Pop Tates, Ph. D., and prettiness
I am feeling so ill. My throat is lumpy and sore. I can’t swallow anything, and I am feeling so groggy. I detest taking any kinds of medicines, but I did today. I should avoid doing that in the future considering it made me feel worse.
Last night, I dined at Pop Tates, Saki Naka, with a friend from work. It was great fun, once we reached there. Before that, we walked for 45 minutes from our office as we couldn’t find an auto. I was a little squeamish at the prospect of walking through assorted browns of decay, dirt, and loud truckers. My pal, though, tromped confidently ahead, making way with nothing more than the force of her directed stride. I followed. Meekly. I was dressed in a sari and flat sandals that were selected to show off my pretty ruby toe-ring. Instead, I winced every time I stepped on a sharp stone.
We reached PT, slightly sweaty and dirty, but oh..so relieved! I introduced her to Virgin Margarita (she had a peach, while I slurped a strawberry) and she really liked it. I like watching people enjoy my recommendations. She didn’t quite care for the jacket potatoes, though. PT ripped us off there. This dish comes with ranch dressing, as per the menu, but we just got plain, watery chutney instead. Upon a stern confrontation, the stammering waiter insisted that it was ranch dressing indeed. Some ranch it came from!
My pesto-based pasta came thickened and coagulated with cheese, but my friend’s dish was really interesting. She had pasta in a Thai sauce with vegetables. It was spicy and tangy and very tasty. I dolefully finished my food, while she polished off each scrumptious crumb with a satisfactory grin. I am definitely trying that out the next time I am there.
*************************
Some new developments in my life have left me dizzy, and mostly not in a good way. There is a lot going on, but at some strange, pit level, I feel calm. And it’s not the calm before the storm, it is the calm after. The calm you get testy about because you expect it to forebode something dramatic. But no. It is the calm that is asking you to rebuild from scratch. The onset of a humungous challenge, and the victory is nothing more than the sight of an innocent sunset and a good night’s rest.
My body is going haywire and I definitely need it to behave itself. It sleeps when it wants to, wakes when it wants to, trudges through important moments, and gets sloth-filled. No, I just have to let it know who’s boss. (Have to hurry before I get fired!)
Secondly, my brain can’t get centered on anything anymore. I just can’t coherently put down anything in a sequence. And this is when I have finally decided to get started on my academic aspirations. I wish to do my Ph.D. in two years. I aim to begin at 30, as I will have 1 year of conscious journaling down to my credit. Now, what is conscious journaling? And why 1 year? Well, this year has seen a lot of see-sawing. So, whenever the vicissitudes come about in waves, it is important to focus on a bigger picture. (I think I had mentioned something like that in one of the articles I had written for HT – it was on break ups…my life is an ongoing irony.) And the bigger picture is not really all that BIG. It’s just that much more interconnected. Like a microchip or a blood corpuscle. (Just realized – ‘corpuscle’ sounds like ‘sorputel’. There must be a famous Goan biologist at play there.)
So, from Jan 2008 onwards, I will meticulously document my thoughts and observations and little factoids. This will help me accomplish a few things:
- get me disciplined into focusing on my research question, at least for a half-hour each day
- see some kinds of patterns in societal, emotional, or mental framework, thus helping with narrowing down/ fine tuning my premise, etc.
So, the theme from now until the next few years is to focus on heavy-duty intellectual engagement and scholarship.
Maybe I should keep a separate blog for this. But if I am studying interconnectivity, should I categorize? Perhaps I should as I would like my writings on my thesis to be strictly academic. Then again, what difference does it matter where I put up an academic piece of work? It will either be read or ignored or commented upon. And well, insights are what matter.
Now, I begin my preparation to become a formidable force in beauty and brains. Correction: brains and beauty. The latter needs more work.
Last night, I dined at Pop Tates, Saki Naka, with a friend from work. It was great fun, once we reached there. Before that, we walked for 45 minutes from our office as we couldn’t find an auto. I was a little squeamish at the prospect of walking through assorted browns of decay, dirt, and loud truckers. My pal, though, tromped confidently ahead, making way with nothing more than the force of her directed stride. I followed. Meekly. I was dressed in a sari and flat sandals that were selected to show off my pretty ruby toe-ring. Instead, I winced every time I stepped on a sharp stone.
We reached PT, slightly sweaty and dirty, but oh..so relieved! I introduced her to Virgin Margarita (she had a peach, while I slurped a strawberry) and she really liked it. I like watching people enjoy my recommendations. She didn’t quite care for the jacket potatoes, though. PT ripped us off there. This dish comes with ranch dressing, as per the menu, but we just got plain, watery chutney instead. Upon a stern confrontation, the stammering waiter insisted that it was ranch dressing indeed. Some ranch it came from!
My pesto-based pasta came thickened and coagulated with cheese, but my friend’s dish was really interesting. She had pasta in a Thai sauce with vegetables. It was spicy and tangy and very tasty. I dolefully finished my food, while she polished off each scrumptious crumb with a satisfactory grin. I am definitely trying that out the next time I am there.
*************************
Some new developments in my life have left me dizzy, and mostly not in a good way. There is a lot going on, but at some strange, pit level, I feel calm. And it’s not the calm before the storm, it is the calm after. The calm you get testy about because you expect it to forebode something dramatic. But no. It is the calm that is asking you to rebuild from scratch. The onset of a humungous challenge, and the victory is nothing more than the sight of an innocent sunset and a good night’s rest.
My body is going haywire and I definitely need it to behave itself. It sleeps when it wants to, wakes when it wants to, trudges through important moments, and gets sloth-filled. No, I just have to let it know who’s boss. (Have to hurry before I get fired!)
Secondly, my brain can’t get centered on anything anymore. I just can’t coherently put down anything in a sequence. And this is when I have finally decided to get started on my academic aspirations. I wish to do my Ph.D. in two years. I aim to begin at 30, as I will have 1 year of conscious journaling down to my credit. Now, what is conscious journaling? And why 1 year? Well, this year has seen a lot of see-sawing. So, whenever the vicissitudes come about in waves, it is important to focus on a bigger picture. (I think I had mentioned something like that in one of the articles I had written for HT – it was on break ups…my life is an ongoing irony.) And the bigger picture is not really all that BIG. It’s just that much more interconnected. Like a microchip or a blood corpuscle. (Just realized – ‘corpuscle’ sounds like ‘sorputel’. There must be a famous Goan biologist at play there.)
So, from Jan 2008 onwards, I will meticulously document my thoughts and observations and little factoids. This will help me accomplish a few things:
- get me disciplined into focusing on my research question, at least for a half-hour each day
- see some kinds of patterns in societal, emotional, or mental framework, thus helping with narrowing down/ fine tuning my premise, etc.
So, the theme from now until the next few years is to focus on heavy-duty intellectual engagement and scholarship.
Maybe I should keep a separate blog for this. But if I am studying interconnectivity, should I categorize? Perhaps I should as I would like my writings on my thesis to be strictly academic. Then again, what difference does it matter where I put up an academic piece of work? It will either be read or ignored or commented upon. And well, insights are what matter.
Now, I begin my preparation to become a formidable force in beauty and brains. Correction: brains and beauty. The latter needs more work.
Comments
Can't say I have seen too many guilty sunsets, or dawns :)
Look carefully the next time the sun's going down. If your heart sinks with it...it's guilty!