Close Pass of Asteroid 2018 DV 1

This is the LIVE show!

https://youtu.be/7iU6Xjk_NXM

Don't abdicate the consequences of your choices

Don't abdicate the consequences of your choices -- for in doing so you will disenfranchise those whom you have affected.

So, I am finally here!

So, I am finally here -- at Cafe Lalo's. I hadn't imagined, I'd come to a place lkke this -- mostly because I hadn't imagined, such a place would exist.

From the outside it has the look of a rather well lit, and very tidy place for conducting business over liqour -- but that could well have been because I had passed by numerous pubs and rather classy beer and whiskey places on the way here. As I got closer, however, it became more and more apparent that this place was more fond of displaying it's desserts.

Even before I stepped in through the door, I heard my friend's beautiful singing voice, and wonderful sound of the other one playing -- the duo, Jatziri and Alec, were providing the entertainment for the evening, and they both seemed to be having a jolly good time as I walked in.

The moment that I walked in I saw seated a multitude of ethnicites, both serving and served, and rather contrary to my first impression, I saw a young father dancing with his daughter, much to the joy of the little girl's mother.

As I sat near a corner (it was rather hard to get a table when I had walked in), enjoying the second pot of their rather flavorful teas, which had light flavors but were rather delightfully aromatic, I heard someone tell a friend that this place had pretty much whatever you could wish for. That sounded like wishful thinking, but Jatziri also told me during their break that this place had some good food.

All around me, I saw a rather coordial social atmosphere -- people coming in with friends or family, and some of them seeming warm and close to the people working here.

It has been great, and I thank my friends for having invited me here, tonight. I am really having a great time.

The man I am -- 18th July, 2013

I am a man given to simple things. I like the quiet things in life, that some might choose not to think about, or to take for granted. I like that quiet comfort of the presence of someone close. I seek not any warmth, neither emotional, nor otherwise, but I do seek a cool sense of ease from the mere fact of someone being there -- the way two men might take a long walk, and find ease in simply having a fellow walker for company, all without exchanging a word, nor a glance. For me, happiness is not about the joy of doing something legendary, but rather, about doing mundane things around those I would consider close. I do not mean close in the sense of having close friends, for even among the friends around whom little is sacred there are limitations, and there are things that even when shared will not bring a sense of ease. I, rather, mean closeness derived from the company of one who has been rendered comfortable with the kind of person I am, to the point of wanting to have understanding for places where I have been.   I do not mean to say that I would like my life to be filled with the banal, the mundane, for it is I who seeks, who ventures out for new experiences. I find joy in being in situations varied and new, and I find a thrill, a chilled sense of excitement in breaking out of routine. I find joy in leaving aside a 4 hour bus ride, and instead, taking 3 different trains, so that I may explore different new cities along the way, always having that tension of what train schedules I might find at the station, on each leg of the way. I find joy in being dropped with a friend in a part of the city that I had never been to, at night, so that we may walk, meet people, and hop from café to café, bar to bar, as we go our merry way.   I do not mean to say that I am entirely tame, either, for parachuting and parkour are part of my repertoire, and bouldering and downhill skiing are in my forte. I do not mean to say that I am very extreme, for in matters of safety and caution I may be a little too keen. I do, however, through long developed skills, find ease in acts that for my friends would give chills. It is not that in these acts I choose to be thrilled, for I mostly enjoy either that elated sense of being in getting to a high place and just being there, or in that sensation of just having done something visceral, a feeling so shrill.   As for what I seek, I seek very intermittently those pursuits of shrills, and in these extreme ways I find my joys in things that are demanding to the point of near misery. I seek mostly, though, that quiet comfort in a close one’s company. As for how I would want to go about securing such people, and to keep them happy, I would seek to do that through the pursuits of building new things and keeping an eye on materials and optics – my two childhood passions, and things that I still find tremendous warmth in – for in the success of long drawn efforts in these things I find a sense of satisfaction so wild that it cannot be tamed even by the feeling of that rushing by of the face of a boulder as I speed up, after having just jumped off.   Indeed, I like quiet things. It is just that I like to break that routine with things that demand, by being in their very nature visceral.

For my Brother's 19th Birthday

In about a day you turn 19 -- your last year as a teen. Two years later you're 21 -- a young adult! No more spoon feeding, no more babying, no more pampering. You'll be looking out to the world, and you'll be looking for things to do, places to find, people to meet, a person to be. As you see more you'll learn more about yourself -- you'll find you like new things, and you'll find you enjoy new feelings. You'll also have strife, but you'll strive, and you'll thrive. Don't let anyone with-hold you, don't let anyone tell you you can't. You've come a long way since the day I taught you to spell. You've learned to put up with the impatience with which people give you hell. You've learned how to voice what object you demand, you know how to make a stand -- now let your stubbornness push you through when anyone dares to tell you you can't. The world's yours for the taking --all you need to learn (to find out) is where, whom and what to ask, so that you may get what you desire: be it the desire to be heard, or something, some journey, some way of life you demand.

Chill, Bro, you have a lot to think about in the bright days and the long, lonely nights coming up. There is so much you want, so much you can get, so much you deserve, and so much for you to serve. It's a world of juggling and balancing out there, and with sheer power of will you can get through anything.Learn from Dad -- to keep calm, to find clarity of mind in turmoil and duress. Learn from Mom -- to use almost God-forsaken will to find ways to make progress. Learn from them, learn from everyone, learn from all in what in them is best, and acknowledge flaws -- in others and especially yourself, for only when you find ways in which you could be better can you think of ways to better yourself. I know things can be hard -- places to go where you don't want to go, people to meet whom you don't want to meet, things you do because that's what you were taught, but things which hurt and make no sense, temptations to face, temptations to resist while yet not comprehending what perils in them persist -- and yet, with so much that's wrong in your world, in the worlds of those around you, in the worlds of those who affect you, effect you, mould you, influence you; even then there is so much joy, so much warmth, so much serenity, tranquility and peace. Bro, the thing that I've learned, and only in just about the span of just the last year, is that once you've found joy, once you've found that human connection -- with people, with someone -- you'll find that you've found everything you ever thought you wanted, and that you won't find yourself feeling hollow, misunderstood, miserable, unwanted, nor alone; and you'll find that you you'll find a new focus in life; not an MO of getting away from what's bothering you, nor finding a breathless ecstasy in turpidity, certainly not a misguided hedonism; for you'll find that you're truly capable of being happy -- that you can find in a person, an action or a place a means of making everything else melt away. The only thing you have to do is to be out there, in the heart of it all, to be masterful in your craft -- whatever you may choose that to be -- so that you may be noticed by the right people, given the right opportunities, and guided the right way, even if that way is far different from what you've been taught at home, so that you become someone desirable to someone you may one day like, so that you may find in that person hopes and joys. The only thing you have to do is to start stepping out there. Go, see what you want, see what people do, see what of those actions you would like to do, and then don't take no for an answer -- go all in and find any means necessary to join in that course of action. You may fail today, you may fail tomorrow, but so what? The failures will never matter the day you get what you want. It's what you want that matters -- the road is just secondary.Enjoy your time, Bro. Have deep, meaningful thoughts. Enjoy joyful company. Have fun. I wish you well, my friend. May you be properly guided, and blessed; and if there is something that you want to do, or something you want, and you want to know how to go about it, then holler at this Brother at once! Cheers!

Fear, Terror and Exhilaration of Climbs and Falls -- 11th September, 2011

I was up on rock shelf, 6 feet above the ground (below the leopard) -- a rock jumping off of which a few weeks ago I had injured my heel, causing me to limp till almost now, since then.

I looked down. I knew I could do it. I also knew that I was afraid. Very afraid. Limping until only a few days ago, memories of my last jump from there were still very fresh. I knew that I could step down onto the portion 4 feet above the ground and take practice jumps, but I wanted to do it in one shot -- for I knew that in life I might come across situations in which I will just have to make a calculated jump, based on past experience, rather than have the luxury of a quick warm up. More importantly, I knew that I plan, just for fun, on situations in life where I simply have to rely on my training -- with no scope for training from lower, nor higher -- knowing that a properly executed procedure will ensure fun and safety. So, there I stood. 6 feet higher than the road, and 2 feet away from it.

I visualized my move. I imagined that I would have to launch myself, then reposition my feet in mid air, then land, so as to do a reverse block to send my body forward, and then tuck into a roll. I imagined myself slowly moving through the air, relaxing my legs, preparing to coil them like a spring the moment the ground touched my feet.

And yet, in silence, I stood. I was afraid. Between bouts of when there were lots of passers by I practiced going through my motions with my legs, but my legs felt like they were made of lead, and I hardly got any fluidity out of them. Two cute girls lying on the grass, across the street, were cheering me on, and the passers by were giving me smiles. It was all very nice, really -- both, the young ones, who expected a visual treat, as well as the ones who looked like they had sons my age, and were thinking "I know what you're up to -- I've got boys, myself." Yeah, I loved that knowing look on the latter's faces -- perhaps because the looks on their faces betrayed an air that what I was doing was safe, whereas the looks on the younger women were simply almost alluring and inviting, as if saying "If you survive, you'll get a warm hug to melt you in comfort."

Even some the guys there looked up, like they knew they would like what they would see. I felt like I was entertaining the passing crowd. It was amazing. It was the 10th anniversary of 11th September, and everyone was happy to anticipate a cool looking stunt -- no one showed even a bit of animosity to this fully bearded guy. While I stood there, tensed, and afraid, I was truly joyous at how people felt.

I stood there for what seemed like forever, despite my having gone through phases where I felt ready to jump, and barely stopped short of it, and phases where I simply wondered to myself: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" There were periods when I was calm and collected, and despite feeling my heartbeat, and despite breathing heavily from anxiety, I went through the motions in my mind, trying to ingrain them within myself; and there were periods when I was barely short of freaking out, my heart beating like a powerful hammer against the inside of my chest, my temples beating like the drums of muscles on strike (or the strike at the nearby boat house was getting to me, haha), and the veins around my eyeballs pulsing, so I could tell when my heart beat my when my vision turned blurry (I know, dehydration is a bitch!).

I knew that I could climb down at any moment. I knew that I could simply climb up, then walk around the statue of the leopard, and down the hill, but I stayed. In fact, a guy who was there with the two girls resting across the street talked to my friend, who was waiting for me to finish with my little adrenaline fix, came to me, concerned, and told me about the walk around the hill that I had already scouted. Of course, I told him that I wanted to jump simply because I wanted to. It was very nice, really, that the girls whom he was with were cheering me on.

Of course, these things come down to very personal decisions. The guy who had just come to tell me about the walk around path went back, telling me "Break a leg." He was simply giving me a friendly warning about what could happen. Of course, I knew what I was doing, so I replied "You can take me to the hospital", to which his two female friends, and the passing my ladies and gentlemen started laughing. I knew, of course, from the get-go, that a go or a no-go was entirely my own, and that no amount of sincere well wishing cautions from those not in the know of how to perform these activities, and no amount of cheering from even the most sincere well wisher should be allowed to overturn one's personal decision as to whether or not to go ahead with the 'trick' (for lack of a better word), for it is one's own well being that one is dealing with, and weighing the risk of getting hurt versus the reward for pulling it off is a very personal decision, and only the one committing the act can know how well he/she can perform the act, and how much he/she has himself/herself under control. In moments like this, it all comes down to feelings -- how well does one feel about the jump? If one feels well, then he might be able to control himself through the motions, keeping his head cool, and his self safe. If one is hesitant, then he might do something wrong, as part of a reflex, and severely jeopardize his well being. Superstitious as this may all seem, one's thoughts govern one's subtle actions,  and hence, one's well being.

At one point the girls across the street even brought out a camera, and that made it very tempting to jump, but I eventually got a hold of myself, for I was still having muscle hesitations right as soon as I placed my center of gravity near the brink.

I made many, many attempts to smoothly, and willfully, clear the brink, but each time I failed, and had to take a rest while letting passers underneath go by. Eventually, I made eye contact with a lady who seemed wilder than me. She was on a bike, with a friend (who was also on a bicycle), and she had a wild look in her eyes, like she was excited at the prospect of what she was expecting to see, while her face showed an expression more akin to "I've seen my own sons do stuff like this, young man; now, let's see if you can be charming with what you can do." It was almost as if she would have a smirk on her face if I failed, for she despite the approving smile I could see a hint of a challenge in her face. For her, I truly wanted to jump, but even then my better judgement held, and I refrained, and she paddled on.

Right after she had passed, of course, I went through my motions, again, visualizing exactly what i would do at each point, and then I jumped; by then, she had turned around to backtrack on her friend, who had fallen behind. I knew that she had watched me as soon as I saw her approaching bicycle, approaching from a slight distance, as I came out of my tuck and roll while hearing a joyous shriek. It had not been my best landing, given that I had almost hit that tarmac with my right knee (I actually felt a slight touch, and almost panicked), but I had not hit any part of myself hard, certainly not my heels. At that point I was far happier that I had made her happy with my jump than I was at having entertained two very pretty girls lying comfortably in the grass -- for I think that for that one moment I had the attention of a like minded individual.

After this, of course, my friend and I headed to my favorite 'rock face' in Central Park (New York, New York) -- the back wall of Belvedere Castle. I had only planned on traversing the rock, from side to side, but somehow I managed to reach (with my hand) the semicircular looking barrier-like artifact, perhaps 12 feet off the ground. Of course, I did try to traverse, but eventually got exhausted, and had to abandon my effort when my right hand cramped up and gave out. By then, I had learned to keep my waist close to the rock wall, looking over my shoulder for find footholds for my down climb; I had started re-learning (from my trips to an indoor rock-climbing gym) techniques of pseudo stemming with my hands, which is very useful in places without a satisfactory ledge to hang from, with the finger tips; I learned that an untrained spotter (my friend) had to be told to request people to not walk right underneath me -- and I learned that a spotter with no experience in things like this also needs to be told to stay out of the possible paths that I would take if I fell, and needed to land into a roll; I learned that I did not yet have the stamina to free solo into high places, and I was seriously thinking about the importance of climbing with a rope, in case I fell, and I was also considering doing the 'hangdog'; I learned that while climbing I was relying too much on my fingers, and too little on my legs, and that that needs to be corrected, for that is becoming a severe handicap; I became acquainted with the terror of the intimate and present danger of slipping off the rock, and falling too far to do a safe landing, given my free running skills; I thus learned the importance of turning back before exhaustion (and I was breathing very heavily to keep my arms going -- hoping that I would be providing my arms a boost in blood oxygen levels as the lactic acid levels built up and started 'burning' through my forearms) compounded the risk of calling, and thus, of serious injury -- for falling while dazed and unprepared would hardly leave a tired me in a position to reorient my body for even an attempt at a proper landing; I learned how to coaxingly caress the rocks, hoping that they would provide some new place to hold with my hands, so that I could grab hold, while still keeping my limbs moving, so as to not get cramps; and I learned the meaning of exhausted anxiety while still on an adrenaline and endorphin high, up on a high. I slowly came down, and not finding too many good hand holds and foot holds, I jumped off when my feet were 4 feet off the ground -- this landing was pretty smooth, too; though it was much more flawed than the one from earlier today, but it felt good in the sense that I was able to walk away without the slightest injury.

Even now, 9 hours after the climbs and the falls (jumps) I can still see in my mind's eye what I saw as I went through the air during both my dismounts. I can see the world floating by, underneath, then getting closer and closer, and then myself blanking out, only remembering a slight touch on my right knee (almost as soft as a Mother's loving touch) as I went into the roll, and hearing the joyful, wild lady's scream as I came out of it. For the roll at Belvedere Castle, I can remember the ground getting closer, and closer, until I rolled to a side -- now that think about it, the roll's lack of smoothness might have been due to the fact that I had neither decided beforehand, nor pre-ingrained in myself whether I would be using a variation of the forward roll, or the back ward roll, and the staccato nature of my roll might even have been due to my perhaps trying both ways at the same time (at this point, of course, I can no longer really be sure).

These activities did not leave me exhilarated, nor does the thought of doing these things get me excited -- any more. I just happen to enjoy them when I am in the midst of doing them. To create a very crude, and tasteless, analogy, it is almost as bad as doing research work like it was mindless sex (but not quite), not even due to liking it (yeah, I know, what would I know, right? Haha), and not really expecting to enjoy it, but rather, only being grateful on the few occasions when one just happens to enjoy it (yes, you guessed it: I feel that studying physical phenomenon from text books is akin to mental masturbation).

So, perhaps life is more than just a bunch of administrative hurdles, punctuated with bouts of pre-planned pleasure -- perhaps life has more to taking the time to enjoy things by doing them, rather than simply expecting a quick high out of them. Just a thought.

Rain Songs, Measures of Dreams -- Friday, 19th August, 2011

Swimming in Schlieren

Saw the rain and couldn't stop thinking about swimming in schlieren.
The thickening layer of such smooth transition between water and the heavens.
A restive cushion beneath, and a tumultuous pelting above,
Tempered by a thin haze, a fizz
So much more invigorating than a shower
And yet, so unlike the torment beneath a waterfall.
A sensation of floating without feeling a surface;
Poking right through, to breathe
And yet, not feeling that tension when falling back in.
Water above, water below.
Stark sounds above, a subdued, misty trance below.
A cold spa above, and a relaxing lull below.
An invigorating gusto to breathe
To breathe among all the splash and water
And yet, to float without that sinking sensation.
It is indeed the measure of a dream.

Torrents in the Rain -- a Walk to the Prayer Hall.
Saw torrents in the rain, flowing down pavements like tributaries down the hills.
Saw lightning brighten up the earth and the sky with an eerie blue delight.
Heard thunder roaring triumphantly,
Making the pouring rain sound cold as dead stones.
Saw a joy through the soaking wet, a serenity in motion, when the want of that motion would have caused despair;
For my destination I knew, a place to give me calm, and the walk was like a carefree little adventure, over calmed pavements and heavy traffic.
It was a serenity without despair.

P.S. I know that I first posted the above two to my Facebook status, but this way they are indexable, and for future reference, far more accessible.
P.S.S. I know these are not songs, but I needed a name, and these thoughts, for me, have a musical quality.

Sweetheart, you are my drug!

Hello Sweetheart,

I was talking to our cousin, yesterday -- the one who just got engaged. I was telling her about how my Mom (back, before my kindergarten days) used to sing that old Bengali song
"Orey Mamoni
"Amar Cho-kher-o pani
"Anchol diye muchey diye jaash Mamoni"
(I never quite figered why her fixation with that song, given that she has no daughter)
and my annoyance at the words
"Tui je hobi por
"Jokhon Ashbe-re tor Bor"
because you were always on my mind (and let's face it, I was hopelessly in love with you; and -- in a fraternal way -- I still am) and I did not like the thought that after you got married you would not be part of our family, any more. For many years, after you got married, I rejoiced because I figured that I had been right, and my Mom had been wrong -- after all, I got a DulaBhai to talk to (personally, and professionally), and you did not stop being my Sister (cousin, but I don't know any better). Right then, however, I stopped, just as I got to the words
"Amar e-ghor shunno korey jabi onno ghor"
because it was then that I realized that you had left a void in my life -- you left a certain sense of emptiness.

You see, you did a lot more than just take me out and buy me candy (when I learned to walk) and play "guess who's the pretty girl covering your eyes from behind your back", and sit me in your lap and trim my nails -- you created a persona that traveled with me far and wide -- for even in my darkest days and loneliest nights your thoughts brightened my horizons, and in a sense brightened my skies. You see, when my Mom and I first left our home country, to live with my Dad, I suddenly lost everyone I knew, and I figured that people only came into my life to go away, and that no one was going to stay, and by the time I started kindergarten (at age 5) I was of the mindset "If people are going to come into my life just to go away, then why bother making friends at all?"

Even during those days, however, your thoughts would brighten my days, and I would cheer myself up as I fondly remembered the times that I had spent with you -- something that I ended up continuing to do, without even thinking about it, long after I had started school, and my Mom had successfully forced me to make friends. From what I remember of that period of my life, there was a chunk of time when you were the only positive thought in my life. Sure, as I grew older I got more experiences with things that I liked -- like riding my bicycle -- and the need for thinking of all the times that I had been around you reduced, but it never quite went away. In fact, even when I was an undergrad (i.e., I was doing my bachelors) years I often wanted to tell my Mom "I don't EVER want to like another girl that much again -- but if I do, then I'm going to marry her."

No girl has ever really filled that void that you left behind, and perhaps I have even been the Wandering Aengus about this, but the fond memories of the relaxed times that I have had with you I shall perhaps have forever -- for you gave me a tranquility, a peace of mind from the things that caused me to stay on edge long before I was five (things like how I was treated by my Dad's side of the family and how they behaved with my Mom; things like how our Grandma treated her daughters; the fact that there had recently been a divorce in the family and that since the divorced Aunt was someone my Mom could have a long conversation with I had figured that my parents were next; the fact that my paternal cousins had not changed their attitude towards guns and that I thus risked getting shot at again; the fact that I could not trust my Mom to keep herself safe, given how she had gotten into your pond -- and I had not known that it was too shallow for her to drown in, and she did not tell me that for about 17 years, despite all my complaints about recurring nightmares -- without knowing how to swim, and thus, apparently, risked the life of the person whom I cared about most in the world; and things like how my seemingly sadistically sarcastic Mom used to taunt me about being mad, every time I goofed up on an academic question, thus increasing my, then seemingly rational, fear that I would be sent away to the Pabna mental ward, where I would become like the escaped psychopath whom I had seen from about 33 feet away -- you never forget eyes like his), a longing for human contact that gave me comfort despite my unease with the people and things around me. I suppose the closest analogy that I know of is that famous line from the movie Casablanca: "We'll always have Paris."

Well, a lot has changed over the years. Thoughts of longing for human company have evaporated, and I have found joys in the pursuit of things that I had perhaps forever thought unattainable by me. When I feel a certain sense of serenity, however -- sometimes even mixed in with a slight bit of tension -- I remember you, and all the times we had. It's like peace of mind and you are some times inseparable. You can't exactly blame me for it -- because during my formative years your company was pretty much the only kind of serenity I had ever known. Over the years I have tried many things that I have found extremely pleasurable, and some of these (sports and intellectual activities) have granted pleasures that are not just cerebral, but extremely guttural, and border-line carnal; but while with the years pursuits and sources of pleasure come and go I am left with the thought that you remain like a constant -- not like an evening star that comes and then goes away but, rather, like a navigational constant.

Your company was perhaps one of the few pleasures that I had known in life that did not also accompany pleasure's flip side -- pain. When I ski up a hill I actually have to be at it all day in order to feel the endorphins going; when I look down steep ski slope, or a fall, I have to work for months to ensure that I will survive when I am there; when I feel that tingling sensation, that twitching of my eyelids, that dancing of my eyebrows, that pleasure of elongating my breath through that asphyxiating feeling from a shortness of breath, I actually have to have worked for months to get to feel that excitement that I get when I am finally able to make sense of a physical concept or phenomenon. The pleasantness that I felt from being around you, however, I did not have to work for. Sweetheart, I just realized this, you are my drug -- and I had never thought I would ever condone anything that would confer pleasure without effort, but like a narcotic that delivers a high without the effort of climbing a rock face, remembering you some how delivers a calmness without the pain of working for me -- though thinking about those times just comes to me, under certain (perhaps triggering) conditions, and this is not something that I actively pursue. Come to think of it, that ability to relax to that extent was something that I could perhaps only achieve around you -- and whenever I am reminded of times that I spent with you; no amount of extreme sports, neither any amount of academic pursuit, has ever delivered something like that. I just thought I would share that with you.

I don't know if you can exactly relate to what I mean (well, I hope you can, but from a more accessible source -- especially given that you live with immediate family) but this song, the tune, was one recent thing that triggered your memories, and that is why I felt the need to write -- the song conveys the mood, and the video shows something that I would love to do.

Wingsuit proximity flying by Jokke Sommer

Regards,

The boy who could have fallen asleep in your arms.

Who's afraid of the big vargulf?

Dear Kids,

A certain professor tells that you guys are afraid of pursuing a PhD after seeing the kind of life I lead. Now, hear this: like this I am, and like this I have always been. I was like this even early into my bachelors, long before I started pursuing a PhD.

Unlike me, most of you guys have access to immediate family, so you guys have other things to do besides pursuing side quests of gaining esoteric knowledge for the gory details, not just the nitty-gritty.

At the end of the day going home is something you guys can look forward to. For me, it is something that I dread -- for you guys have a sense of longing, while for me, it is just agonizing loneliness, and despair.

Better to collapse in the middle of a math problem than to sink deeply into needless thoughts. At least problems, whether mathematical or physical, have a way of delivering their own rewards.

So, pursue whatever it is that you want to pursue. Do whatever it is that you want to do. Don't bother with whether it is easy, or whether it is hard. The fact that you like it should be the only thing affecting your decisions, not even fears about not having the academic smarts.

Remember, unlike me, your struggles will be known to your immediate family, and with intimate knowledge of your blood, sweat and pain they will be a willing audience when with your stories you want to have them regaled.

Never again give off your lame excuses, for they are moot. Don't get scared away by this big bad vargulf.

--Thursday, 12th May, 2011

My Colleague Called Me A "Hard Ass"

This is a sanitized and updated version of what I wrote to AE Dreyfuss (of http://www.pltl.org) on 6th December, 2010:

My colleague called me a "hard ass." She said I was too hard. She said I forced students to work too much and solve every assigned problem during (Intro Chemistry) workshops. She said I had no heart (or something like that), that I showed no lenience. She said I rode my workshop leaders hard and made sure they solved every assigned problem, lest they become lenient (she was referring to the time when I was her workshop coordinator).

In my defense, I had the best intentions in mind. I had chosen problems (working with the course' professor) that would expose the students to a range of problems, so that they would be fully equipped with the tools that the course was supposed to confer to them by the time they were done with it. A little lenience, as I saw it, could make a student a friend, but it would result in the students' suffering from a lack of a tool in their belt later down the line. The students' not realizing what tool was missing, or how they were misusing it, would cause them further pains. That is a message I could never get my workshop leaders to understand.

Right now, that workshop leader and I are both grad students in the EE Department. What's more, my first assigned undergraduate helper says he first saw me when I barged into his workshop leader's session (no, his workshop leader was not the one that called me a "hard ass," but he was a student in the same time frame) to give some instructions about some question. When I see how hard working he is, and how much he had to struggle because his workshop leader had been 'nice' and had skipped certain questions -- despite my explicit instructions -- it just makes me mad. A person who works so diligently, and perseveres in the face of extreme academic and work pressures should not have to suffer because his instructor decided to play the nice guy.

Now, here's why I'm writing all this: Do instructors who take the time to cover every aspect of what a student should know, and who try to ensure that their students are well prepared, all end up as people whose colleagues call them a "hard ass?" It bothers me. The instructors with the best lectures in the EE Department are not the most popular graders. The most dreaded math instructor in all of engineering school (and one of the students got up in this full professor's class and called him a "jackass") delivers the best lectures that I have seen anywhere -- and yet, I tremble in fear in his classes; I have been more composed walking along the edge of a rooftop:

In fact, I have been less frightened at gun point (though, that happened a very long time ago) -- and his lectures are a real draw (I'm making a drug reference to illustrate my affinity to his lectures). You see the two extremes that I'm talking about?

What I am wondering is what kind of a person will I become? I now also have a new undergrad, from another college, courtesy of a professor who is also on my research project. When I deal with this student I realize I have developed some of the traits that I used to hate in my professors. Some times I intimidate even my friends when I tell them my attitude towards accomplishing certain tasks: "You do it, you live; else, you die." Some times, I feel like my own father, when he calmly just stood back and watched his son swallowing water, and nearly drowning -- simply for a lack of following simple, extremely explicit instructions. I find that I make certain demands of students, based on their past lecture material (i.e., I expect them to recall material quickly, or to look them up -- repeatedly, if necessary -- and solve problems independently), I expect them to fill in the gaps in their knowledge very quickly (it is a demand I make on myself) and I expect them to apply that knowledge towards the understanding of research papers and advanced concepts, as well as the setup and conduct of experiments. I find that unlike the professor who first trained me to work in a lab, I don't like to wade students into the water, letting them adjust their feet to the cold -- I prefer to just dump my students off the side of a speed boat, to watch them struggle, and to push their heads down into the water if they are not struggling enough (I think this is a remnant of my workshop days, when I was only to ensure that they learned to find their way around problems, so that they could solve them, themselves -- I still insist on never providing solutions). I find that I am harsh, I am cruel, and I give them extremely strict rules.

I find that the more effort that I put into presenting material to my students the more demanding I become of them -- and I think my presentation is not too shabby, because my former students still tell me they learned a lot from me, and (while I was not supposed to do this) I still get compliments for giving clear lectures in the area of quantum chemistry -- the students say that I demystified, whereas their instructors had left them convoluted; in fact, I often found that I could not get them to understand enough to solve a single problem if I did not give that lecture, myself. I tend to feel that I deserve the students' attention, given how much effort I put into the delivery of material (and I treat my professors with the same respect), and I think this is part of the reason that, when it comes to theory, I can be rather demanding.

Of course, my being a what my student from the other college referred to as "Army Major" I am not worried about. Given my bad experiences with ill-advised procedures I do not want my students performing a procedure that could very well detonate like a bomb (which could have happened, but never did, thankfully), nor waterboard themselves (in a sink) to wash toxic chemicals from their eyes, nor strip stark naked to check that they did not spill cancer causing, vitriolic chemicals (by nature, not just by name) on their clothes -- I still remember the horror in the eyes of the guy who witnessed me in the act. The way I see it: If it can kill you, then treat it like it will. There's a reason my friends, in the US Marines, have gun rules like (a) treat a gun as if it is fully loaded and ready to fire, unless you have confirmed otherwise (b) do not point a gun unless you intend to shoot (c) do not put your finger into the guard unless you are ready to shoot, so on, and so forth: mishandling can get people hurt. The same goes with things in my lab: the lasers can blind you -- they can also burn you, as I found out the day I saw a Star Wars style space battle being fought on my hand -- while the chemicals can get you light headed, nauseous, drowsy (take my word for it), and high, and can make you pass out, and they can give you cancer, not to mention take away your (at least a guy's) ability to have kids. Not to mention, some of my chemicals are also volatile, and explosive. So, I think I have ample reason to treat the things in my lab as dangerous items that need to be dealt with with due respect. My student from that other college may not understand (or she may not want to understand), but in order to earn my trust, so that I allow a student to work with something potentially hazardous, that student will need to be able to perform tasks at the drop of a hat (and I mean that very, very literally). I have no problems with allowing a student to perform a procedure that he/she has never done before, as long as (a) the student has been briefed about the dangers and (b) the student is able to follow emergency instructions under duress -- if the student hesitates to wonder what went wrong, or if the student feels a personal affront at a snappy instruction (and thus, hesitates) then that is going to be a big problem. I am not willing to loose a perfectly good batch chemicals (one that will last for months) just because one student did not take the instructions seriously, and suddenly stopped and became gloomy as soon as I told her to stop and to get out of the fume hood (the place where we put our hands, to work with dangerous materials). Nor am I willing to compromise a student's personal safety just because she is not willing to take the risks seriously -- now that I think about it, I wonder why she, as a professional model, is not concerned that her mishandling my chemicals could burn her skin.

I know I can be very rough when it comes to enforcing rules about safety (personal, as well as the equipments' -- and I would rather cut off a students' access to equipment, rather than allow a careless one to handle them, for those things are the tools that I will use to write my thesis, and the professors have placed them under my responsibility; not to mention, I wish to train my successor to use some of them when I graduate).  I have no qualms about screaming and yelling if I see my student in any sort of danger. Sometimes, I act much like a paintball referee, in this regard. Personally, I think I have a severe disdain for fearless people -- happy go lucky people, if you will. I cannot stand it when people do dangerous things without acknowledging the risks. I mean, if a guy wants to jump off a building, the least he should do is come equipped with a proper parachute which he has ample training with. Any idiot can jump off a cliff, but it takes a smart idiot to make it repeatable. I hate it when people act like dumb idiots [my definition of idiot: someone who does it because it feels good; someone who follows the 'id' -- so, technically, all scientists and engineers are very systematic idiots]! I once went skiing with a friend who did not pay much attention to the risks, and nearly got himself, and a little boy, killed while skiing backwards (care free) into the trees. Personally, when I take a friend out, somewhere, I want to bring this person back alive and kicking -- not in a body bag. I'm not sure, but maybe after watching my friend have repeated near misses that evening I developed an extreme intolerance for people disregarding risks (of course, I had been shot with an air rifle when I was a child -- and I did not think I would survive -- so that intolerance could have originated there, only to be bolstered by my skiing experience). So, perhaps it takes very little to set off my short fuse, when it comes to keeping within certain parameters of physical safety -- not that I am in any way keen to change that behavior, but this does add another layer, bolstering my image of being what my colleague called a "hard ass."

So, I am still wondering exactly what kind of a person I will become. I sometimes feel that I am like the old fashioned teacher who greets the student with a tablet of instructions and says something along the lines of "These are the rules. You will learn them. You will live by them. Under my care you will learn the tools that you will need to survive, while you learn to infallibly follow every instruction, under my watchful eye." In fact, when one of my students flouted one of the rules of laser safety I just burst out: "(You know) the rules. You will live by them. You will die for them." Well, I guess I finally let out how I feel about it, for myself. I actually use my personal rules for safety in extreme sports when I work in the lab. I think it works out beautifully -- until someone starts pretending that the risks are not there; and at that point I become anything but friendly.

Do I think that there is room for being friendly? ABSOLUTELY! Just, that it is very important to remember that an instructor is in charge of getting people ready to do certain tasks (be they doing stoichiometry, or aligning laser beams), and letting a passive attitude get in the way is tantamount to failing that friend that one is training. Under most cases, that student that one has failed becomes someone else's problem; but in some cases that student whom one has wronged becomes one's own problem. So, while it may be okay to add a student to one's Facebook, or other social networks (though I refrained from that until the very end of the semester), and (after discussions with the relevant professor) it may be okay to invite students for skiing trips (which I have done), I don't think being a friend amounts to being lenient. Personally, the more I consider a student a friend, the more I want to treat that student the way I treat myself: I become more and more demanding of them (perhaps my optics lab's instructor's attitudes rubbed off on me, as he was a friend, and he rode me very hard, and given how useful I find the things that he taught me, I truly admire his attitude). In fact, when I got the two undergraduate lab course students (some months back) with whom I had the most fun, I personally asked the professor if I could torture my friends (they were my friends since before that class, so I felt free to do whatever I wanted with them) -- and I ended up having a lot of fun churning their brains, since the professor said "Yes!"

Sheltered, high on a purposeful serenity, on a floating barge

I just had a strange and wonderful dream.

I was on a barge, of some sort, monitoring a coastal storm, watching as the ocean blew in large chunks of houses it had pickup up from some place else, crashing them into the large houses on the shore that I was watching.

I was part of a team of old friends, from high school, with a certain tranquil serenity ensuing from a focus on purpose. It felt cozy, sheltered from the rain, spray, and debris, in the ship's large open space, and it felt great -- refreshing -- feeling that cold wind, slowed down, and going through those spaces.

It felt great seeing an old friend, who is recovering from a road accident, out there, in full vigor, and being his usual self (I think his being out of the hospital is the reason I even had the dream). I know I'm not the only one who saw him that way, for another of our high school buddies on that team also noticed that our friend was back in action.

It felt fantastic as we heard the claps of destruction on the shore, as the large debris hit houses on the shore, while we were protected by the ship's structure. From time to time members of the team went to fully sheltered areas, to take breaks, but I was always there, at least audially witnessing the destruction -- I guess I dreamt during my shift.

I heard the wind's howl, and the ocean's roar, and the tremendous claps that accompanied each shore-front house's destruction. There were at least two occasions when I had to take shelter from the resulting debris, for we were, somehow, close to shore.

O, it was reminiscent of those monsoon nights I had enjoyed as a child -- only, much more violent, and I was 'outside.' I saw a big chunk -- a complete set of three adjoining houses -- washed in, from elsewhere, as it raced towards the shore-line, giving my friend and I barely enough time to seek shelter by backing up against the wall of the ship that was closest to shore, as we heard tremendous explosions, and we gingerly tried looking around the corner, trying to glimpse the ensuing destruction. All we had to do was to monitor the storm, and to monitor the destruction, while keeping ourselves alive.

O, the serenity of cold, wet winds, the security of the ship's bulkheads, and that high, that tranquil clarity of mind at pursuing a simple goal, with simple rules.

Volatile and Decentralized: How to get your papers accepted

Volatile and Decentralized: How to get your papers accepted: "Like most faculty, I serve on a lot of conference program committees. I estimate I review O(10^2) papers a year for various conferences and ..."

To Pursue, or Not to Pursue, a PhD

A friend asked me the following:

"Do you honestly enjoy doing your PhD work? How are you managing financially? What about after you are done? How is the job market? Is it very competitive? Do you expect to be paid more than the average Joe working in a company?"

Here is the reply that followed:

Let me put it to you this way: in the summer of 2007 I went for an internship at a company that I really liked, but the kind of job that I wanted required a PhD. Every member of every group that I wanted to join had a PhD. PhD provided the specialized training that they required to even get started on jobs of that type (I interned at a research and development facility). So, when I spoke to them (at their labs, over lunch, while hanging out, etc.) they convinced me to just get a PhD. So, here I am. The company likes me, and they had me intern there again, and they want me to come back (they want someone with my specialization right now, but I don't have my degree, yet), but I have to ride it out until I finish the PhD.

Look, PhD is a specialized kind of training (depends on the field that you are in) that prepares you for certain kinds of job functions (think of it as a highly specialized job training which confers skills with wide applicability). You do it (the PhD) if that is the kind of job that you want (typically, to work in R&D). Otherwise you don't do it. The money is meager, as you have to live on a barely livable stipend (actually, it's not that bad, but I like to go skiing, skydiving, and the like -- I'm a wild man), but it's a means to an end.

I hope you have strong motives if you want a PhD, for otherwise you will get killed by the pain, the trouble, the strive and strife. The respect that our society accords to a PhD is not worth the things that we have to go through -- even the homeless guy has a more enjoyable life. But, the PhD period is transitory, allowing a person to get the kind of job that one likes (assuming the motives and actions were right), and that makes all the troubles, tribulations and frustrations worthwhile.

I cannot tell you that guttural joy of getting something to work, or that sheer ecstasy of figuring something out, but those are things to look forward to in this line of work.

She then said:

"The researchers here have a gleam in their eyes and are so excited and I find this very fascinating. Sometimes I wonder whether my interest in pursuing a PhD is a product of being here in uni. I am not too sure."

My reply (to this, and other posts) was:

That reminds me of a line from the movie, Riddick, where a girl tells Riddick 'I've killed so many people, but I still can't get that look that I see in your eyes...' well, she sounded despairingly exasperated. Look, if you like actually DOING the kind of stuff that that these people do then go for it! If you like simply reading what they have done, but would not like going through the drudgery of actually doing these things, yourself, then you might have a few things to figure out.

It's like this: my professors like to watch people jumping out of airplanes from the comfort of their seats, but would not like jumping out of an airplane, themselves -- I, on the other hand, like to jump out of an airplane. Now, you don't need me to tell you which one of us (between one of my professors and myself) needs to go to school and get a skydiver's license, do you? ;)

Personally, I was never too big a fan of the kind of experiments that I have been doing -- until I started understanding what the hell was going on (trust me, I would start cursing if I even tried to show you the full extent of how I feel). You see, I like figuring things out. My mentality was cut out more for being a physicist, than an engineer -- the two groups feel a different kind of "Aha moment" from their work (physicists feel a more subtle, more sublime, but longer lasting sigh of the chest, while engineers feel a more gutteral, more intense, but shorter lasting moment of satisfaction; but both groups feel 'high' when it happens). So, while I had my gripes, and my deep seated despairs, agonies, misgivings and regrets, I finally found my satisfaction when I took the initiative to understand the physics of what I was doing, and how I could use that physics to engineer the devices that I am to be making (I can engineer what physics happens in my devices, if you will) -- an initiative that paid off at last Friday's presentation, which my professors were very satisfied with (I think I now finally understand why my group's work is called 'applied physics,' rather than simply engineering).

So, given my better understanding, I am now quite happy, and I now finally feel that I am getting what I signed up for when I started with my PhD. This has been the longest 'down' in the ups and downs of the PhD process -- for me, anyway. Now, I feel that I am doing what I like -- I am figuring things out, and then implementing my understanding for a practical purpose. I used to see experimentation as a necessary evil to justify the theoretical work that I do (spending 7 hours doing a boring experiment is still a pain in the ass -- and I know a pain in the ass, for Mr. Yusuf Shareef used to cane me there), but I don't want to be a pure theoretician (I like 'working with my hands,' if you will, and I like to bring forth the fruits of my cerebral work, rather than limit myself, and have somebody else do the work that makes my theoretical work USEFUL to society), and I actually enjoy working with lasers and optics, and I derive tremendous pleasure out of working my systems under very tight parameters (my philosophy is 'always enjoy a tight squeeze,' and I follow that philosophy whether I am working, or skiing), and now (with my better understanding) I see the experimental work that I am doing as actually being relevant to my interests and actually being aligned with what I get joy out of.

So, if you misunderstand what the work of your professor entails, or if your PhD advisor's work does not align very well with your interests, then you could be in for a VERY SAD Life. When I started I used to think that I should simply like the end result of the kind of work that I will be doing (rather than the long periods of doing the actual work) in order to be successful as a PhD student, but the fact is, seeing something accomplished lasts a very short time, and you soon have to move on to the next step; on top of that, I cannot truly enjoy an accomplishment too well, for when my professor started clapping the day I finally was able to make high quality transparent optical quality films for my solar cells I actually squirmed inside, I felt extremely embarrassed, and I did not like it at all -- I later told a friend that I much prefer being grilled at the meetings and I am telling you that instead of facing so much compliments I would rather jump out the window; I think I do not handle compliments too well. So, it is VITALLY important that you like the journey, rather than the final destination, in order to be successful as a PhD student.

If you like Sharjah (and say you live in Dubai, United Arab Emirates), for example, you can take bus (i.e., if you like the final destination), but only if you like the act of taking journey will you take a backpack (with supplies, like water, some food, etc.) and actually walk the route, enjoying the breeze, the walk, and the sights (bad example, I know -- the desert is too hot -- but I hope you see my point). The PhD is like the journey, and you will not spend much time in Sharjah, once you get there, and you will just keep hiking/walking to the next destination. So, you should only pursue the PhD if you like taking the journey. Of course, for any PhD work it is important to know what is the destination, and what is the journey :)

O, and I must warn you of the PhD jokes, for there is a lot of truth to them. Besides the corny ones that I came up with (the ones on my BLOG, that I linked you to, earlier), there are ones like: "A PhD student should be poor, hungry, and lonely, so that he/she can spend his/her nights alone, to think." Of course, here is the United States, statistically, you are more likely to complete the PhD if you are married, rather than single -- don't ask me why, because neither I, nor my professor who told me this, can explain it.

So, there you go. Now you can better evaluate your motives for doing a PhD. The decision is a very personal journey, and telling a person about why one chooses to do it, or to not do it can feel very intimate and personal, and can make one feel being very wide open; but I would appreciate your letting me in. While the factors influencing the decision may be personal, they are certainly not the kind of personal stuff that one cannot talk to a friend about. In my case, I don't make any effort to hide them, at all. Sure, you are the first to know some of the stuff that I have written above (and, yes, I was looking for someone to talk to) but I have spoken about this stuff before with a lady who took my psychological profile (she studies the learning process in adults). In any case, knowing what factors influence you, and in what way, I would be better equipped to help the next person who asks me whether or not he/she should pursue a PhD.

BTW, have you ever heard of Shangri La? I once saw an episode about it on a show called "Lonely Planet" (also known as "Globe Trekker," and the theme is enclosed). It is a mythical city in the Himalayan Mountains where everything feels great. The show failed to find it (it is mythical, afterall), but when they found the ruins of a different city, by following the legends, they found something truly mythical. I felt elated, myself, when I saw just the video of what the show's travelers were seeing. Sure, it wasn't what was described in the myths, but when you see so much beauty, so much tranquility, such wide expanses surrounding a beautiful city, you cannot help but feel a sigh of relief, a joy that I cannot describe, an inner peace the like of which I had not experienced in a while, and I have not experienced since , you suddenly all the pains, all the troubles, all the inner strife, and all those feelings that you get while you strive fade away, and it is as if you are feeling a different version of the runner's high (to put it very, very lightly). When I saw that city on a high plateau, surrounded by hills (hence, making the place unreachable), approachable by a sandy beach from one side, and a shallow lake on the other, I could not help but feel an inner peace.

I think that is what you saw in your researchers' eyes. I think that is the reason for their eyes' gleam. I think they found their Shangri La, after traveling through vales and hills.

I once told a friend:
"Love is when you are willing to pursue the object of your love; to get to know better that object of your desire; to be willing to go hither and thither, near and far, over mounts and vales, ever inching closer, even in the face of going further and further, all in the name of appreciating what you are so willing to fulfill in terms of its wishes and desires; love is being able to think what is better for that someone, not just yourself; but love can also be possessive desire."

Well, I think they have found their Shangri La after all their ups and downs and despite the satisfaction of their perhaps possessive desire it (the look of that, rather selfish, satisfaction) is overcome by the process, that pursuit of that desire, to the point that now you only see the satisfied gleam, that inner tranquility, that fulfillment that no one can take away. It is a satisfaction that I am lost for words for, and it is indeed something worthy of desire -- it is worthy of years and years of pursuit, and it is perhaps worthy of a lifetime of pursuit, and it is worthy of pursuit from one goal to another -- for when you find it out to accomplishing one goal, and you bask in the glory of a private celebration, it is worthy of pursuing again, and again, and again. Simply writing this, I feel a certain satisfaction of that desire, for right now I am reliving that moment again, when I saw that episode of Lonely Planet. I could go on and on, but I am sure, by now, you know what I mean by the worthy pursuit of an all but elusive desire.



The true Shangri La, that tranquil oasis town in the midst of the dry mountains, far from civilization, and to get to which you have to cross wild terrain, still eludes me. It's like my happiness is 'over the hills and far away.' I am still out in the cold, cold, morn, feeling the tingling in a metal rod. Ever inching, closer and closer, not knowing how much more I will have to wither. I have come to love that tingling sound in a hollow metal rod, a rod like those railings that bridges have got. It's like every sound is an intimate moment; pressed against my cheeks I savor, and to myself I comment. I've come to love what is cold, what is forbidding, and what takes one away from pleasures a society considers innocent. I have lived for 8 years away from family, away from intimate contact, away from feeling open. Now, to block these needs it's as if my adrenals have swollen. An angry man, a wild man, a kind of beast, a man of the mountains, a talkative one, but a mountain man, nevertheless, I have become. Like Odysseus, who could not stay with his wife, and had to return to sea, having spent 10 years getting home from it, I may very well one day take off, take to the skies, and fly off. Sure, I may land over hills and vales, and while Shangri La I may not even seek, but may find en route, when least expected, I am sure from my adventures I will have many tales.




That was just me sounding off some of my deepest thoughts, some deep seated regrets, some deeply harbored desires. I hope you shall never burn in such kind of fire

Good luck with your endeavors. :)

~Faissal

To Take On The Extreme

There is an extreme side of me that I always try to control. In fact, Islam IS my moderating influence, for it keeps me from requiring others to keep things as simple as I would like things to be.

I have an extreme side, and I try to keep it away from my religion, for Islam is a path that is some sort of medium path -- one that is not leaning towards either extreme (a moderate path that leans towards neither lax flexibility nor towards morbid rigidity). That is why I gravitate towards activities that allow me to channel my extreme side in positive ways (as my high school Physics Teacher used to say: "Constructive, not destructive!"): laser alignment work (and the like), background reading, and designing experiments for research are very demanding, and allow me to be extreme and be useful to human kind, as I think Allah wants us to be, and skiing (and the like) allows me to be extremely demanding on myself while doing something personally fulfilling.

The way I see it, some people are just born extreme, and it is their duty, and their lifetime challenge to be useful (I don't think Islam encourages us to live as hermits, so I take it that we have to live in society and be useful) and to either tame their inner extremism, or to simply channel it in a useful manner -- well, that is just my take on it.

Will We ReWrite Science Fiction? Or, When Will We, About Crystals and Polymers?

I've been watching Star Trek (various incarnations), Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis (I won't insult these shows by including them in the same pack as Stargate Universe, eventhough I liked Dr. Rush), and now I am watching Babylon 5, and what I consistently see in these shows is that information (from computer programming instructions, as in the various Stargate series, to information media, to messages, as in Babylon 5, for example) -- and even energy (as in Star Trek's Lithium crystals for the ship's engines) -- is stored in crystals. Now, all that is great, but all that also feels ancient (no pun intended about the Ancients from the Stargate series), in that these shows indicate yester-years' infatuation with crystal technology, from back when the transistor was invented, since that invention was followed by tremendous technological development that almost entirely depended on the use of crystals to control the flow of electrons (and holes) for the various purposes of information technology.

Some time since the invention of the transistor, however, humankind has come up with using various organic technologies: technologies that have led to the development of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and other devices that are grown from organic materials. Even photonic materials and photonic crystals can me made (at least partially) using organic materials. Sure, devices made with organic materials need hermetic sealing to prevent their degradation, and they tend to have lower damage thresholds than crystalline material technologies, but they also have the advantages (like lower power consumption in OLEDs) that entice researchers to develop their uses further and further. Far more importantly, of course, organic materials have the advantage that devices can be grown using molecular self assembly, opening up possibilities for engineering materials and devices with tremendous versatility. I, for example, make quantum dots (yes, they are crystalline, inorganic quantum dots, but bear with) that are spherical only because they are grown inside organic chambers: not only do organic materials provide growing chambers that are easily controlled (and difficult, at best, to produce otherwise) but they allow for the molding of the external extent of my quantum dot crystals. Back when I was working on OLEDs, to give another example, I found a paper whose authors used organic chemistry to deposit a single layer of molecules at the interface between two OLED layers. Now, that level of control over how a device is made -- down at the molecular level -- is something of a holy grail of materials and devices engineering, and a dream of researchers worldwide. I remember a piece of science fiction in which this dream is mentioned: in one of the clips from the computer game 'Alpha Centauri' there is mention of a material that acts as a nano factory that grows battle tanks if left alone. I do not remember that clip mentioning organic technology, however, and I have not seen organic technology being widely prevalent in science fiction.

Sure, I have observed the mention of organic materials (polymers, in this case) in the computer game 'Deus Ex,' but even that was a bit dissatisfying in that the game mentioned organic materials in the contexts of locks, medicines (though the game's concept of the 'Ambrosia' vaccine is reminiscent of how I use organic materials to make quantum dots), and biomedical engineering: my gripe is that even this game did not mention the tremendous possibilities that organic technologies open up for my field of electronic and photonic materials and devices. The only piece of fiction where I found anything satisfying, in this regard, is the mention of organic matrices being used as high density memory devices (computer storage) in the fan made mod of Deus Ex, called 'Zodiac.' That is a singular case, however, and I am yet to see the possibilities that organic materials and devices can render to information technology being expounded in a major TV show.

I can understand that Babylon 5 came out perhaps thirty years after the invention of the transistor, and so it might be another thirty years before organic technologies are talked about in a science fiction show, but I think that that would be very limiting, as by then the scientific community might be working on something else (don't ask me what that something else might even be). Personally, I would rather that the science fiction writers write shows that talk about what is being developed now, since their shows may very well influence the career choices that their younger audiences make. I don't want the kids growing up thirty years from now getting into college, all excited by the possibilities of developing OLEDs, only to find that their Dads saw OLEDs at Times Square (in New York) when they were young. Sure, the information technology aspects of crystalline technologies being shown on the modern sci-fi shows are still nowhere completion, but if you are going to influence the kids, it might be nicer to give them something that they can look forward to in the foreseeable future.

Wouldn't it be nice to get the kids interested in molecular self assembly, organic electronic and photonic devices, and the like so that the kids can look forward to these things when they start college? I certainly think it would broaden their horizons more than if the major sci-fi shows stayed fixated on crystal based technologies. Just a thought.

~Faissal

600 Feet!

I played navigator to a friend, while driving today. I had to be most alert during the short stretches that led to turns. I noticed that the GPS reported distances a bit after they had been reduced. At one point the GPS system (we used a Tomtom system, which we like very much) chimed '900 feet,' after we had passed the point where the display had said '900 feet.' Just to throw in some numbers, I guestimated (i.e., I estimated the distance, though it was more of a guess) that we had passed a little under one-third of the distance in question by the time that the GPS system chimed in. So, just for simplicity, I guessed that by the time I heard the chime we had about 600 feet before the next turn.

Well, guess what? We weren't going fast (certainly not fast, by free fall -- skydiving -- standards), but we crossed those 600 feet incredibly fast! At that point I wondered how Mr. Jevto Dedijger might have felt, looking down at the ground from the Kockertalbrucke Bridge (pardon my spelling -- I do not have his book, "BASE 66," here with me), near Heidelberg, Germany, right before his 'S' jump in BASE.

Okay, okay, the whole point of my exercise was to get a feel for how he might have felt, but I got more than I had bargained for; for when we whizzed through that distance I was left with a knot in my stomach as I tried to fathom how much discipline Mr. Dedijer must have had to pull his rip cord during the jump. It was quite scary, and I cannot truly imagine that morbid feeling of watching the ground rushing up faster and faster, to meet you, eventhough I have watched the ground rush up when I jumped off an 8 feet high wall, and when I put my parachute into a tight spiral during my first (and so far, my only) skydive.

Should Flying Men Look Back To the Flying Darts?

Flying man minus Wingsuit: Maybe the first wingsuit landings should be done on skis, right off of a Nordic style ski jump. Perhaps the real challenge will be adapting the ski bindings so that the parachute (during testing, and for emergencies) does not get entangled in them. After that, maybe wingsuiters will start jumping out of airplanes with adapted (perhaps shorter) skis.



But, of course, I have never seen telemark ski bindings, my entire life, nor have I BASE jumped, nor wingsuited.

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I got this idea from watching Jeb Corlis' appearance on The Colbert Report, and the wonderful cinematography in the above video, starting at the 6:41 mark.

The above clip is taken from Werner Herzog's documentary "The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner," perhaps more properly translated as The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcutter Steiner.

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A few days after putting up this piece I found this clip on YouTube:



So I take it that I'm not the first to come up with the idea of learning to land a wingsuit using a telemark ski jump setup. In my defense, though, I did come up with the idea independently.

7 Days Later: A Little About My First Snowboarding Trip

On Monday, 21st December, 2009, I went to Mountain Creek, my sporting home, for winter sports, for that is where I learned to ski in the snow. This time, of course, it was not the skiing that I went for, though it was still for the snow. More particularly, it was World Snowboarding Day, and that gave me a free pass onto the slopes.

We were given snowboarding passes, equipment, lessons, and a lift ticket!

After about an hour and a half of lessons we hit the only slope where free previewers were allowed to go. It was fun, dealing with the undulating curves down the mountain slope, despite the disorienting feel of my head swinging to and fro -- my by was facing sideways, so my head was really going left and right, given the direction of my glide. Of course, I could not sustain that kind of a ride, and had no intention to, for I, as a control freak, wanted to first be able to control my flow -- if the flow can't be ours, it can't be, for I intend not to hit a tree and see floating stars.

Some parts of the slope were soft -- much of it, in fact, -- but the uncrowded part that we took had a hard, icy patch, towards the middle of the ride. Over there, I fell a lot more than once, or twice. The falls in the soft snow were always nice, but falls in the ice were a pain in my behind. I knew not any proper breafalls, for the snowboard's design -- a feature that had deterred me from snowboarding, all this time. Adapt my side breakfall to the board, I did not think too thoroughly, in the cold, and a back breakfall I had ruled out, given my skill, long ago. I, at one point, thought I had adapted my technique for falling to the side, but fell and realized that that fall made me roll, resulting in my hearing a snap in my arm, on my right side. I soon realized that such falls would be unwise -- more stunts, than prudent actions of the wise. So, I kept falling on the side of my behind, some times on the left, and some times on the right. It's a wonder that I finished the day walking upright.

In the days since that time I have warmed, and stretched, and stretched again, and then stretched again, till I got bored to the point that I wondered if I would stretch again. Persistent, preposterous, tenacious, asinine, whatever you choose to call it, I will pursue it till I can squat like I used to, and practice jumping like a Nordic ski jumper -- anything to shred the slopes made by man, or the Divine.

I shall hope to fully recover before this winter sports season's end is nigh, and while I still feel the tug on my hind, on the right, I still dream of jumping stairwells, walls, and anything high.

Mom, I know you said "Always use protection..."

...but I don't like the plastic bag!

I think I like the unprotected feel of the snowy slopes,
simply grinding away under my snowboard.

...and, where was I, when this happened?

Yesterday (well, day before, rather), I formally met, for the first time, a person who grew up with me, in Abu Dhabi, thanks to my friend of mine. Her (the person I met for the first time) Mom and mine had been long time friends, and she had known about me, from her Mom. Given that, and the fact that she is not the first girl I met 'from' Abu Dhabi who knew of me without me knowing much about her (I had only seen her, a few times, as a kid, but had never officially met her), I now think that a lot more people from there knew of me, than I knew people. I feel like I was an information node that produced signals, but never received any. But then, again, maybe it was just the girls who were told by their Moms who was who (maybe even with the tone of "Stay away from that big bad wolf," just kidding), but I cannot know.


While my New York friend (well, formerly a New Yorker) and I went around the city with my new friend (and her sister) two talked with fun reminiscence of their earlier days, back in Abu Dhabi, back when they were so young that a boy could get into a pillow fight with a girl. I must say, I quite enjoyed all of those conversations. In the end, though, I got to wondering, "Where was I?" Where was I when my friends were having so much fun? How many of them did I even know, back then? It was, at first, saddening, then sobering, in that I remembered that the circumstances back then (which I will not get into) did not allow my parents much time to socialize with their friends, which is why I did not grow up playing with the kids of their friends.

Perhaps I should not complain, however: I must remember that much as I like to complain that my Mom did not take me to her friends places, and did not have them over, much (resulting in my having only very limited experiences of actually socializing with people my own age), the fact is, it was my Mom whom I am grateful to (and very rightly) that I even have friends. I must never forget that it was she (along with an almost equal commitment, effort, and perseverance) who even made me have friends, in the first place. It was she who I have to thank for my first friend, for by the time that I started kindergarten I did not want to make friends, anymore.

You see, I was born in Bangladesh, in a small town called Pabna, and almost everyone around me was part of the family. Everyone, of course, knew that I would eventually go, with my Mom, to Abu Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates) to live with my Dad, before I started school. So, every once in a while my cousins on my Mother's side would say something like "You're a foreigner! You'll go away!" While they saw it as a privilege (people back home see living abroad as having the good life), their words, along with my not feeling welcome around my paternal cousins, made me feel like people just wanted me to go away. I actually felt unwanted, and when my maternal cousins said anything about me being a foreigner, it really hurt. Of course, I was very fond of my maternal cousins (and one particular paternal cousin -- probably because he was closest to me, in age), and while when making the final preparations for my travel to the United Emirates, in Dhaka, I was too caught up in the excitement to think about how much I would miss them (nor did I think about how close I had gotten to the family members in Dhaka), when I finally got to the airport it hit me, slowly, that I was actually going to go away; much as my Father had gone away from us using the same airport, a few years earlier. Well, the realization had not fully sunk in yet. Some time after my arrival in Abu Dhabi, and I am not sure at what point (since I was still very excited that I would finally be starting school, much as I had seen my elder cousins go to school), I realized that I did not have most of the people I considered familiar, any more. Perhaps the problem was exacerbated by my depression (I am saying perhaps, because I am not too sure at what point I started getting depressed, though I think that happened after a little tantrum I threw at my Dad during my early days -- not that I ever told anyone about the depression), but I soon came to the conclusion that whoever I meet will, at some point, GO AWAY! It didn't matter how close this person was (like the cousins who lived next door to me), or how much we had in common (like the similar aged cousins from other towns), or how much fun this person was (like the cousins who came from Dhaka), or how insanely fond I was of this person (like the person who bought me candy and ice cream), they were ALL going to GO AWAY!

So, as far as I was concerned, if I were to make a new association, it would only be to break up, some time down the line; and I did not like this break up bit, so I just did not want to meet anyone. Whenever I met a new person the first thing I would wonder would be "...at what point will this person, too, go away?" So, I think it was very instrumental of my Mom to actually force me to make my first friend. The guy, very conveniently, lived in the same building, and we met when waiting for our school transportation to arrive (yes, we went to the same school). My Mom, and Dad, were very adamant that I socialize with the guy, that I ask how he was doing, that I ask what he was up to, that I visit him, and have him over, that I find activities that we have in common, even when we (my friend and I) did not see eye to eye with each other. I suppose I should be very grateful to my Mom and Dad that I eventually got comfortable enough with the guy to not ask him at what point he was going to go away; and I eventually got comfortable enough around new people to start making friends with the people I went to school with. Incidentally, this first friend of mine, and my closest, for MANY, MANY years, was the first of any of the school mates with whom I was more than just acquainted with, was the first my friends to actually leave. He left, with his family, for his home town in Pakistan, when I was somewhere around Grade 6; though my memory of the exact time is hazy, because there was a six month gap between my finishing my 6th Grade, and starting my 7th (school transfer reasons). That was the only time, that I really remembered my old thought: "When is this person, too, going to go away?"

I have fond memories (they're fond, now) of how much care my parents took in making sure my friend and I always found things to do that we both liked (I think we were rather different personalities -- I liked climbing door frames, while my friend liked to read story books, I liked to read about science, while my friend liked to watch music videos on TV, I liked to listen to the news, while my friend considered it something for adults, and so on, and so forth), how much care they took in making sure that I did not let my frustration at not having someone who shared my interest in Star Trek, 3-2-1 Contact, and the movie Moonraker, explode. They took a lot of care to make sure that I reciprocated the same kindness that I received from my friend's family. My parents shaped me into a social animal -- they molded me into a human being. For these reasons, I think, I should just accept that my parents did the best they could to make sure I did socialize when I was a kid. While I have the gripe that they only ever went to this one friend's house, while this friend had his social interactions with multiple friends, I should learn to put up with the fact that my parents did not get the opportunity to socialize too much, themselves, and they chose to put their free time (my Dad used to get home from work at 2200) to socialize with a family that we got very close to.

Perhaps it is even a good thing that my first friend was not like me. You see, when I was around 3 years of age I got shot with an airgun pellet (accidentally, of course, by a cousin) and when I used to go to play, during my formative years (back when I was in Bangladesh), some times I would be asked by the other kids about the dent in my head, and the shooting (word get around in a small town). While I would talk about it, I did not really like being spoken to about it, and I eventually became reclusive, and withdrawn. So, perhaps it was better for me that my friend was not as oriented towards facts (hey, he liked fiction) so I never actually got to talking to him about the gunshot, at least not too much. Perhaps this is why I did not become more reclusive than I already was, while in the Emirates. Maybe being around that friend all the time helped me keep my mind off of the topic; though I have thought about it every day, since it happened, till today, and it is perhaps for this reason that my memory of it is still crimson fresh. Who knows? Maybe I would have gotten more self absorbed, had I not had a friend whose interests, relative to mine, were so off? Maybe having friends with similar interests would have helped, for then I would have been more involved in activities in which I could loose myself (I was always into activities that required me to live in the moment, where one slip could end in a fall). We may never know. Come to think of it, when it comes to the guys with whom I used to go cycling (I liked to do jumps, and navigate without touching the handle bars -- and I STILL wake up from nightmares when the drop from a jump is longer than expected, resulting in me feeling the zero g, though the craving of that feeling drives me to jump from higher and higher; I guess Garrett Soden was right is saying that it "can feel like rapture, it can feel like rape"), the sport was all that I had in common with them. Other than that, we did not have much in common (different preferences in TV shows, etc.). While I got along very well with my bikers' gang I eventually lost touch with them when I loved to a new location (some time around Grade 6) -- thinking back on this, I never, once, remembered the firing when I was actually around them, so having them was a very good thing; maybe I need to loose myself, in order to catch myself. My first friend, on the other hand, was someone with whom I did not diminish contact with, no matter who moved to a new location -- something I have to give my parents credit for -- and I have to credit his parents. Just writing this, of course, I am missing my old biking gang, differences and all; though, somehow, I still feel a lot closer to that first friend, with whom I had (and probably still have) more differences. I am not too sure if this closeness is due to our sharing the same religious festivals, or the fact that I perceived him as being more respectful of my folks, though I strongly suspect it is the latter.

Come to think of it, now, I did not have THAT bad a childhood. I may have become introverted enough, from my experiences of being asked about getting shot at (though I very much LIKE talking about it now, and spare no opportunity to talk about it); I may have missed out on varied social experiences with people from my own culture, owing to the limited time that my parents had to socialize (though that situation changed, dramatically, though not completely, past Grade 6); I may have become too absorbed in the hard sciences, and too aloof from fun social interactions, owing to a lack of the latter, but I guess that let me put up with the pains that my circumstances during my college life put me through (I used to loose sleep over nightmares, and this happened consistently for years; I still have pains, but they are project related) [though, I must admit, I feel severe pains, and I get depressed over not being able to make light of situations, like my friends can; and not being able to crack jokes out of the blue, and devilishly put a person on the spot, just for the fun of it]; I may have missed the opportunities to play with the kids who shared the same TV interests as me, the same religious festivals as me, the same level of obedience to a friend's folks, as me, the same interest in video games as me, interest in the same telecast sports as me, the same interest in football (soccer, if you are American) as me, the same interest in food, as me, the same interest in going out, as me, interest in the same kinds of toys, facts (be it general knowledge, specific branches of science, or just, plain, news categories), but you know what? I got to play with kids who enjoyed bicycling around the neighborhood, and more importantly, exploring the underground scaffolding that went into the renovations of the nearby roads (yes, we played 'follow the leader'), and that is something that none of the kids with whom I had so much in common with actually did. So, I got to play with kids who were risk takers, like I was.

So, overall, after all the give and take, my growing up was not that bad, at all. I may not have had experiences that most kids take for granted, but I did stuff that most kids did not do. Maybe I have something to offer society, from that. Time will tell. Sooner, or later, time will tell. [Yeah, I'm still a big fan of Hell March, from the first Red Alert, from Westwood Studios].

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My story, here, does not extend beyond the 6th Grade., because after this my life changed dramatically, in the realm of socializing.

How a Laser Works applets from Univ of Colorado

I really liked the Java applets used for explaining lasers on the University of Colorado's website. I just wanted to see all of the applets on the same page, so I embedded them here.

I do hope that this is not a copyright infringement, since I am only linking content from the website of the original source -- I am not storing anything from the original source, myself. Please let me know if copyright is an issue, here. Thanks. ~Faissal

For the detailed text please go to: http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/lasers/index.html



Light Sources





Light-Matter Interactions



















Population Inversion




















The End Result: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (LASER)