Free at last

Phew - I'm finally coming up for air after my paper deadline! Feels good :-).

Some highlights of the last week - swimming 22 laps! Going to restaurant named "Hell's Kitchen" and seeing new Die Hard movie. Sleeping a lot. Department picnic up at mountain resort way north - with some great hiking (aka rock scrambling). Dinner at Tunisian place. Going to Bodies exhibit at South Seaport (old pier/harbor/port). Dinner with friends at a Mexican place, then dessert at a bonafide Chocolate Shop! Then (failed) attempts to play tennis.

So unfortunately we didn't submit the paper that I was working so hard on for weeks. Lovely to work that hard, then have it come to a not-so-satisfying conclusion. We decided to kill it the day of the deadline too. I don't regret working hard, and I think the project came a long way in those last weeks. And I think I proved myself to some people. But it's sad that we didn't get good enough results to submit the paper. We still believe in the project and will keep working on it to get good enough results to submit it to a future conference. But this research thing - it's tough, and draining on a person. Ups and downs. And now I might actually switch gears and work on some different project with IBM for the rest of my internship - we'll see. Luck is cyclic, right? (Because there is an element of luck in research) I'm bound to have 1 project work out if I wait long enough, right? :-). But I have to say Naveen was so good to me during the paper deadline. He saw how hard I was working, and although he was working just as hard, he tried to help me by making dinners and cheering me on. So nice to have that support - yay!

So I came home Tuesday and went swimming in Central Park to work out frustrations. I swam 22 laps and it felt great! Was very proud of myself :-). Still love that. Then Naveen and I crashed and slept 12 hours that night! Ah sleep :-). Wednesday we took it easy on ourselves - staying around the house in teh afternoon and cleaning a bit (so our place wasn't a cyclone). Then we went out to a movie! We saw the new Die Hard which was pretty entertaining. Then went and found a restaurant to eat at - we ended up at "Hell's Kitchen" which was very interesting. I had some tasty fish, and Naveen had spicy pork.

Thursday, luckily, my whole department at IBM was at a dept picnic not at the office! We spent the day at a beautiful Mountain resort up north. Mohonk for those in the know. Beautiful grounds, good food. Too bad we couldn't row or swim in the lake - that was beautiful. But we went hiking up to the Skytop which had a great view of surrounding green valleys. Well, so hiking actually meant climbing over and under rocks - big boulders. It was pretty fun. Then we got to "The Crevice" or "Lemon Squeeze". Basically there were places it was hard to squeeze through - especially with a backpack on! Between a rock and... another rock. And we went on narrow ladders up small canyons, then walked back into the canyon that wouldn't fit more than 1 person across, then had to rock climb out of this canyon! Scary, but a good workout :-). We had fun. And I have to say again, the 2.5 hour ride up and back with Emina and Shan Shan were my favorite parts! We totally geeked out and giggled and got to know each other. We talked about everything - morality, religion, science, women in Computer Science, boys, life balance, career, marriage. They kept referencing New York Times articles, so man do I have to read those more :-). But it was all very interesting and fun. We also talked about Naveen's latest theory that finding your one true passion - the thing you choose above all others - leads to maximizing happiness. And about criticism of people you are close to... It all makes a person think.

So it was a great Thursday away from actual work which was nice for me. Friday I actually went back to work for real :-). Although was in talks most of the day... But we are working on where I'll go next with my work with IBM - could be exciting. Friday night Naveen and I walked back down the 30 blocks to find the Tunisian place again and we found it! It was sorta like Moroccan food we thought. We had a great appetizer of brik. Which is like this egg and tuna and potato concoction in crispy phyllo dough. The for food I had the b'stilla which was awesome. Its this nice pastry thing filled with chicken and good stuff, with a little powdered sugar on top. And Naveen had some lamb chops, merguez which is lamb sausage, and some Mediterranean salad and salsa - both tasty.

Saturday we headed down to South Seaport for some fun, and the Bodies exhibit. I like the seaport, although the shops are basically mall shops. But there are a lot of eateries, and there was a brewery which Naveen likes, and some neat old sailing ships that you can tour. Some street performers too. So we saw the Bodies exhibit - woah did my head spin. Sorta literally. Maybe it was dehydration, but I came out of there a little off-balance - like after a rollercoaster. So if you haven't heard of it, it's an exhibit with real human bodies that shows one system at a time - skeletal, muscular, nervous, circulatory, digestive, urinary and reproductive, then fetal development. All real people, preserved. You walk around them and read all about how amazing human bodies are. It was really cool, but you can see the creepiness factor in it too. The last room had 2 bodies sliced - one vertical slices, the other many many horizontal slices. Very cool, and odd. You just have to desensitize yourself to it :-). The exhibit I think is a very good teaching tool. So after that, we needed some beer - so we got some at the brewery :-). Then we wandered up through the lower east side, China town, and then the East Village leisurely. It was fun just to walk, though a bit tiring. We got egg rolls off a street cart in Chinatown - 3 for $1 - awesome! And in East Village we found a ton of neat restaurants and drinkeries. We met friends for dinner - and I gave in to Mexican finally (Naveen's been wanting it). But it was a really cute place. Naveen's friend from college Elise was visiting, so she was there, as well as Emina and fiance Aled. Good times. For dessert we decided to head to Max Brenner's Chocolate Bar a block away. Emina LOVES chocolate :-). We all shared the Chocolate Mess for 4-6 people. Wow was it true to it's name! Sort of chocolate cake underneath with strawberries, whip cream, ice cream on top, and we could put our own toppings on top - sauces and sprinklings of different chocolates. Holy cow. Sugar rush. We were definitely satisfied.

Sunday was definitely a sleep in day. I definitely caught up on sleep from Tuesday night on last week :-). This day contained the many failures of trying to play tennis. We walked over 20 blocks to the 119th courts in Riverside Park (they were hardcourt whereas most in the area are clay). Along the way we stopped at about 6 stores searching for tennis balls, to no avail. Thinking maybe we could borrow some, we still went to the courts. We could've gotten a court for a little over an hour later, but we didn't have tickets. We thought we could buy passes at the actual courts, but no - we need to go to the courts at Central Park to get passes. Ugh. Then we decided to just cut our loses and run a bit around Central Park (after walking another 20 blocks back home). We did that, and checked out the courts at Central Park afterwards (drenched in sweat). They of course said to get courts there you had to show up when they opened at 6:30am to get a court for the same day. And if you didn't get there 15 minutes before your court time, the Tennis Mafia would steal your court - no joke. So yeah - playing tennis here is a bit tough! So we retreated home, made a fabulous dinner of blueberry pancakes, bacon, and fruit salad, and did chores around the house that evening :-). We have lately been addicted to this Iceroad Truckers show on TV.

So this is definitely a long enough blog! I am a little more well-balanced now. And looking forward to fun - we have guests this week/weekend. I wonder if I'll get to a real point of relaxation someday. I really haven't had a day of doing nothing for months I think. Maybe that's why people say reading about my activities exhaust them :-). But there's just too much to do now! Hope all's well...