The Fisher King in me

Half of the year passed by.
I planned to do so many things ... Nothing has been achieved yet, nothing has been seeded. A sense of getting old and incapable of creating anything new grows day by day. The days pass by doing mundane works. All quiet on all fronts. No new light, no new shine, no new hope.
Is it summer that makes me sad? Its summer with occasional surprising rain, reminds me

"Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour." ...

Am I like the Fisher King in his Waste Land - impotent yet hopeful of contributing and proudly protecting futile legends?

Mid-life crisis!

You start with an honest eagerness to learn and contribute. When you are just halfway through it, suddenly the world seems so flat, so boring, all the talks starts to fade away, you start to loose your grip on reality. You look at the time and find that you are just only half-way through. You feel sometimes frustrated on your failure to cope up like the rest out there. You doubt your competency. You just get blank, empty. You don't understand a single thing. It seems a long time but when you again look at the watch only few seconds have passed. You try to think about good times, but your thoughts become confused. You feel like dropping out of this boredom, doing something interesting than this, but at the same time you feel guilt. Then at a time the strong urge to do something interesting overcomes your guilt. You discard the reality and delve into your own world. You don't care for the others anymore and let your dreams come true. But as time passes by and nears the end, you suddenly snap out of your state and realize time is up and you can not go back! You have wasted the entire middle third of your and probably others' time. You repent, at least sometimes.

But the class is already over and you have slept through it like always. You wonder why, at all, you have taken this course. I know you don't want to sleep through it, but can't help dozing off as the class nears the halfway just like some can't help their self doubt as they enter mid-life crisis!

How lazy I've become

The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow
There'll be sun!

Just thinkin' about
Tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs,
And the sorrow
'Til there's none!

When I'm stuck a day
That's gray,
And lonely,
I just stick out my chin
And Grin,
And Say,
Oh!

The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
'Til tomorrow
Come what may
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
I love ya Tomorrow!
You're always
A day
A way!

But I'm optimistic.

Sleeping saga

I feel guilty of it, but I can't avoid it. I am talking about sleeping in lecture classes. I am taking a week-long course on CFD. It is really important. But whenever I try hard to be awake and attentive, I feel sleepy. Its not that lectures are very boring, or I am not interested, or I am sleeping less in the night ... I just can't keep my eyes open.

First hours, lecture on Numerical Methods.
Student: Madam, how will we decide which equation to use?
Madam: Depends on the situation and physics of the problem. Am I right?
Student: Is there no guidelines that for this kind of flow, we shall use this kind of equation...
Madam: It depends. OK I'll bring my notes tomorrow and discuss this issue. Am I right?

Post Tea Sessions, lectures on Fluid Mechanics.
Student: But sir, if we take case of ... then can we apply the same formula?
Sir: Oh, yes. Since this is a general...but in the case you are referring the viscosity...or no the same formula...so yes...but in that case you don't have this value...then the boundary condition...on the other hand if you take earlier formula it may become easier...

Post Lunch sessions, supposedly a problem solving session on CFD. This is the most vulnerable session. But the teacher is more interactive, as he sopmetime asks questions! We start off with a typical movement of solid in a melting fluid.
Teacher: I want make you independent, what? independent. and hence I'll not solve the problem. I'll only tell you where in this problem CFD can be used. what? where CFD can be used.
...
Teacher: So you see, composite is always better. What is better? composite.
And our problem solving session, where we learned that CFD can be used to model the melting fluid and composites are better in absorbing shocks thus ends.

Amen.

Bangalore

Today morning I reached Bangalore on official duty. This is my frequent destination now. This time I am going to stay here at least for a week. And as usual the moment I get out of Pune and come to roaming zone, I remember so many phone calls to do... to friends, to relatives,etc. Is it being out from usual place reminds me these?
Is it the fact that I am too occupied in day-to-day affairs back in Pune to remember old friends?

Ideal Idology for Idleness

...

Sitting in the morning sun
I'll be sitting when the evening comes
Watching the ships roll in
And I watch 'em roll away again

Sitting on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
I'm just sitting on the dock of the bay
Wasting time

I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the 'Frisco bay
'Cause I had nothin to live for
And look like nothing's gonna come my way

So I'm just...

Look like nothing's gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same

Sittin here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home

Now, I'm just...

(by Otis Redding)

Too short a lifetime

There are so many things to do.
A lifetime sometime seems too short. So many books to read, so many movies to watch, so many things to write, so many pictures to paint...
I am not talking about all books or movies, but only those which have overcome the oblivion of time - classics or nearly-classics. I am surely not worthy for all of them, but still the small fraction of them which I may cherish are too much!
But there are something beyond them, which have been left unnoticed by a majority due to some odd rasons. Lack of publicity is one of the reasons. In today's world, where that, what is publicized, is good, for a novice reader or movie watcher like me it is a difficult job to distinguish the good from middleclass.
Someday I'll make a list of my wishlist.