congrats Venki

It doesn’t happen everyday … an Indian for Nobel … not that there’s any dearth of talent (in fact we have it better), but there are several other factors … anyway, it’s awesome. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, currently in MRC lab in cambridge will be getting the 2009 Nobel in Chemistry ( alongwith Thomas A. Stitz and Ada Yonath ) for his works in the fields of biocrystallography. Although currently an US citizen, he’s originally from Chidambaram, TN. Trained as a theoretical phycisist, he later shifted to bio and did pioneering works related to structures of ribosomes and chromatin-related proteins.

Venki, we’re proud of you man. Carry on.

Week 3 …

Well, more than halfway through. Now i’m really itching to have the classes started. Although things are making progress, and i’m also enjoying, sometimes it becomes really BORING.So, the update is like this -

1. The microchimerism project … we’ll be looking for cell types of the chimeric cells in tussue samples, … it’s fixed …
2. My pet project … did an alternative problem … the updated pdf is here … lat_inter1.pdf
3. The third one is still hanged, don’t know what’ll happen to it …

Week 1 …

Albeit second week after the exams, officially it’s the first week of holidays as most of last week went by slugging out preparing the stat assignment for submission. OK, i guess this time things are looking up quite a bit. The summary is something like this -

1. Would be visiting the SINP throughout the holidays, but not continuously, as will be working on 2 ( maybe 3 ) projects.
2. I guess nearly everyday have to shuttle between our own insti and SINP.
3. First, our microchimerism project. At least, for the presentation in November, things have to hurry up a bit. I guess, besides the RT-PCR thing we’ll be doing some sort of immunological analysis of biopsy tissues and inferring about the immune response invoked.
4. This one i’m really excited about. Was toying with this idea for about 6 months, finally making some headways into it. Pocha aka Abhik from our batch joined, we’re doing it with guidance from Prof. Arni S.R.Srinivasa Rao of our insti and Prof. P.K.Mohanty , SINP. … You can check about this project here – lat_intro.pdf
5. Learnt LaTeX, for preparing the above pdf synopsis. Well, … it’s pretty cool. Gives your article a weighty feel
6. Keeping my fingers crossed on the problem about the miRNA-TF network project getting resolved.

Random …

random tings that are crossing the mind …
1. feeling guilty about being so lazy about blogging … not that i had nothing to write, but just plain laziness …
2. Abstract algebra exam on 4th, … i can NEVER be that much meticulous like during +2, agreed, but i feel things are falling into place inside the dura-pia-arachnoid …
3. fake ipl player’s blog, … just awesome, a treat for badshah-haters a la me …
4. Summer projects, … the pet project’s in cold storage, desperately screaming to be revived … many ideas galore otherwise, all feasible, … but … let’s see …
5. Bein the mess convener, for the coming yr, … reflecting about being the person whose j***t will get burnt more than anyone else in the next one year …

6. No gym, again feeling guilty, … the only problem’s the waistline. Crusade gave a funda that if you stop gym then fat accumulation happens more in front of the belly than the sides … hm, i can see

Midsem

It’s, it’s … driving me nuts. So many things to deal with. And then … to top it all, here comes the midsem. Everything’s a colorful hotch-potch … Stat has become probability, prob has become analysis,  and ana  is  showing vestiges of the now extinct ( in our course ) linear algebra. What the hell … 4 gone, one rem.

Well, well, nothing profound. If can study a bit, then it’s okay. But, sadly, that hasn’t been the caser in this sem till now. Must recover, else it’s becoming too demoralizing.

Frershers’ – Part two

Only three days to go before the big day.

More and more tasks seem to be coming up now and then. Doing posters, getting them up in the places, arranging for audio-visual assistance etc, compiling the intros into ’significant subgroups’ of 5-6 which is to be called together, and so on and so forth … We’re nearly to the point of getting driven mad.

Meanwhile, three things worth mentioning ( by chronological order ) …

1. Joined the institute gym. No surprises, the same “cut down on fatty foods” funda. One thing i like, … less cardio, lots of weight training. Can’t run barefoot on the treadmill, the rubber belts are too thin and the rollers beneath them are hurting the foot badly. Skipping it after first day, doing spot cycling instead.

2. The experimental phase of our microchimerism project has finally got under way. What we got …

sample no. 1 – control, no DNA !

sample no. 2 – case, very near getting our desired results, but have to eliminate some factors.

samples 3 and 4 – controls, got clotted only after an hr of taking the sample ! God ( and maybe Tamoghna, coz he got the blood ) knows how.

ok, let’s see.

2. Entered first time in the Girls hostel, to put up posters for freshers’. It has a large front door and two side-doors that open into two sides of the inside corridor. For some reason the front one was tightly closed, and one side of oneof the side-doors was bolted, another open for people to come in and go out.

Freshers’ – part one

As per the institute convention we 2nd yr people are supposed to give an official welcome to all the undergrad and grad course freshers. Just imagine. OUR batch, only 9 people. And the next B.Stat. batch itself has got 47. On top of that some 60 more freshers in other courses. And now sample this. Last yr the total count was 50 odd ! You are NOT that insensitive that you can’t understand what has been going we poor 9 fellows. So very horrible ( yet so very GRATIFYING ), … planning everything, getting bits and pieces of advices from seniors, writing posters, negotiating for funds ( and probably sponsorships ), writing invitations, arranging for the auditorium, constantly trying to come up with new ideas … all on these nine 19-yr olds. All for the ‘Mas Fresco 2008 … Confessions‘.

And … AHA, how can I forget the QUESTIONNAIRE, which is designed by us, supposed to be filled up by every fresher, and then juicy intros written from them about everyone and many more, to introduce them in the stage. Here’s the one we’ve made ……

SPEAK FOR YOURSELF

Answer all (*) marked questions. Choose any 9 among others.

*1. Who art thou ?

*2. What art thou ?

3. Which kind of mountains do you like ? – a. Young and growing, b. Snow clad, c. Hard and rocky, d. Volcanic.

*4. I can …….. ( a long gap, to be filled up ).

*5. Are you … a. Veg or non-veg, b. Hot or cool ?

*6. The teacher you … a. like the most, b. Fear the most ?

7. Give a suitable quote for the ISI T-Shirt.

8. First impression about the hostel ………

9. Your first crush.

10. Suggest with reasons … a. an ideal bathroom-mate from your batch ( explanation – in the hostel we live in single rooms, with two sharing one bathroom each, hence bathroom-mate ),               b. someone from your batch whom you want as a parent-in-law.

11. The craziest thing you did in your life.

12. Describe an incident in your life that most resembles world war II.

13. What do you do that takes closest to Nirvana ( no allusions to the band. )

*14. Your dream actor/ model ………. Describe, in short, the wildest dream you had involving him/ her.

*15. ” When you try your best but you don’t succeed/ When you get what you want but not what you need/ when you feel so tired that you can’t sleep ” — what do you do ???

16. Suppose one day a teacher comes in your class, places a banana on the table and says, “I’ll be back in 10 minutes, have this banana meanwhile”, and goes out. What will you do ? ( THIS QUESTION IS INSPIRED BY A TRUE INCIDENT. )

17. Name the person(s) whose answers inspired you to answer your questionnaire.

N.B. If you haven’t found any questions, the answers to which will be your NAME and BATCH …… please mention it somewhere !

Strictly N.B. : I won’t take sole responsibility for any of these questions, so all the praises and/or swears, criticisms addressed to this questionnaire would be redirected to our whole batch, lots of seniors …

The first night

RECAP, IN THE TRAIN …

I saw your hand !

Hey Sujayam, you were supposed to snap OUR pics.

Place : the IISC, Bangalore campus.

Time : 29th june, 1 am onwards.

You know what you need after a tiring train journey that’s more than 18 hrs late, and you get a room to sleep at last at 2 in the morn, and you have three guys for company ? Simple ! You’d go out and explore, have a near-sugarless yucky hot chocolate, and above all wanna play and practise your newly-learnt bridge, in the wackiest and unlikeliest of places ! And here are the samples from that night

Seriously, ... we were playing !

There was this dog whom i wanted very much to cuddle, but for some unknown reason i was frightening it. It chose Ritam daa instead !

THAT Dog … and Ritam daa

Then it was time to cross the road, go to the other side of the campus, starting another game of bridge sitting on a large sanitary tank, and getting up only because of a lot of ants !

David and Goliath …

Ah yes. Last but not the least. Now back again … the main campus. Ritam daa was dying to do something ‘wild’, and what we ended up doing was climb over the walls of the Hoysala house, prowl its corridors and staircases in darkness ( yes, like thieves ) and snap arbit pics.

One of those Chivalrous Hoysala corridors

That’s all folks, for now.

The most interesting part of the tour’s over. Nearly all that remains are the memories of a lot of sleep-inducing lectures and lab-visits, more suitable for the junior fellows with us, a lot more arbit pics, and a little bit of trip to the city on the last day.

Anyway, i’ll write about it.

Last week* and first week** …

of classes …

A week of treats, and to say adieu.

First the treat by the outgoing batches to all the juniors in the hostel, and the teachers, and after one day, it was our turn. Five years at the insti … we heard all their stories, wacky batch-anecdotes ( like Kotto Da and Kuila Da’s meye-independent concept, Kuila Da’s encounters with police, Soru Da’s ‘Via-agra’ story etc etc … J ) concept-et al at the night-long farewell, just the reverse of what happened in freshers’! Everyone got a personalized ‘gift’ by us juniors, all made by us in the last three days, based on the special ‘characteristics’ of the receiver !

Towards the end, emotions ran high. And justly so, for you’re leaving a place that has shaped and nurtured you intellectually for the last five yrs ( and a hostel that has added words like ‘gola’, ‘maya’ etc. to your vocabulary! ).

Good luck, ye batch of superlatives, for the rest of your life. We’ll miss you,- Panu da, JD da ( and his kitten, Ghunchu ), Woody da, Borat da, Pam da, Patty da, Bhoja da, Topper da, Mota da, Mitra da, Lanky da, Tridibesh da, Rajarshi da, Raja da, Anish da, Soru da, Kotto da, Kuila da, Shailesh bhaiya, Vignesh bhaiya, Prashant bhaiya … each one of you.

** of exams …

Feels pretty weird. I am now sitting my second semester exams ! We’re going to be seniors, after just two months ! Whoops … time goes really fast. Seems just a couple of weeks ago I sat for those tiresome string of competitive exams, spent a whole lot of effort for getting passport, went to the Olympiad camp, … and got admitted here.

And what a year it had been ! The first time in life I studied only and only mathematics, I did so much programming, … I stayed in hostel. New friends, a new academic atmos that doesn’t make you forcibly adapt to it.

Okay, the exams. Three over, two remain. At least can say that they are going better than the last sem. Here are two subjects that would be bidding goodbye, … Linear Algebra and Numerical analysis. The first one has been my least favorite last sem, but was quite interesting this sem, with all its eigenvalues and SVDs etc. The second subject, is quite good and resourceful in programming, with lot of methods for different approximations, but, to reproduce the long theoretical arguments behind them in the exam-hall … is simply tiresome. I mean, nothing new, man. Only remember from the notes and write. I won’t miss this subject. About Analysis, today’s paper, … okay, a fairly good exam.

So, two more remain.

It ain’t easy

Prequel : Project … hunted !

Hmmm …

There are many subtle nuances that have to be kept in mind while you do this project.

Not at all that easy. The pre-planning is very very important. Have to proceed very carefully, for the territory is vastly unknown, though familiar. For example, we were thinking of getting the DNA samples from biopsy tissues, but just yesterday got to know in a mini-brainstorming with Navoneel da, a rersearch scholar in Human Genetics Unit at our insti that there is a phenomenon called heteroplasmy. What happens is cancerous cells have very high mutation rates, so drastic such that even the timid mitochondrial DNAs are affected. And what more, this research has been recently done in our institute itself recently. That’s why it is safe to take peripheral blood samples, not biopsy tissues, to be completely foolproof.

And this is only a part of it. There are some areas on which we are trying to think originally, but the basics turned out to be quite frail yesterday.

Have to study about it. A lot. Varied. More theoretical background needed. More efforts needed. More thinking needed.