So I wake up at 8.30, somehow rush to class, reach 5 minutes
later but the professor is still trying to fix the electronics in the room.
Before entering the class, in the elevator, I have already stripped off my
heavy jacket and took my notebook and pen out of my bag. By the time I settle
down in the class, the professor is still struggling with the laptop and
projector and then powerpoint and powerpoint slide changer. I take two deep
breaths, relax my muscles, and immediately start feeling sleepy. And this is
the very moment the professor decides to begin the class. Next one and a half
hour is a torture one minute and pleasure the next. Torture because I am sleepy
and my brain refuses to concentrate. Pleasure because the topic of the class is
very interesting when my brain can process the information. By the end of the
class, possibly the last 15 minutes, it is sheer torture, because I want to
understand what is being taught but by then I have lost the thread of the
class. So what did I learn in the class? NOTHING. What did I learn from the
morning? Set up an alarm tone which tells me the current time and the time my class
is.
Now that the class is over with I open my task list of the
day. This is a list I religiously prepare and follow. I took up this habit
after I forgot to submit my completed term papers twice, simply because I didn’t
notice that the last date of submission was that day. When I look into the task
list (mine is in excel), I see I have a doctor’s appointment in 20 minutes. I
hurt my leg more than twice in the same spot in two weeks and now when I walk I
can hear my knee pleading me not to torture it as much as I torture my brain.
So I go to meet the doctor for which I have to rush again because it is at
another end of the campus. I reach there, sign in and after 15 minutes the
nurse asks me to step into an examination room. She asks a set of questions,
leaves me with a paper shorts (I had seen paper towels, paper aprons, paper
shorts is a first) and goes to get the doctor. The doctor comes examines my leg
and smiles at my entire narration. Then she says give your leg a little bit of
rest, walk slowly if you have to and apply ice to it, after all there is no
fracture or sprain. I smile at her and think if I didn’t have a sprain, I might
have after this morning’s exercise.
I again check my task list and find I have to be in my lab before
my mice start missing me. So yet again, I rush from clinic to the lab. In front
of the lab, my lab mate has his laptop open and a country song playing. I go up
to him to ask what is going on. He says nothing, today insecticide has been
sprayed in the lab, so there will be no work done until 2. At 2 I have another
class, so I end up requesting him to look after my mice too when he takes care
of his own. After all, both were plugged the same day. He agrees and I sit
facing him with my laptop for the next few hours. I shuttle between Gmail, my
school mail account, and Facebook account for quite some time and then begin
working on something I had left unfinished the night before. The
moment I get
the momentum to get things rolling it is 2. I again run to the other class
room.
In this class, I am awake but my mind still refuses to
understand. The reason this time is it is tired after 4.30 hours of continuous
work ;). I still grasp the straws of thoughts I can gather from the lecture,
wonder about it, and grab a coffee after the class. This is my food of the day,
if you consider coffee to be food. The moment I take it in my mouth, the
insides of my mouth tingle. And when it hits my stomach, my stomach burns.
However, I have time only for this coffee, when I have to
run to attend a special seminar. Throughout
the seminar, I wonder are they talking in English or Spanish. And there comes
these few milliseconds interspersed in an hour when I hear words that feel like
music to my ears. When the speaker asks do you have any question at the end of such
seminars, I invariably have one question in my mind. “What exactly was your
goal and what were your results? Can you please give me the answer in 100
words?”
Well that done, I have to run to my lab again. At this time
of the day, my favorite protein is awaiting me. I reach the lab, go through
many protocols, and design the best one that will work for my protein. I spend
the next 3 hours on my protein to only find that the extract had bacterial
contamination. I swear loudly in all the languages I know swear words and I
walk home.
I walk really slow remembering the doctor’s advice. I reach home
in 30 minutes. I am damn hungry and look into the refrigerator. Not a single
vegetable which is not rotten is there at home. There is one really ripe apple
and all kinds of sauces; cheese and butter but no bread. I think for several
minutes what do I eat and end up cooking rice and eating it with curd. My mom
on reading this will obviously react with words like “Now you know…”
Then I open my books (essentially my laptop) and continue my
work from where I left in the afternoon. I do some of it and fall asleep in the
middle of it, without even setting an alarm, this time for a 7.30 meeting in
the morning. I am pretty sure next day will be as tough, I think in my dreams
and there flies another day of my Master’s life.
I plan each day to set limits. Limits to what I will complete
during the day, limit my pathetic food habits, limit my sleeping in class,
limit running all around the campus. Yet no limits have been set and I have a totally
uninhibited life. J
