Swimming and Parallel/Reverse Parking

I thought I had blogged about how swimming is unnaturally difficult for me because I am among the minority of the population that are sinkers, but it turns out I have just talked about it a lot. Apparently, most people are floaters, whose bodies don't sink to the floor like stones in water. Swimming coaches say sinkers shouldn't feel too bad because it just menas they have low body fat and/or high bone density. But, that is scant comfort to someone thrashing about in the water. I have had swiming lessons twice in  my life---once when I was about 12 and the second time a few months ago. I could swim after the first set of lessons, but I can't swim to save my life. The chief lesson that I learnt during my second set of swimming lessons was to use a nose guard to prevent wqater from entering my nose. And I got that from a youtube video, not the swimming coach. When you are bad at something there are only two things to do--make epace with the fact or practice. I have made temporary peace with the fact that I am bad at swimming. But, in recent days, I have been reminded of another activity that I am bad at--reverse and parallel parking. I am a decent-enough driver, but when it comes to moving backwards, my brain freezes (which probably means I am not a decent-enough driver). I am twrribel at reverse parking, but fortunately, they dont' test that skill. I feel like people who reverse park are showing off because there are very few situations where you need to. But, they do test parallel parking, and the first time I practiced it a few days ago, I wasn't so bad.I got it right the first couple of time, hit the curb the next few times, and then got it right again. But, this evening, I must have practiced the manoeuvre ten times, and just got it right once. No matter what I tried, I just couldn’t land it. Ouch! The thinking mind knows that failing a driver’s test is no big deal, and that I should just take driving lessons before trying next time. But, the animal mind is a different beast, so cue a bit of anxiety. So, there is one other thing you can do when you are bad at something, in addition to acceptance and practice. You can laugh at yourself, lighten the mood, take the pressure off.

In Praise Of Pomodoros

Concentrating intensely has never been my strong suit, and I have been feeling that more than even in recent months. Some of the tasks I have been assigned are intensely tedious and I just can’t seem to keep my focus. So, I have started doing Pomodoros, which are 25-mins-long work sessions interspersed with 5 minute breaks. After four such sessions, you take a longer break. Twenty-five minutes is a manageable chunk of time. At no point of the session will you be left with a dismal feeling if you look at how long you have to go before the session ends. I did Pomodoros years ago in Bristol, when I would meet with other PhD students in a cafe for weekly group-writing sessions. That worked well, until i discovered that I preferred working on a desktop in the PhD office, which was a very pleasant room. I am not typically a fan of the glass-and-steel building it was housed in, but that meant it got plenty of light in dreary English weather. And, the walls facing outwards were all windows, and I love gazing out of windows. Pacing about the room and gazing out of windows were essential to my research process, and I keep asking myself why I don't do more of it. I also tried doing Pomodors by myself during my PhD, marking completed sessions with notches on a post-it note. With my current intensely dreary and ill-defined task, Pomodoros have been a godsend. Since the endpoint is not very clear, I have decided to allocate a set number of Pomodoros, and consider what I have at the end of those sessions as the finished product. 

Spring 2003 Energy

As the drums start to beat more loudly for war with Iran, a lot of commentators are pointing to the similarities with the spring of 2003, ahead of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld’s war with Iraq. I had just finished two listless years of high school or what they call ‘junior college’ in Mumbai. All parents believe their children are uniquely capable, but none more so than Indian parents, so I had I been coaxed to prepare for the notoriously difficult entrance test to India’s premier engineering colleges, despite having neither the talent or the inclination for it. Being the news junkie that I still am, the top-most thing on my mind was the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. I remember the telecast of the infamous UN security Council session where US lies about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction were given the imprimatur of evidence. Colin Powell, the least hawkish and the most dignified member of Bush’s inner circle, was trotted out to lie. The picture of him holding up vials to demonstrate Iraq’s chemical weapons capabilities is the defining image of war propaganda in the post-9/11 era. I remember my father scoffing at my grandfather, who believed the evidence presented by Powell to be credible. Even to the then-18-year-old me the evidence felt like something someone could just make up. Lessons are never learnt because no one—not Bush and Blair and their respective cabinets, not media pundits, not the New York Times--paid a price for lying about Iraq.  Powell was the only person to express public contrition and banish himself from public life.

Send in the Clowns

I started a clowning class two months ago, and because this is such an eminently bloggable topic, I kept putting off writing about it. Today, was the last class. My feelings about clowning have waxed and waned, ever since a friend asked if I wanted to accompany her to the class. My initial reaction was a strong No, but on further reflection I decided to take the plunge. My reasons were to learn to get out of my head, become less self-conscious and to become more comfortable with silliness. I remember family stories about my infectious laughter when I was a child, and I was curious to see if that part still lived inside of me. My initial enthusiasm was stoked by the novelty of it, and how people’s eyes would light up with curiosity and admiration when I told them I was doing a clowning class. It’s a cool thing to do, and trust me to come up with the language to make it sound cooler when explaining it to someone else. A friend also recommended a book about laughter which had a section on clowning, and I lapped it all up. But, as the last class progressed I began to find it increasingly tedious. I didn’t like my clown and didn’t particularly enjoy clowning. Until today. Our class was interrupted by a group of elder clowns in costume, who were more advanced students of the instructor. And, boy were they good. They all had very different characters, and such great characters they were. They performed for us as a group, and then we performed for them individually, and then we paired up with them and performed as a duo. This is not going to be my last post about clowning, but for now I am going to end this post by saying that their delightful interlude has inspired me to carry on clowning.

Asking Difficult Questions

I got back from Providence this afternoon, and it was a good trip even though I didn't feel good all or even most of the time. Academic events can be tricky to navigate and I wish I could approach them with a more positive attitude. I often find myself biting my lip and not giving an honest answer when someone asks me how I found a particular session. "It was good, but ......". At the same time, I realise that if someone was similarly critical of my work, I would be hurt too. What is it about academia that turns all of us into such fragile flowers? I asked some tough questions during audience questions and someone even complimented me later about the quality of the questions. But, I thought long and hard before asking them. Should I just ask softball questions and ask more probing questions in private? Would I be harming my career by asking difficult questions? Was I just trying to show off by asking difficult questions? Should I go back to being a journalist if I enjoy asking difficult questions? But, I decided that since this was a summer school, and as all the instructors were in secure employment and not shrinking daisies aka PhD students, they should be able to take difficult questions. Yes, you need to be strategic in any industry but you also has to ask if contorting yourself so much that you stop recognizing yourself is worth it? These might seem like a trivial question, but I have been thinking long and hard about whether I want to be in academia, and I suppose any career which doesn't allow you to be yourself (within limits) is possibly not the right career for you.