ek hai anaar yahaan, kitni bimaariyaan! (Yes, several problems plague my country but..)

Confucius said: "In a country well governed poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of." 

Given the corruption in India and out-of-control food and commodity prices along with rewards for incompetence in current Indian government, I guess that India is a rather badly-governed country. In that vein, I would say that in a developing country (or even a developed one for that matter), a vulgar display of wealth shouldn't be swooned over, instead it should be guffawed at as millions others die of starvation. Of course, one should appreciate hardwork and resultant success (wealth and success without hardwork must not be encouraged - possibly the same holds true for dynasty politics as well?).

India, let's face it, is a developing and relatively poor country - and will stay so for some time, given its population problems and bad governance- despite its ever-increasing GDP (PPP) and high growth rate (countered quite significantly by the inflation rate). India's GNP and nominal GDP (especially per capita values), along with HDI (Human Develop Index) remain very low, putting us in the lower bracket of nations in the world. Add in the factors of crime-rate, especially crimes against women and children (as well caste-based violence),  it becomes more important than ever before to find solutions at common-man level rather than expect much from the government, which is, let's admit it, a product of this very society that we live in. 

These solutions primarily include better access to education for everyone, and not just education, better and more inclusive education that is not a left-over legacy of British rule. One that doesn't make kids memorize the capital of a non-existent country 6 years after its breaking up (Czechoslovakia is, or was, the country in question). One that teaches respect for women and weaker (physically, economically or socially) sections of society, one that doesn't refer to Native-americans by their derogatory name - "red-Indian," one that teaches Indians to be racially sensitive and not call blacks and east-Asians with derogatory names. 

Perhaps an educated society would be able to overhaul its own mental mindset or maybe an effort on the part of involved individuals would help overhaul the education system to provide that stimulation for the change in mindset to a more inclusive one - that formed the foundations of Hinduism and India as a whole. This change is also meant to weed out the existence of fraudulent God-men (brought out by the recent focus on the death of the Sai Baba figure), although I am quite ambivalent about the man behind that character. 

Fake he may have been (and there is sufficient evidence online to prove that), but the thing is if he used this for good of the society ( http://www.thehindu.com/op

inion/editorial/article176

6917.ece ), I still commend him. In a country like India, which is filled with idiots looking for miracles rather than solutions borne out of hard work and something called "thinking", if by being a fraud Godman, you can get people to donate to charities and support good causes, hell every good soul should try to pull such magic-tricks and do that! While I do/did not pray "to" him or think of him as a miracle-worker, I still appreciate his efforts for "manipulating" the naivete of uneducated (literate but still uneducated) Indians with resources for the greater good of the society in general. 

But, what we need is an education system or a change in mindset, that brings some cynicism to the "taking-themselves-too-seriously" Indian public, where we don't need some fraud God-men to show us the path of "morality and meaning." We have to realize now that just being harmless is not enough, nothing less than being useful will do to avert the crisis that looms over India and world at large. 

Indians and altruism.

We often hear about foreign cricketers, likes of Brett Lee and Steve Waugh, involved in charity foundations in India. Yet our media never seems to report about the charity work undertaken by Indian cricketers - especially Sachin, Yuvraj and Dhoni- though Sehwag is also, not seemingly very actively though, involved with UNICEF. Indian media often reports about the efforts of Hollywood stars involved in "causes", but those of our indigenous stars seems to escape their mention. One can owe this to a possible mindset in India that good acts should be used only to earn good karma for next life, and not accolades for this. However, a more careful thought would suggest that by highlighting their charity efforts, a national mindset can be affected to not only appreciate helping the under-privileged, but also demand it of the affluent (and themselves).

Several stars outside India use their popularity to garner support for their causes and foundations, it may not be a bad idea for bollywood and cricket superstars to do the same in a cricket & movie-mad nation. I noticed, though, that a recent act of kindness by Yuvraj Singh and Bhajji - donation of Rs 1 lakh each to Arunima (volleyball player who lost her leg) - has received some media attention. So, while we are at it, we may look at some others by Indian cricketers: Sehwag is associated with UNICEF (along with some more cricketers - but I wonder how demanding it is), Yuvraj Singh runs a Yuvraj Singh foundation in Durban (SA), Dhoni and Sachin personally sponsor charities in their respective cities. I haven't been able to find more information - maybe (at least I hope) there are more efforts that I couldn't locate.

In any case, let's look at Sachin's efforts (because he is Sachin and is probably the most famous for his humanitarian efforts and there are appeals for a Bharat Ratna for him). According to a newspaper article, he sponsors some 200 kids through Apnalaya (http://www.apnalaya.org/). Without taking anything away from his effort and intentions, I think he can and should do more (if he is already doing so, then kudos).

Nelle Kooren, founding chairperson of a charity organization in Netherlands ( www.onderwijsvoorindia.nl ), is a full time student and yet organizes dinners and events to raise enough money to support higher education of more than 40 orphan/poor girls in Tamil Nadu (in collaboration with a local NGO Sevai Society). In comparison with her, I think Sachin has many million times more wealth/money and several hundred million times more influence. I still think he can make better use of his influence and fame to support more kids, like Jacques Kallis does or McGrath does or even Imran Khan does for his cancer hospital. Again, I am nothing away from him, just hoping that the real Indian idols use their influence to help change the national mindset to a more charitable one.

P.S. If this blog inspires anyone to help a good cause, here are a few links:
For those in India, you can/should either donate to Jagriti (http://home.iitk.ac.in/~ag/jagriti) or an initiative by a few IITK alumni and friends (www.godparents.in). Of course, Sachinites can always follow their God to www.apnalaya.org
For those in Netherlands, you can either contact me or go to www.onderwijsvoorindia.nl to donate.
For everyone elsewhere (Indian/NRI/Non-Indian), one of the best ways is of course using www.godparents.in to make donations. Be generous, because Mahatma Gandhi said:
"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

Yo.. :).. Long time, eh? how've you been? Oh, I have been good... awesome really.. what brings you here? Well, I decided to give blogging another chance... give myself a new challenge every time.. write something at least once a week.. practice my Dutch - I am starting a Dutch language course today, and I have a feeling it would be good fun to share my thoughts on the language here, if nothing else I can write something in Dutch, translate it to English and thus practice my writing skills in both languages.. Besides, I have this application on igoogle page, called "GRE word of the day" (yes, I am not over that GRE fever yet :) ), which gives me a new word everyday.. and by the end of week (5-day week, weekends are for fun not GRE), it accumulates 5 new English words with their meanings.. and my challenge is to use those 5 words in less than 3 sentences.

So, the words for today are: antipodal, apostate, affinity, incorporate, febrile. Well, let's see.. In an attempt to incorporate these five words in one sentence, I can tell you that finally I have come out to my parents - told them that I am not febrile anymore and my affinity for blind faith and holding someone responsible for every event in my life has vanished, thus, I have turned into an apostate and my views might even be antipodal to theirs. Aha, mission accomplished :)

Well, as you would imagine a lot has happened in the last one year since I disappeared off the blogging scene..

1. I have travelled a lot - been to Praha, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Interlakken & Jungfraujoch (Switzerland, or as they know it in India as Yash Raj studios), Nice (France), Monte Carlo (Monaco, which houses the casino where the great James Bond frittered away Indian money - i.e. money stolen by British from India and then allocated to James Bond), a 6-day trip to Greece (Athens, and Crete island) with Yusuke (my Japanese boyfriend, or former boyfriend since he is married to his very nice Japanese girlfriend now) and my former roommate from IITK - Abhinav Agarwal, a 5 day trip to Portugal with two of my best friends in Amsterdam - Tanit and Vincenzo- where the fun was further bolstered by the company of a former portuguese colleague- Raquel, who showed us around and took us to her place for a wonderful dinner of crabs, lobsters, shrimps and clams..

2. I have switched my field again, and have finally started (May 2010) my Ph.D. in Computational Biochemistry on "Role of chaperones in protein folding": http://molsim.chem.uva.nl/ . We have moved to a new building, which is a lot fancier than the one before that even as it's located in an area (Science Park) away from the city center and looks more like a construction site than a research-zone. But I love my work, like my boss (Peter), the 2 supervisors (Jocelyne and Bernd) and new colleagues - which includes 2 Indians (both from IIT Bombday) as well. The group is quite hardworking, yet relaxed and I fit-in perfectly as the one lazy guy who tries to balance the excess of work done by others.

3. After having struggled for more than a year to keep the apartment clean while sharing it with someone, I have finally managed to move in to a nice huge single apartment with a big bedroom, a bigger living room, a proportionately big kitchen, and an even bigger bathroom. To make it look more homely and suitable for bringing girls home, I have bought a washing machine and decorated it with some random things that suit my minimal tastes.

4. To eliminate the possibility of bringing new girls home every now and then, I have started dating a wonderful Dutch girl.. who I couldn't possibly stop gushing about, but will do the gushing over several blogs to avoid looking too smitten..

5. And the best of all, I got myself banned from entering or even passing through Germany for two years.. :).. On my way to India in March 2010 after my residence permit expired, I neglected to get a transit visa and got held up at the inter-terminal passport control at Munich international airport. They wanted to deport me (which was stupid, since I was already going to India) after marking me as an illegal alien, filing a police report against me and banning me for life (which was lowered to two years after paying a fee and filing a petition), and taking some pictures of me..

The whole experience was quite funny, since I couldn't stop laughing the whole time and had to employ all my acting skills to look serious when a cop would talk to me or walk by.. when they took me for a picture, I almost struck an excited pose seeing a camera but realized immediately that it was probably not politically correct and I should at least try to look sullen.. So, now there are sad ugly pictures of me hanging all over German borders marked "Most Un-wanted"..

On the sports front, I took up wall/rock-climbing, but quit after 7 months after having realized that my acrophobia was still intact and was probably getting worse with every failed climbing attempt.. so, now I just stick to bouldering.. I joined an indoor soccer researchers' league, became infamous as the lean-mean injury machine as people would run into me and hurt themselves - somehow, I always got blamed for that even as they were the ones running into me - ahh, the perils of being too strong :D.. In a separate incident, we recently won a mixed 4-a-side beach volleyball tournament organized in Scheveningen (near Den Haag).. http://picasaweb.google.com/ashish.nigam/BeachVolleyballInScheveningenAug10 ..

Well, I guess this is enough for today.. I have a presentation coming up next Monday and I am already mixing my dreams with reality unable to distinguish between the two sometimes.. I actually have to ask people whether I talked to them about something in reality or whether it was just a dream.. :D..

Anyway, back to work..

The fun month of May..

This 5-days vacation (resulting in more than 1700 photographs that I am still busy sorting) to Italy meant that I had to work very hard next week in the lab to cover for some work that I had planned for the previous week. Plus, the weekend after that (i.e. on the last weekend of May), I had again planned a 3-day trip to Paris, again with Yusuke (yes, I replaced my Japanese ex-gf with a new Japanese friend, whatever!!). After a long time, I finally got to meet one of my friends from IITK – Anirudh “The Chapoo” Syal (girls were gaga over this guy back in college, he has broken so many hearts recently by getting engaged – oh boy!! :P). Jokes apart, he is a really nice guy. Extremely helpful and adjusting, he let us stay in his room, while he slept on a mattress on floor at one his friends’ places. Besides meeting up and hanging out with a lot of friends/new people from IIT Kanpur (and Delhi as well), I relaxed/strutted around rather luxuriously in the one of the most beautiful cities of the world. The walk on Avenue des Champs-Élysées is quite invigorating with breathtaking views, and I don’t mean just the big showrooms and hot girls, but also the architecture- Arc de Triomphe on one end and Place de la Concorde (further lie a beautiful garden called Jardin de Tuileres, and one of the world’s most famous art museums - Louvre) on another. Also stand next to it are Palais de l'Élysée (Presidential palace) and Grand Palais. Venture a bit south of the avenue, and you get to a bridge with beautiful views of Eiffel Tower. The bad thing in Paris, though, for a tourist is that there is not a moment of respite from breathtaking views. You can't just sit down somewhere and think to yourself - let me not look at the city, instead focus on my own failed life!! No, you can't do that. You just can't take your eyes off the beauty that stupid beautiful city offers - whether it's the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, outside view of Louvre, insides of Louvre, Eiffel Tower - in daylight or in the night, Jardin du Luxembourg, Notre Dame, a walk along river Seine, night view of Sacre Coeur, or view of the city from Montmarte - there's so much to take in, to admire, to experience... Paris, indeed, is the most beautiful city in the world, and endless beauty at that.. even the red light district with the Moulin Rogue at an end looks beautiful at night (even though it's a bit scary with 50 yr old guys coming up to you and almost coercing you, in hushed voices, into the clubs - some guy even broke Syal's sunglasses that Yusuke had borrowed and was carrying in the breast-pocket of his shirt).
Well anyway, we spent the 1st day walking around the city, went to Notre Dame Cathedral, Jardin du Luxembourg, Rolland Garros (but they didn't let us in - not even for a guided tour), and then went to Eiffel Tower in the evening... and it was beautiful.. Next morning, we took a 4 hours tour of Louvre (mainly saw the major paintings including Mona Lisa, The wedding party, etc., and Napolean's rooms on 2nd floor), wherefrom I started on a quest to find Hotel De Ville to watch Nadal lose to Soderling on a big screen that they had put up - and got just in time to see the last set of Nadal's dominance on Rolland Garros!! :D
Thereon, Yusuke and I went to Montmarte, where Sacre Coeur stands atop the hill, displaying a rather breathtaking view of the city. Luckily, we also got a glimpse of newly ordained priests coming out of it. It was only after that ceremony that general public was let in, with the precondition that on eis not allowed to take any photographs inside - but if they couldn't stopm me from taking taking photographs at the holy Sistine Chapel, it wasn't gonna work in Sacre Coeur - even as some South Indian asshole saw me take a photograph and started discussing (in Malayalam, I guess) with his friend the need to turn me in. Well, I just quietly sneaked away from the wannabe-true-Christian. We stayed there till the dark set in (even though the young crowd over there was rather rowdy and drunk, and a little scary as well), so as to get some night views of the cathedral and the city, and the photographs uploaded on Picasa are a testimony to the correctness of our decision. Then, we walked around the RLD of Paris, and soon after left for Syal's place. He was supposed to join us at Sacre Coeur, but couldn't for the poor guy's precious iphone broke in the afternoon. Anyway, one of the best experiences in Paris, besides the places, was eating Paninis and Crepés all the time, and gormandizing Dosa, Kulfi and Lassi in the Indian district for lunch on both days.
This was our best trip so far. By the end of it, Yusuke realized that I say "bitch" at almost everything, be it a missed train or garbage on the road, and asked me what is meant by it and how it's spelled. Then, having understood the connotation of that, he also told me how it can be said in Japanese - "Kaso". :D
Well, I plan to go to Paris again, and this time I will see the Rolland Garros, come what may. I also wanna see the Rose Line that Silas dug around in da Vinci Code. :D But next weekend, I am going to Praha (Prague) with Prithu to check out the famed Czech beer and chicks. :D

The awesome Italy trip..

3 days after the last trip to Brussels, i.e. on Wednesday, Yusuke and I went to Italy and were joined by Prithu (who finally managed to catch all the trains this time, despite giving me a few scares through SMS every now and then :P) in Venezia – our first stop and one of the most beautiful cities ever. Yusuke was too sick, so he went to Roma and took some rest, while Prithu and I explored the whole Venezia in boat-buses – the boats for public transport. It had everything - beautiful views/scenery to absorb and photograph; mind-blowing architecture; and beautiful women to stare at (and photograph, if I felt like a pervert enough) – well that’s all you need/want in Eurotrip. Famous places to see in Venezia– San Mark’s Piazza (with all the Basilicas and stuff), San Giorgio Island (great view of Venezia from the bell tower here), Lido, Ponte di Rialto, and ofcourse just riding around in the boat bus is an experience in itself. If you have money and are feeling romantic enough – take a ride in a gondola – I hear it’s soothing and beautiful (I don’t know for myself, neither do I have money nor was I feeling particularly romantic with Prithu).
I hadn’t slept much the night before (unless you call 3 hours much), and fell asleep later that night on the platform while waiting for the train to Firenze (Florence) and slept like a baby in the train as well. But we got off the train and had a funny experience (maybe, to be told another day), and got out into the city. And behold!! By God!! What a beautiful city!! True – someone like me could argue that all they have in Italy are basilicas and churches and Cathedrals – but boy, are they all beautiful!! And Firenze – walking through the city is like walking through the aisles of some art museum. The city is buzzing with history and art – huge replicas of famous sculptures including that of Michaelangelo’s David (yes, the naked dude) stand on a piazza (square/plein), next to a street lined up with sculptures of famous kings, artists, rulers, scientists, and warriors on both sides. Oh by the way, that’s where the famous Uffizi art gallery also stands (we didn’t go in there). We also didn’t go to the famous art museum of Firenze (that houses the original David by Michaelangelo) – 1. We didn’t have time, 2. We don’t care much about paying to look at art that we don’t understand much (and naked men for art definitely don’t attract us that much).
Anyway, having walked about and soaked in the city in 5-6 hours, we caught the train to Pisa – with only 1 place to go to: Piazza dei Miracolli (Square of Miracle). This is where the famous screw up of the world lies (ok, still stands, but who knows): The Leaning Tower of Pisa, along with another basilica and cathedral (boy, am I getting tired of them now!). The guy messed up completely in Civil Engineering (should have got an F in MOS and Fluid Mech – I don’t care, everybody got an F in that and so should have he) and people flock to admire that – weird eh? Well, it’s funny and beautiful nonetheless, and a few corny photographs (pushing the tower further, kicking it from both sides, a novel one – kneeing the tower in what should have been its groin) later, we made our way to Roma. Another few tortuous train journeys to the youth hostel later, we found ourselves in a rather spooky countryhouse/camping ground kind of place where we were supposed to be staying. Oh by the way, Yusuke had already got there and had paid for the room – dude, I’ll pay you as soon I can.
A comfortable night’s sleep and a soothing shower did help recover a bit from all the walking we had done – although the uncountable number of pizzas that we had, besides the adrenalin rush, had already been helping us keep our energy level up. That day, the three of us first went to Vatican City to see San Pietre’s Basilica and hopefully, Vatican museum (although a lying English tour guide scared us by saying that we would have to wait for 2.5 hours each to see any of those places and would have to pay 20 Euros for a combined ticket, while she would be able to provide us with an audio-guided tour with preferential entry for only 40 Euros!!). Well, bitch, it took us 20 minutes after getting into the queue to get into STB for FREE!! (And next day, we entered Vatican museum on student tickets for 8 euros each, this time after standing in queue for 30 minutes in a beautiful weather!!) Then Prithu and I went to see the rest of Roma (while Yusuke decided to stick by to see Vatican Museum before leaving for Napoli the same day, but he couldn’t get in) – Stadia Olympica (football stadium where Barcelona beat Manchester United 5 days later to lift Champion’s Cup trophy), some stupid San Agnes’ castle made famous by “Angels and Demons” (only saw it from outside, looked rather ugly, so didn’t go in), Piazza di Navona (with a really beautiful fountain), Fontana di Trevi (a mind-numbingly beautiful fountain, one of the most beautiful sights to behold – it was majestic.. my linguistic skills, if any, seem to fail me here – it was indeed that beautiful), Pantheon (disappointing, I am sorry, but there isn’t anything about it to deserve the amount of hype it has – also they made us wait for more than 2 hours to get in), and finally the king of all – the Colosseo (or Roman Colosseum, as we know it). We deliberately went at a time such that we got the day view, and by waiting for 1 hour there, got some enthralling night views as well. We didn’t go inside, sort of had an idea it might be too expensive and disappointing to go inside (a view later confirmed by Yusuke, who did go inside to return feeling ripped off for nothing). Anyway, this finished our first day at Rome – an exhausting but extremely satisfying day, wherein we saw almost everything that was there to see. Oh by the way, you know how they say: When in Rome, do as the Romans do! Please don’t! Looking at the sculptures in whole of Italy, my 1st guess is that Romans aren’t the biggest fans of clothes – they like to do everything naked (even play sports naked, see for yourself in front of Stadia Olympica). And the irony is, they don’t let inappropriately dressed men/women into chapels and basilicas, which are, by the way, covered with paintings of naked people!! What’s up with that??!!
Early next morning, we returned to Vatican City, and quickly got into Vatican museum. Ofcourse, you can spend a whole day here or just an hour, depending on your interest. We, however, listened to Buddha and took the middle-path – took 3.5 hours to traverse through and admire the museum, including Sistine Chapel (which was beautiful, no doubt, but they didn’t allow photographs in there – I took quite a few nevertheless :D). Having finished it (some might call it getting over with it), we left for Napoli, and this is where all the fun began. I realized on the train that I had thrown away the paper with the directions to our youth hostel and had no idea how to get there. Thankfully, the original email from the hostel with the directions was still in my mailbox, so now the frantic search for an internet café was initiated. Fun part – nobody spoke/understood much English and Napoli is known to be extremely unsafe buzzing with cons and thugs (we experienced it only a little bit next day, even though Yusuke had gotten into big trouble the night before, and had to literally cry for help to get out of it), especially around the railway station. But we eventually found one internet café with some difficulty, and the guy was nice enough to not charge us unreasonably for using the internet for 10 minutes. Another task at hand – look for Pizzeria de Michele, the best pizzeria in town, recommended by the Italian guy in my research group (Vincenzo, who hails from a Napolia) as well as various websites. After trying for more than half an hour, and asking several people, we found this guy who couldn’t understand us much, nor could we him, but one thing that we got clear was that he offered to walk us to the Pizzeria. Vincenzo had warned us of thugs and hostile people in Napoli, but I have to say, we found only the nicest people there - a guy who gave us directions as accurately as one could and still apologized for not speaking English very well, a lady who helped us out of a jam to help us find the bus we needed to take to airport, and to top it off, this guy who walked us to the pizzeria without any selfish interests. And to my embarrassement, I began to suspect him after a while, and started walking behind him and Prithu to make sure I had enough time to react if he tried to pull off anything, yet he saw us off at the pizzeria, shook our hands and left with a friendly smile. I am sure there are bad guys in Napoli, but I only had good things to say about them.
By the way, the pizza was indeed marvelous. Though it got a little cold by the time we ate it, it tasted incredible even then. Anyway, we took the train to get to our youth hostel in Portici – a small town outside Napoli. The hostel was called fabric hostel or something, and was possibly the most awesome hostel I have ever stayed at. New, beautiful, and very well organized – a complete value for money, and more.
The dinner experience that night, however, sucked – we had to wait for 1 hour to get our pizzas at this pizzeria nearby. A very stupid place, with a rather uncouth, careless and arrogant head waiter – If I ever go back to Napoli again, I would never go to this pizzeria, never ever again (unfortunately, I don’t remember its name, so if you venture into it during your trip to Napoli, you’ll know which one it is by the time you get your pizzas :P). Anyway, next morning we went to Pompei – excavation site of a city which was completely buried and laid waste under lava, rocks and stones when Mount Vesuvius erupted rather violently arnd 24th Aug 79 AD. Now, one can see some of the dead bodies that were found covered in debris, the ancient Roman pottery, their houses, and even their brothels!! :D.. It was quite an experience, even though Yusuke and I had to do a quick 2-hr tour of the site. You know what, I do plan to go back to just Napoli some time, and stay at the same hostel, and explore not just Pompein again, but the beautiful Amalfi coast near Sorrento (I guess), go on a hiking trail to Mt. Vesuvius, even though I hear the view inside the volcano is rather disappointing – no boiling lava on the surface - screw that!! :P

I am back!

Hey..

In the last many weeks that I did not update my blog in, I have done a lot of stuff – mostly traveling around Amsterdam, and to Brussels, Italy and Paris – besides breaking up with my girlfriend, getting rejected by a few girls in Amsterdam, and having come off as a complete jerk in front of my research colleagues by drinking too much in Alex’s graduation party and every Friday night hang out (turns out I even smoked a little bit in my drunken stupor on one of those nights).

I have been on a day trip (on 2^nd week of May – perfect time to visit) to Keukenhof (translated as Kitchen Garden) – an extremely beautiful garden just outside Amsterdam, with exhibition of thousands of Tulips and unfathomable beauty (btw, who grows tulips in their kitchen garden?). I went with Yusuke (a new Japanese post-doc in the group) and got totally crazy there with my camera – took 632 photographs in 4 hours, while Yusuke took another 230. The Saturday after that, I went to Brussels (Belgium) with Yusuke again, and also my Hungarian friend from Utrecht. It was a fantastic day – covered most of Brussels (it isn’t very far and will probably go there again soon – costed only 20 Euros for return journey): Grand Square, Manneken Pis (the peeing boy, I don’t understand the fascination of some artist with the sculpture of babies peeing in public), several cathedrals and basilicas (they all looked alike and I was bored in every one of them, except in one Saint Michelle cathedral or something), had Belgian waffles, Belgian beer and bought some Belgian chocolates. Interestingly, they also had a Gay Pride Parade on, always a fun experience - whether in London or in Brussels. A fun day, indeed! :D

Interestingly, however, 2 of my friends from Germany (Prithu and his friend Shruti) who had originally planned this Brussels trip and were supposed to join us in Brussels were smart enough to miss their train to Brussels, and had to come to Amsterdam instead. Well, I suppose they had a good time in Amsterdam that day and the next – with me, i.e., when we went to Heineken museum, had free beers, saw how they were traditionally brewed and had a lot of fun. Sticking to the tradition of tourism in Amsterdam, we went to the red light district but I didn’t feel any remorse this time – I guess I was ready for the onslaught. This time, however, on the insistence of Shruti, we tried spacecake – cake with weed in it. She wanted to smoke weed but had no experience in smoking so we decided to go with something we had so much experience in – eating cakes! Anyway, she just had a little bit of it while Prithu and I stuffed ourselves with that stuff. It didn’t feel anything for some time, but after an hour or so later, the marijuana started kicking in and I don’t remember how I got home after that – but I did anyway! I do remember eating all the Belgian chocolates I had got the previous day. I assume that's wht happened, because all I saw left of it next day was the empty box. Well, maybe next time I would just give smoking weed a shot, how much worse can it get???!!!!

Apartment grieveances!!

Since I have been out for 2 weeks, it is but obvious that I must have a lot to write.. so as a  delightful surprise to some, I have decided to paste here the email that I have written to the housing secretary of my department.. she helped me get the dingy apartment that I have (ofcourse she didn't know about the state of it).. and i wrote this email after a night out (and obviously I am still up).. here goes:

Dear Ms. XXX

I would first like to thank you for helping me get an apartment ({Address}) even before my arrival in Amsterdam. It was quite comfortable to move into one on the very same day as my arrival in the city. However, there are a lot of problems in/with the apartment that I had hoped I would be able to adjust to but they seem to be getting even more menacing every day.

The first major problem is the level of cleanliness of the apartment. It's pretty evident that the incumbent resident (as I understand, he has been living here for around 3 years) has not taken care of it at all in at least the last 1 or 2 years. First of all, as one enters the apartment for the first time, a certain kind of stench hits one's face. My room, which I had hoped would be fairly clean, was covered in dust when I arrived. In fact, the dust (along with my flatmate's nails) has got embedded in the carpet and is stuck to the floors and woodwork in the whole apartment, so much so that even after spending 2 hours to vacuum clean the apartment a mere 1 week after my arrival (that I believe should not have been needed, since the incumbent resident should have kept it habitable, but it was not so), I could not remove the dust. There were cobwebs all around, it still feels dirty to walk on the kitchen floor without shoes. The kitchen sink looks fairly dirty, and the bathroom is beyond recognition. The toilet bowl is almost completely brown in color (I assume it was originally white), and the walls look so dirty and slimy that touching one makes me feel like having a shower. The floor is no better, and even the string to switch the light on/off is almost completely black in color. The gas stove is all covered in grease (of course it can be cleaned, but I suppose my room mate expects me to help him with cleaning of the apartment), and the balcony outside my room is home to 2 pigeons who have left no stone unturned to make it look like a zoo. I tried to shoo them away, but it turned out that they have laid eggs in their nests and are now busy incubating them. This makes me feel guilty about the idea of throwing their nests away and cleaning the area, even though they disturb my sleep every morning with their cooing. 

Add to that the fact that the whole apartment in itself is kind of falling apart. The bathroom/toilet doesn't boast of a wash-basin that compels us to wash our hands in the kitchen sink, and there are leakages in almost all the external pipework. The pipe for the shower gets detached at will and it requires some skill to put it back. Besides, the walls are too weak to nail/screw the holder/hanger for shower head in place. It has already broken off from 3 positions on the wall. The walls in rooms have been destroyed by the water leaking through the roof, and even the wall paper is coming off them. There are various holes/crevices in the doors and windows (one of the windows doesn't even close well), that make the apartment fairly cold during the night. The floors creek when we walk, and they are broken at many places with several irregularities that make walking on them seem like an effort. Even the carpeting is so old and obsolete now, that while trying to vacuum out the dust, it was only the carpet that was removed off the floors. The electric circuits are also rather scary, since every time I plug an instrument in, they produce fairly intimidating sparks (my guess is those water leaks might have a role to play in that). The buzzer to open the main door to the building doesn't work either. The roof itself is coming off the ceiling and is too weak. Last week while cooking, some smoke set off the smoke alarm and when I tried to press the reset button on the alarm, the system got detached from the ceiling (because the roof tiles could not support the nails/screws) instead of shutting off the alarm. I am too scared to attempt to attach it back lest I should have the whole roof tile breaking off.           

I apologize for any rudeness or uncouthness I may have exhibited in this email, but as you might understand, sometimes I don't feel like coming home because of aforementioned problems. I would really appreciate if these points could be addressed, even more so if I could move into a new apartment. I do not know if it was just a coincidence that I got an Indian room mate, but I would like to point out that I absolutely have no preferences regarding the nationality, ethnicity, sex or degree of enrollment of my flatmate. I again apologize for any offensive language I may have employed, and would like to clarify that I don't mean ill against anyone, not even my flatmate - I guess that's just how he likes to live but I am not comfortable with this. I hope you can help me with this.

Thanks

Sincerely

{Yours Truly}

I hope you enjoyed it. Comments are welcome. 

I love India!!!

That was sarcasm, just in case. In all honesty though, I do love my country. But at the same time, when one sees the rampant corruption, red-tapism, and complete mockery of national/international rules and regulations, it's hard not to be embarrassed and irked by the quality/attitude of people running the country. A simple example of that is just getting one's officially acceptable birth certificate, just try it, you'll know what I am talking about. 
Sometimes, I like to ponder over as to why people in government offices in India refuse to follow procedures honestly and properly that they have been appointed to implement. My understanding is that it's the pre-independence attitude that is still in place... when civil disobedience and mockery of government was a cool and accepted resort, when you were a patriot if you didn't follow rules and regulations set by the foriegn government. But, times have changed now. We are not being ruled by some outsiders who oppress us, we are being ruled by people who are one of our own.. though admittedly, they still oppress us. Yet, some/most of those rules have been set up for our own good, the system has been put in place for the good of the country, if followed properly. But one can't fault a lowly babu (clerk) or a peon for the corruption either. The poor soul is expecting only a few bucks in return of services that are, though, his duties and responsibilities and that he should ideally provide without a bribe. This corruption starts at the top with the "leaders"of the country who amass and multiply their wealth exponentially every year, while 1/3rd population can't afford 2 meals for their family. Now, that's where the change is required. I believe that the leaders who got us our freedom, fought for it and sacrificed for it, have earned their dues, and it's time they move on to work for the public again. And, the new ones - well, I wonder what dues they are trying to get before they start thinking about the interests of the country. The problems in India can't be solved with a bottom-up approach, but top-down! Call me pessimistic but I am sorry, that doesn't seem likely to be happening in my lifetime or at least not in my "youth".

This post is going to be super long.. mainly because it's been quite long since my last posting.. primarily because I was busy finishing up my Master's thesis (giving it final touches before official submission), dealing with the bureaucracy of Netherlands to officially and legally reside in Amsterdam in comfort (Dutch people love their bureaucracy) - e.g. waiting in the bank for 1 hr to get my Debit card activated, and what not. And add to that the woes of not having a proper birth certificate, because schools in India like to do something that might just blow your mind; I hope you are ready for this - they keep your original birth certificate and give you a photocopy, and then never return your original birth certificate. So, basically what you are left with to prove your birth (except your own existence) is a photocopy of the certificate. And as you go along, you keep putting some makeshift certificates in your little "I-am-alive-and-kicking" kitty - documents that have no validity outside India. Anyway, my parents have finally been able to get another copy of birth certificate for me, but now will have to deal with the U.P. government for its legalization (for apostil), which will take another 3-4 months; now lemme say it again - I love India.

Well at least for now, I am an official/legal resident of Amsterdam, have a bank account and a cell phone. Very soon, I'll get a legal internet connection at home and will, thus, be able to serve humanity better (I have always wanted to say this). I also finally bought a bike today - a swift- & smooth-riding golden sports bike, sort of a hybrid between racing bike and mountain bike - for just 60 Euros, a very good deal indeed. It's got gears, hand brakes, bell, lightswith a dynamo; it's a light ride, and has a nice sleek look. However, I have already been successful in breaking its rear brakes - they were not in the best state, so I applied all the mechanical engineering I ever learnt to fix them, and ended up making sure the brakes were completely done for and needed replacement- I suppose I don't have to explain my bad undergraduate grades anymore, just come see the work I did on my bike. Now, with a new brake cable, a new tool set and what not, I am again going to attempt an exhibition of my engineering (mechanic) skills!! Let's see what this ends up in.. :D.. One things is for sure though, having a bike is definitely gonna be one good work out, coz I have to lug this bike for 2 floors (0th --> 2nd) and carry it back down every time I take it out for a ride.. Boy, are my legs gonna be stronger in a month!! 

But hey, that's not all - the university is closed since Thursday (30/04) till Tuesday (05/05), but I was smart enough not to do anything about it, since I assumed that the graduate students would be showing up for work anyway - as a result I didn't make any plans whatsoever to go anywhere in this 6-day break. But as I found it out on this Wednesday, 1 day before the break started, that not one single soul would set foot in the compounds of the building, I frantically tried to arrange a trip to Finland -  unsuccessful, then to Budapest - didn't work out either, and finally to Frankfurt (also, turned out it wasn't worth spending 180 euros for a 2 day trip) before finally giving up and deciding to stay put and enjoy the sunny weather of Amsterdam - oh you better believe it, it is sunny here, kinda rare in Amsterdam - but won't last long, I have been told.

But I have to admit, I love this place, this neighborhood.. I can step down from my apartment and get most varieties of foods - Middle-Eastern, Chinese, Indonesian, Moroccan - within 50 m of my apartment, come back and eat it in my fortress of solitude, and then again go back down to get grocery from the biggest supermarket chain of NL, again within 50 m walking distance.. if only my apartment were cleaner :(

I also learnt today, after having been searching for a hair conditioner for 2 weeks, that it is called "cremespoeling" in Dutch... yeah yeah, I know... I am quite vain.. I always had an inkling that I was fairly vain, but it was confirmed this week when I bought a shower gel with milk cream, another herbal gel, a lather maker and a hair conditioner (it took me 15 min to decide on that - 5 minutes to just figure out that cremespoeling means conditioner, and another 5 mintues to figure out what kind of hair I had in Dutch, and another 5 min to decide the economically optimal and compatible cremespoeling).. in fact, now I have become quite a lean mean shopping machine.. if not by my work, i am in some way contributing to the Dutch and, hence, international economy.. :D

Besides, my Dutch has improved quite a bit now.. I can write a few sentences in Dutch, and also read and understand some of it.. although the word order still messes me up.. hopefully, I'll get a grip on that too some time soon.. Ik doe mijn best (= I am doing my best).. :D

Getting back to the very very long weekend, lemme explain what these holidays, or "Free days" as they are known to us poor researchers, are for.. 30th April Thursday = Queen's day = "Koninginnedag" (to celebrate the birthday of the current queen's late mother); 1st May Friday  = Labor day; 4th may, Monday = Jewish memorial day (in memory of Jews who died in the Nazi concentration camps), and 5th May, Tuesday = Liberation day (liberation from Germans in world war 2).. So, as Vibhor pointed out, we are talking about celebration of monarchy and liberation within the space of 1 week.. some irony, eh? 

Anyway, one has got to be in Amsterdam to see the craze on Queen's day and Queen's night (29th April night).. it's mindblowing.. everyone is drunk and dancing.. having fun.. but unlike in India, where such an occassion could very well spell diaster for women - having out of control drunk men on streets is not a pleasant experience for anyone in India - I didn't see/hear of any incident of that sort here.. except for that the roads get dirty as hell in the night, but the efficient city administration cleans it before next day's celebrations start, and then again on Queen's day - same story.. it's quite a party out there though, and major fun for a new guy like me to just witness an event like this.. however, one incident did mar the celebrations towards the end.. One drunk idiot guy drove his car through the crowd, killing 5 people, including himself.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK7vsSrm3Cs.... People think this was an attack on the queen, but I don't get it, because the queen's bus wasn't even in the same frame as the car, let alone being on a collision course.. Anyway, my guess is it was some disgruntled city cleaner/sweeper, pissed about the huge amount of trash he has to collect after this "birthday party".. I had warned my research colleagues about it.. 

well, anyway I hung out with Rosanne and her friends on Queen's night, and was immediately nicknamed "Prem".. some Indian guy named Prem hosts a show in NL called "Prem times"..I was required to sing some song/tune as soon as the group yelled "Preeeeeeeeem Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimes".. and  chose the theme song of "Melvin, the superhero" from Jeff Dunham's act.. (for those who don't know, Jeff Dunham is one of the best ventriloquist comic ever - you must check his act out on Google Videos).. the city (especially the city center) was so crowded that walking through it was a different experience altogether.. you had to walk through a sea of people, without spilling your beer.. it requires some sort of skill, I suppose.. I wasn't very good at it though, I believe a lot of people around me got their clothes drenched in my beer.. especially since everyone was so much taller than me.. i mean, i felt like a dwarf in that crowd.. i m more used to being the tallest among my friends.. but here, even the girls are taller than me.. it's very emasucalting..:(.. anyway, later that night at around 3 am, while walking back alone from the city center to my home, I got lost and found myself at a bus stop with a Dutch guy named "Jagran" (a Hindu name meaning "staying up").. He was also waiting for an hourly night bus, which was already 15 min late.. we got to talking and decided to share a cab instead... the cab dropped me home at 4 in the night for a mere 10 euros..  

I spent the ueen's day in Vondel Park (biggest park in Amsterdam) with guys from my research group - Andreas (Austrian) and his girlfriend Alice (Austrian), Kornel (Polish), Andrew (English), and Yusuke (Japanese).. drinking beer, cracking jokes that noone laughed at.. thereafter, as the sun went down we started a quest of finiding a nice bar, but half of the city was now closed because of that attack.. eventually, we lost Yusuke to the crowd, Andrew to fatigue.. leaving the 4 of us plus some friends of Andreas from Germany.. as we were walking through a little "lake" of people (sea is bigger, so I suppose lake is a good analogy here, or if you like, you may go with "bay" of people), some drunk guy tried to get physical with me (not sexually, rather in a belligerent manner, but I suppose he was too high to be able to a good job at that either :D).. he tried to press his finger on my chest and push me around.. but I just parried off his hand and moved away while giving him a stink eye.. for a little over 2 seconds, it was scary since it was 3 tall guys against me, and I had fallen behind the rest of the guys of my group.. but ever since then, I have been telling this story as some sort of an act of courage.. :D.. Watch out guys, there's a new William Wallace in town.. :D

Anyway, we ate some Indonesian food on our way - "mein" with "kip sate" - and then waited for Yusuke for more than 30 min (he had gone back to the office to call us in an attempt to join the group).. but even our common love for alcohol couldn't bring us together, as he again got lost in the crowds at Rembrandtplein.. anyway, the night grew better as we danced at an Irish pub.. there were a lot of interesting things going on there, but I would leave that to another day..

Now, I am getting quite hungry and sleepy.. another 3 days of break left.. hopefully, I can fix my bike and bring it to a good shape by the end of it.. and hopefully not make it worse.. :D

 

P.S. Pictures are posted on picasaweb.. on my kushagra.singhal account..

Nerd's night out.. :D

Before I start on this, lemme clarify a point from my last post. My ranting against self-accliamed socialist/communist countries might have raised some eyebrows - some might even fear a possible KGB covert operation against me. But calm down, I don't mean ill against socialism, in fact I am a socialist myself. Lemme clarify my take on this - I think socialism is about social welfare, while communism is about a guy or group of guys taking the control of the country and its people in their hands and trying to decide what they should do and how much riches they should have - much like a dictatorship. In a way, I think most developed countries of the world are socialist, because they take care of their less fortunate masses - that's what leads to overall development (called Human Development Index or HDI, the actual measure of development).

Just having the 4th highest GDP in the world, while 27% of your huge population (>1.1 billion) lives below poverty line and >35% population is illiterate, doesn't make you a developed country - and most definitely not a superpower as some part of Indian media likes to project India as. You can blame it on colonialism, which to a very very large extent is true as it brought the richest and most liberal country of the world to what India was in 1947, but there comes a time in a country's history (just like in a person's life), when it has to start accepting the responsibility of its actions/policies and taking the control in its own hands. I think India has started doing that, and hopefully we'll see some imporvement in the near future. However, the 60 years of communist experiments (in the name of socialism) in India have only benefitted one society - that of ruling politicians, as evidenced by the $1.4 Trillion of corrupt Indian money in Swiss bank accounts.

Anyway, Friday was a good day for me. It started normally, I reached office around 8.30, started with quick email check and then some readings. We tried to arrange a short training session on the Flow Cytometry, but the poor old machine couldn't find its rhytm and eventually gave out. The training has been indefinitely postponed. Then, I had lunch with the group (http://staff.science.uva.nl/~arents/mmp/) and had an interesting conversation with one of my office mates - Roasanne - a quite cool Dutch girl. She has also started only this week as a PhD student and apparently writes columns (in Dutch ofcourse) in a journal (Megahertz in http://www.mareonline.nl ) in her hometown. She has promised to help me learn Dutch, and wants me to very soon start speaking in Dutch with her - I guess she is not aware of my laziness. :D Another of my group-mates, Nakul, had a rather lazy day in the office and he was visibly excited about finally having a fellow Hindi-speaker in the group, as he would every now and then strike a conversation with me in Hindi while others looked on in confusion. :D

Our discussion on all sorts of controversial issues continued after reaching office, and work took a back-seat. However, around 3.00 I decided to get back to work and started writing the summary that my boss had asked me to.. and as luck would have it, he ventured into my office around 3.45 pm while going back from the coffee break, and saw me working hard.. saved by a whisker there.. :D... around 4.30, we had a birthday party on the floor.. which meant some food and beer (or "bier" in Dutch).. I had a choice between Dutch and Belgian beer, and I unwittingly chose Dutch beer... I was told it's good, but Belgian is better.. well, next time maybe.. One of the most fun and social guys - Martijn - then led the group to a bar ("Kriterion") across the street from our building.. this is where things started going crazy. This was around 5.30 and I kept drinking for the next 5 hours continuously - had 8-9 beers... got fairly drunk.. had a rather passionate discussion with Mark about tennis - especially about which Aus open 2009 match was better Fed Vs Nadal or Nadal Vs Verdasco.. I argued in favor of the latter while Mark was adamant about the former. Bless his soul for the poor guy didn't know that you don't argue with Kushagra Singhal, and definitely not when he is drunk.. :D... However, I tried to stay out as late as I could to meet the maximum number of people, even as other people kept leaving, and new ones kept coming. And I did meet a lot of people in the group, most of who might, by this time, be disappointed by my drunken antics. :D

Finally, a PhD student started looking out for me (I guess my condition demanded that) that even before I could say no to more beer, she stepped-in to make sure I didn't have one.. I guess I am the kid of the group - I must be one of its youngest members anyway, besides the undergraduates ofcourse. But I am also talking about being a kid in terms of my maturity level, which everyone knows is fairly low.. :D.. So, I took the last tram home, but Marcela (the PhD student) was fairly (and justifiably) conerned about me being able to traverse the distance on my own.. I did get back home ok though, without any problems - which is a surprise considering the amount of alcohol, instead of blood, I had being pumped to my brain every minute.

Today, for the first time since my arrival, I opened the door to the balcony outside my room, and found 2 pigeon nests there.. with eggs! And I saw the pigeons "incubating" them. I had a slight temptation of picking one egg and cooking it.. I didn't do it alright, stop grimacing! But I did break the smoke alarm when I tried to switch it off after setting it off with my cooking. The weather is nice today, I am planning to go for a little walk later.. but am too lazy to get off the bed right now.. especially with cricket on :D

In conclusion, this week was awesome, but next week is going to be even more fun, I hope.. :)

Hobbies: Wasting time

My boss has asked me to write short summaries of the papers that I read based on my understanding of them. But what do you do when you don't understand them? 

Ans: You press Alt+Tab and switch to Google Chrome and update your blog instead. So, here I am.. 

As you would understand, I am trying to make some efforts to learn/understand Dutch, but haven't been very successful.. I have reached a point where I can read it and get the gist of it, but spoken Dutch sounds, well, Dutch to me.. Though I have found some similarities between Hindi and Dutch.. like "name" is "naam" both in Dutch as well as in Hindi.. "room" is "kamer" in Dutch and "kamraa" in Hindi.. ok, maybe this one wasn't that close, but wasn't that far either.. this maybe a mere coincidence but I think it has its roots in the fact that Latin and Samskrit seem to share some history.. for example, "maatar" and "pitar" are the roots of the words "maata" (mother) and "pita" (father) in samskrit, while "madre" and "padre" mean the same in spanish... and while, most people would think that Dutch is a mix of German and English (which to a huge extent is true, even as Dutch ppl have tried to curb their desire to form very very long words unlike Germans), it does have a strong influence of French as well, for they along with English helped "design" the language.

Quickly, some new Dutch words that I learnt: "dicht" which means close.. "weg" means way.. "straat" means street.. "laan" means lane.. i'll keep updating the list, in case you ever plan to visit Holland. Btw, even as I learn these words, I have no illusions whatsoever of my knowledge in Dutch; it's scarce to say the least.. and I realized that today when a Dutch friend of mine who I had lunch with in "campus restaurant" simply smiled in "derision" when I tried to say "Spuistraat" and completely made a mess of it. ("ui" is a diphthong and is not pronounced the way you would think it should be, it has no equivalent sounds in Hindi or English).. 

As she suggested to me, that maybe I can teach someone Hindi in exchange of learning Dutch, I realized that I am rather ill-equipped to teach anyone Hindi.. I can probably teach you English, maybe even a litte bit Samskrit, but Hindi? I wonder if even I speak Hindi correctly ever! But I think that I speak Hindi better than most Indians do (not all ofcourse), yet I know it's not proper Hindi. So, does it mean we are the "rednecks" of India? Indians (and maybe almost everyone) in USA always try to make fun of people from "South" (American South) having rather bad English.. that they speak some rural trash American, and not English.. but do we ever try to find out as to what percentage of Indians ever speak proper Hindi? 

Anyway, that was a fairly long discussion on languages, maybe next time I'll discuss accents.. but for now, let me talk about my days in Amsterdam.. After the last entry on Monday, this is my 1st write-up.. So, maybe I should talk about how I have started on my formal proceedings at the university and city, having applied for residence permit and undergone Tuberculosis checkup (Yes, barring some nationalities, every immigrant has to undergo TBC checkup). It didn't take too long nor was it painful, but I was definitely disappointed when I found out that India has some of the highest occurence rates of TB.. followed by China and Russia.. including Venezuela and a few more (besides ofcourse a lot of countries in Africa).. If you notice a pattern, you can probably see that the self-acclaimed socialist/communist economies (formerly, India as well) happen to have the worst cases of TB.. does it mean that socialism means that nobody is taken care of, let alone everybody? or in the communist form of socialism, governments try to bite more than they can chew and end up failing at all fronts?

Maybe, I can also let you in on how I ran around for 2 days to get a bank account before being finally told that I can't have it before I get a Social Security number, which would take another 2 weeks.. which means, I can't get a health insurance or phone or internet connection until then.. well, it's fine as far as I am concerned now, but it did make me go as long as 6-8 hrs without food.. and I DON'T like that.. however, this follows my pattern of not eating properly for the 1st few months whenever I go to a new country/place.. I remember how I had lost 9 kgs in 3 months in Edinburgh, and had told Piyush Ranjan that I have a female supermodel figure now, all I need is a pair of boobs.. :D (I don't care if it's not funny, I am not feeling very funny right now).. Anyway, I think I will soon pick up some sports activity (I am thinking about wall/rock climbing) and, hopefully, will start eating properly.. 

First of all, I have to stop drinking too much tea/coffee with the group though.. that always screws up my appetite.. people in my group (especially an Indian guy named Nakul) are nice and quite helpful, even as most people try to keep themselves concerned with their own work and business.. I like the environment, but I don't understand the general/accepted protocol in timings of work.. For example, on Tuesday, I left my office at 6.30 pm and almost everyone in the group including boss was still working, and I felt like an asshole leaving that early.. so next day, I left at 6.45 pm and saw that I was the only one left on the floor (besides my boss).. I had seen everyone arrive before 8.45 am (I had arrived at 8.10 am).. so I figured maybe people come in early and leave early.. so today, I reached office at 8 in the morning and for 1 hr, noone showed up!! I guess, I'll have to form my own schedule.. which means, almost never showing up for work - that's my favorite schedule! :D

Well, I walk everyday to the office and back.. I plan to buy a bike soon, but they are too damn expensive and I have almost run out of the cash in Euros.. all I have left is in Dollars.. I did try to buy a bike though, from a very very white American guy from Tulsa (major coincidence).. he seemed like an honest guy and I may be wrog, but I had a suspicion that the bikes were stolen and risky.. besides they were all ladies bikes, and even though people in Amsterdam ride ladies bikes all the time, I am not too big on doing that..

The good thing is that the work/training in lab has started.. and even though my first attempt at growing E. Coli with AppA protein stain failed (the PhD student gave me the culture/plasmid with the wrong stain), I am enjoying it.. it's new, it's exciting, and for a mechanical emgineer with not much background in Microbiology lab, it's definitely challenging.. I think I have adapted very quickly to the lab and am learning pretty fast, and made my 1st batch of medium (for growing E. Coli) today, all by myself.. and it looks good, i.e. it looks like urine but it's supposed to look like that - looks are subjective ofcourse.. :).. tomorrow, I'll prepare more solutions, and try innoculation of E. Coli again starting Monday - it's a 3-4 day experiment.. basically, a big week ahead as I try not to break/spill anything or let loose some dangerous species of bacteria in the lab.. :D