Slacking off and setting priorities

I went on long vacation over Dec/Jan and managed to hit up Minneapolis, NYC, DC and New Orleans. I learned to cross-country ski, had my first white Christmas, partied on New Years Eve with my brother in NYC, visited capitol hill, saw friends from high school, toured a congressman's office and gained some interesting insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and then went to the Joint Math Meetings (huge math conference) in New Orleans.

Now I'm finally partially settled back into classes, and it's time for me to start the writing again.

The break allowed for a whole lot of introspection, the result of some of which I will no doubt write about. And being back in school has afforded me a new job!

I may be one step closer to one of my life dreams... founding a school.

Fill you in later

My commute

Got a note from HR that I have to start paying NYC income taxes. I hit some kind of threshold. Now the constant commute to NYC is costing me more than my life; it is actually costing me money... prorated by the number of days I work in each city.

Let me tell you... two half lives do not make a whole

The Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

Just finished this book today while stranded in a tunnel on a delayed outbound Red-Line T(rain) ride to Davis. (I'm glaring at YOU MBTA)! I felt a small smug feeling when I found out - in the last chapter - that Gladwell is of Jamaican decent.

Otherwise the book just left me with a feeling of being bombarded with interesting bits of new information, that were arranged in just the perfect way for me to be unable to draw any kind of logical conclusion. What was the point Gladwell? Was it aimed at policy makers; encouraging them to generate more opportunity? Was it aimed at the ordinary man; giving them a way to blame lack of opportunity for a lack of success? Or was it supposed to generate a kind of fatalism? You could be a genius that worked from dawn 'till dusk... Those things are necessary but not sufficient for success... you can still fail, chances are, you will fail. People will still stand in your way, things won't work out, you will be stuck in the drudgery of the everyday... unless you are granted the random opportunity given by luck to those of "good" birth, "good" means, and "good" skin colour.

What am I supposed to do now Gladwell? No answer? Thanks for nothing. Wow, I am a ray of sunshine today.

BOSTON!

Well folks.... I moved to Boston. Still don't know much about it yet. I haven't really explored. I don't even have furniture in my room yet. Last night was the first glorious night sleeping on my bed.

I had the weirdest dream though. I was traveling with friends. I was broke, but I scrounged together some money and went back to India and then Russia. There was all kind of scandal happening and so I decided to go back to India from there, while some of my friends continued on - to China I think. Sometime during the dream, my dream-self lost consciousness. I weirdly just attributed it to the fact that I was dreaming. But on the way back to India someone sent me a package. It was a box. Inside the box was my gall bladder. Someone had knocked me unconscious, opened me up, taken out my gall bladder and then mailed it back to me. I think I was set to find/ meet up with this person in India back at school.


How messed up is that? What does a dream like that even mean?

...

Late night bad poetry

I plan to write everyday. This means that some days you will be subjected to filler. So here goes. My brother refuses to comment on how bad this is, so I will let others decide:


I measure time in displacement;
in fractions and time zones 'till i touch down on the island.
But more time,
breaking through jet lag,
from flight attendants and bus drivers,
quiet girls with straight backs behind counters,
mothers who borderline manhandle their children
and children who shut up
same time,
are the slow rhythms of not dialect, not creole
just patois without qualification.
The "Jamaican", understood
all by them
who don't understand a word.