Continous effort

Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts,
A little more effort and what seemed like hopeless failure
May turn into glorious success
There is no failure except in no longer trying,
There is no defeat except from within,
No really insurmountable barrier,
Save your own inherent weakness of purpose.

—Engraved on a brass plate on my father’s desk

Duke BME graduate program has hit me with all it’s rigours and meticulous hard work. I have to go through three very very technical papers, where I do not understand a single equation and come up with a project proposal in the next 10 hours.

That is all I have to say.

Sponges in patients

Did you know that surgens accidently leave objects inside a patients body? Well it is true. And that has deadly consequences. The following article is all about how RFID can be used to keep track of objects (sponges) that are accidently left inside a patients body

http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/06/10/advanced_news2.html

MBA and work experience

Many people have asked me if work experience is really important when you go for an MBA. I asked many people too when I was back in India and I was contemplating an MBA abroad right after college or after a year of work. While I was asking around I heard the usual advice that when you think about an European or an American MBA it really helps to have some work experience. After coming here I think that is quite true. The average age of people in an MBA program here is around 28. Most people have over 5 years of work experience. The advice normally revolves around the fact that you will learn more and contribute better when you too have similar work experience and are of a similar age. I think this point is very important and accurate but I have another view point to add as well.

Most MBA students are kind of grown up in many ways. They have reached a level of thinking that’s mature. The kind of parties and events that MBA students have are more of a networking kind. Most people come with their families and at times discuss politics. This is fun at times but is definitely grown up.

Contrast this with the kind of parties that you would go to when you are doing your under graduation or graduation(MS). At this stage I feel that it is more of the simple kind of fun which does not have any motive other than having fun. Sometimes I feel it pays to not grow up too fast. You are young only once and only when you are young can you do the things that young people do.

My message is aimed at all the people who really want to get ahead in life fast and by doing that miss out on all the fun that is possible when you struggle to get there.

The intergalactic squid and the mutant mouse

The strangest thing happened to me a few days back. I was leading a very normal life on the east cost of America. I woke up one morning and went to my university to attend classes as would every other student on every other day. The morning hour went off routinely, nothing unexpected there. When at 3 O clock I was faced with a situation I have never faced before. I was looking at an intergalactic squid! I have never seen an intergalactic squid before in my life. I have never even heard of one! To make matters worse, this one was all wrong. Everything about the squid was flipped! I immediately called my friend who came with me to look at the squid. Even she was shocked to see the damn thing.

She said “What the heck is that”

me “I have no idea, I am seeing it for the first time.”

she “What are you going to do with it”

me “I don’t know!!! But I need to do something and something really fast”

We kept on staring at it for a while not knowing what to do. Though my friend was next to me I knew that this was my mess and I need to solve it by myself. I have a philosophy when I encounter things that I have never seen before. The idea is to pretend that it is not there and move on.

That’s what I did. So I told her. “This is weird, lets move on and not look at this thing anymore”

Double Whammy!!! The next thing I see is a mutant mouse. It got a weird problem of not moving as it should. Some protein in the poor thing has been knocked out either by an evil scientist or by some quirk of fate.

My friend goes

“I feel for you, but do you have a plan to handle these things”

I told her I have no idea but then I better keep them there for a while and get back to them in a while. Saying that we left the house.

When I got back, I wasn’t dreaming, the intergalactic squid and the mutant mouse were still there on my table in the form of two questions for the mid terms. This was my first experience with a take home term paper in America. I figure that to make a test a take home they have to make it as far out and as complicated as possible. To test the students understanding of the subject while providing him/her with all the information in the world in the form of the Internet and other books, requires the utmost creative ability. That was the origin of the intergalactic squid and the mutant mouse. They originated in the neural membranes of a professor trying to design a take home test.

After five days I did figure out what was wrong with that intergalactic squid and what was wrong with that poor mouse. But I have to admit it was a fun five days of analyzing. I really like the model of take home tests. They make you think. I believe take home tests reflect the way in which life really is. You generally have access to all the information in the world. You only have to infer and apply that information. My recommendation hence is to make most tests take home!! That also does away with rote memorization.

Papa Mush Chawal: Easy food recipe 1

That’s right, I am moving on to the era of cooking food from the scratch. The first experiment I tried by myself is outlined here.

papa: Spanish for potato

chawal: Hindi for rice

mush: cool English for mushroom

Ingredients: serves 2

1 potato, 1 tomato, 1 large onion, few chillies and few mushrooms

2 tea cups of rice and 4 table spoons of oil

Method

Cut into small pieces the potato, tomato, onion, chillies and mushrooms. Saute in corn oil or any other oil for about 10 min in high heat. Simultaneously get the rice ready in a rice cooker. Take the sauteed mixture and add a couple of cups of water. Let the watered mixture boil for 5 min in medium heat. Ensure that the entire water does not evaporate. By now the rice should be ready. Mix the rice with the entire mixture and add salt and pepper to taste.

Verdict

A very healthy and really quick meal for you to enjoy!

 Oh and by the way why did I call this dish so? I was learning Spanish in the morning and I was thinking about Hindi in the afternoon.

Blog stat inference

I found the strangest thing happening to my blog over the last couple of days that caused a lot of anxity. The curve that shows the number of people who view my blog everyday suddenly dipped as follows. I have obeserved over the past few months that it generally happens over the weekend implying that most of my readers are people who work in offices with full time jobs. They read the blog during their leasure or when they search during office hours. However, this time the dip extended over the weekend into the next three days. I have been blogging consistantly and have not written anythign offensive so what could have possible caused the dip?

The reason daunt on me when I was talking with my friend today. It seems in India there is a bandh all over Karnataka. More specifically corporations in Bangalore remain closed on account of the Gandhi Jayanthi and the bandh for three days. This explanation perfectly fits into my assumption of most of my readers being office going people with the added conclusion that a good majority of them are in Bangalore.

 Here is the graph for you to infer. Notice the sudden dip in the last part… All because of the bandh! You can probably extend this thought and think about the ramifications to commercial sites that rely on the volume of people who visit the site everyday. I estimate that they too would have faced a similar decrease in traffic.

 

A day like today

Is something you dream about. Well you dream about it  when you are really young and then when you grow up you discard such childish fantasies. But still I had to write it because it was so different yet so cool. I guess my readers are aware by now my primary means of making money on campus is to volunteer as a research subject for various researches. Today I volunteered for a research with the neuroscience department. The research consisted of me looking at pictures and rating them. Guess what the picture was

Women! I got paid today, and pretty well, for looking at pictures of models and rating the way they looked. Can you believe that? I wonder if there are more researches like that.

Everyday I am amazed with my experiences here. I am exposed to researches, beliefs, cultural traits, customs and environments that I thought never existed. Like students playing with a Frisbee in the middle of the campus in the evenings. Like people running around without their shirts around campus for exercise. Bathrooms where everyone has to take a bath together! BBQs and music on the main campus lawn. I wonder where all the teachers and profs disappear to during these events. Or maybe they don’t, they too walk around in their shorts and mingle with the students and blend in. The culture accepts anything and everything goes. I can walk into campus with a huge purple hat and not be given a second look. Couple of days back I found people walking around in togas for a party which had I guess a roman theme. And everyone is invited to these parties.

Tonight I am going for a dance. The homecoming dance. homecoming is something I have read about in Archie comics and watched on teenage movies. Tonight will be my first exposure to a homecoming dance. Wine and deserts will be provided. And the dance is in the gym. Scheduled from 9:30 in the night till 1:00 in the morning. Ill get back and blog about what a homecoming dance is all about.