If I could, I surely would

So recently I have had the opportunity to 'work from home' or what is now called telecommuting and I kinda enjoyed it. I don't understand how some organizations cannot fathom the immense job satisfaction one gets from working while wearing one's PJ's.

Even though I wasn't sitting at my home, but it was someone's home alright (the Angrez's to be precise) and it wasn't exactly a working day (yes, I am dumb like that), at least in the office I work from usually (Eid being a holiday in some offices and not in some regional offices and some jazz like that) but i still felt a sense of satisfaction when after about half a day's work and calls, I finally went to have a bath - for the first time in the day. The real achievement came when I successfully thwarted all the Angrez's efforts to catch a quick catnap. I'm not used to siestas but if I were to work from home, I would definitely like an occasional catnap.

But apart from the sadistic pleasure I derive from not letting friends sleep, work from home is an awesome way to work. It is particularly helpful when more than half the people in your office are bores and the stupid IT help people are no help at all and ban all research supportive websites (Read social networking websites. More than half of research work in think tanks like my employer are based on proved and unproved hypotheses and opinions of other researchers, which the organization has to pay for, while it continuously blocks the great repository of opinions that twitter and FB are and the amazingly informative content on youtube. You never know, I could be following the greatest minds on this planet).

Work from home is also a boon for people like me who are in constant danger of being delegated extra work on Fridays that needs to be completed over the weekend because 'we're in a crisis situation'. (and what exactly was the PI up to in the last 3 months?!)
You know, out of sight=out of mind.
You get to drink tea and coffee that is actually potable, work on machines that you know are reliable and listen to music if you feel like it or shut it off if it distracts you (as compared to the building wide music played in the office DJ-ed by a music committee, which can only inspire you to commit suicide or get married - same same, but different).

But on the flip side, people addicted to working on e-waste like desktops may feel frustrated working from home and some may also miss the privilege of being able to access company intranets, desktop mail clients and other such electronic paraphernalia (NOT!). Some might also be in the constant danger of being sent out on errands because 'all you do is sit in your shorts and stare at your laptop, go get 1/2 kg of besan or you wont get food!'

All in all, I'd like to work from home once in a while. If I could, I surely would.

TMI

The tragedy of studying in a graduate school in this century is that we are forced to write analytical papers about things that are either obvious or known to a lot of people or have already been written about in a way that was a good enough way to write them. I have no problem with research in nascent issues but I infrequently come across such articles or papers.
The scheme of things in which plagiarism has been made a taboo, it is becoming difficult to churn out literature for audiences that are relatively unaware of any of the much contested topics.
Even though I consider myself as having good knowledge of the English language, I find it difficult to write essays that describe an already well described agenda. There is a limit to which active voice can be converted to passive voice and vice versa to fill in those pages and turn in those essays. In fact most of us are running out of perspectives to show and show them uniquely because somebody somewhere has already done this research and written this article in a way that is quite adequate to explain the phenomenon.
For each essay, when I start asking the question, 'what am I adding to the debate?', I find myself completely clueless.

...on turning a year older

2011...the year I turned 25 :P

i dont really have a sense of achievement as I am constantly reminded that it is possible I have lived the best years of my life and all thats left now is drudgery.

it does not help that i am constantly reminded that
-I am now nearing the wrong side of 24 (the right side of 30 u might want to say)
-I am entering my quarter life/pre term crisis (though i prefer to call it mid life crisis according to my personal life expectancy data)
-I am now not as young I always thought I am.
....and several more reasons that I dont want to think of right now.

All in all in sucks to be older :P

instead of looking forward to the rest of my life i am looking back to all the things i thought were disasters but were not- had a long discussion with the Angrez on this who by the way thinks she is still the same as she was 5 years ago.

But if i think about it i'm not very different from 5 years ago or 3 years ago.
I am studying...finishing up a course. i have no clue of the future. i am anxious about getting a job, where i will be, what i will do, will it make a difference and all that jazz that i was going through in 2006 and in 2008.

so if i am the same as i was then (hopefully a little wiser) it is possible that i have something similar in store for me in the coming years.....more things to learn, more awesome people to meet, more work to do, more places to go and i intend to enjoy every moment as I have these past few years. :)

looking forward to more of the madness!