Redefining beauty

Beauty is not defined by the usual norms anymore – fair skin, tall, long legs, photogenic, slim, money, etc. are not the only characters of an attractive woman. There is much more to her life than trying to look good. Here are some ways I redefine beauty. Of course some of these are important but are not the only important things.

Beauty – Myths and truths?

Color of skin? – Color of thoughts.
Painted face? – Smiling face.
Ramp walk? – Confident walk.
Color choices? – Career choices.
Wealthy? – Healthy.

And the most beautiful thing about a woman is Motherhood! And to add a little bit of science into it, Motherhood yields a healthy and a happy baby only till about an age of 30. After that, the chances of the non-disjunction monster stealing the health of your baby gets higher as the mother gets older.

First job interview!

Phew..I am going to be in a real formal phone call first time ever in my life - a job interview. I have never been through this in US yet! I am very bad at phone conversations. I would have rather been more confident if I had to meet interview panel in person. I wonder if this being weird as I have heard a lot of people getting nervous about face-to-face interviews! I literally cracked those personal interviews I have had in India. And always, if I had made it to the interview level, I knew that the job was mine! Hope I have the soft skills that I talked about here which I guess are really important to impress people! Fingers crossed!

(I am going to keep my blogger mouth shut for a couple of days!)

Soft skills are Hard!

I was on a late evening stroll with my husband yesterday. We were talking about how our day passed. An incident about what happened at his work brought us to the topic –

Soft skills "Hard"ly taught/emphasized in India -

Here is a short, but not an exhaustive list we came up with.

1) Saying thanks to somebody who helps you – Ex. At the end of a talk with a colleague or customer service representative
2) A firm handshake - when you meet an executive of your company for an instance.
3) Introducing yourself to somebody – may be in an interview
4) Dressing up to suit the place you visit
5) Approaching your boss for a favor – Here I should say about this person who was looking for MS project went to a professor requesting a project in his lab. She requested, “Professor, I have been to talking to the other professors in the department. If nobody takes me will you please accept me in your lab??” Sob sob!
6) Being on time for a meeting – be it official or personal, respect the other person’s time
7) Last but not the least, talking aloud in a language that is not understood by everyone in the room/ the group. This is very true with a lot of Indians who live outside India.

Feel free to add more!

Pratibha Patil - Representing India's women?

If Pratibha Patil becomes the next President - The first woman President - of India, does that mean anything? Does that signify women's liberation? Absolutely not. My English professor, a long time ago taught me a word - Tokenism. I now understand that word in its true sense! By throwing the bait to one, the government is shutting the mouth of a million women in the country. One of the richest and most powerful countries in the world, the US, which has relatively better men-women social equality, is yet to see the dawn of its first woman President!

Are women truly liberated in India?

1) Women are still harassed in the work place
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070016079

2) Women still have restricted "Freedom of speech and expression". They cannot utter the word "Sex" on camera - I pity South Indian film star Kushboo
http://www.hindu.com/2005/09/29/stories/2005092916020300.htm

3) Indian women are deprived of the freedom to wear what they want! - I pity Sania Mirza
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4229052.stm

4) See what the UN says about the fate of widows in India. This is the latest report - about 6 months old - widows suffer multiple suppression in India and are given "worthless and invisible" status!
http://www.wunrn.com/news/2007/01_07/01_08_07/011407_India_widows.htm

5) "City of widows" - Fame or shame??
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9711/16/india.women/

6) Dowry less marriages outside main cities is a dream. The article here says, "Legislation banning dowry was passed in 1961 but is still flouted"; "the laws are hardly enforced"; " women are afraid to file a complaint against their own husbands"
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=HOTEN20070012704
When laws are not enforced, is there a reason for amendment?

Do you want more? Having a woman President is not going to change anything.

For guys who love to drink sodas

For all of you who love drinking sodas, you will be surprised (rather shocked) to know the other uses of it! Check this out

http://www.thebachelorguy.com/34-uses-for-that-can-of-soda-other-than-quenching-thirst.html

I am not sure how true these things are, though. Most of it sounds like a writing of one of those million jobless guys around. Cleaning the toilets - I have heard that a lot of times, but never tried!

Anyways, give it a second thought before you grab a soda next time.

Summer!

Wow, Summer! That’s probably what many Indians in CA would be rejoicing. Today is the first day of summer and is warm and nice outside. Forthcoming weeks are going to be hotter – the weather channel predicts - which makes me happier! Hailing from the land of hot sun, I love summer. I went on a walk around 3PM. The swimming pool in my apartment is filled with buoyant kids! Schools closed, they are definitely enjoying the hot holiday season. The boys are out with their bikes and racing around trees, the squeaking girls giving them the right company. There were these cute little 1-2 year old babies out on a stroller or a walk with their proud moms!

For me, there is a long list of things-to-do in summer – travel, travel and travel! – Been a long time since I traveled to the East Coast – NY, NJ, DC. There is no dearth of things-to-do here in the West Coast – Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, LV, the beautiful beaches of the Santa Cruz, more and more of SFO and its beautiful hiking spots – Angel Island, Half moon bay. If possible, a visit to the Yellowstone national park, a drive along the Pacific to Vancouver, Canada.... The list will go on forever! Hmm..is that being too ambitious??

Pooh! Tired of listing places to go – I have to get going! Get my trekking shoes on!

God = Creates; Human = Creates; HUMANS = GOD?

Bush cannot suppress these guys for a long time! Read this -

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=526354&story_id=9333408

That is just AMAZING! More so for a biologist. Man is now a Creator! Though this bacterium is semi-synthetic, its more than an achievement for mankind. On the controversy part of it, there is always a bad side for anything under the sun. Can/Will our beloved Mr. Bush stop the production of weapons of mass destruction because it (he) is going to kill humble lives? What has happened to a bacterial cell will happen to a human cell soon! This research has opened new avenues into embronic stem cell research - we can create a designer/artificial embryonic stem cell by synthesizing its genome, propagate it and use it for research! He cannot stop it!

When/If I become a millionaire sometime in life, all my money will go to the SCCF (Stem Cell Charity Fund)!!!! You guys with me?

Presentations - Do's and Dont's

A must read for all of you who will be giving presentations often - as grad students or as company executives.

http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/labrats/

I learnt a lot. I wished this guy had posted a couple of weeks ago! I did face many of these problems he has mentioned. Especially the background color scheme. It is in fact very deceiving. It looks different at home and very very different in the seminar hall. The lesson I learnt - never trust your background colors unless you are going to be presenting in a dark seminar hall.

Some funny picks-
- Don't get too depressed if people are asleep. It happens to all of us!
- Remember you're trying to impress us (The audience), not the screen!
- Imagine that Professor Sleepy has dozed off during your talk, and wakes suddenly during a crucial data slide!
- Recall that 10% of your audience might be colour-blind!

Apart from what he had to say, out of experience in my own talks and as an audience, I had a couple of things to add in -

- If you are copying images from a text or a journal, take care not to distort them out of proportion.
- Never put stuff in there just to add/fill slides. I have seen a lot of people, especially students, do that.

Another feather in India's culture cap!

http://in.news.yahoo.com/070620/211/6h7e4.html

How I started writing?

As you all know, I am still just a kid as far as the blogging community goes. I am just about 3 blogs old! When I was writing one of my blogs, suddenly I asked myself "Hey..what are you doing? Writing?". That's when I started thinking what made me write. Very simple. First and foremost - its my husband! He has been insisting for a long time that I start writing but I always thought he was pestering me with something I was never interested in. Later came a spark of old memories. When I was young, I, in fact, used to write. Definitely not novels! But just letters, which all of us did. But with me, I never posted them! To be more specific, the letters I wrote were not meant to be posted! When my father was not in town and my mom yelled at me for my mistakes, I had always written to my aunt complaining about my mom! I am sure, as kids all of us at some point could not agree with our parents' anger. As kids, we were taught to respect our parents and not to argue with them and I still believe in that. So, writing letters was an intelligent means of venting my feelings out. Basically the blogger inside me was in hiding! As a matter of fact, I even wrote a poem just before our wedding and dedicated it to my husband! Thanks to him I am here again!

Sivaji Review

Wow!! I watched Sivaji!! First preview show of my life. I am all thrilled about just that and not the movie. It was definitely enjoyable but I expected much more than what I saw on screen. It was more like Perarasu movie than a Shankar movie.

Sivaji (obviously Rajnikanth!) is a Software Professional (whatever is his designation) who returns to India from the USA. He is amazed to see all those tall skyscapers and shopping malls in India. When he thinks India is metamorphosing fast into a developed country, there is this begger woman who knocks on the mirrow of his expensive Benz begging for alms. Now, he wants to do something for his country. He thinks giving people free education is the only way to destroy poverty in the country. He decides to invest all his money (200 C!!) that he made in the US to build a University that provides education from the pre-school to Ph.D all in one campus - FREE! As usual his efforts are hampered by corrupt politicians who make education a big time business. Before the interval of the movie, Rajnikanth becomes a pauper, thanks to the Indian bureacracy, and is left with just Re. 1. The rest is obvious. How Rajni fights against all odds to transform the country is what lies in the second half of the movie.

Vivek is a real winner in the movie. The first half is full of fun and frolic except for the scenes were they portray black skin to be ugly. This could have been avoided. Die hard Rajni fans would have been disppointed with his introduction scene. The introduction of Vijay in Sivakasi was much better! Also, the picturization of Ballelaka song could have been better. Rajni looks 20 years younger than he is throughout the movie, especially in the second half. For a change, the punch lines have been delivered by Vivek instead of our own Rajni. I was awestruck by the picturization of the songs. One of the best art directions I have ever seen. For a change, the heroine (Shriya) has some good role to play in a movie unlike many other movies in which the heroine appears in just 3 songs and 2 or 3 scenes! Rajni's styles are mind blowing - real challenge for the Newtons laws! There has been a commendable amount of brainstorming from the movie maker crew to create new styles. Finally, thanks to Rajnikanth for not endorsing smoking!

Overall, it was a "cooool" experience watching Sivaji. It was lots of fun after all that Sivaji fever. Deep in heart I had feeling that after all the hype it might turn out to be another Baba. Good! It didnt! Its worth watching the movie once if you are a Rajni/Shankar fan. If one expects a solid story line, it may not be your cup of tea.

Solution to plastics

One of the biggest problems the world is facing now is degradation of plastics. In the last few decades scientists have been working on finding ways to degrade plastics. Plastics are not just hurdles on land but also in water. Isnt it shocking to know that plastics accumulate as much in the sea as they do on land? The obvious way one would think is people travelling over the sea dumping plastics. But there are other ways plastics enter the sea. Artificial plastics like nylons are often used to make fihsing nets and gears. Pieces of fishing gears that get deposited in the sea have been found to kill animals that eat it. These plastics are harder to degrade than those on land.

I know these are scary but scietists do see some light at the end of the tunnel. There are many microbes like bacteria and fungi that have been found to degrade plastics. This is one application of 'Bioremediation' where biological molecules are used to 'clean' our Earth. Another example of Bioremediation is the use of bacteria to 'clean up' oil spills in sea. The natural molecules that degrade plastics are the enzymes produced by many species of fungi called laccases. These enzymes are not new to the scientific community. They havealready been exploited in many industries like textile, wine making, etc.

But its nothing great to rejoice yet. The rate of degradation of plastics by microbes is much lesser than the rate of accumulation of plastics on this precious Earth. So lets all get together to clean this Earth up and help the microbes that help us!