com/MediaRelations/NewsReleases/2009/Pages/GSPH-Microbicides-Grant.aspx
Alas, WE don't see much of the 7.2 million dollars. These figures of grant monies are terribly misleading. A good chunk is eaten up by each of the universities, then our lab only gets a fifth of the amount (because there are 4 other labs on the grant) and on top of that, there are various restrictions as to how that money can be used. But still... it's always nice to see one's PI being interviewed and quoted, and it's always nice to know that he's bringing in the bucks. When I grow up, I want to be just like Dr.G- with fingers in many pies :p
-Nicholas Wade, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/science/08monkey.html?em
Good stuff. Would have been better if he actually had some videos/ audios to go with it. Oh wait, they're probably there in the PNAS paper, otherwise that paper wouldn't have got published. Never mind.
Boring article about marriage and how to "keep it alive" (only read the first couple of paragraphs... who knows, maybe it gets better): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/magazine/06marriage-t.html?em
And... an article about my lab!!! http://www.upmc.com/MediaRelations/NewsReleases/2009/Pages/GSPH-Microbicides-Grant.aspx
Alas, WE don't see much of the 7.2 million dollars. These figures of grant monies are terribly misleading. A good chunk is eaten up by each of the universities, then our lab only gets a fifth of the amount (because there are 4 other labs on the grant) and on top of that, there are various restrictions as to how that money can be used. But still... it's always nice to see one's PI being interviewed and quoted, and it's always nice to know that he's bringing in the bucks. When I grow up, I want to be just like Dr.G- with fingers in many pies :p
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Some People are MAD
Close to midnight on Sunday, I received a call from Sangeetha, a close friend who now rents the apartment that RK and I use to live in until about 6 months ago. She said there was a lady with a police officer who came to her house looking for RK. The lady told Sang that it was a case of car collisions and that our car had bumped her car and now she wanted revenge. Sang, being very wise and street-smart, told them that she couldn't get in touch with the previous renters, that she would contact the landlord and have him get in touch with us. And promptly called us to warn us of imminent bad news, as soon as they left.
My first reaction was one of outright fear. Police! Looking for us! Shit, and we hadn't changed our address on the license plate, which is why they went to the old house and now they would fine us for that! And though I couldn't recall RK bumping into anyone's car in particular, who knew? Perhaps he had broken something major and this woman was Out To Get Him.
RK, on the other hand, was rather sanguine. Bumped a car? Oh well, couldn't be helped, he supposed, he did have a habit of "kissing cars" while parallel parking. Police? Well, the woman probably hadn't given them a choice. What else was a police man supposed to do when accosted by a woman who brought him tales of wrong doing? Fine for not changing address? Well, how much could it be anyway? Now, he really needed to get back to his TV show, so would I please calm down?
I couldn't sleep that night. I tossed and turned and got out of bed many times to look out of the window to check that our car was still on the street and hadn't been towed away. The next day, still in a state of fear, I went online to change our address with the PA Dept of Transportation and also paid all outstanding parking tickets and miscellaneous fines (yes, we accumulate a lot of them. No, we aren't proud of that fact.)
RK called the woman (she had left her phone number with Sang the previous night) and am glad to say, started to get a bit more serious about the whole thing after the conversation. He really couldn't recall bumping any cars the previous day. Sure, he had parked on that street, but he rather thought that the timings were off. He told her he would call her back after work and spent the rest of the day, in the middle of patient consultations and minor surgeries, to ponder about the places and times he had parked his car the previous day.
He met her that evening, confident with his defense. He had a mental list of the places he had parked at and was pretty sure he hadn't done anything particularly malignant. She told him that, in addition to examining her car, she had examined his and could prove that the scratches on her car matched his. Therefore, she seemed to suggest, we dun it. And, of course, "Oh, this didn't happen on Sunday. It happened on Friday", she said.
Well, that flummoxed RK. For him to remember something that happened more than a few hours ago is a Herculean task. To ask him to recall on Monday where he parked on
Friday is too much to expect.
She went on, "And you might see the police in the near future- I filed a hit and run case with them against you"
Huh??!!
And then, the killer: apparently this woman is so jobless as to write down the license plate numbers of the car in front and behind hers EVERY time she parks and checks her car for scratches EVERY time she pulls out. She produced her little black book. And at that, what could RK do? He capitulated. Clearly, this woman deserved some reward for being so assiduous. If he had to be the one who would reward her for her investigations into car scratches and such, then so be it. Someone had to. With a feeling akin to awe and wonder, he produced his insurance documents (thank God we had remembered to renew that insurance!) and came back home to spread the word of this lady and her deeds.
I asked him, "What about the hit and run?"
He said, "Oh, she said she'd withdraw the case"
What a nut this lady is! She is clearly paranoid and neurotic and needs to get a hobby other than examining her car for ridiculously small scratches. I really don't understand people who are so enamored with their scraps of metal that they make a huge hue and cry about a scratch or a bump. So what? At least it wasn't you who was scratched or bumped! Put some paint or a sticker over the thing, and there! Problem solved!
And to go about filing cases against the police, to charge a hit and run against us for such a minor thing! Don't these police have better things to do? Instead, they spend their time persecuting innocent people who are too busy saving lives (well, not me) or working hard to worry about scratching cars- theirs or anybody else's.
Hit and run. Huh. People get confused between human beings and inanimate objects in this country.
My first reaction was one of outright fear. Police! Looking for us! Shit, and we hadn't changed our address on the license plate, which is why they went to the old house and now they would fine us for that! And though I couldn't recall RK bumping into anyone's car in particular, who knew? Perhaps he had broken something major and this woman was Out To Get Him.
RK, on the other hand, was rather sanguine. Bumped a car? Oh well, couldn't be helped, he supposed, he did have a habit of "kissing cars" while parallel parking. Police? Well, the woman probably hadn't given them a choice. What else was a police man supposed to do when accosted by a woman who brought him tales of wrong doing? Fine for not changing address? Well, how much could it be anyway? Now, he really needed to get back to his TV show, so would I please calm down?
I couldn't sleep that night. I tossed and turned and got out of bed many times to look out of the window to check that our car was still on the street and hadn't been towed away. The next day, still in a state of fear, I went online to change our address with the PA Dept of Transportation and also paid all outstanding parking tickets and miscellaneous fines (yes, we accumulate a lot of them. No, we aren't proud of that fact.)
RK called the woman (she had left her phone number with Sang the previous night) and am glad to say, started to get a bit more serious about the whole thing after the conversation. He really couldn't recall bumping any cars the previous day. Sure, he had parked on that street, but he rather thought that the timings were off. He told her he would call her back after work and spent the rest of the day, in the middle of patient consultations and minor surgeries, to ponder about the places and times he had parked his car the previous day.
He met her that evening, confident with his defense. He had a mental list of the places he had parked at and was pretty sure he hadn't done anything particularly malignant. She told him that, in addition to examining her car, she had examined his and could prove that the scratches on her car matched his. Therefore, she seemed to suggest, we dun it. And, of course, "Oh, this didn't happen on Sunday. It happened on Friday", she said.
Well, that flummoxed RK. For him to remember something that happened more than a few hours ago is a Herculean task. To ask him to recall on Monday where he parked on
Friday is too much to expect.
She went on, "And you might see the police in the near future- I filed a hit and run case with them against you"
Huh??!!
And then, the killer: apparently this woman is so jobless as to write down the license plate numbers of the car in front and behind hers EVERY time she parks and checks her car for scratches EVERY time she pulls out. She produced her little black book. And at that, what could RK do? He capitulated. Clearly, this woman deserved some reward for being so assiduous. If he had to be the one who would reward her for her investigations into car scratches and such, then so be it. Someone had to. With a feeling akin to awe and wonder, he produced his insurance documents (thank God we had remembered to renew that insurance!) and came back home to spread the word of this lady and her deeds.
I asked him, "What about the hit and run?"
He said, "Oh, she said she'd withdraw the case"
What a nut this lady is! She is clearly paranoid and neurotic and needs to get a hobby other than examining her car for ridiculously small scratches. I really don't understand people who are so enamored with their scraps of metal that they make a huge hue and cry about a scratch or a bump. So what? At least it wasn't you who was scratched or bumped! Put some paint or a sticker over the thing, and there! Problem solved!
And to go about filing cases against the police, to charge a hit and run against us for such a minor thing! Don't these police have better things to do? Instead, they spend their time persecuting innocent people who are too busy saving lives (well, not me) or working hard to worry about scratching cars- theirs or anybody else's.
Hit and run. Huh. People get confused between human beings and inanimate objects in this country.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Peace
... is that feeling when you open a new copy of a beloved book. In my case, it's a set of books: Complete Works of Jane Austen in one big hardbound copy, with a beautiful engraved cover and gilded pages.
I don't usually like purchasing "Complete Works" of anybody. If one is really interested in some author, one should bloody well buy the individual books. There's something of a "let's get it over with" and less of a "let's savor it slowly and reread the interesting bits" attitude about any complete-works-in-one-big-fat-book kind of a book. But a hardbound copy! And not just any hardbound, especially the new ones with the flappy covers on them which you can remove, but one in which a) there is NO ridiculous flappy cover in bright colors and b) each page has a little gold edging on it, so that when the book is closed and you look down upon the pages, a distorted version of you stares back and c) you can caress the book and what you feel is not something sleek and plastic-y, but something more well worn, with beautiful textures and interesting depths and curves.
I didn't open the book as soon as I bought it. I let it sit on my dressing table and every day, I would touch it a bit and smell its pages. And then, finally, when the moment was right (today, after a bath), I opened it carefully. The pages were delicate, the smell of 'new book' permeated the air around me and then, when I smoothed my hand on the page that had just been turned, it crackled. The bliss!
I don't usually like purchasing "Complete Works" of anybody. If one is really interested in some author, one should bloody well buy the individual books. There's something of a "let's get it over with" and less of a "let's savor it slowly and reread the interesting bits" attitude about any complete-works-in-one-big-fat-book kind of a book. But a hardbound copy! And not just any hardbound, especially the new ones with the flappy covers on them which you can remove, but one in which a) there is NO ridiculous flappy cover in bright colors and b) each page has a little gold edging on it, so that when the book is closed and you look down upon the pages, a distorted version of you stares back and c) you can caress the book and what you feel is not something sleek and plastic-y, but something more well worn, with beautiful textures and interesting depths and curves.
I didn't open the book as soon as I bought it. I let it sit on my dressing table and every day, I would touch it a bit and smell its pages. And then, finally, when the moment was right (today, after a bath), I opened it carefully. The pages were delicate, the smell of 'new book' permeated the air around me and then, when I smoothed my hand on the page that had just been turned, it crackled. The bliss!
Friday, December 4, 2009
Slate's "Write Like Sarah Palin" Competition
http://www.slate.com/id/2237261/
Some gems:
Runner-up: "In the soft periwinkle glow of the proud Alaskan morning, I awoke from my sweet slumber and sauntered over to the window to gaze longingly at that mysterious, mystical land in the distance that is Russia."
—Jessica Bonness
Second place: "Here's a little news flash for your Department of Media: Superman's parents chose life and he was adopted in small-town USA by real Americans who run our factories, harvest our meat-bearing animals, and wave Old Glory down at the courthouse and the churches, not in Washington D.C. by cynical power-brokers and liberal scientists."
—Steve Aydt
Some gems:
Runner-up: "In the soft periwinkle glow of the proud Alaskan morning, I awoke from my sweet slumber and sauntered over to the window to gaze longingly at that mysterious, mystical land in the distance that is Russia."
—Jessica Bonness
Second place: "Here's a little news flash for your Department of Media: Superman's parents chose life and he was adopted in small-town USA by real Americans who run our factories, harvest our meat-bearing animals, and wave Old Glory down at the courthouse and the churches, not in Washington D.C. by cynical power-brokers and liberal scientists."
—Steve Aydt
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Discovery of a New Author
New authors are a dime a dozen. Check out the 'Books' section in any newspaper and there, a whole crop of never-heard-of-before authors who have apparently come up with great works which will change the world. Browse through the "New Fiction" section in the library and half of the books there have the sentence "New York Times Bestseller" on their covers. And then you read the book, try very much to like it (after all, if the NYT says it's a best seller, then there's probably something to it), and then realize it's no use, it's complete crap and bunkum. No, new authors are really not that great to talk (or write a blog) about.
MY new author is a pretty old one- from the 1800's in fact. A FEMALE author. An INDIAN female author (whaaa?? Who the heck is this woman? How did she slip past my eagle eyed scrutiny for all these years?). Toru Dutt is she.
Toru Dutt would have probably become incredibly famous as a writer, poet and translator had she lived. She might have become the Indian Jane Austen. However, since she died when she was 22, she is relegated to the "might-have-beens" of truly tragic proportions. Think about this: she was fluent in English, Bengali, French (which she learned during the 6 months she spent in France) and was learning Sanskrit. Before she died, she had written 2 books in French, translated one more from French to English and written at least one really famous poem (called "Our Casuarina Tree"- which, I'll admit, I had never heard of, but then again, I cannot claim any familiarity with poetry. I know a total of 3 poems: Abu Ben Adam, by Leigh Hunt, which I had to learn in 1st standard, Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge, which I know because RK keeps quoting lines from it, and The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe).
Anyway, interesting tidbit of epidemiology: Toru Dutt and her siblings all died of consumption, one after another. Ah, if only people knew to wear masks then.
Got around to reading "Le Journal de Mademoiselle D'Arvers"- the English version, not the French. What are its good points? It's well imagined- it has a good number of characters with depth, it paints a nice picture of pre-Revolution rural France. The girl (Mademoiselle D'Arvers) makes a good heroine- she's beautiful and virtuous (what else?), kind, compassionate etc etc. Dutt has made her an independent thinker, who is given the freedom to make her own choices- which is a pretty radical thing when you consider that this book was written in the early 19th century by a sheltered girl from India.
Unfortunately, there is no suspense in the book. You know how it's going to end from the beginning.
Also annoying was (and this is not Dutt's fault) the translation. It was done by someone called N.Kamala, who slips once in a while into a form of colloquial English which is jarring and sudden and frankly painful. Mademoiselle asks, "How's it going?" on one page. On another, she asks "What's up?".
What's up?? Seriously? Couldn't you find a better way of expressing that, N.Kamala? Do you seriously think ANYone, French or English or American or Indian, from the 1800s would have gone around asking that question in that particular way?
All in all, an interesting read for a lazy afternoon.
MY new author is a pretty old one- from the 1800's in fact. A FEMALE author. An INDIAN female author (whaaa?? Who the heck is this woman? How did she slip past my eagle eyed scrutiny for all these years?). Toru Dutt is she.
Toru Dutt would have probably become incredibly famous as a writer, poet and translator had she lived. She might have become the Indian Jane Austen. However, since she died when she was 22, she is relegated to the "might-have-beens" of truly tragic proportions. Think about this: she was fluent in English, Bengali, French (which she learned during the 6 months she spent in France) and was learning Sanskrit. Before she died, she had written 2 books in French, translated one more from French to English and written at least one really famous poem (called "Our Casuarina Tree"- which, I'll admit, I had never heard of, but then again, I cannot claim any familiarity with poetry. I know a total of 3 poems: Abu Ben Adam, by Leigh Hunt, which I had to learn in 1st standard, Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge, which I know because RK keeps quoting lines from it, and The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe).
Anyway, interesting tidbit of epidemiology: Toru Dutt and her siblings all died of consumption, one after another. Ah, if only people knew to wear masks then.
Got around to reading "Le Journal de Mademoiselle D'Arvers"- the English version, not the French. What are its good points? It's well imagined- it has a good number of characters with depth, it paints a nice picture of pre-Revolution rural France. The girl (Mademoiselle D'Arvers) makes a good heroine- she's beautiful and virtuous (what else?), kind, compassionate etc etc. Dutt has made her an independent thinker, who is given the freedom to make her own choices- which is a pretty radical thing when you consider that this book was written in the early 19th century by a sheltered girl from India.
Unfortunately, there is no suspense in the book. You know how it's going to end from the beginning.
Also annoying was (and this is not Dutt's fault) the translation. It was done by someone called N.Kamala, who slips once in a while into a form of colloquial English which is jarring and sudden and frankly painful. Mademoiselle asks, "How's it going?" on one page. On another, she asks "What's up?".
What's up?? Seriously? Couldn't you find a better way of expressing that, N.Kamala? Do you seriously think ANYone, French or English or American or Indian, from the 1800s would have gone around asking that question in that particular way?
All in all, an interesting read for a lazy afternoon.
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