GupShup Forums - Blogs - Morsels, Marvels, Moments... by Lucid Chaotic

Classroom Observations

Lucid Chaotic — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:56:44 GMT

Last night I had my first class session for a six week M.Sc. course that I�m teaching. Pretty interesting student demographic � no white folks at all - four Arab chics, two Indian chics, two Arab guys, two Pakistani guys, one Iranian guy, and two Chinese chics. With 13 people, it�s a good class size for a graduate course � not too big, not too small. There should be good class discussion.

I�ve been teaching graduate level courses for over seven years now, and I�ve seen the demographics change considerably. While white people and Indians used to comprise the majority of the student body when I started, it�s good to see a few Pakistani students in the classroom too now. Also, the number of female students in the classroom has been consistently on the up, especially from the Arab countries. The only um and ah is that most students who come from abroad are coming straight out of their undergrads and have almost no work experience. It worries me sometimes because a graduate degree is ideally supposed to be something you decide upon after gaining some insight into your likes and dislikes. Besides, they would be able to relate some of the discussions in classroom to real world scenarios from the workplace which would make their learning experience all the more enjoyable.

I suppose it has a lot to do with the societal mindset in the East in that students rarely work while they�re in University, and are most likely also going to be supported by their parents if they want to proceed to grad studies. Perhaps, opportunities for work are also limited - not sure...

Russian Guy and Indian Movies

Lucid Chaotic — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:47:22 GMT

Ever heard a Russian guy sing Indian songs� I just did this past weekend.

On my way back from Boston, I took a cab to the airport and got chatting away with the driver who happened to be Russian. The conversation started with talking about hockey and other assorted sports, but upon learning of my desi background, he started telling me how popular Raj Kapoor movies are in Russia even to date, and how he much he was revered there as a superb artist.

I�ve never seen much of Raj Kapoor since his movies are way too old, but I�m familiar with some songs, and this guy proved his point by singing a couple of songs which really took me by surprise. He sang �Jeena YehaaN Marna YehaaN� and �Ichak Dana Beechak Dana� - :hehe: it was hilarious :D

To add to the topic of Indian movies, the guy sprinkled a little bit of his own wisdom and his exposition went something like:

� You knowww � these American people have marriage problems and they go to counselling and shrinks. I tell them they should just go out and watch Indian movies. The wife will cry about her problems during the movie, and then the dancing and the songs will make her feel better in the end � Perfect solution and cheap too! � crying, laughing, singing and everyone is happy at the end. Why do you need shrinks when you have ichak dana beechak dana. But yeah, don�t take your wife to a Prem Chopra movie � that guy is no good, he�ll scare the women�.

Needless to say I was cracking up while this guy gave me his 5 minute shpeal on Indian movies, and it was rather intriguing to hear all this from a Russian guy.

Travel thoughts

Lucid Chaotic — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:52:44 GMT

Sitting here in a hotel room watching TV � Trauma is on. It�s a good show� makes you appreciate the work of emergency medical personnel and paramedics. I also have to admit that I like Anastassia Griffith�s character in the show � just something about a blonde who exudes poise and confidence rather than being consumed with beauty and looks.

Also wondering how I came to develop my travel quirks � like drinking tomato juice on the plane, ordering chocolate ice cream through room service etc. � it�s stuff I usually don�t do other than when I�m travelling.

The presentation today went well � got a lot of positive feedback and some interesting questions as well. Tomorrow I�m participating in a panel. I�m a little more anxious about that. Speaking to an audience and presenting isn�t foreign territory�I�ve been doing it for almost 10 years, but panels, I�ve only done a couple so far. Hopefully, it�ll go better than I expect it to.

Today's Plan

Lucid Chaotic — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:11:21 GMT

Starting my Sunday morning at 7:00 am�

I just put a mix of Costa-Rican & Nabob to brew myself a pot of coffee for the rest of the morning before wife wakes up and we can have brunch.
I�m listening to this song that�s been stuck in my head since I heard it yesterday � it�s called Saanware from the album Teri Justajoo.
I�m planning to finish reworking on chapter 3 � my advisor wants me to add another diagram to explain my research design. So I gotta do that � and then hopefully today, I can get some writing done for the next chapter too inshaAllah.
Planning to go watch Surrogates (starring Bruce Willis) in the evening. Sounds like my kinda movie.

No Imprudence Filter

Lucid Chaotic — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:45:33 GMT

I co-presented at a conference yesterday where we had a very good audience turnout � especially considering that we were presenting hard-core research to practitioners who we thought might not have been interested in that type of presentation in the first place. We had about 40 people in the audience which was an exceptionally good turnout at a large conference with 10 to 12 concurrent sessions going on.

Anyways, the presentation went well, we had a few insightful questions from the audience at the end which we responded to.

After coming home, I decided to check twitter, and sure enough, there were 7 or 8 people who had tweeted about our presentation. Almost all comments were positive and people really liked our take-aways. However, there was this one guy who kept trashing the presentation because his own experience with the subject matter (that we were presenting on) was rather bleak, and it was obvious that he was making some false assumptions about our research.

After commenting back and forth with him for a bit, he was able to see some light and apologized for the rather over-zealous comments on his part.

It just irks me to no end that people can now use social media tools to publicly voice their unfounded and baseless comments. He could easily have talked to us about the same issues after our presentation to get some clarifications, but no, instead, he decided to go slapdash and confront everything positive that others found with our presentation. I wish there were an imprudence filter for social media.

Batteries Recharged

Lucid Chaotic — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:20:50 GMT

So I got 5 hours of sleep last night and feel a little better� this is after almost 10 days of 2 to 3 hours of sleep each day. So batteries are sort of recharged.

Still have a lot of work to do though � I�m basically behind about 5 days from what I had set myself to do. It�s just taking way longer than I expected, especially now that I have to worry about page length as well. I keep wondering if there is a better way to say all I need to say in lesser number of pages etc.

I asked wifey to get me some cake yesterday � my favourite kind � Mocha Almond� sometimes I feel like I need a sugar shot as hyperglycemic type symptoms set in. Don�t know if I actually am hyperglycemic. I�m due for a full physical as I haven�t been to the doc for regular checkups in the last 7 years. Besides, I�m having about 5 cups of coffee a day these days, so that can�t be too good for the body either.

I�ve also decided to look for an editor who can go through my work once it has been reviewed by my advisor. My advisor is super-picky so he makes quite a few editing changes to my work and asks me to revise / re-structure a lot of the stuff, and that helps with the quality of work. However, if I�m going to submit my dissertation to a competition, I�d like for it to be as structurally, morphologically and syntactically sound as possible. I�m hoping I won�t have to dole out more than $400 - $500 for someone to read about 350 pages and format / structure it well, and go through basic spelling and grammar stuff.

I didn�t get to watch the Pak/India match yesterday cuz of all the work, but felt ecstatic the whole day after the team won! � good to see some semblance of form in the older batsmen.

Alrighty then� back to work!

Piled High & Deep

Lucid Chaotic — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:16:26 GMT

That�s right � I�m talking about my Ph.D. here � Piled, High & Deep describes it well.

Over the last one week, I�ve slept about 2.5/24 hours hours on average� and it�s going to be a crazy three weeks ahead. I�m trying to get my dissertation out the door � it�s high time I do it. My research was done ages ago (1.5 years to be precise), but working full-time, I only got to write two chapters of my dissertation with some drafts and bits for the other chapters.

So today I�m done with two more� which leaves four to go. I�m hoping to finish another in the next two days which will make me feel a little better since I�ll be more than half way through in terms of number of chapters.

Also, my dissertation has gotten mighty bloated � my supervisor calls me too ambitious for my own good and I�ve made my life miserable by taking on more than I needed to simply get out the door. Apparently, I�ve done the work for two Ph.Ds. Everytime I look at other people's dissertations, I can't help but curse myself for this innate quest for meticulousness which borderlines on obsessive perfectionism.

I�ve always tried to be thorough in everything I do but this time I�ve taken it too far. I haven�t had a real vacation since forever and between my work, my research and my dissertation work, my wife has had to bear my busy schedule too. I just hope I can get done with the write-up in the next month inshaAllah and then my defence by the end of this year. InshaAllah� InshaAllah� InshaAllah.

Songs of the Day (Indian)

Lucid Chaotic — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:44:32 GMT

both by the same singer - Mohit Chauhan :k: - pretty good...

It's all relative...

Lucid Chaotic — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:22:50 GMT

Just thinking whether our sense of happiness and desolation are mostly relative to what we see around us� moreover, the comparison happens to be with those who�re thriving in their lives rather than those who�re underprivileged.

It�s been almost 14 years since we moved to Canada. The initial few years were rather challenging and grueling - Parents had invested their savings in a business in Pakistan that didn�t do too well, and the rest went to immigration and moving related expenses. 16 at the time and as the eldest of siblings, I had to look for work � mostly multiple odd jobs at the time. I remember trying to save on bus tickets by walking more ; trying to apportion food so I could split it into multiple meals; and trying to find stints between my classes at University. My undergraduate years are mostly a blur since I worked multiple jobs while studying, and I don�t even know how I got through my studies � never managed to get good grades at the time since I was always struggling to meet deadlines and just study enough to make it through to the next level. My student loan money had to be used at home for things other than education related expenses.

However, looking back at the time, I don�t think I was unhappy though� there was a certain sense of contentment with what I was doing and how I was doing it. Sure, I�d have liked to have an unruffled time and been able to study more, but things worked out well. It was my work experience that kept leading me to better professional opportunities and ultimately graduate school which I still did full-time while working full-time � although by this time, I was more adept at handling workloads and managed to get better grades.

Today, when I look back at those years gone by, I feel like the struggle and the satisfaction went hand-in-hand. My struggle is still ongoing, albeit different in its nature and at a somewhat more sophisticated level, and I still find some time each day to get despondent for a while, but inshaAllah, in a couple of years, I�ll look back at this time too and tell myself that it wasn�t all that bad. Happiness and desolation may be relative, but it�d be better if they�re relative to our own life situations, and not measured against the opulence we see around us.

We decide who�s important in your life

Lucid Chaotic — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:21:34 GMT

Over these past few months, it�s hit me more than before how superficial employers and their policies can be when it comes to us caring for a loved one. As a professor, I see this way too many times with students who have genuine requests for an exception to be made based on their family situations. I had a student this term whose dad was suffering from heart trouble and she wanted some time off to look after him. Unfortunately, the University denied her request for assignment extensions and alternative exam arrangements because her dad wasn�t in the hospital and they had no �proof� to approve the student�s request. I�m glad she approached me personally, and I was able to help her in some way by offering an extension for assignments and re-allocating some of her grade to other components to be handed in later in the course. Similarly, another student�s grandfather passed away and she had to miss an exam, but the University would only let her request a deferred exam for an �immediate� family member�s death. Needles to say, I was outraged at the idea of the University deciding who is and isn�t important in someone�s life! What a load of bull!

Along similar lines, my wife requested some time off her work recently to be able to visit my family as my mom has a major surgery coming up in a couple of days (please pray for her). However, her collective agreement at work does not make any accommodations for in-laws because they�re not considered family!! � she was able to take a couple of days off as unpaid leave for next week, and then request her vacation at the end of the month but she wanted to be there over the next two weeks when she�s needed most. It infuriates me to no end that we live in a society where our employers are so apathetic to the needs of their employees. Not everything in life is black and white, and organizations need to understand that while striving for objectivity, management shouldn�t detach itself from its employees. So much for the so called initiatives around �work-life balance�� duplicitous administration at its best.

I blog and I tweet

Lucid Chaotic — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:52:18 GMT

On the hierarchy of communication priority, Twitter is still pretty low on my list of tools that I use on a consistent basis. However, I must admit to the benefits that I hadn�t expected until I explored the tool a little more and started to use it for more practical purposes.

I really don�t see the need for using it just for the heck of it! Many people still take the tagline of a �life stream� very literally � tweeting about their every moment and routine. Granted, tweets are meant to be tiny (140 characters), but it doesn�t mean you tweet about every single minute of your life.

I�ve used twitter to find like-minded people who have similar professional interests. Following them on twitter, I get to learn about the latest industry trends, new research, upcoming events, and lessons learnt from their daily undertakings.

I�ve also tapped into a tacit resource base that I otherwise wouldn�t be able to. I�ve come across people who�re doing similar academic research as I am, and I�ve asked for references and advice, as well as provided suggestions to other researchers.

For me, the main benefit of twitter is that it acts as a real-time search engine as opposed to an archived search engine like Google. I can search on key terms to see what people are talking about related to my area of interest at any instance in time � was there a new report that was released? did someone have an important blog post sharing their take-aways from a seminar? etc. The same documents would only be indexed by Google in probably another week�s time or even longer � so if you want to be on the forefront of thought leadership, then Twitter is a tremendously valuable resource to avail in your gamut of communication and interaction tools.

Anyone else on GS using Twitter? Feel free to add me @Informatician

To Earn a Living

Lucid Chaotic — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:41:28 GMT

This morning I took a cab to a meeting location, and as it often happens, there was a desi cab driver � an elderly gentleman who had been driving a cab for a few years now. I struck a conversation with him and talked about various things including work. It wasn�t too surprising to find out that the guy had a fairly stable profession back home where he worked as a physician, but after coming here, he just didn�t have the resources to pursue the required certifications to upgrade his credentials. What was surprising though was the level of contentment he had with his work, and I was very pleased to see that.

I�m the sort of person who believes in the value of work and hard-earned money � be it from a blue-collar or white-collar job source. These divisions are arbitrary and somewhat prejudiced creations of our superficial social order. I�ve had many conversations with friends and colleagues about this, and I feel that no one should be embarrassed about their line of work � alas, it�s the society that disgraces various occupations. I�ve come across people who would rather go on welfare rather than work in what they perceive to be menial jobs. To me, that�s the more dishonorable recourse� unless of course, one has a disability that forbids them from performing the jobs that are available.

Talking to this guy, I was reminded of this:

Quote:

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
- Khalil Gibran � The Prophet

P.S. I know... I'm quoting too much Gibran these days, but lately, I've been very reflexive in my discussions and I've been finding his quotes exceedingly relevant.

Evaluation Time (Mostly Self-Evalution)

Lucid Chaotic — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:33:02 GMT

So tonight was the last class of the summer term. I ended the class early to allow the students to complete their course evaluations.

One would assume that after seven years of teaching, the process of concluding a course and drawing the channel to a close would become more or less a routine� but surprisingly it hasn't.

At the end of every course, I ask myself whether I was successful this time around or not. Unfortunately, there�s no tidy answer to this. Alhamdullilah, I usually get good evaluations most of the time, but there�s a lingering thought at the back of my mind whether I was truly able to lead my students to what lies at the threshold of their minds.

Teaching is a serious responsibility, and I take it as such. It�s not the pursuit for good evaluations nor a quest for a teaching award, but just the satisfaction in that feeling that you got through to someone � and may be you had a minuscule of positive influence in their future. That�s the real reward of it all. As I stood outside the lecture hall tonight, waiting for students to complete their evaluations and exit the doors saying goodbye� it was the semblance of attainment in their farewell gestures and parting words that made me feel a sense of accomplishment in my own enterprise.

To know that you�ve opened some doors for people or given them an alternative course to try is the gist of my desired dividends� and every few months that I experience this event, I recall the words of my favorite poet/writer Khalil Gibran who says it so eloquently:

Quote:

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.

The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.

And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.

For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.

And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.

Khalil Gibran - On Teaching (in The Prophet)

A Fresh Start !

Lucid Chaotic — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:45:25 GMT

I've been thinking about resuming my personal blog again... just thought tonight's an opportune time as any.

Hopefully, I'll persist with my journal writing this time around.