Tantrums

However much money you pay for an airline ticket, you cannot control who you sit with. I am always apprehensive about sitting next to really fat people or worst, smelly people or those that make unnecessary noises. Babies are always tough as well, you never know when they are going to throw a tantrum.
On my flight today, a small family with a 1-2 year old were sitting across me. The little boy behaved really well thru most of the flight -- he was energetic and wouldn't sit down but he was happy and played with him mum and dad. About 2/3 of the way through though I don't know what happened but he suddenly started crying and crying really loud. Nothing his parents did helped. Usually I can get annoyed and think oh I didn't pay all this money to have this noise pollution. But you should have seen this little boy, his little body was racked with sobs and he was so upset. After maybe 10-5 minutes or so, his mum managed to quite him down a little bit. She was rocking him in her arms and you could see that although he had quietened down, he was trembling and hiccuping.
I was thinking first how weird it is to be a little child in this world and how when they are upset, it is such a sad sight to see. Once I stopped thinking about myself and imagine it from the perspective of the little guy, I was just sad and wanted to make him feel better. Poor little guy.
Meanwhile I was seeing how the parents were handling this. Many times I have said oh I am not ready to be a parent because how can i handle a child throwing a tantrum? But can anyone truly be ready to handle such a situation? Would there be a time when a person says, ok from now on, I can take anything the little kid throws at me.
I think that it is true that you need to have a certain level of maturity before you think about kids, but I don't think you are ever going to get to a stage when you think you are totally ready. I believe you are never going to be totally ready for all the facets of child bearing so waiting for that time to arrive is simply futile.
Having a child will bring you many moments of wondrous beauty and to balance, moments when you want to throw your hands in the air and say what have i gotten myself into. I think the point is, just like your own life, concentrate on the beauty and appreciate those moments all the more.
Of course, what do I know!! :-P

Infinite memory

I read an interesting article tonight about a woman who has an infallible memory of events from her life. She remembers everything - every single little thing - that happened to her since the age of 15. A couple of interesting things from the article:
- she remembers events infallibly, but not facts. So she didn't do particularly good on memory tests and also she didn't shine in school. So that's kind of useless right?
- For her, the adage "time heals all wounds" doesn't apply as she remembers all bad events clearly.
"I don't look back at the past with any distance. It's more like experiencing everything over and over again, and those memories trigger exactly the same emotions in me. It's like an endless, chaotic film that can completely overpower me. And there's no stop button."

For someone who has a horrible memory of both events and facts, a perfect memory is very very desirable. And yet I am not sure if I could accept not being able to rely on time to heal some of my wounds. It's funny how the disadvantages of certain gifts are not always clear.

billions and billions

Who would have thought Sagan's use of billions and billions would be so prophetic? This last week I have been watching CNN (yes I am in Calgary and thus have access to ... well, tens and tens of channels!) and the numbers that people are using are just so... well, large! 700 billion for this, 800 billion for that...

Speaking of big numbers, I was reading up on the googol, you know, as you would....
here is what wiki was saying:

"One googol is presumed to be greater than the number of elementary particles in the observable universe, which has been variously estimated from 10⁷⁹ up to 10⁸¹. A googol is also greater than the number of Planck times elapsed since the Big Bang which is estimated at around 8 × 10⁶⁰.

Since a googolplex is one followed by a googol zeroes, it would not be possible to write down or store a googolplex in decimal notation, even if all the matter in the known universe were converted into 0s. Indeed, if you had an unlimited supply of ink and paper, you would need around 10²⁰ times the current age of the universe to fully write down a googolplex."

Pretty big. So, where was I? right. Don't you worry about the state of economy in US? I'm getting more and more worried. I wish I could bury my head in sand and wait until things become better. That works, no? :-P

Post-Defense Depression

No, no, I joke, no one is depressed. I was just making a play on the name postpartum depression and I just found the resulting name funny (not that there is anything funny with PPD). I am very happy I defended and I don't have to worry about that anymore.
Having said that... I also feel really fragile. My position and future is so uncertain and I have no idea what will happen. One minute I think, oh this will be great, I will have a job, I am qualified and then something slightly negative happens (or even doesn't happen!) and I become really depressed about my future. The economy is bad, my record is not good enough,... sigh. I feel like the Dow Jones, where my stocks are just falling falling and falling in this time of uncertainty!

Buika

My newly discovered obsession is an album by a Spanish singer Concha Buika who mixes up flamenco with jazz and african rhythems and funk. I really like her most recent album called Nina de Fuego (Girl of Fire) as it has more flamenco than her other ones. I have been obsessively listening to a number of the tracks, including the one below:

I love her husky voice, vibrating with emotion. Then there is her rendition of Volver.

Doctor, doctor, give me the news, I've got a...

So... the climax of my graduate career went by in a very anti-climatic manner. Last Friday after another horrendous traveling experience I defended and I am PHinisheD. Well, kind of, there are still stuff left over to do, but I have passed. Yay. Very anti-climatic indeed. I am more worried about finding a job. What to do, what to do.
I did enjoy a really fun weekend though. My lovely Atlas bought me flowers and I celebrated with MD and CA friend.

A real pageant

Tonight I watched a really interesting documentary on PBS about the Miss Navajo Pageant (official site). One of the few requirements is that the contestants should know how to speak Navajo language, be over 18 and not married.
The pageant followed a very interesting schedule:
Day 1: they were asked about the Navajo government and council etc.
Day 2: they had to butcher a live sheep, clean it and cook it. Then they were tested on their grasp of the Navajo language
Day 3: they showcase their traditional skills
Day 4: The coronation

The women were beautiful, not in the glamorous Hollywood sense, rather in their smooth, tanned skins and high cheekbones and straight black hair. They seemed so sweet and so simple and so removed from the beauty pageants that are run these days where the women look so fake and decadent.

Games

Last night Atlas and I were invited to a game party where we spent all evening playing all different kinds of games. It was so much fun!! We played Taboo (which I LOVED), apples to Apples (random), Fact or Crap (really random because hardly anyone could tell them apart!) and Spoon (a hard hitting card game). I used to play monopoly and other card and board games a lot when i was younger but these days it is always video games. Well no more I say to you. Today is the dawn of a new era and the name of this era is...

Smile

This video always makes me Smile :-)

Enjoy.

The future looks bright

... indeed it does. It might sound trite, but hope is an amazing thing. It is wonderful to be able to look up to someone, to be inspired by someone, to aspire to be a better person. We all need to have hope and have ideals.

As I write this, I know that it is easy to laugh at my words and their idealism. But what's the point of constant cynicism? We need to hope and we need to dream and dream big.
I am happy to be here in the US right now.

Meanwhile, it seems Southpark already has an episode out about the election results. You can see some of the clips here and the whole episode is on hulu i think. Kind of funny :-)

Day Zero

Can you believe tomorrow's Day Zero? Why are all day zeros so anti-climatic? My big day zero is approaching fast and yet I am starting to feel that anti-climatic feeling.

Anyway, back to tomorrow. I hope I am happy tomorrow night. I really do.

Meanwhile I read a very nice blog entry by Linus Torvald's blog who talks about the danger of being "against" something as opposed to "pro". This is a really nice and subtle point.