The Mundane life of a Grad Student

Driving in the US of A is a pleasure, especially if you have driven in India. You don't feel scared your car is going to "die" at traffic signals (thanks to the automatic transmissions), your left leg is free (should you want to dance about). There's two meters of space between two consecutive cars. And you can coast at speeds known only to truckers and airplanes in India.

It is a piece of cake a drive here. Everyone obeys rules here: Indicators are followed like the holy bible is followed here; speed limits are respected. Miles are covered faster than kilometers are covered in India. Roads are wide, to say the least.

So, it is extremely ironic that I managed to fail my driving test here. Apparently, I merged into traffic too hastily, and should have allowed a car some 200 meters away to pass before me. The examiner (for that is what she is) said "That car was coming way too fast for you to turn. Come back next time". She must be paid by the volume of people whom she "examines", not by the hour.

The Spring semester having just concluded, a terse update might just liven things up on this 'blog. This precipitate conclusion of the semester has rendered me transport-less, and worse, jobless. So, Blockbuster online (its law-suits with Netflix notwithstanding) has been subscribed to; gazillions of weather documentaries have been ordered. A good time is anticipated next week, when I shall find them in my inbox.

Essentially, the porous medium project having just bombed, some experiments are being sat with and learnt. I'm hanging around with my lab-colleagues, learning (again) about carpentry, learning to make thermo-couples, and other things. Experiments are the precursors to theory. I am sure this will help me visualize things better. What better way to understand turbulence more philosophically than acutally visualize flows with high Reynolds Numbers, foully high Turbulence intensities, flows with distinct inertial ranges, flows that can be modeled by only second order reynolds stress closure models (and better)? Richardson (the Richardson Number might ring a bell?) would not have come up with is famous doggerel had it not been for experiments. What is good enough for Newton, Reynolds, Nusselt, Richardson and others is surely more that just good enough for me.

I am like one of those "transition pieces" that engineers think so highly of. I'm transitioning from being a student to being a constituent of the mutitudinous human work-force that the planet is infested with. And this is distinctly evident from the fact that today is saturday, and I have NOTHING to do - a state of affairs that employees are accustomed to be in - and is absolutely alien to students who are perpetually loaded with demanding assignments.

A resolution has been made to, by hook or crook, procure one of those driver's license thingamjigs. And as things are going right now, hook almost seems exhausted - and crook looks like my only hope. For, Enterprise won't rent a car out to me on my instruction permit; no one I know well enough has a car (save a very busy aunt, whom I would just feel to guilty disturbing). My last hope is a lab-mate with a Mecury who said he'd call me sometime today to take me on a drive. Keeping fingers and toes and whatever else I can crossed.

Procuring an automobile is the next priority. Looking for a cheap, high mileage, good condition sedan. But I fear that would be tantamount to having one's cake and eating too - the pursuit of 297 million people in this country.

Our apartment now has neighbors. A couple and a rather vocal dog. A dog that does not look at "not-barking" as a feasible course of action. It's bassy barks reverberate through the wafer thin walls of 4302 College Main - ensuring baths are not taken in pin-drop silence. But all is not unwell; I guess the incessant barking gives my Bose immunity from complaints from neighbors.

The aunt will probably take me with her to do some groceries in the evening today (or tomorrow). Need to buy cereals, oil, milk, coffee, diet Pepsi and junk food. There's no buses in summer, much to my dismay. The procurement of a license and a car (already mentioned in this post) shall have to be precipitated further.