Year 2008 and Resolution for yr 2009

Today is 31st Dec, 08... a good time to reflect on the last year :).
Professionally, published another conference paper, submitted 1 journal and one more conference paper. The high point was the TAship in SMA course, which came along nice and I learned few very important things.

In June, had a good India trip. Great to be with family after 1.5 yrs. Personally, I improved myself, became more confident and adventurous. Along the way, made few new friends in year 2008 and few good friend left S'pore to achieve their dreams. Started reading books/novels.

Malaysia trip was another highlight of the year as I went there first time. Water-rafting was awesome fun, and would like to go for it again. Recently, went for 10 km long Southern Ridge Nature walk. I simply love walking. :)

For year 2009, I need to continue with improving my inner character. Professionally, a single rule - "Publish more" (Taken from another good friend's post :) ). Need to increase frequency of reading good books. Another Malaysia and India trip. Explore S'pore more. Start doing some physical exercise.

BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR

This piece is from 'Science' magazine (Vol. 322. no. 5909). Reprogramming cells will certainly have a major impact on the future of human disease drug development and therapies. It is a new tool to study the cellular processes responsible for disease. Though there are many aspects which need careful and detailed consideration, this technique has potential to change the way we treat disease. Please refer Science article for more references.

Interestingly, they also mentioned about runners up for 'breakthrough of the year' research. These are:
2. Seeing Exoplanets - related with Astranomy
3. Cancer Genes - biology and medicine
4. New high temperature superconductors - Physics
5. Watching Proteins at work - Biology, Computer Science and Physics
6. Water to Burn - Chemistry and renewable energy source
7. The video Embryo - Medicine, Computer Science and Physics
8. Fat of a different color - Medicine
9. Proton's mass predicted - Physics
10. Sequencing Bonanza - Biology

Unsurprisingly, 'Phenomenon of the year' was given to LHC, CERN.

There is another article on 'areas to watch' for 2009, and what happened to areas which were predicted as hot last year. There is a good list of reference for each area.

The Road not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-- Robert Frost (Taken from Wikipedia :) )

Above poem was quoted by Robert Langer in his interview to Nature Magazine. He won US$2 million worth prizes this year. He completed PhD in chemical engineering in 1974, and instead of working in Petrochemical Engg, which was an obvious option at that time, he went on to work in a Surgery Lab in Children hospital. Can you imagine a hardcore chemical engineer working in a surgery lab that also in 1974??? From there on, he started liking for biomedical field, and combining it with his chemical engineering knowledge, he is doing some fascinating research.

The whole point is that it is worth exploring the uncharted paths. Surely, there will be hurdles, obstacles and lots of disappointments, but with right inspiration and perspiration, one may succeed. This is what I want to remember, and hence this blog post. :)

Report Writing

It's been quite a long since I posted any article. I was bit busy in writing qualifying exam report. Writing report is a painful job, even though one is reporting his own work! The most painful part is literature review. Need to read so many relevant papers, find out appropriate sections, and than, write in your own language. Specially in representing mathematical equations, one need to be very careful for writing in consistent symbols. Thanks to Endnote (and if you are fan of Latex), putting references has become bit easy.

And after writing, the pain is extended in proof-reading, especially with person like me with average English knowledge. Here, the main problem is that one generally loses interest in reading the same report again and again, and quite possibly, can not detect very obvious grammatical mistakes and spelling errors. Best is to ask a good friend for help in such cases. ;)

But believe me, this pain-staking exercise is worth taking. Only the practice, and may be reading, will help. And in this competitive science career, it is extremely important to know how to represent your work, whether writing a conference paper, journal paper, or even a grant proposal.

Indian Classical Music by Two Chinese Boys

Last week, there was an Indian classical musical concert in NTU. The amazing thing was, music played by two Chinese guys with Indian name, Krsna and Govind. One played sitar while other tabla. They learned both instruments from their father, who was in fact student of great Pandit Ravishankar. Though I am not an expert in music, at least I can say that both boys displayed their talent amazingly. As an Indian, it feels great if some foreigner practices Indian music and culture. Also surprisingly, there were more foreigners in auditorium than Indians to listen Indian classical music. I guess, they all wanted to know about highly acclaimed Indian music. That also taught me that it may do good for me if I make an attempt to attend such music concerts, irrespective of it's origin, which are frequently organized by NTU.

M'sia Trip

Last weekend I finally visited M'sia. After staying in S'pore for almost 2 yrs, I guess it was a right time to see some places in M'sia.

Well, thanks to my room mate Suresh, I got excellent company for this trip. Our main aim was to do water rafting, which is something I never did. In fact, after doing water rafting, I realize that there are hell lot of adventurous things to do and places to visit in world, and it was a perfect lesson for a lazy bum like me :-).

Coming back to rafting, I must say it was an awesome experience. Our instructor threw me in fast stream of water to give me real time experience of what to do when u fell out of boat. I will probably never forget that experience. After that short training, we finally started rafting. As the flow of water quite high, it wasn't that much physically intensive. But going through rocks was amazing. Once our boat was stuck in rocks, and in process to take it out, it tilted in one direction so much that I was almost thrown out of the boat, but somehow I cling to the rope, and back into boat. Overall, it was a great experience.

Next day, we enjoyed banana boat riding in Pankor Island. It was again a thing which I never did as I don't enjoy much going into sea water. Waling on that beach and playing volleyball with friends was extremely relaxing.

Third and last thing, which again I will not forget, is palying antakshari and singing for almost 5 hrs!!! Well, I wasn't alone. With able company of Chinmay and Shubhashree, we three night creatures were singing for almost whole return journey. Incidentally, only we three were not able to sleep in taxi. Thanks to them, it was real fun.

I guess this short 2 day trip to M'sia helped me to relax in busy PhD schedule. I will probably go out more often than before and will be looking forward to another M'sia trip in near future.

'Rock on' n 'A Wednesday', must watch!

Last weekend, I watched both 'Rock On' and 'A Wednesday'. These English named Hindi movies are in 'must watch' category! Stories are entirely different, but the relevance is spot on. One talks about positively high correlation between passion and happiness, while other talks about common man and terrorism. Another important thing is, there in no khan, Roshans, or Bachchans in either of movies, but the selected cast with excellent story line makes up of apparent no star value. These are good movies and I am happy that Bollywood is moving towards some sensible cinema.

Random Thoughts on Phd Students

A very common complain I experienced and also heard from my PhD friends, week days are moving like superfast trains. Come to lab at 10 am, go for lunch at 12 in afternoon, come back at around 1 pm, tea time at 3:30, and dinner at 7 pm.....without realizing, day is over. There is one very apt cartoon on PhD comics about it, which truly reflect out life-styles. And to do some work (mainly to satisfy supervisor ;-) ), we need to do overtime, do research in nights with super cool music and other stuff! What can be the solutions?

May be, self discipline becomes primary requirement to avoid such situations. Other solution is to make deadlines and strictly try to adhere it. Think of a situation when you need to submit conference paper or review of journal paper by some particular date. All your 'extra-curricular' activities will vanish during that time.

Eat, swim, and sleep! What a phenonmena!

Yes, you guessed it right. This post is about Michael Phelps. He has done unimaginable! I don't know how long will this record last, but he made sure that he will be among those legendary top athletes , who has written new eras in entire sports history!

Now at age of 23, he has achieved so much, I am just curious to know what will be his next aim :-). Few more golds in next 1 or 2 Olympics and become immortal? retiring from professional swimming and enjoy the life? or a doing something totally unthinkable? Certainly, money doesn't come here.

Whatever it is, Keep inspiring other people Phelps!

Finally started!!! :-)

I was looking to start my own blog for quite some time. Finally I started today! Let's see how it goes.

Well, many of you might be wondering why I choose this name, Chingari. This name was the gift from my MTech classmates for all mischievous things I did during that time. But I take this name in positive way, and I seriously believe that 'Chingari' is really required for what ever you do in your life!!