Two weeks ago when I came to Cochin, I was pleasantly surprised to see that folks at home separated out plastic & trash as plastic was picked only once a week and trash on a daily basis. Last week, it was announced that plastic, metal, glass, egg shells (why?), paper & coconut fibre would be collected only on Tuesdays & remaining trash everyday. While folks are initially finding it difficult to make it a habit to separate out trash and there is ambiguity as to certain wrappers being plastic or not, I am happy about this big change. Hopefully it is a step towards a better Cochin.

Last week I travelled a bit & found Calicut railway station cleaner than any railway stations I have been to in the past [which is not a small number ] . Apparently there was a 2 week cleanliness drive with banners all over the station requesting passengers to use dust bins, not to spit tobacco etc. And for once it looked like it was working. I am not sure if in the recent years there has been this kind of drive in other parts of the country. Cochin & Shornur railway stations looked the same as they always have except for some computer kiosks installed for railway information access.

Next month I am travelling to Jaipur & I hope the railway stations on the way are cleaner than they have been years ago. My memories of travel in north India date back to at least 5 years ago & are full of extremely unclean areas in and around railway stations, for that matter most public transport locations. I also realize why as a kid I never liked travelling in India. Lack of clean toilets. Now it seems like the pay & use toilets in ladies waiting rooms in stations are kept clean. Phew. Travel aches. Disgusting topic. So moving on, I have a nice, adventurous journey planned out for july that takes me through Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur and our family place. Nice because some of these places are beautiful & I saw a few as a teenager. I am sure I will see them different now & I have a digital camera now. Yay! Adventurous because it is going to be in the scorching heat around a desert.

No, the k-series haven’t stopped. And the 3-times-repeat-scene-for-emphasis has increased (yeah, as if there was scope. Nahi nahi nahi, Kya kya kya, Maa maa maa). And the bollywood song sequences which fill a good 1/3^rd of the serial time has also increased. One of the popular k-series started in my 2nd year of engineering, I remember kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi in ~2000, guess what - it’s still running. Yeah! And the hero & heroine at different points refused to continue. As if that would hinder the continuance, the hero got replaced by some random man & the heroine ... well since she was a little more important in the show, she had to either run into an accident, get a plastic surgery to look like a totally new person or die & come back. How smart & original. All the tv serials seem to be doing exactly this. That way characters are dispensable. And story *dynamic*.

I haven’t watched a whole single episode of any serial yet, but I have watched enough clips to boldly claim a few things. The serials have several generations, earlier the only way you could tell the mother from the daughter was this streak of white hair somewhere in the mass of just-groomed hair. Now, the white hair has left the scene, so when I guess the daughter & mother & check with my mom if its correct – I am wrong. Yes. For the clothes, these are women at home – always dressed like it’s a festival or party, decked with jewellery & bright colors & layers of make-up. Yeah, most of them look good alright, but far removed from the character they play (Then, again are they?). It’s very easy to spot the bad from the good, they tend to indulge in long soliloquies making weird faces at the camera which is the director’s ingenious way of showing evil intentions. In Malayalam serials, it is even simpler to make out bad girls from good, bad ones wear jeans. Ahem. No comments on that.

The scary part is not any of this, it is the fact that many many housewives (& possibly others) watch this stuff, enjoy this stuff. Creeepy! Women I spoke to, including my mother, refused to enjoy watching it & say they watch it to kill time. Right, prefer this to anything else … is exactly my point.

As to why I am watching this stuff, I enjoy mom’s food too much and spend considerable time in front of the tv in the evenings & don’t have much jurisdiction over what plays. Moreover, its fun to see folks watch & react. Even crib & continue watching. I did that some time back but strongly believe the serials were actually well thought out & good – still remember some names buniyaad, chutki, byomkesh bakshi, malgudi days, farmaan, honi unhoni …

Finally, after switching blog hosters we have a blog up and running again. The down time was quite annoying especially because I had finished with IU & was free like I haven't been in a long time. I spent a couple of weeks in Seattle having my first experience with 2 cats as pets and changing from either running away form them or driving them away to missing them wake me up by scraping my door in the morning & running after me until I serve them stuff with my breakfast. I think I am going to get cats as pets. So much easier than a dog. Considering that I never had a pet before & am generally uncomfortable around creatures rubbing their fur or licking me, this is a huge step!

I flew Air India for the first time this week & since the number of hops were 1-3 less than my usual, I actually got all my bags. The worst leg of my travel was from Delhi to Cochin, the crowd & the pushing & shoving their way through every little gap to get ahead in line at the airport was quite frustrating.

Haven't stepped out of home yet in Cochin but the rain & the smell of wet earth are so reminiscent of childhood. I look forward to this vacation in India.

So, I can swim the breadth of a pool now. Free style & back stroke. I still need to get comfortable with breathing in water and expending lesser energy than I do now. But being able to swim feels good, after 2 months of struggle.

There are so many things to keep in mind while swimming, I just don't have that many buffers. A little like learning to drive. So, hopefully with more time in water I'll internalize some of these things and the book keeping won't be as cumbersome. The length of the pool makes me nervous, just the thought that if I stop I will drown is scary enough. It is one of those initial mental block things I guess.

Swimming has changed a few things like the days I swim I have to eat well before & after swimming. Boy, does swimming make you hungry or what! The intake of water has increased many fold when in the pool. It is not intentional. I spend a substantial amount on parking every class. Sometimes during the session I know my instructor is talking to me only through his body language or coz I see his lips moving, my ears are full of water and I feel stupid trying to make sense of what he said. There should be an easy way to get the water out of your ears spontaneously.

I have been busy with random things.

The good - Spring has begun here, the weather is great (yeah, its shorts & bike time again!!), the car is running fine and I can finally use an arm for swimming.

The bad - I have been keeping unwell and am still unwell.

The good - I have to book tickets to India, I am planning a 2 month vacation in summer in India

The bad - I have to pay for the tickets

Besides school, I did a bit of travelling to discover that "Hot Springs" in Arkansas is a myth. Hot springs, Arkansas does not have any hot springs left, yellowstone national park is still the only place I have seen real hot springs & plenty of them. Mammoth caves in Kentucky on the other hand has some beautiful caves with some fabulous stalactite formations.

I would like to:

   Eat a good meal, sit back, relax, meet some non-CS people, return some of the missed calls, sleep like there is no tomorrow

I will

o   Not cook & when absolutely starved, struggle to find some place open and drive-able and get a take away some thing.

o   Get worked up about the no. of things that need to be completed.

o   Sit before my monitor for hours and get up only to visit the restroom or get some water when the bottle is empty only to realize how my back hurts, my legs hurt, my posture isn’t right, eyes feel heavy as I forgot to blink and come back and continue.

o   Go to sleep when I have made the same obvious mistake over 3 times and feel completely brain dead

o   Wake up to an alarm that I want to toss away in the morning

On the bright side, next week is spring break and I hope to spend at least a few days *not working*. The remaining time, I hope to catch up with things, esp. the compiler.

We had a snow storm last week and my classes got cancelled for 2 days. The weather was bad, there was no question of driving. After a few days, the snow began turning into ice. Here are some pictures taken in the last 2 days. You can click them for better clarity.

And today there was lots of water, thanks to the sunshine after what feels like a looong time. (temp: 6C)