Third world to third world

I'm going to India!

There will be a conference on february 2008 on black holes to be held in India, and I will participate. Probably giving a 15-minute talk.

It's the first time I actually talk about what I do to people I have never seen before. It's exhilarating, and very scary.

Interestingly enough, in order to obtain the visa to go to India, I have to take a vaccine against yellow fever, which is a demand from the Brazilian government. It's interesting because this is a demand made by a third-world country which, in my opinion, is not in a position to demand anything. Which means that I'm actually going to a place that is worse off than we are. That's scary.

Anyway, my father is going with me, on the hope of expanding his cup collection. He collects cups from exotic places. Our cupboard is already running out of space.

It will be an exciting trip, with a few stops on even wierder places, such as Bangladesh and The UAE. And since Bangladesh doesn't have a consulate here since 2002, no one knows whether I will need a visa to go there or not.

Good thing our stop there will only be on the way back.

On forgiveness and grief

First, the good news. That bombmail was a phony. I got the year wrong, and my Quals are only due 2008. Phew!

Now for the interesting part.

I used to have a friend. I valued her friendship and loyalty. We exchanged advices. We were good friends, until she screwed up. Big time.

The complicated part is, she didn't do or say anything directly to me, for that matter. It was all about the surroundings.

We are a group of about 10 people who lean on each other to get through college and grad school. There is trust, friendship, support. And she used to be a part of it.

Then she cheated, said things behind our backs, and undermined that trust until none of us could even look at her. We gave her ostracism. Or she just drifted away. It doesn't matter now.

But none of theses offenses was directed to me alone. It all happened around me. True, she she said things about us as a group, and it included me, but none of it was exclusive. Not to me, at least.

It all happened about a year ago. Since then none of us who remained gave it any serious thought. Now that the anger is gone, I started to wonder: how long does it take to forgive someone who, as far as I know, doesn't know how to ask for forgiveness?

And, most important of all: should I forgive her at all? Come to think of it, what did she do to me? Should I wait for an impossible scene where we'd all come humiliated, hug, just forget the ugly past, and get on with life? As a physicist, at least one thing I've learned: the ideal doesn't exist. Period.

Or maybe I should start the talking, get things straight. But the crippling doubt remains. What if she doesn't care?

The crappy thing about humans is that we don't get to know what people think until we actually talk to them.

Straight from the doorways of Hell

Just got a bombmail last Friday. The grad student commitee told me my inscription for Quals are due next week. And I thought I still had about six months. My exam will have to take place within 60 days.

I programmed my entire research schedule so I could neatly present all three aspects of the first half of my project flawlessly completed and nicely published. By November, not two months from now!

On top of that, i'll probably have to cancel my July trip, as I'm now subject to the will of the commitee to set up a date for Quals. Nice way to toss a couple thousand reais right into the toilet.

Not to mention the fact that my advisor, who is supposed to go himself make my inscription, is somewhere between France and China, not to step onto this cursed soil for at least a whole month.

If I miss the date for booking Quals, I'll get another (last) chance for doing it over within six months. I just don't like the perspective of throwing away one of two only shots for getting a PhD ever.

Now I'm actually hating the people who programmed the dates for this kind of e-mail to be sent. Why would they send it to me on a Friday afternoon before a holiday? Few torture methods are more efficient. I know, it's just a sad coincidence. But still.

Anyway, I guess I'll not be showing up so frequently for about two months. I will have to sum up a lot of incomplete research, rush up a barely started approach for an entirely different problem, and try to make them all seem worthy of been carried on before the end of June.

At least I don't have a flu anymore.

20th Century Fox

Today is my great-grandmother's 100th birthday. One. Hundredth.

She's seen both World Wars, the entire Brazilian dictatorship, she has heard about the Titanic sink breaking news.

And now she is actually healthier (and saner) than my grandmother. Last year she taught me how to bake bread in a wood oven.

Makes you wonder.

Will I ever get to see 2083?

Off with his head!

Happy new year everybody.

Last night I realized that not only do I hate to lose a game (not The Game, which I've just lost), but the feeling comes much more bitter if it's against someone way better than me. I swear it's not gibberish.

I was playing Tranca, some sort of Canasta/Buraco crossover. It feels like Buraco with steroids. Anyway, it's a game of memorizing, just like buraco, only several times faster. And I got pwned.

I played with my girlfriend's cousins, who have played the damn game their entire lives in casinos and championships. It felt awful. The interesting thing about it is that I also played Buraco with some kids there, and lost too. But it didn't feel so violent.

(before you start thinking that I'm an awful player, let it be noticed that I did win most of the games I played. None of them was Tranca, though.)

I guess I'm just not ready to deal with my own incompetence. Maybe it's just pride, or my ego was scratched, but the bottom line is: if it gets to me so much, then I may be in need of some acceptance lessons, or i'll never get my thesis written.

Note: the Wikipedia pages linked above are terrible. Don't take the games as they are explained there. Maybe I'll make some adjustments to them later.