Convexity vs Concavity

Piglet: How do you spell love? Pooh: You don't spell it, you feel it. - A.A.Milne Anyone who has even half a heart would go "Awww", and so do I. Love, it's one of the most highly used words in the English language (or any language I would think) and at the same time so ridiculously under-rated. Just thinking about it has brought me out of my exile from the blogging world. Someone asked me the other day (rather, threw the question out into the cosmic expanse of the universe), "How do I really know that what I'm feeling is love? And if love is all-expansive and all-consuming and the be-all and end-all, why do people fall out of love?". Wow, pretty deep huh? I was silent for a while, most of us would be. To me love inspires you, it's what makes random poets, amazing songwriters. It makes regular athletes scale mountains and swim across oceans (well maybe just the English Channel). Love is everything, so why fall out of it. Well, the culprit really is c...

I thought it would need something pretty special for me to come out of my self imposed exile from the blog world. I wish it weren't this. Whitney Houston, my first musical influence, the lady with so much grace, the powerful voice, passed away today in Los Angeles, a day before the Grammys. What can I say about Whitney that has not already been said by many of her esteemed colleagues. It was close to 20 years ago that I heard "I will always love you" and I was hooked. I made my family's ears ring trying to imitate her, and sometimes in not a very good way. She wowed me even more with "I have nothing", "Step by step", "I believe in you and me" and then "When you believe". I wanted to be her, I believed that if my voice turned out to be even 1/10th of her's I would be blessed. As I decided to take music in school, I heard one of the most painful things someone could ever tell a child. Someone told me "You're not good ...

Whew! Its been quite I while since I blogged last and wow its been a whirlwind journey till now. I'm now almost done with my third quarter at UCI, in the process of which, I've decided to take the plunge and work on a thesis (which I had no intention of doing initially). There's been a mad rush for internships, getting assignments done in time, project work and exams (thankfully not too many of those). One would think that all the craziness would leave little time for one to evaluate one's life, but I find myself doing that every now and then. The amount I've learnt in the last 9 months has been crazy. I felt I wouldn't be able to get this far after my first quarter, yet I'm alive and kicking. Thanks to my support system of my folks and a bunch of very good friends. Two words can make all the difference, persistence and perception. P.S. Whoever said "the grass is always greener on the other side" needs to come out of the shade and look at his side ...

What're you looking at! Originally uploaded by Shanaz Mistry Meerkats are incredibly difficult... They hardly stay still long enough for you to take a shot. Was lucky here I guess. P.S. Hakuna Matata. Pumba wasn't around though.

Nope, this isn't about some foray into the supernatural... It's actually a lot more mundane than that. I was just thinking today that I haven't actually longed for weekends since I graduated from college as a newbie engineer. For the clueless, I've just started Grad School after 5 years of (hardly) bone-breaking work. The first few days were great. Awesome campus, new place and inspiring(and repetitive) speeches of how great Grad school is. Then comes reality. It reminds me of the saying "There's always light at the end of the tunnel - in this case its the head-lights of an oncoming freight train". It's been an interesting 3 weeks. Most of the folks in my class are at least 2 years younger than I am. They kinda remind me of how I was when I was fresh out of college. Some of it isn't pretty, but its definitely fun. Hitting the books, however, isn't. Especially on the less practical stuff. Anyway, here's to a nice road ahead. As some people t...

Why you ask? For one I'm on medication for my wrist "problem" and second GOW 3 kicks GOW 2's ass... The gameplay is just out- of-the-world easy and the PS3 really makes the PS2 look like kiddy-drawings compared to a John Constable landscape. Kratos is back and is he mad! To say he has vengeance on his mind is an understatement. The game is a masterpiece. You kill Gods right from the first 10 minutes on and surprise-surprise they're incredibly easy to kill. :D I finished this in under 4 days (playing every night for about 3-4 hours at a stretch) and was incredibly unhappy when it ended. I want more blood and I want more Kratos. P.S. No I did not buy myself a PS3... This is thanks to my good friend Govind who was kind enough to lend me his PS3 and GOW3 Disc for a week.