The evil monkey follows...

today morning when i took out my bike to come to the lab, this is what happened...the seat broke....

annoyed by the crowded metro...i went to the near by velib (bike rental) stand.....i found none...they are just made for emergency ...thats y i never find one when i need it...ok...just 5 minutes walk...i found just one left..."thank god" ....now with all the signal and the traffic..i have to reach the lab within 30 min and leave it in the nearest bike stand....

when i reached the bike stand next to my lab...this is how it was...there was no place to put a bike...now i have to find the closest empty stand, with just few more minutes.....ooops! this evil monkey is just following me...

anyways...as i started taking photos and composing the blog entry in my mind....i felt i am not a victim of the busy..hectic schedule of the city life...but just one small struggling character in a big play that i am enacting.......Thanks to the blog, which makes me see myself as a Protagonist in my life's play...sometimes, i feel i can kick out the evil monkeys out of my play...but they add some new twists and turns to my play...so i will learn to put up with them and may be one day i can write...she lived happily ever after...!

The Evil Monkey!

Now back in cold and grey Paris....I switched on my mobile and to my surprise it was still working but the keys went crazy, when I click one... it starts the radio etc. Only a Phd student can understand such a helpless condition, when the money you earn is not enough for such expensive accidents and living in one of the most expensive cities of the world...makes you feel like Sh**... as an Indian the first thing I did was to curse the "evil eye that was staring at me" .Later..... out of desperation looked for the similar handset in ebay, lucky me....I found one recent model for one euro and the bid was about to end in 3 minutes....to be in the safer side i made a bid for 5 euros....wow! I won it! Life has never been that easy for me, with all the excitement that I got a mobile just for 10 euros (with shipping), i started reading the description (of course using google translator)....I was not able to believe my own eyes...guess what????? I just bought a plastic dummy mobile, which are used in the shops for display....anyways at the cost of 10 euros, I was able to add some smile and laughter in the depressed lab mates, who were suffering from failed experiment and after paying a hefty university fee. After having a nice laugh at my stupidity, my brain came back to senses, i decided to dismantle the mobile and I found some salted sand particles....washing that off ....now I got my mobile back in working conditions.....Moral of the story : " haste makes waste"! and now we have decided to hang the dummy phone in the lab against the evil eye and bad day!

Last few days!

All the nice things have an end and specially when some evil eyes are constantly staring at you, it can be a bit of an unpleasant end too. After the fun-filled days in Eilat, we started driving towards Jerusalem, thanks to Doron, it was beautiful drive along the desert and dead sea. On the way as we stopped in the world's lowest point and the only place where we can float in the water, my mobile jumped out of my bag and fell into the dead sea. Dreaming about the Jerusalem, i just put the mobile aside and didn't want to think about it till i am back in Paris.

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Jerusalem: I have never dreamt of such a place in my life, holy place of three religions, people with different beliefs living in such a close proximity, I was lucky to get lost in the old town and discovered both pleasant and unpleasant quarters of this holy place. In India people believe that the religious place have high energy, that's when people with problems (low energy) feel nice when they go to such energy rich place. now if that belief is true, we can say that the old city of Jerusalem strictly follows the second law of thermodynamics "energy systems have a tendency to increase their entropy".

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Tel aviv : Just 40 minutes drive from Jerusalem, a very modern city with many sky scrappers. Meeting some of Assaf's friends, staying with them, knowing the history of the place, playing with Itai, Doron's son (when did i last had a four month old beautiful baby in my laps), walking around the oldest port in the world (Jaffa) put my legs into the Mediterranean, watching people doing surya namaskar in the beach (you can never see even in India) . End of the trip, I felt that I have never seen so much of love for India any where else and specially I admired the confident and daring way of expressing their love. Now I know where to go, when my confident level goes down and not happy with my identity.

what a day!

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"may be this is just a small pause for the exciting days to come"!...yes! I was right! it was indeed just a small pause before my exciting day, after the depressing last blog post, i went out to explore Eilat, entered the dolphin reef, I don't know what made me do this…I just went and enrolled my self for a scuba dive with a dolphins. "I CANT BELIVE IT...! I SWAM WITH DOLPHINES" ! I am sure Anton will not believe this, after me giving him such a tough time during my first snorkeling in Mediterranean this summer …I have a small video proof for my diving…(coming soon) That was not all, spent the evening in the desert on a camel seeing the sunset and moon rise! Where else in the world you can do this, do a dolphin dive and a camel raid on the same day? Thank you Israel! And thanks to all the unknown kind people I met yesterday and specially to the daring Israeli men who made me feel like a queen and thus my gloomy day came to an end. We are just about leave for Jerusalem! More pictures .

why me?

End of a very nice day, I was dreaming to see one the new 7 wonders of the world "petra" ! but my Indian passport and the super fast visa service of Jordan stopped me from doing it. Thats why here I am sitting in this beach, desperatly staring at Jordon just in opposite shore and uploading pics and updating my blog... well every dog has its day! may be this is just a small pause for the exciting days to come....I am sure, I will arrange some thing exciting to do today till i wait for the diatomics team to come back from petra.... major selfdiscoveries are made in the loneliness....as the famous french writer says....

"Here I possessed nothing in the world. I was no more than a mortal strayed between sand and stars,... and yet I discovered myself filled with dreams."

-Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Here I am...

Finally...here i am in this beautiful world...Israel ! very strict but also affectionate and kind, that's the word i will use to describe my mother and Israel, believe me... who else in this world can ask me so many questions and at the same time take care of all my needs even before i ask for help . starting from my friends arranging for my accommodations, visits even before i land there, to being fed by the co-passenger('vegitatrian snacks') which AirFrance failed to provide. As I woke up yesterday, took just few steps out of my bed to see the glowing sun rising behind the red sea and the Jordon desert, lighting up the Israel and Egypt with its first rays. yeah! that's the sun rise in the triangle of peace. walked under the sea to see the beautiful rea sea coral reef,

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Thats the beautiful sunset and the diatomics team. to add a cherry to this beautiful day was the night trip into the desert, experiencing the loud silence of the nature.

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Brother Returns...

My brother stopped on his way back to Canada, the two things he wanted to do in Europe was to visit Italy and to drive in German autobahn. On his second hop in Europe, he fulfilled his second wish of driving 200km/hr in Germany. during this crazy drive we stopped at Heidelberg

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Trier

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Luxembourg: by visiting this tiny country, I successfully completed visiting all the six neighboring countries of France.

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Now with all the French strikes, if I manage to reach airport tomorrow, I will be stepping into middle east soil for the first time.

Long live Photosynthesis!

With a very successful thesis committee meeting yesterday, I officially finished my second year Phd, I discussed my two year work for two and half hours. Finally got some hope about my Phd. I guess I can finish it just in time too Long live Light! And Long Live Photosynthesis! …otherwise... Paris is getting sunny, cold and crowded, with all the public transports on strike, the road is filled with cyclists and annoyed car drivers, anyways I can escape from this cold weather at least for a week…Next week this time I will be in a ‘warmer’ country….how exciting!

Festival of Lights!

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We celebrated diwali yesterday, diwali is more like 'christmas of India', one of the biggest festival. But here in Europe I see Christmas as an family affair but diwali is more of friends and family affair. Traditional way of diwali goes for more than a week, it beings with making of few kgs of sweets to distribute to almost all the known people, neighbors, teachers, the postman,garbage collector,watchman, drivers etc. As a kid me and brother divide the street and each one take one side of the street to distribute sweets to all out neighbors of the street and show off our new dress, evening we lit up the street with fire crackers and lights. Hmm! that was the most awaited festival as a kid. Yesterday, in Paris we did a miniature version of diwali, with lots of sweets and good food with Niranjan's friends and family. Thus we added some light and sweet to my gloomy days! more pics!

Got a trophy!

Its bit hard to for me to believe but …yes! I am alive! If I can still feel pain means I am alive right? Well! Last week I celebrated in silence my two years of successful blogging by giving myself this trophy.

What a surprise! the Archive list almost look like a semi-trophy! Nature and English(in spite of me not being so nice to it) together conspired to give me this trophy ...

I have never done anything for such long-time voluntarily…and then I made some wishes for some impossible things to happen…like….two days of continuous sunshine in Paris…and…. to always hear “yes! go for it! as an answer from my family!...and....to have more sensible/sensitive/less annoying lab mates… Other than that I just jumped into (pool) for a new hobby of swimming, thanks to my friends and this trophy for inspiring me to swim through and survive my gloomy days!