I am not dead

I am alive. Last “weekend” was pretty hectic with all the working as a labourer (among other things) for the symposium. (It’s not like I didn’t update the blog JUST so that the previous post stayed on top harnessing the many comments that it did. Thank you, one and all.) It went off pretty well, except that I realized how little respect is given to a session chair’s word on the time alloted for a talk.

Midway during talks, I have to “hint” to the participant that (s)he’s WAAY over the alloted time. They stop, acknowledge that they realize this, AND THEN GO ON FOR 10 MORE minutes.

Anyway, apart from that, all was fun. Tons of free food and looted enough stationery to last for a loong time.

And got to meet all these people I had corresponded via email all this time :). That was fun. Complete with all the “Thanks for being so nice about this”isms, with regards to they being late with everything – abstracts and all. Hey, I am as lazy busy as they come. I know how much I love it when people bend deadlines for me. More than happy to repay a favour.

This was caused due to classics like: It is fine. Vacations are more fun and moving’s more important at the moment. If you can, please do try to get it in by tomorrow, which is the 26th. If it’s still not possible, I will use the short one.

The pictures taken by some Joe on the department’s camera are insanely horrid. I think we have to recommend a change. Right now, I’ve been sent the pathetic set and been asked to put it up. It’s going to take a long time, to doctor them to some state of presentability. I need to find out what the procedure is to get a department that spends OVER 22 MILLION DOLLARS a year on research to buy a camera that can actually take a picture.

That apart, I’ve been feeling very old lately. I think it comes with being unable to associate with any “music” that’s being played on TV. I’ve really really tried. There used to be a point of time, not too long ago, I could really listen to some stuff that was on. For the past week, all I’ve been doing is switching between the 83 music channels realizing my tastes, and I, are too old for them.

Forget hip hop and rap and so on, even in the more standard listenable genres like rock, I can’t stand anything. An ENTIRE top 40 countdown, and the only one I don’t change the channel within 10s is this song called Stacy’s mom. And trust me, that has NOTHING to do with the song. Strangely, there was this one “afro-american” (I guess my catch-all term for R&B, Rap – {Eminem}, hip hop etc) song that I like, called “Where’s the love”, by “Black eyed peas”. Believe it or not, it’s for the lyrics.

Back to work. I’m presenting in another real conference next week. This is close to the MIT talk, so it should be fine. Should be.