Why PhD in physics from a Math teacher

Today i had rare ocassion to be with a family on dinner. My flatmates, relatives from LA were in the town. They invited Ali and myself for dinner in some Indian restaurant. As always, we recommended the India Place, basically the only Indian minitown, around La Jolla area. So myself and Ali drive to the place...
There I am introduced to his aunt of his, he was careful to mention that this was a far far far off related aunt, something like his fathers mothers, cousins daughter ... or something like that.. Well it was immediately clear to me why was Ali so specific about informing me about his relation to this aunt of his..
On my informing her about myself being a graduate student persuing degree in Physics, she impudently, asks me, why are u doing a PhD in physics ?? what will you do after a PhD, will become a teacher someplace?
Talking more to here, i came to know that shes a Math teacher in some high school in LA and has kids, one of whom is a Cardiologist and the other is electrical engineer.
Some how in her mind any one persuing sciences degree is a fool and for sure that person is not worthy of making money, I guess a measure of success that she grades peoples worth by.

I wonder how many like her exist, and how many possibly worthy intelligent kids, are being deprived of career in science.

Trip to Death Valley

My fascination for wanderness has been ever increasing since my last 2 trips to Grand Canyon and then Sequoiah National park. Following the trend, I with a old friend from IIT, my office mate and his girlfriend, went on a road trip to Death Valley national park this weekend. Had heard a lot about the barreness of the place and how harsh the climate there gets. Temperatures in summer go as high as 120 F, and during the nights too, temperatures hover around 100-110 F. We were prepared well for the trip except for the unexpected. Our journey started from San Diego on 15N. At Bakers a
small, town along the way, we bifurcated on to highway 127 W, with the intentions of entering the park from north east, on highway 190. But it turned out that the highway was closed. and the reason for it being closed, guess what Flash Floods....yes Floods..
Wonder how coud that happen in such a place which is extremely dry and barren and for sure tjere is no trace of a drop of water or any greenary for miles and milses. But, as u can read at the following news report, and well described by the forest ranger in the death valley, Death valley is far from dead and is dynamically alive and it kicks ass!!!
Flash Flood in Death Valley
Our entry into the park was delayed by an hour and half as we had to move on furthur, north and we entered the park from Beatty, as small ghost town 8 miles east of Death valley.
As expected the temperatures were well in to 100s, by the time we reached Furnace Creek, the main camping point in the valley. We figured out there that the park was organising short car trips to flash flood zone, in the valley to show us the extensive damage done by the floods.. It was rare ocassion for us to see first hand the vagaries of nature and how helpless us human beings can be some times..

We moved on from there, driving west on 190, as from the Furnace Creek Ranch, 190 furthur towards east was closed, and we were told that it will remain so for atleast a couple of months.
By the time we left the Ranch, it was around 5.30 pm, and for sure it was still complete daylight and still temperature being close to around 115 F. We next decided to move on to a nice Hiking place called Mossaic Canyon, near Stovepipe wells, around 35 miles west on 190.

On our way there, I had first glimpse of real san dunes, read a lot about in highschool Geography class. They are pristine pure, simply awesome. Our hiking plans changed, we decided to explore the sand dunes instead.

For there we moved on and found a camping spot close to exit to Wildrose, near stovepipe wells. We had company there..a couple from some european country I guess.
Camped there, celebrated my old friends birthday which as it turns out was on the same day.

Simply awesome trip overall...

learning from mistakes.. how hard is it

Ok , a few weeks ago I made a mistake..The mistake I have been making for long and had the first monetary loss couple of weeks back.
I have this bad habit of scribbling on the pages of the book I read. Helps u know to appreciate the ideas presented in the book. The important thing however, is doing such things on u own book is fine but on someone elses book..bad manners!!! Quite a few people have told me this, but I guess they were all close friends and didnt mind much this habit of mine.. I got used to being getting away with it...to the point wherein finally I happened to borrow a book from a German friend. I was wary of my bad habit and so whenever I read this book, I took care enough to have a pencil in my hand. But as it turns out not many people like even a small erased pencil mark on the book.
So I had to buy him a new book. Not that I regret as the book is really good and for sure, its worth shelfing.

Learnt an important lesson the hard way!!!

-sachin

I wonder why

Ok heres the deal, I hate phones. U wonder why, is this guy crazy. Actually not..
Theres nothing worst then u getting a wake up call at odd hours of the day, with phone blarring out in it harsh voice, u getting out of ur room and seeing the gushing face of ur roommate, blabering his way to his room with the phone in his hand.. U then wonder what hell did u do wrong to suffer such torture.
Well I guess I have to live with this for rest of my grad life... Supposedly this person has a girlfriend who loves to call him at times of the day when its early morning eastern time!!!
She, I presume forgets the fact that we are 3hrs behind them atleast as far as time zone goes.

Now u woud wonder in this modern world of cell phones, why woud she actually call on home phone. As it turns out this Mr Protagonist is supposedly a big time famous person...
I mean, given any time of the day, the chances that he is on phone is 100%... No I am not joking ... it is absolutely serious.
So what woud the lead female in this plot do... yes call at land line in our house... the guy wants max utilization of his time, supposedly on phone...

Neways, I guess its way of life for many people.. Simply they cant survive without that small handset.. one of the many wonders of modern world.

The results I have been dying to get

Something that a young graduate researcher alls looks for , results , papers, that journal this journal...the obvious fear in every grad students life.. what if some one asks, hey so how many papers do u have? Come on, somthings are better left unsaid... who to tell those morons.
So here i am sitting.. in front of this blog page blabbering my a** out, instead of working on the problem on hand.
neways had to vent my anger and what better than pouring it out on a type writer (my laptop)

Failed at previous attempt

Ok yes, I falied , failed in my first attempt at blogging, yes created th blog, thatcrazygradlife, tried posting on the blog and always managed to get weird errors and eventually after just having one post, things in bloggin died down for me...
was prompted to day to creat new blog to satiate the hidden becker in me...
Yes the becker in me... I can easily associate myself with the character of Becker, the protagonist of the sitcom on CBS, Becker. Today I have to talk about the farce, that big airlines play with us poor travellers.
Ok heres what happened..
I had credit with America West because of the my cancelled journey in February, of about $276.
I decided to redeem the credit, by making a round trip to Philedelphia next week, so I go to their airline look for cheap flight on their low fares page, and call the airline to book the said itinerary.
The woman was very kind and patient in hearing what I had to say, then she speaks!!!
She informs me that the fare I mentioned is not visible to her and the cheapest fare that I coud get was for about $284, more by about $80. I ask her why is it that shes unable to see what I seem to get on the airline website.. She patiently explains, the low fares are to motivate people to book online and since I had credit with America west, I coud not do the online booking and had to pay for booking with the airline...Totally, catch22...
Moreover, I was told that I had to purchase immediately and cannot just book the ticket and get back to then in 24 Hrs as is done by some other airlines...
Well America west all I have to tell u is, You lost a customer!! and I hope this trends follows.