CT and CS ;)
There is a cricket tournament going on right now and we were taking part in it. I have been nursing a sore right shoulder for some time now that comes from playing a lot of American Football. Throwing that ball can be painful for the shoulders. As Matt, one of my friends from the lab says, its bound to happen when u start off the first time. He finds it difficult to play cricket though :p.
I was relegated to wicketkeeping duties as I could not field anywhere in the deep with such an arm. Played the first match on Friday evening after a particularly tiring day at work. Wicketkeeping can be painful on the knees and the back. To cut a long story short we lost in the last over despite picking up some two quick wickets both of which were nicked behind. That was the brightest point in the whole tournament. Adi nicked one low down to my right and I had to sort of dive for it. By the time I picked myself off the ground and proceeded to appeal I see the bowler walking back to his mark, the other players looking around and the umpire signalling a wide. Before I could protest I see Adi walking off without looking back. It was such a faint nick which only I and the batsman heard. And it sort of captured everything that I like cricket and all games for. You play as hard as you can, you play to win but not at the cost of game spirit. A couple of incidents later left a lot to be desired in terms of game spirit but then that is the way the game is played in recent times at the highest levels and its only natural that kids who learn a lot of their cricket watching the game at the highest level emulate the same.
Look forward to the weekends after a long week and it sort gave me a glimpse of what working life would be like. Kudos to all the people who work all day and then still find time to do some of the things they like. ;) Working full time has its upshots too which I cant deny and that also has a lot to do with the place I work at ;)
Well the break after the end of the semester has been good and its time to get back to more serious activities. One thing I am very sure of is that there is no place for me in academics. I simply cannot stand either the jokers who run the academic system or their pompous rules. It was all the more evident during the commencement ceremony where people line up in gowns waiting for their degrees and being led by a professor from the department. I know for sure I would almost never ever go for a convocation. If you reading this nag u know what I mean. This is exactly what we used to talk about all those days and it hasnt changed one bit. One doesnt need to be branded by some third person to tell one what you know about engineering and what you dont. It brought back everything I always knew about science and engineering. Its institutionalised now. Its gone the way religion went. The education systems are the temples and the professors and the various committees that we have are the high priests.
Let me leave you with something that a young scientist said a long time ago,
In the temple of science are many mansions -- and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them there.
Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, it would be noticeably emptier but there would still be some men of both present and past times left inside -- . If the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have existed any more than one can have a wood consisting of nothing but creepers -- those who have found favor with the angel -- are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other than the hosts of the rejected.
What has brought them to the temple -- no single answer will cover -- escape from everyday life, with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from his noisy cramped surroundings into the silence of the high mountains where the eye ranges freely through the still pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity.
The passage is from a 1918 speech by a young German scientist named Albert Einstein.
Time to end here on this note.. :) over and out folks...
I was relegated to wicketkeeping duties as I could not field anywhere in the deep with such an arm. Played the first match on Friday evening after a particularly tiring day at work. Wicketkeeping can be painful on the knees and the back. To cut a long story short we lost in the last over despite picking up some two quick wickets both of which were nicked behind. That was the brightest point in the whole tournament. Adi nicked one low down to my right and I had to sort of dive for it. By the time I picked myself off the ground and proceeded to appeal I see the bowler walking back to his mark, the other players looking around and the umpire signalling a wide. Before I could protest I see Adi walking off without looking back. It was such a faint nick which only I and the batsman heard. And it sort of captured everything that I like cricket and all games for. You play as hard as you can, you play to win but not at the cost of game spirit. A couple of incidents later left a lot to be desired in terms of game spirit but then that is the way the game is played in recent times at the highest levels and its only natural that kids who learn a lot of their cricket watching the game at the highest level emulate the same.
Look forward to the weekends after a long week and it sort gave me a glimpse of what working life would be like. Kudos to all the people who work all day and then still find time to do some of the things they like. ;) Working full time has its upshots too which I cant deny and that also has a lot to do with the place I work at ;)
Well the break after the end of the semester has been good and its time to get back to more serious activities. One thing I am very sure of is that there is no place for me in academics. I simply cannot stand either the jokers who run the academic system or their pompous rules. It was all the more evident during the commencement ceremony where people line up in gowns waiting for their degrees and being led by a professor from the department. I know for sure I would almost never ever go for a convocation. If you reading this nag u know what I mean. This is exactly what we used to talk about all those days and it hasnt changed one bit. One doesnt need to be branded by some third person to tell one what you know about engineering and what you dont. It brought back everything I always knew about science and engineering. Its institutionalised now. Its gone the way religion went. The education systems are the temples and the professors and the various committees that we have are the high priests.
Let me leave you with something that a young scientist said a long time ago,
In the temple of science are many mansions -- and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them there.
Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, it would be noticeably emptier but there would still be some men of both present and past times left inside -- . If the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have existed any more than one can have a wood consisting of nothing but creepers -- those who have found favor with the angel -- are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other than the hosts of the rejected.
What has brought them to the temple -- no single answer will cover -- escape from everyday life, with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from his noisy cramped surroundings into the silence of the high mountains where the eye ranges freely through the still pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity.
The passage is from a 1918 speech by a young German scientist named Albert Einstein.
Time to end here on this note.. :) over and out folks...
3 Comments:
Damn...I always thought there was no place for me in academics....Didnt know that the "joker" tag wud catch onto me and I wud b stuck here...;)
the profs you saw 'leading' students during the Commencement were profs who volunteered to be there to ensure smooth running of the event.. you should have seen the chaos students got up to outside, when left to their own devices.
Agreed they might have volunteered for it but the whole ceremonial process is what I always had an issue with. I personally have always found it to be a bit of a joke. But then others might find it impressive. To each his own. As I said science and engineering atleast in the academia is now heavily institutionalised.
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