A small boy and his little dog

There is a funny story with this snap. I was in Lisbon, Portugal and it was our first day there. My partner was getting day bus passes from a convenience store (incidentally, the store owners were Indian) and I was waiting outside for him. The father of the little boy was also getting something from there and this little guy was outside, just like me, playing with his little Yorkie. I, of people, can appreciate having pets since childhood and it was undoubtedly the cutest sight. I wanted to capture him talking with his dog, the dog sometimes responding and sometimes not, they both getting tangled in the red leash. It was so amusing. I started filming them with my iPhone. Only when it was time for me to leave and I wanted to stop the video, I figured that I had not started it in the first place. Since I have a memory ‘like a sieve’, I am obsessed with capturing moments so that I do not forget them (I think that is one of the primary reasons I’m obsessed with photography). So before leaving I took this snap. This experience is one of the highlights of my Europe trip, equivalent to Wordsworth’s daffodils to me. What a bonus that the pup is looking at me!

little boy and his little dog

Pink Flowers

Since my photography posts are becoming so popular and getting so many likes I decided to post another one. The UNL campus is bursting with flowers of every color from every corner. This year has been the most pleasant summer in Lincoln since 2011. I’m enjoying every moment of my last few weeks here.

sidewalks bursting with blossoms

The gorgeous skies of Lincoln, NE

We had a few thunderstorms last month and the skies were always gorgeous, pregnant with dense clouds, sometimes just before or after a shower. All the photos are taken at dawn around 5:00am on different days.

crossing the road near Beadle Center

beautiful clouds taken from near the Assurity Center

the parking lot between Morrill Hall and UNL CREC

Check my previous post on Lincoln skies here.

Cluster of White Flowers

I spotted this shrub heavy with blossoms while walking back to my apartment after volunteering at The Cat House. I don’t know its name.

Cluster of unknown white flowers

A Host of Wild Flowers (2)

Wild Flowers, UNL City Campus

Last year I had posted a snap of the same flowers on my blog and, guess what, while giving a title to this post I independently came up with the same name! Check out the one from last year here.

Super Moon

This is my entry for the super moon. Not really impressive as it was taken with my iPhone. But in person the moon was really huge. The photos are taken around 6:00am, it was still dark…

pic was taken near Nebraska Union

pic was taken near Antelope Valley

Should we lie?

I brag that I never lie – it is true. I don’t lie. But it’s not that I have never lied. I have lied before. White lies. We tell white lies to not hurt the person more than she/he can bear at that point. But then who are we to judge the strength of any person?!

I have been guilty of judging strength of people and I have found myself completely wrong. So I regret my white lies as much as I regret trusting people blindly.

You might say that the two are contradictory. But it’s not. If we trust a person blindly that often means that we care about that person deeply. And then sometimes we care for them enough to try to protect them from anything, even the truth. If we don’t trust someone, we don’t care about them that much. And then it doesn’t matter to us how that person will react to a piece of truth. If that person is sad or heartbroken, we can always explain ourselves saying ‘But it was the truth!’ and that is still the truth.

But if the same happens to us, it hurts. We feel that the person lied to us to escape further complications.  That they were selfish and just wanted to avoid the situation, may be they didn’t want you to react and lose control of the situation. May be they don’t want to be responsible for you losing your calm.

So, in my opinion, just be safe. Always say the truth. As Mark Twain famously said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” One big advantage.

 

#preach

20 Things You Do When You Are Writing Your Thesis

1. Sit and stare into blank space or the screen of your computer, convince yourself that you are immersed in deep thought evaluating a critical analytic dilemma.
2. Doodle on any blank scrap of paper you get.
   

   Doodles on a post-it note

3. Evaluate all decisions you ever made in life, suffer from inexplicable existential crisis,  go deep into the dungeons of despair and totally judge your own-‘younger’-self.
4. Sleep on desk at lab when no one is around. Be stunned into semi-wakefulness when other lab mates enter the lab. Get up and pretend you had been working hard throughout.
5. Write a lot of motivational quotes on post-it notes and stick it around your computer.
   

   Work Station cum Inspiration Board

6. Feel like writing about anything other than your thesis. Write a lot of inconsequential blogs like 10 Random Facts About Me.
7. Take random photos in and around the lab.
   

   Random snap of worn-out shoes

8. Listen to a number of Richard Dawkins speeches ranging from militant atheism to god delusion and superstitions. Ponder about your core beliefs and get ideas about new blogging topics. Create a lot of new drafts (which you can only hope will get completed someday).
9. Listen to different genres of music and keep making new playlists.
   

   On the way to lab across Antelope valley, around 5:00pm

10. Watch a lot of Disney movies, one more time.
11. In fact, feel that urgent need to watch all those movies that you have had on your watchlist for a long time. And watch them all at once.
12. Draw tattoos on yourself!
    

    Make-belief bad@ss with lots of Ink!

13. Be really fussy and short-tempered with people who really support you, like closest friends and family.
14. Totally mess up your sleep cycle and unwillingly participate in morning and evening walks.
    

    On one such Morning Walk, near the Memorial Stadium

15. Miss a number of important meetings with important people due to #14. Get scowled at when you meet them the next time.
16. Justify all the bad food choices, loads of chocolates and caffeine saying you need them.
    

    Gorging on Chicken Tarragon Salad sandwich @ Bruegger’s

17. Fuss a lot about writing thesis to everyone you meet/talk to/come in contact with. Be totally spaced out at all times.
18. Sleep a lot and avoid any kind of household chores, like cooking, cleaning and paying bills.
19. Shop online!
    

    Huge Delivery from F21

20. Most importantly, Do anything but write your thesis! 😀

10 Random Facts About Me

A very popular meme over at YouTube is 50 Random facts about me. Since I like to talk about myself a lot, especially in my blog , I decided I will do it here. But then who will be interested in 50 facts about me?! So I decided to go with just 10. So here we go:

1. I get very dramatic when I write my blog – I speak the words, I enact the sentences, I live every word. I derive immense joy out of it. I mostly tend to write my blog on days when I have too much on my plate, so I don’t go back and proof read, and thus, often my blog is reeking with spelling and grammatical errors which shames me to no end when I read them later.
2. In real life or online, I do not care about my public perception at all. Yes, I get worried about it if I know it is negative. But if it comes up, mostly for a few minutes. I don’t dwell on it.
3. My favorite color has always been purple… but a few days back I realized I have secretly liked green more. I cannot live a double life anymore, so I openly admit my favorite color is GREEN.
4. I’m basically clueless about time. By that I mean I have no perception about the duration of time. This topic needs more space than that of a small bullet point, so I will reserve it for later.
5. Since I started writing my journal at a very tender age, I always used to write a small letter ‘i’ instead of a capital letter ‘I’. Personally, it signified being humble because I used to write mostly about myself. But over the years, especially when writing on a laptop or a computer, it’s just convenient to write an ‘I’ so that it does not get underlined. But I still write a small ‘i’ when I write on paper.
6. I never lie. Doesn’t mean I have never lied.
7. I’m not religious. I have been struggling with the question of whether I’m an atheist or an agnostic for a long time, but I have not found a resolution yet. Basically, I’m non-theist or humanist, also, I believe, a rational realistic human being. But I’m tolerant of all religions because I have grown up surrounded by very nice people who are deeply religious. I also love going to places of worship and strongly believe that religion, if followed in the correct way, makes a better human being. But, at the same time, it makes me sad that people would need a religion to be good person. Morality should not be a choice, and it cannot be bought at the cost of fear.
8. Contradicting the above point, I am addicted to casual astrology. I don’t believe in it or take it seriously, but I definitely read my horoscope everyday. #sorryReason
9. Having pets is more important to me than having babies. Adopting orphans is more important to me than having babies of my own.
10. I think #tags are super cool. I don’t miss any opportunity to use them in a funny way. I think I have demonstrated that twice already. #noThriceNow #faceIt

If you think these are interesting, then let me know so that I can keep them coming!!  #shamelessSelfPublicity

Also leave a comment, and tell me at least one fact about you!,