Jose PEKERMAN . Do you know him ???

Coaches win matches. Coaches lose matches.

Sometimes it doesnt matter how good you are, you still dont end up where you should be. Had talent, flair, style and quality been the benchmark of deciding who wins a soccer match it would have been argentina forever. I would say that I have never seen anything more artistic than the way they play. If they play ,they play with flair. No matter what the results, they win the fans.

As has been the case every four years , argentina started out as favourites even this year at germany. Noone could deny the fact that they had in them to beat any country in style. They lived up to what was expected of them - play football on a different plane which noone would dream of. Pooled in the 'group of death' they emerged unscathed. After riding over ivory coast they creamed serbia only to be held to a goalless draw by the dutch. The round of 16 offered a display of quality football with argentina being challenged by a highly motivated mexican 11. This according to me was the best match of the world cup so far.

But all through I did not understand I thing. Why hide talents? What is Lionel Messi good at sitting in the bench. To me, Messi should play 90 minutes every game if he is fit. Not every coach is lucky to have someone that talented in the ranks. Why is Pekerman messing up with Messi???

Heights of mismanagement was evident in the quarterfinal clash against germany. No Messi the whole 120 minutes of play (Messi on 1 leg is still better than Cruz on 10 !). No Saviola. No Aimar. Riquelme substituted in the 78th minute. And to add Klose ran into their No.1 goal keeper forcing him out of play in the 75th minute. Jose Pekerman looked like a man missing his family. He wanted to get back home soon I guess...leaving people like me ask the question - Jose Pekerman, Do you know him????

THE BMW DREAM !

I prefer swtiching on the heater to burning twigs during winter. I prefer buying clothes from a showroom than checking out for deals at wallmart. I prefer having a burrito for lunch to rice and bean. I hate being just another desi on road.

So it was natural that I began my search for cars with BMWs. It took me less than an hour to realize that a brand new one would cost me more than 3 years of my salary put together. Quite hesitant(ly), I lowered my bar to used BMWs. An intense search landed me on an awesome deal. A perfect 1998 BMW convertible for 8k. And more to it..it ran just over 50k miles !!!! Bingo...Achu this is the 'The Deal' . I began publicizing my new car among close friends. Not having the lisence did not prevent me from driving it in my dreams. I could feel the machine...the interiors were impressive...and fully loaded. She was indeed the most beautiful car in Baltimore. Hey but what will I do in winter? Its not a hard-top convertible... the hard-tops are beyond reach for graduate students .Will I have to settle for another toyota and be another desi on road??

(* - By desi I dont mean 'DESI'. I meant the attitude of ppl which prevents them from parting with their hard earned quarters. Please dont make me centre point of any controversy...)

First two days of a Publically Humiliated Dog

Day 1

I walk into my PI's office room.
He says " Achuth,I am delieghted to have you..welcome."
And am like..."eeeeeeeeeeeee" .
He : " Well what made you choose my lab for PhD? "
Me : "errrrrrrrr....did you say something? "

Day 2

After much struggle I find a place for myself in the lab which is little short of room to accomodate 8 grad students, 1 post doc, 1 technician and 2 undergrads. As I begin to ease myself on my chair he stops by my bench..

He : " hey, how you doing? "
Me : " Good ( ...rather was good till this point )"
He : "I want you to think of an hypothesis that would be worth chasing for a PhD degree?"
Me : " ...@#$ ???? ( thats not a good joke to start the day with !)"
He (continues) : I want you to think as to how you can connect what you did earlier with the lab's central focus .
Me : :-0 !!!
He: So I want you to do some homework...
Me : Does it have to be related to the lab's central theme???
He : It can be something else too as long as you have a reason to convince me why we should do that !
Me : :-0 !!!!!

Never knew hypothesizing is this difficult. I claim am a thinker !

Lessons I learnt from the Drug and Alcohol Class.

1. Drinking alcohol can make you impotent.
2. 12 cans of beer = 1 serving of 100 pr0of alcohol = 4 servings of wine
3. A 100 pr0of alcohol will have 50 % alcohol..the other 50% determines whether it is vodhka , whisky, tequila..etc.
4. If u drink a lot , you will pee a lot.
5. Peeing helps reduce the alcohol content in your blood.
6. I can halucinate if I have drugs.

I also heard the instructors wife yell bad words at him. That woman.... trust me had an awesome vocabulary.....

FIRST NAME UNKNOWN

Can anyone not have a first name??? According to my passport I dont have one. Thanks to the officers at shastri bhavan. They printed my first name as 'FNU' - First name unkown. You definietly dont need a PhD to realize that no dad would leave their child un-named. I had not noticed this untill the guy at MVA refused to believe that I am 'Achuth Padmanabhan'. Cummon man...why would anyone want to claim that he's me.... I am no Hugh Hefner.

As of now I have an identity crisis .... :-(

WHAT DO I DO?

My friends have had this complaint that I keep giving some silly responses to their offline messages on yahoo messenger and that I dont keep them informed about what I do. Well what do I do ???

My dear freinds ( who are desperate to know what I do... ) ....this is what I have been doing........

My exams got over a long ago...( when i say a long ago i dont mean the last ice age !) . It was good. I got my grades...errrr did I say that...I'dnt have....

what else is happening in my life...I get up around 9.30ish and hurry up to show my face in the lab by 10.30ish. I try my best to hang around there till 1 AM next day trying to get things I very well know will never work going. As usual I understand at the end of the day (or rather the start of the next day) that I thought right and should have taken rest rather. The frustration ensures I sleep well for the next 7 hours.

Yea things with atmost importance - In between all this I do find enough time to stay clean,have food, go around irritating fellow Indians in the department, play soccer/cricket/basketball/tennis. Yea I am trying to play them all knowing very well I am making a monkey out of myself.

I check my YM for offlines everynight before sleeping and I blog on days when I dont feel sleepy till 3 in the morning.

What else do I do with my life...watch movies sometimes..gossip around big time...pull my roomies leg...drink beer on friday evenings... talk to my parents regularly...scrap my friends on orkut.... try and stick around girls who get a 8/10 or above on my scale knowing very well that they would have the slightest interest in hanging around with me...

When nothin to do I read things that might help me get a degree.....

And yea, from this month I plan to do a couple of more things...go and attend all my friends thesis defence (most my friends are in the comp science..and I understand squat..still I make a point to be there for the donuts and snacks they give at the start...and for showing them that during hard times achuth will stick around even if he's of not much use )....and yea I am planning to learn swimming ( frog in a pool ) ...going to gym (to impress you by building my muscles)...and I also plan to get my driving lisence...

....and I might do a lot of other things which you might not want to know...

I guess thats all I do. ........

...........................................Wish I could sleep now

I feel so hot hot hot...

A chenniatte should never complain on such issues but I will. Baltimore is as hot and humid as chennai during summer. Half an hour of soccer yesterday left me drinking fluids for the next 12 hours and then I went on to set the record for peeing for the longest time.