Happy Birthday

Over the past few weeks, I had contemplated on the futility of relationships, especially Friendship. In the process of introspection, I had hurt a few of my friends, who had no clue on my abrupt change. I had jotted down the dilemma in one of the blog post too.

Coming back to the point in contention. Birthdays for me has always been a private affair. Hailing from an average middle class family, my parents always instilled the importance of a mediocrity in life. My parents, and my brother. There were no cakes, or gifts. A visit to the temple, and mom's special dishes were the order of the day. This year, it was different.

This is the first birthday, I am celebrating away from home. I knew, I would miss my visit to temple, and not to mention, my mother's cooking. A sense of longing dawned on me, but a trip to Kerala at this juncture, was out of question. I guessed, it would be one of those birthdays to forget.My friends had other plans !!!

It began with a cake cutting ceremony at 12am. My friends, Abhijith and Gaudham, took the responsibility of keeping me awake till then. Krishnakali/ KK, I guess, was instrumental in organizing the 'Birthday kind of situation'. Ashish Bhai, Aradhana, and Sreetama joined the party. It was memorable to say the least. At midnight they wanted me to deliver a birthday speech and hence I vouched, I would write a small tribute in my blog.

"Guys, it is the first birthday cake I am cutting in 24 years. Not blowing off the candle, and cutting the cake reinforces the very same fact. The pineapple cake, The fast track watch, the birthday card, the prank with the gift, birthday bumps, and 'pastry facial' made my day. It fills my mind to know that you guys had put in so much effort to organize this. This 24th birthday would have a special place in my heart. Thanks a lot guys for making it truly memorable."

Turbulence

The signs were ominous. I was getting more edgy. My patience threshold was dropping down, I was losing out on my ability to be affable with people. A cause effect analysis revealed the cause being, frustration at work. Today was one of those days when the situation went overboard.

June 2,2010, had the perfect start. A disturbed sleep, thanks to the long power shut down at midnight. Woke up in the morning with a heavy head. Took a shower, felt a lot better and prepared a long list of experiments for the day. I left the hostel at 8.30am with truckloads of enthusiasm, and had my first set of experiment slotted for 9.30am. It was a SEM imaging. I prepared my samples, and rang up the MTech student(who too had lost his sleep owing to power cut) reminding him about the appointment. The guy came at sharp 9.30am, and we went inside the clean room.

The SEM tool, being from Raith Instruments gmbh, is known as Raith. Raith is a tool which is usually never turned off. It has a long power back up. Once turned off, it need a few hours to attain the vacuum levels.

Inside the clean room, we found that Raith was turned off. The long power cut at night made sure that the system had shut itself down, much my dismay. The information was passed on the system owner, who asked us wait until she/other expert users came over and turned it on. Good news it was, and we decided to wait. A phone call broke the silence of the lab, and we were told that there would be another power shutdown for two hours in the morning. The writing was on the wall. I knew this was going to be one of those days, when nothing would go right. With whatever optimism was left in me, I told myself, there is more to go in the list, I can at least finish one of the tasks planned for the day.

It was one of those days !!!. Next in the exhaustive list was I-V measurement slated for the evening. I rang up the guy, a good friend, to ask about the status. To my horror, he informed me that he was out of town for the day, and his train was getting delayed, which meant, I had to postpone my measurements to the next day. Another one down!!!

I checked my list for the most viable option, and went around hunting for people to help me out. As if to add salt to my wound, I found that the person in charge, was on leave for the day !!! This was it, this had to stop.It had reached a culmination.

I packed my bags and left the lab at 4.30pm. I felt as if I had enough negativity for the day.
Here I am, in the confines of my messy hostel room, venting my fury on the keyboard. Sorry dear reader, if I bored you to death, but after all this blog has served the purpose of a personal diary too :)