"A Cappuccino, please"

He is walking down the boulevard, completely oblivious of the surroundings, with earphones plugged in and music loud just enough to cut off extraneous noise. With his morale almost touching the nadir, the music was nothing more than random notes. He walks down, completely cut off from the physical world, except that he has firmly clutched his phone.


He walks in to a cafe and asks the barista, "Can I get an extra-large Cappuccino, with  more espresso and less froth, some whipped cream at the top? And a bit of cocoa powder, please".

The barista returns with the special Cappuccino.
"Just like you like it" with a warm smile.
"Perfect, just like i like it. Thanks a ton!", taking a sip.

Now he walks back the same path, realizing that the expansive promenade divided the famous Commonwealth Avenue at the center.  Designed in the French boulevard style, it is defined by sweetgum, green ash, maple, linden, zelkova, Japanese pagoda and elm. The avenue is also punctuated with statuary and memorials.


As he walks up savouring his coffee, he replays his favourite cadences of his fastidiously chosen music. He thinks :What a waste of time it is to worry about something you can't do anything about. And what an agony is it to see your time being wasted away. This is never going to happen again.


He raises the hood over his head, jumps down a step and exclaims "I'm back to myself".

*



Moral of the story: on an unproductive day, take a long walk to revive sagging spirits

*****
Current Song :

"Don't turn around" covered by Ace of Base

The Handsome old man and the Charming old lady

I was walking up to the library in the evening yesterday when the audience were walking out of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, visibly enchanted by the fine music. Men and women, impeccably dressed, were gracefully walking down the stairs, some hand in hand.

Among them was this old couple which caught my attention. The serene smile on their faces was as though they were celebrating a lifetime of affection. The charming old lady's head was lowered while the handsome old gentleman was looking at her. They were not speaking. Perhaps the silence spoke between them. As they slowly walked away toward the road, I thought - one must be fortunate to experience such a moment. Cheers to them!

*****
Current Song :
Everlong by Foo Fighters
"Hello
I've waited here for you
Everlong..."

The power of Expectation

From Wikipedia :

In probability theory, the expected value (or expectation, or mathematical expectation, or mean, or the first moment) of a random variable is the weighted average of all possible values that this random variable can take on.
*

If you are doing a graduate program in Electrical Engineering, an entire four-credit course could be based on expected values of our dear stochastic process. My professor used to say "Most of the time, you do not require a perfect sample of a signal. Based on the expected values and your observation, you can arrive at correct decisions with minimum probability of error.

Now, let me tell you about my tryst with my observations and expectations.
During my pre-university, I used to commute by namma(our) BMTC buses. We had four buses that particularly routed through our locality, which meant I could get off the bus few feet away from our home in Bangalore. I used to make a note of what time you could anticipate these buses at the two ends of my commute. Whenever I didn't have to travel, the buses were almost on time. What punctuality, impressive! - I used to think.

When I actually waited for one of our buses, none arrived! One day, I was hell bent on catching an "our" bus and waited quite long. According to the statistics I had at least one bus should have arrived at that particular stop within twenty minutes of mine getting there. I waited, and waited more than an hour. Then decided on hopping into some bus in my direction and later walking home from the nearest bus stop. Guess what - I find a seat for myself in the bus and am pulling out my handsfree from my bagpack, "our" bus overtakes the bus I'm in, leaving me furious!

My statistics helped everyone in our locality except me, huh!

That's not all. Yesterday, in the laundromat I decided on using the washing machine that was closer to the dryer. I pour in the detergent and load the clothes and insert coins. That machine simply returned the coins, much to my dismay.

There are tons of instances wherein simple things, that everyone else finds easy to get, elude me! Why me?

PostScript:
I tell myself "don't expect, be surprised"

Current Thought:
How do the radio stations know my current mood? They seem to play apt songs! All the stations!

Current Song:
With or Without You by U2
"See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you..."

The early riser

The only day I woke up really early in the morning was when I had to take my SSDT (Solid-State Device Technology) final exam. Well, I had to study two huge chapters that morning and that was the first time I was reading those topics! If I had not woken up early I would have flunked the exam for sure. That was one subject in which the equations made absolutely no sense to me.

Anyway, lets not talk about that. Why I logged into Blogger was to tell you about my new cool part-time job.

This friend of mine, who was also the teaching assistant for one of the courses I had taken last semester, used to work as an assistant in the Computer lab of our Northeastern University. Learning about the job and the environment here, I applied to the position of  Lab Assistant. Since the lab supervisor is a morning person, I used to come to the lab early morning by 7 30 to follow up on the status of the application. I guess everyone thought I was an early riser. What they did not know was I hadn't had slept at all through the night! I would study the notorious Applied Probability and Stochastic Processes for which I had to get my fundamentals of Signals and Systems, and all the math of four undergrad semesters "fundamentally" and "completely" right.

I was more than happy that got this job, considering there were tons of applications and so few persons work here. And, I have been put on early morning shifts. On the first day of work our supervisor briefed me on the duties I had to perform. I had already learnt that from my friend long before. But the way he talked, it would have made anyone feel good about the work. The tone was not imposing. The words were not binding me. It was as if an elderly person was telling a kid a story and the kid having the freedom to build on that. He never said this "has" to be done. The culture was "do whatever you can". That probably pushes anyone to do more than s/he is ought to do.

Whenever I am given total freedom, I'm naturally responsible and I simply enjoy my work and its fun. I've been the same since childhood. My parents never imposed on me any rules. I have always been a good and responsible kid, thanks to the freedom I was given :)

So, after checking that computers and printers in four rooms are all working fine, logging some students off, making sure everything is all right, sitting at her desk, this Grad kid is blogging!
 *
I'm not complaining about getting up early at all. Oh by the way, the supervisor is happy that I opened the lab on scheduled time of 7 30 today. Due to this morning's snow storm, the university announced a two-hour delayed opening. It was good that I was on time. In spite of the classes being delayed, the undergrad kids are studying in the lab so early.
*
Somehow, that it is snowing heavily does not make any difference to me. It's just a normal day.
*
After my first day of work, I had called this friend of mine, who had helped me get the job and said "Hey, thanks a ton for the job! I thoroughly enjoyed myself!".

*****
The time of posting is actually 10 08 am. Blogger says 11 something. It's not keeping track of day light saving...

Current Song:
Back to December by Taylor Swift