And the moment you’ve been waiting for

Here they are, my answers to Anita’s interview questions.

ATCGW*!

I have shuffled around their order, roughly in increasing order of how difficult I found thinking about the answers. Yes, stupid as they may sound, I did put in some thought.

1. If you had to switch to a completely different field, one totally unrelated to engineering of any sort, what would you choose?

I’d love to switch to a field related to music. I mean this even without the “had to”. Of course, I’m not really sure what I’d do if I did switch, but I am pretty sure that’s where I’d likely end up. I would assume exposing myself to and training myself in classical vocal (and while we’re really taking a leap of faith, instrumental) music of any sort will be fun.

Making a living out of it if possible will be a bonus.

And strangely, thinking about it, even becoming a critic or a conductor sound like fabulous things to do. I guess it’s because somehow, I am associating them with less work than the actual performer.

2. What’s the deal with you and your love for leaving comments in blogs?

I thought about this a bit. Was it something trivial, like time on my hands? or something devious, like attempting to guilt people into reciprocating?

No, it wasn’t really either.

I spend more time on some blogs than others (like everybody else), for different reasons. I think this commenting thing is my way of compensating for something. I really don’t communicate a whole deal actually, and this, in some weird way, makes me feel heard? I feel this is why, even if I’m not able to be entirely lucid.

And in my defense, before it’s scribed in stone that I don’t really have a life, I only ‘love to leave comments’, at a few places :). How few is few? Well, that’s a different story. The point is, these few places, feel… different. In a very good way. In an I am not entirely uncomfortable saying something sort of way?

3. The one thing that always reminds me of Ann Arbor are ladybugs. What one thing do you think will always make you have AA flashbacks long after you’ve left?

I think it’s a bit premature for me to definitively answer this question right now. I haven’t been here a very long time. Right now however, there is this one evening I can’t forget.

It was an unusually cold winter night when a little shower left everything, from plants to telephone wires with these frozen stalactite thingies. It was also a full moon, and the light from the moon and a few street lights made the whole place have this eerie yet extremely pretty yellow orange glow.

That coupled with the glistening and shimmering everything was, quite a stunning sight and one of the cooler experiences of my life. I was up until the wee hours of the morning running around like an excited 3 year old, taking it all in (and nearly freezing).

I don’t think I will ever forget this for a long while. Right now, my thought path is,

Ann Arbor -> cold -> that evening.

And yes, it was one of those Kodak moments, literally.

4. Aside from family and friends, what do you miss most about India?

This took a bit of time. The horrid truth is, I miss very little really, I guess apart from close family.

I missed a few generic things, like the mentality of the people. Stuff like work not being the top of their priority list. Stuff like not having to go through pseudo “Great day, and how are you today?” sort of conversations, while not really giving a damn, with arbitrary people. I miss the beach, which is very strange. I was never too much of one to really be at the beach. It just bothers me a bit when I realize now the sea isn’t walking distance away. For no real reason, I am quite averse to large bodies of water.

Being the geek that I am, I did miss one of my computers a bit.

But after some thought, the thing I miss most is something totally mundane. I really miss that there is really very little public transport in most parts here. It’s like, I miss the freedom or something? Sure there are buses and so on, inside campus. But not too great if you really want to go anywhere.

I have never really been comfortable with driving around, probably because of the roads and drivers where I am from. I just like being taken? to places. Not that I have too many places to go :), it’s for those few times that I do.

5. What do you not miss at all?

I guess I pretty much answered this during the last question. I really do miss very little. If I really went about listing it all, this post will tend to get a lot larger than it already is. Not to mention annoy a few people :), and I don’t have the time to deal with all of that given my *cough* busy schedule and all that.

Particularly, what some people find strange to believe, I really don’t miss the kind of food I’m generally assumed to be “used to”.

It’s not like I’m particularly adjusting or anything close. I wouldn’t even classify myself as one who tries too many new things too often. Yet, I’m pretty happy, actually more than that, with most sorts of odd cuisine (odd within limits, like it’s from a plant) from different parts of the world.

I’m late and trying to catch up, but better late than never.

*ATCGW – And the crowd goes wild.
(Stolen from a funny story about one of Dave’s previous math teachers who uses ATCGW as a replacement for QED at the end of proofs.)

Here are the rules:
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment saying, “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions – each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.