Category: General

Onto trivial changes to the document and voilà—Dr. Me!

Cos there’s so little else occupying my head.

This entry (or a couple, I haven’t finalised on how I plan to put these thoughts across) will surely ruffle some feathers, but what the heck? it’s not like anyone’s going to be reading after all this downtime.

1. It’s not like I am drawn to women who are with other people. It’s just, anyone who I deem worthy of being drawn-to already happens to be with someone else.

2. It’s not fair that the women (from my part of the world) who entered grad school around the time I did were as hideous as they were. What’s worse is that the influx has been getting about twice as attractive each year. Refer the figure below for details.

This is most unfair, because I have no avenue to talk to those part of the current crop.

3. It’s not fair that the only person—who, incidentally, crossing the street in her halter top routinely causes accidents—whom you somehow manage to concoct a legitimate reason to spend some time with happens to be a Bible thumper.

Hmm. Perhaps if I trick her into making me one of her pet “let’s enlighten him for his own good” projects, things will look up.

and you’re interested in what I’ve been doing for the past half-decade, stop by:

On Wednesday, October the 10th at 3:00 PM, at the Baer Room, 2906 Cooley building.

Apart from the obligatory talk, there will be free food!

you don’t care about.

By some time last week, I had thrown together over 160 pages; a number that was steadily creeping higher. And then it dawned on me, more bulk, while arguably more impressive, is just more content to polish, more content to defend, more content to get criticised on and such—it’s generally more of a pain.

The week since, I’ve brought it down to 143 and that number is steadily creeping downward.

After much futzing around, I finally managed to schedule my final defence. It’s on October 10, in the afternoon; a whole two days before I turn 27.

Writing has begun to pick up since that bit of news was finalised. Which means I’ve been writing properly for a grand total of one day.

Further scheduling and logistical details as they emerge.

Progress in qualitative terms (number of pages per day?) has been slow. But there is something else going on which I can only explain with a gaming analogy.

You know those games where, at later points, the story-line leads you back to levels you’ve already crossed? You know that feeling you get when you—now equipped with much stronger weaponry and vastly-improved skill—return to those areas you once slaved through, now to just demolish the opposition with surprising prowess?

That’s kinda how it’s been, revisiting just about anything from the years passed. And that’s fucking awesome.

A majority of the entries on this journal are first penned on paper before slowly making their way here. Even so, I’m finding it hard to put down my thoughts while lacking access to the Internet at home; it’s like I don’t see the point in writing when there isn’t an option to put it out there instantly, on a whim.

That’s a little weird, I know.

Anyway, pencil firmly gripped in my fingers, I intend on ploughing through this entry because it’s 3 A.M. and I’ve been unable to sleep; which usually means I really have to get something off my mind. Or that I’ve overdosed on sugar.

• Things are going as well as they can be on the work front. I’ve formulated something of a plan and I fully intend on sticking with it until I complete my programs’ requirements. I’ve been in-and-out of meetings all day attempting to schedule things so that I can defend before my birthday; and as of now, it looks like it’s going to happen. This means that if all goes well, in about a month-and-a-half, me’d be Dr. Me. Yay!

  Is appending 2–3 characters to one’s name really worth the effort? Most definitely.

  Not.

• Necessitated by one of my bosses’ travels, I’m going to be teaching a graduate-level class for a little while next term. This ought to be interestingly-different from an undergrad class, where one’s literally forced to reach the lowest common denominator. It would be nice to focus on abstract, higher-level concepts without having to water things down constantly for that annoying little whiner in the back row.

  Here’s to hoping.

• There’s this new kid in my lab—at least I think he’s in my lab, I’ve seen him around once or twice—who was part of a major accident. One involving driving at few A.M., non-seat-belt wearing, probable drunkening and car flipping. There were 4–5 people involved and all were seriously damaged, but none dead. Barely.

  It’s not about this but I’m going to make it: They’re all Indians.

  If you weren’t allowed to drive at 4 in the morning, at 100 mph, drunk, not wearing seat belts, … back home, you probably weren’t for a reason. There is no reason to interpret your newfound freedom as some sort of right of passage to being an idiot.

  I’m not trying to be mean, really, but it’s just so hard for me to conjure up any sympathy here.

And oh, if you’re the kinds who interprets and believes dreams literally, you’d be happy to believe that my future colleagues at Cambridge are a fine collection of practical jokers; a real riot. And that I’m gay.

• It turns out, unsurprisingly, that “Hey, where did you meet your wife? I’m looking for a place to meet someone non-crazy.” is a non-optimal way to start a conversation.
• It turns out that one of the ulterior motives of this journal—making me a better writer—has climaxed in colossal failure. All that I’ve written here seems to have amounted to nought; as made clear by my daily struggles composing a dissertation.
• It turns out that people who seem really interested in getting to know you one day can erratically flip their state of mind the next. Now, not only are they uninterested, but they are making an obvious effort to evade you; even after making eye-contact.

The silence you’ve been noticing lately? Here’s the scoop:

• I’ve moved to a new home, and with higher rent and such, I don’t have enough expendable income to justify an internet connection. Yes, being a poor student sucks.
• But that’s about to change soon. At least, I’ll hopefully be a poor non-student. Speaking of which, most of my days are spent working on my dissertation, leaving me too tired to write here.
• I’m open to readers submitting articles they want posted here. You know you want to do your bit to help mitigate the silence.

My hand is still quite sore, but at least it’s regained functionality; which means I’m typing less like a monkey.

Whether or not I’m going to be happy with the end-product of my grad school stint, I’m rather excited by the prospect of being “done.” It’s a weird sense of accomplishment that buoys me through my days, even if I don’t really get much done.

I was under the mistaken notion that the fact that I’ll soon be higher qualified than anyone else I know—master’s degrees from two different departments and a doctorate from two different programs—was the source of my cheap thrill. (Not much unlike a pissing contest, except it’s one where I’m winning.) But that’s not the case.

This comes as a shock to me, but I’ve been quite seriously contemplating abandoning not just academia, but sciences altogether, upon completion of grad school. “What else can you do?” you say? I don’t really know. I can’t do much else, but I fancy spending more time singing, seriously pursuing writing, and returning full-fledged to photography.

This was most apparent to me when I was talking to someone else and it dawned on me that I consider this entire half-decade of serious study some sort of detour in my life; a detour from what my life ought to have been.

But the wise woman I was speaking to had just one, actually two, bits of advice. “Don’t make any major decisions about your life around defence time” and “Don’t develop an attitude after going to Cambridge.”

I think I’ll heed her words and not plan any big transitions for a while. Besides, I better get to work and start packing and scrubbing, for I move tomorrow.

It’s going to be a long night.

and two fully functioning hands.

Correction, I had a huge TV and two fully functioning hands.

The move imminent, I spent a good chunk of my morning tidying up around the house and throwing away junk I don’t need. I was also taking stock of the bigger objects around the house, because I don’t intend on dealing with them around December, when all the U.K.-related chaos ought to be in full swing. The first, most obvious item to crop up on that list was my TV, so (obviously?) I decided to get rid of it. It was a spur-of-the-moment sort of decision, and minutes later, an ad for it popped up on one of the many uni message-boards. I didn’t believe much would come of it, but minutes—literally minutes—later, e-mails started pouring in asking me for details, pictures, and most importantly, whether it could be picked up later in the day.

Perhaps it was the beautifully artistic pictures I’d taken of it and its remote. Perhaps it was the ridiculously low price-tag I’d placed on it. One will never know.

Anyway, a couple of hours later, a cute woman and her dad were at my doorstep, just itching to take it off my hands; oddly enough, even more so than I was itching to have it taken off my hands. The catch was that I was to help the old man carry it over to his truck.

Now you may or may not know this, but I haven’t been seeing Piquant often enough, and I sure as hell oughtn’t move around 150 lb objects, even with another’s help. But we went ahead and did so anyway, and after 10–15 breather breaks, finally hoisted the fucking poundage onto his truck. Relieved, I received payment and returned home, only to realise I couldn’t lift my keys to my apartment door’s keyhole. My arm was functional, but my hand refused to grip the key.

Or for that matter, even open or close.

It’s been hours since, and my left hand still hasn’t regained functionality. I fucking broke it, and this post has been typed-out using one hand.

Update: There was apparently some muscle tearing involved. It is recovering very slowly.

I’m alive and well. So well, in fact, that I seem to lack the urge to write here. Even so, a quick update:

• I’m moving in a few days, and that’s going to be a bit of a chore.
• I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and slowly concentrating all my attention on my dissertation work. I plan on defending by the first week of October and being done-done by my birthday. I doubt I want to be 27 and still “in school.”
• I finally believe I know what I’m talking about, intellectually, and that’s given me a sense of peace and accomplishment that’s feeding my good mood.

Ed. Note: And now for a slight deviation from our regular programming. If you feel today’s entry sounds different from what you’ve come to love around these parts, don’t fret, you aren’t imagining it. This entry was brought to us by a guest to this journal during the course of an earlier discussion.

I don’t claim to endorse anything that our Fellow Retard has said, but I don’t claim to be hostile toward his views either. Perhaps it will be beneficial to take a moment to understand where some people come from and the kinds of things they won’t have a problem with.

Enjoy it, or not.

I call myself so [Ed.: Fellow Retard] because most of your entries read like what I’d write in my diary if I was articulate and passionate about writing. I am guessing that we share our delusions and disorientation, in bits, if not almost completely.

I never quite recovered from my platonic relationship with my high school sweetheart. When we broke up on silly pretexts, she was lapped up by willing and far better guys and she ended up getting her cherry plucked to some random asshole she’s not going to marry.

And I with all my vows of respect, trust and undying love was reduced to a shattered and bitter onanist.

Needless to say, I diverted my attention to computers and the internet. I believe, based on conviction and experience, that nothing dumbs you down more than the internet. The more I spent time with the Internet, the less time I spent with my female friends or on going out. I started over analyzing situations and people. More so in case of girls. And that’s the bane of being smart/intellectuals.

You have to be instinctive and driven by your urge and senses to attract the kind of attention that leads to undressing.

I’ve been polemic and eloquent in my circle of friends but it did not help me get laid. Girls prefer to keep it simple. Who’d want to have sex with someone they can’t figure out? Just like we want to have meaningless sex for vindication and validation, girls too want fun without being judged or analyzed. It took me years to understand that. Dating sites and books don’t help because they try to provoke you by talking about confidence and pickup strategies. The truth is, 5 minutes after you’ve spieled, the girl can read your eyes and tell if you are really a horny jerk or a despo trying to run a polymorphic seduction algorithm. I let go of myself esteem and became shameless about my libido without becoming a beggar in front of girls. It helped a lot.

And once you have a girl all over you, others rush in. It’s ironical but that’s the case, girls chase those pursued by other girls. If a girl sees a girl who’s prettier than her chase you, 9 out of 10 times, she’s gonna feel attracted to you.

To cite my own case, since I got this pretty girl to date and do it with me, I’ve been chased by half a dozen girls for straight favors expressed subtly. None of them even noticed me before she came along. I cannot tell the weird and nasty stuff we do and she’s trying to rope in a pretty girl who’s bi to get into a threesome with us. Talk about the ironies of life.

Until you start seeing yourself as an unapologetic and aggressive sexual creature with a naughty sense of humor (funny is not sexy!), girls wouldn’t see you the way you want them to see you. Unlike guys, girls love with eyes and ear, so dress attractively and speak stuff that would tickle their panties, not their intellect. You are aiming too high with brainy wit, stoop down below waist and take aim.

I read that slashdot post yesterday and I know it as much as you do. We aren’t happy that way, so let’s not use eloquence to cloak the depression and dejection. It’s the impulses that makes us human. If I was a prophet, I must have been told beforehand. So, I’ll submit to what pleases me. Enough said.

On the topic of sex for money, well, sex for money is cheaper than sex for free. If you know what I mean. You go on date and there is tension in your balls on whether you’d get to exchange fluids. Paid practices are wonderful in the sense that it kinda desensitizes you to an extent towards sex and allows you to interact with a girl like a normal creature and not like a beggar would look at a Wendy’s burger.

Not to mention that if you visit the same provider again and again and befriend her, she will teach you more about women, their impulses, their sex drive, their body and the initiation to completion routine than anyone would ever disclose.

In fact, to your surprise, she might let you know the art of arousal and foreplay, stuff you wouldn’t expect to learn from such a rendezvous.

So don’t fall for the traps of morality, it’s designed to keep the hungry away from the obese. It’s funny how morality doesn’t apply to William, Dubya and Paris but applies to a struggling dude trying to find some cue on social dynamics by paying for it.

And don’t listen to girl’s version on morality and sex-for-money. What girls say they like and what they actually like is completely different. Girls have perfected the art of self-deception to such extent that even the nicer girls would walk straight into an asshole’s pants and then rant about how really they wish to be with a nice guy.

I guess I should stop rambling here. Hope I was able to convey some of my views and experiences in a way, they’d make sense, if not perfect sense.

You only have 1 life to live. That’s all you can be sure of. So fuck everything else and try to do what you want instead of repressing it. You wouldn’t want to regret like me over not having fooled around when it was the best time of my life. I mean, the only time of your life when you can bang tight and shapely minor teens is when you are a teen yourself. I missed my chance because of the lofty notions of better pursuits and intellectual tastes while my friends wrecked hymens all around.

Don’t miss the bus, it’s still not too late. What you do now won’t matter 1-2-5 years from now. So, go ahead and live out.

Even Neo had a smoking hot Trinity for Chrissake. There is more to life than Slashdot and computers. Feel the skirt over her skin in a club or caress her long hairs in bed. Or better still, hold the back of her soft neck and touch those lips and you would understand what is horribly wrong with nerds and the Lara Croft culture. They have given up on the real sensation. They’ve resigned. You must not.

— Fellow Retard

p.s. I still believe it’s tougher for girls. I can’t imagine taking dicks up my ass or sucking them and swallowing all that slime. They do it.