Of overdue blogs, year-end updates, and NRI syndrome

So here I am, blogging again. As is usual, I shall preface the main body of the blog with some random remarks about why I haven't blogged for so long. Actually, scratch that - I was planning to explain why, but it's been so long that I can't really remember why I stopped blogging in the first place. So I'll refrain from boring everyone with some made-up excuse, and save myself the bother of having to think one up.

So I'm back home in Mumbai, albeit for a measly three weeks. Winter break is not very long, sadly. My mom desperately wants to fatten me up with home cooking (and of course I have no objection to this :P) but this doesn't give her much time. She has, however, enlisted everyone who sees me in a massive conspiracy that aimed at convincing me that I've lost weight, thus resulting in rather boring "He's become thinner, hasn't he?" lines from every second person I run into. Now what do you say to something like that? Ultimately, I decided to come clean and tell the truth - that this is all part of my sneaky plan to get fed tons of amazing home cooking.

I've come down with something a friend described as "NRI Syndrome". In a nutshell, I've lost my Mumbaikar immunity to the city's polluted air, and ever since we landed, my nose has been switching between running like a waterfall, or blocked so badly that it might as well be a rock stuck to my face. Nose drops are the only way out, sadly. I've never had to use them continuously for a week - two or three days is the outside limit - but this leaves me with no option. And now there's smog all over the place - when did that happen? It's like someone found out I left and gave them the all clear to take air pollution to the next level.

And when did the design of 2 rupee coins change? I saw one a few days ago and almost thought it was fake. It looks rather out of place among all the others, if you ask me.

Moving on, here's a quick semester recap: academically, it rocked once again. I passed the PhD qualifiers - first try, easy pass and all that. They don't tell you just how well you did, so all I know is that I had an 89 in Formal Languages and Automata Theory, and did 'extremely well', in Artificial Intelligence. No idea about Algorithms and Programming Languages, other than the fact that I did well enough to pass with ease. I'm one of 6 people who passed, out of a total of 12, which isn't too bad. Don't know how many of those 6 were on their first try - at least two weren't, as far as I know. In any event, that's one major milestone that's over with.

I've managed to get into the hallowed ranks of two-time ACM ICPC World Finalists again this year (our region is obviously way too easy), which works out very nicely for two reasons. First, because I've done almost as well as can reasonably be expected - two years of competition, two trips to Finals. Second, being a finalist twice renders you ineligible to compete again, which fits nicely into my plans, seeing as how I'll have more energy to devote to research once I find a nice dissertation topic, which I'll be looking into next semester. I've got several ideas buzzing around in my head, but nothing nearly concrete enough to nail down, and I think I need a bit more exposure to the prevailing zeitgeist. That means I'll probably be reading a bunch of papers throughout the next semester, which should be pretty stimulating. Of course I need to balance this with Finals training too, but I figure anyone in a PhD program needs to get as much mental training as possible.

This is also why I picked up a copy of God Created the Integers, which is a humongous collection (1200 pages, in really small print!) of the greatest mathematical works of all time - Euclid, Newton, Laplace, Boole, Gauss, Riemann, Godel, Turing...all the really big names, and edited by Hawking, with commentary. I was inspired by the way literary types often refer to 'the classics' - the works of the really great writers. These are the classics in my line of work - after all, it all boils down to mathematics in the end. It's not all that different from being a writer, I figure - you start by imitating the most amazing pieces of writing you can find, and then absorb whatever you like, eventually evolving it into your own style. This changes a bit for research, of course, you don't want to imitate, except in private for educational purposes, but I think it will be rewarding to try and follow the general reasoning of the really smart people who changed our understanding in fundamental ways.

Anyway, I'm going to go back to reading Euclid and Eudoxus now (old stuff, but still cool). Virtually a religious experience, I tell you...

PS: I'm planning to start blogging in earnest again. Hopefully the plan will survive contact with the next semester. Wish me luck! :)