Alright! So today is Dec 17, 2015. After a long time I am getting to update
my blog and well I am glad I can. A lot has happened since the last blog post
which was somewhere in July. A lot of which probably I might not be able to share
and some which I can.
For starters, I’ve qualified my PhD examinations and thus I am an official
PhD candidate. Feels more like a relief from the necessary evil part and feels
like its time to do some actual contributive work. I’ve also become a legal driver now! Well it
feels great. I guess my feeling of adulthood came to me after I bought my own
car and now with the license it is empowering.
Professionally, I feel I’ve started getting a hang of academia and I feel
like I'm in control of my work. I feel I have the knowledge ( which is ever
increasing every single day) to be able to logically argue with my advisor (at least) about what are the next steps that I can take. I guess I am going slow with my
research and possibly my advisor thinks I can do better and well I’m glad he
keeps me on the hook coz I seem to be enjoying it. Its frustrating and
painstaking of course when things go wrong but I cant even explain the happiness
I get from the feeling of accomplishment with every tiny goal that goes according
to plan. PhD is definitely a way of life that you choose and its not just an
option that you incorporate in your work life. It affects your living and your
motivation of existence. You can have several perspectives of course. One can
be: You get up every single day, work your ass out, get tired, sleep and
repeat. The other is, you start your day with some objectives, try to achieve
them and in the process keep realizing the other objectives and at the same
time you’re trying to ensure that the objectives at the higher level of
abstraction are making sense and you move forward keeping a vigil eye for any
interesting results. I like the latter perspective of course and this whole idea of augmenting this sense
of awareness just keeps getting better everyday. I am currently working on
something very interesting and drafting a research paper for the same thus
cannot discuss it now but hopefully soon enough.
The friends I introduced in the last post have of course become closer and
our friendships have transcended the formal boundaries of acquaintance and as a
graduate student you definitely need a support system. Talking about support
system, my parents had their first time visit to the States and they came to
see Purdue. I’m glad they loved it. I took them to chicago. It was great to see
them go nuts in the chicago winds. The tradition for thanksgiving has been set
with me heading to Omaha for the second time to be with my american family, the
Oliver family, which I am glad I've become a part of. Meeting Libby finally was
a wonderful experience and boy I’m in love with her persona. After John, I think
shes the most intriguing Oliver to me. I had a wonderful thanksgiving with a
new born addiction to Settlers of Catan. It’s a wonderful game and you all
reading this should try it.
Personally, I’ve grown a lot. I’m still learning to be an adult but I guess
i'll get there at some point. This December, Gourav and Shibu are gonna be in
Chicago so im super excited to meet em over the holidays. Of course undergrad
friends or more like SAMS family is meeting me without Sam himself. That is, Achal
and Shailesh are gonna be there in chicago as well and Srijan is back in India
so well we will just miss him ( may be :P) . I’m gonna bombard his facebook
with all our pictures haha.
Wish you all a very happy new year!
Anyway, that’s it for now. Pretty sleepy, I hope I
update the next blog sooner than last time
