The Rollercoaster ride

Yes, this month I’m celebrating the anniversary of writing SOPs. I guess, the first I had written was back when I was a novice and was helping my sister write one, just a rough draft nothing concrete. What has surely changed over the years is customization of the SOPs. As much as the academia loves their ego being stroked now and then, the subtlety with which you can do it is the real cache here. Oh dear GradSchool Of course I’m totally into your stuff, the prim labs, the exquisite library where I vouch to spend a lot of time(breathing, sleeping, living whatever) in the next few years and mostly my dear profs whose research and data will come before my food (yes it will mean that much to me). Why else on earth would I make my anxiety curve fluctuate like Philly’s temperature (and god knows if you live here it changes more than women’s mood swings). On an ending note, how could I start an assignment without commenting on its conundrum? So off I go (though a few people say I’m a bit t

I'm sitting under a starry sky. One of those where the moonlight is enough to see everything around me on a mountain. Cool breeze is flowing and I just concentrate on the stars in the sky, twinkling in their charming way; lost in thoughts of nothing in particular. Suddenly there is a pat on my back and I turn around. Obviously there's no one around and I try to put it behind as if it was just a thought not real. Again the pat, this time I can't let it go and talk to myself in the way I usually do. "I better not imagine this for a second time" I sit there transfixed, a bit with apprehension and a lot with anxiousness. Then a voice comes " Did you find the answer yet then?". Something about the quality of the voice makes me relax and find it silly that I was scared of it in the first place. " Oh, well I'm trying. The search is going well though. I'm happy about what I found till now." I answer. " I'm glad you figured out the way

What a weird day it was .. I usually have this kind of tradition that has grown over the years to read things I have written in past days in a year or so on special days like my birthday to see if I've grown up or not and ending days of december where I officially close my books as if its the year ending of one more year of my life's business. What have I learnt ? Am I a better me than last I've known? Am I going somewhere with a view in mind or just wasting time and energy in thinking and thinking some more. Let me take a breath ... Things have changed and then they haven't too. I still have the habit of thinking of those embarrassing things I did which comes to my mind and for a flash moment I wish I should have done something else and talk to myself as in really say "shut up salma" hmm.. so much for neurotism. The day dreaming self remains intact. Like a flash of a camera I can make a castle in air to raise and feel so happy its there, then come back to rea