A Dozen New Year Resolutions to Break at the Advent of the New Year!!


1.Speak less so that the other person doesn’t zone out while I am talking

2.Speak less British words so as to receive less Bewildered looks from the Americans

3.Learn to say Oh my Gaad rather than Oh my GOD or just say OMG for I can save the energy lost in reiterating

4.Speak Slowly for I am not missing a flight

5.Work more to get reproducible negative results

6.Write my lab notebook everyday to keep a track of my progress

7.Read one paper a day on my research topic

8.Take less walks in Snow for a longer face time in the lab

9.Remember not to throw Snowballs on one’s face during a snowball fight for someone might get offended

10.Drink less to have a respectable reputation until I graduate

11.Learn to play and be a Pro at Trivia Pursuit so that atleast 1/10th of me feels like a Pseudo-American

12.Last but not the least…BE NICE to people




New Year Resolution to keep :


NEVER TO MAKE ANY RESOLUTIONS!!

Adrenaline rushes…..is something that comes naturally during winter:

The first snow: Four winters have passed and the first snow of the season always makes me want a snowball fight, take a stroll, look up into the sky and see where the snowflakes are falling from, stretch out my hand to hold some snowflakes in my palm ….. a valiant and yet an unsuccessful effort to appreciate the beautiful architecture of the flakes, take pictures, make footprints on untouched snow laden grounds and then get snow all over my clothes, make snow angels…..least did I know that this adrenaline rush comes with a price (after all nothing in this era is for free???!!!) ….white lines of salt on my trousers and shoes marking my actions in snow, with every new act in snow a new line right above the old one like the annual growth rings on a tree trunk!!!

Ice skating: Looks amazingly simple when you see a “Pro” skating, but the moment you set foot on the ice rink you know how grossly misled you were, similar to the advertisements that give a rosy picture to their viewers!! The first time was painful in multiple respects: I couldn’t get my feet into the mulish skates-third time into skating and the person renting out the skates mentions that I need to be wearing a Men’s 8 size [guess I am a Big Girl ;)]; spent an era contemplating whether the skates are taut enough to secure my feet and not be able to swivel my ankle; difficulty balancing and walking on blades; and then the worst of them all was getting on the Ice laden rink. The first step and BOOM….i crashed…..right on my Bum!! Try getting up yourself…..BAD IDEA…tried that and fell again. Finally my friend came to my rescue and I was back on my feet but this time I was hugging the rails so that I could try and maintain my balance (REALLY????) The first round was interesting for I was trying to understand the rules of skating – You are supposed to skate with your knees bent as if you are about to sit …..man does that sound painful??? Weeeeeeeeeeeeee………Wooooooooo were the gibberish expressions that everyone in the rink heard whenever I was even close to losing my balance. I think that was the reason my friend decided to leave me alone as she felt that she doesn’t want to be associated with a crazy person like me. The second round I was trying to realize my center of balance. The third round and a five year old comes up to me and says “ Hey….do you wanna play with me??” Sweet….Yea…but I barely know how to balance leave alone playing while skating....HAH!! Finally by the fifth round I was trying to skate without support….guess there was an iota of confidence a.k.a “OVER”confidence seeping into me! For about one tenth of a mile my feet were supporting my weight ….. a fraction of a second later and KABOOM….back on ice again! A dozen times my butt was on ice and I was done for the day!! The two other subsequent times that I went, were a year apart, so one could imagine how efficient I would have been on the skating rink! However, mishaps in the rink have still not despirited me....instead have boosted in more energy than ever to rein over ice with mere blades on my feet!!!

A sense of excitement fills my heart

For my eyes get clouded by the snow laden grounds

A strong gush of epinephrine excites every neuron in my body

For my mind plays games as snow falls from far above

A challenge to conquer the impossible inspires me

For I see myself in absolute hegemony of the ice

An awakening of the child in me overshadows my age

For I sense a feeling of Bliss engulfing every part of me

As the snow swathes every speck of the naked ground!!!

At 12 she was Somebody

For she was young and oblivious of what the world thought of her

At 16 she was Just “Some” “Body”

For the world equated her to her peers

At 18 she was Anybody

For she got entangled in the realm of equations

At 21 she was just a Body

For she transformed with every growing second

At 25 she was Nobody

For she was so intimately involved in revamping

That her “Identity” was no more than a mere Mirage!!!

Leaves dried and they wrestled

For they would deride one another

Colors bloomed and so did their friendship

For their squabble led them to discover a bonding

Grounds froze but their adoration kept them warm

For the realization dawned that there was more to it

Flowers blossomed trampling their passion

For an unknown darkness loomed between them

Greenery was all one could see

For the shadows of ardor had long been buried

Never to see the light again

Stumbled upon a book that had been read a couple of years back…..opened a random page and came across this quote that makes more sense to me now than it did when I read it, for I love my independence and do not wish for it to be shattered at any cost!!! Here it goes :

You wait a LIFETIME to meet someone who understands YOU, accepts you as you are.
At the end you find that Someone, all along, has been YOU!!!

Doesn't it even strengthen my views in my previous blog???......Hmmmmm....

Doesn't it seem odd that by just missing out an "R" Friends can turn into FIENDS??

Friends are fun
For they light up your day
Friends are a blessing
For they bring out the best in you
Friends are forever
For you can choose them and count on them for life
Friends are “forever”
For they can forget you and unleash the ties in a whim
Friends are far ever
For they are an illusion of something that is near and dear to you
Friends are the farthest ever
For no matter how close you are to them, it’s the person in you who matters the most

Ever wondered why as kids we were taught moral sciences (that’s what its called in India)..….Probably to make sure that we grow up to be ethically sound, mentally strong, and morally proficient individuals. Would this theoretically based knowledge on moral issues make us better individuals is a question which is a different concern altogether and is left for time to answer!!!
As kids when we were enlightened about any topic, the strict/implied instructions so to say, would be to memorize and remember what was being taught…..not to look deep into the matter….just take what we were being endowed with, since, our reasoning power was close to being non-existent and YET during exams the questions would be so ludicrous that it would make us do exactly what was not insinuated (aka to analyze)! As a second grade kid, confused about what I was learning and what was to make and conclude out of what I was being exposed to and expected to understand and practice in life…I was once posed this question….the only question I vividly remember as the answer to it was considered to be the funniest and the most innocent answer by my family….WHAT IS A PRAYER? Now does this question deal with morality or with religiousness? Was the school trying to make us bend towards God or making us comprehend that only if we answer a basic question as this would we end up becoming true religious practitioners!!??? Unable to make any sense of the question I wrote what a second grade uncomplicated untwisted brain would have finally decided to answer…..A PRAYER IS A PRAYER!!! Isn’t that simple and perfectly explicable?? Probably I felt that my mentors were fools to have asked such a simple question that had no explanation whatsoever except for what I wrote so I was elated and confident that I couldn’t have made a mistake in my “Explanation” for a prayer…..alas….my family didn’t think so as they burst out into peels of laughter on hearing what I had to say and the news of my “Brilliant” and “gutsy” answer spread like forest fire to everyone possible. Was there something to have been swollen with pride about?? Well...looking at the reactions I received, I think I did feel a slight heaviness in my head which wore off the next time I unintentionally committed a foolish act….just 20 some years later though!!!
My close encounters with the American world….the word usage…..the implied meanings….the actual meanings…..the alphabet pronunciation….such as H which here is AEEEH ….sort of like stretched out like when u try and teach a kid who cant speak.....was something I had to adapt to as they would wear me down making me repeat myself endlessly if I behaved obdurate! Not only have I been fortunate in making my family roll in laughter as a kid but also my friends when I was kid + 20years!! Spelling out my last name which almost has all the 26 alphabets in it was torturous (considering it is Krishnamoorthy) with “K” as in Kate, “R”as in Robert…..blah blah….and then finally when it came to “T” I couldn’t think of anything and ended up spurting “ T” as in “TEA” …..HAH....that really helped the representative I was speaking to, to exactly interpret which alphabet I was referring to with my Indian accent to the hard core American ears!!!
Consider it a blunder....an OOPS situation when you end up acting silly after 20+ years of your life, especially in front of your friends coz that becomes your identity for years to come whenever such scenarios are reiterated.
Its happened once…..happened again….to complete the trilogy I am expecting myself to act foolishly yet another time after possibly another 20years.....or before??….a BIG gap for a BIGGER mishap!!!

Being a water sign by birth, my inherent attraction to water bodies not only endangered my life on this planet but also of others who cared about my survival and well being!!! Days when my older sisters went to learn to befriend water, oblivious about what lies ahead of me and enticed by the blue waters, I once sneaked past my parents’s roving eyes…..slowly walked towards the deeper side of the pool and took my plunge….what was I thinking?? That I would float or the fact that water god(dess) would come and save my life?? The fact that such life and death scenarios did not stop even after I risked my existence….am sure at some point would have made my parents wonder whether I possessed SUICIDAL tendencies….least did they know that I just loved water more than my own life and just wanted to test if my love would be reciprocated!! Sometimes I wonder if this was the reason that my parents decided to settle in New Delhi…a landlocked place….which has the “waters” of Yamuna flowing in its suburbs….if one would actually consider calling them the waters since it seemed more of a humongous sewer rather than a river….to make sure and be rest assured that not even in my nearest dreams would I consider jumping into the so called “River” even if I wished to….and probably this is the secret behind my survival and write this blog!!
The very first day when I set footage into Chicago and excitedly told my family that there is a huge ocean equivalent lake – Lake Michigan in the Windy city and numerous beaches, their very instinctive reaction was “Veena, please be careful and don’t go too close to the waters and please don’t jump without giving a thought since there is noone out there to save your life!!!”…Ironical that at times parents treat their kids as kids….who inevitably no matter what, are bound to act impulsively and foolishly and yet at other times we get upgraded to the level of being mature individuals who are expected to act wisely!! After having lived in chicago it seems like my life has circumferenced....my attraction for water as a kid….being deprived of my “Valiant aka suicidal” acts….and now back to a place which transcends all boundaries!!