The Grinch stole my Christmas

It was supposed to be a movie marathon. Turned out to be a sleep marathon. The Grinch well and truly stole my Christmas.

We went out for Indian food at a restaurant called Mayuri's (http://www.mayuri.com/). On the menu was Tandoori Kebab and Veg Wonton(for my Indian friends, the external casing on samosas) for starters, and they were REALLY good! Main course consisted of Paneer tikka masala, Mix veg curry, Butter Chicken and Lamb Do Pyaza. Except the last one, the other dishes packed quite a punch! For dessert we had Lassi. Aka the Grinch.

So I have had toncilitis problems since I can remember. 24th turned out to be a familiar story. Wake up, experience extreme pain and soreness in throat, body starts to feel warm as the day progresses, and then spasms of pain throughout the body as you go to sleep. I was adamant that I would not take any medicine, that I would let my body recover at its own pace, so I tried to sleep; a lot.

So I had to sacrifice my first Christmas here at Rice thanks to Miss Lassi Grinch. But I have promised myself to make up the fun I lost on Christmas, on New Year's eve and New year's day.

What did I do then over these 2 days. Well, I discovered a nice online radio station called Pandora(http://www.pandora.com/station/play/1763211289018944671). It has a huge collection of songs, and more importantly good songs. I personally tried the Classic Rock and Contemporary Pop stations, and they had a good assortment.

Amongst other things I picked up a new song on my guitar, Passenger's "Let Her Go": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBumgq5yVrA. I have been listening to this on the radio for a good part of a month now, and it feels amazing to play and sing on your own!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!! Cheerio!

Incomplete dreams

 So it must have happened to you too. You got interrupted in the middle of your dream. You had to wake up. You tried to go back to sleep, tried to have it back. You rarely, if ever, succeed.

I do not know about your dreams. But my dreams are pretty interesting. For one, they always obey the laws of Physics. So no, I am never Superman or Spiderman in any of them. Mostly it is always just me.

I was having a pretty ordinary dream today. The people involved , some were very familiar. Some were plucked out of the archives by my brain, because I do not know them well in real life, but anyhoo, they were there! There was a bus, we were all passengers. I do not remember the conversations, I assume they were quite unremarkable.

However just before a single dazzling ray of sunlight made me open my eyes, I remember vividly an image, an image of exceptional beauty, but one which also invoked curiosity; "wow, but how?" kind of, got it? The kind of image which normally forms a brilliant start to a story. What tragedy! Its worse than the interruption of a good dream, because in this case I did not know what course the dream would have taken!

I would like to study in more detail about dreams. I accept that dreams somehow are related to our deeper/deepest feelings, and manifest themselves somehow; but what is the science behind it? Can you control it? And how come the dreams are such HD quality. Could we unearth some mechanism to develop subjectively Super High quality videos. Understand the science behind dream production to develop a Video coding method that fools the brain into perceiving them as HD? Neuroengineering meets Image Processing.
Ok I better put a lid on my train of thought!

Sign off with these lines which seemed so apt in the morning today:

"Cloudless every day you fall upon my waking eyes
Inviting and inciting me to rise
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning

And no one sings me lullabies
And no one makes me close my eyes
So I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky."
-- Echoes, Pink Floyd.

The First Post

So I decided to start blogging again after 4 years. A good number 4 is, isn't it, when you associate it with years. The first morning of a short holiday is the day when ideas come into your head. Or rather, ideas that were at the bottom of your suitcase, neatly untouched, are explored.

So here goes, my re-entry to the blog world. 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...GO!

The title of my blog refers to a love affair with a football team. My American readers must exercise caution, since by football I will for ever imply soccer. This team is based in the North East of England, and is called Newcastle United (http://www.nufc.co.uk/page/Welcome/). I do not yet recall the exact moment I came to follow this team, no it was not love at first sight. Yet the first sight  did leave an impression, and gradually grew stronger and stronger. And now, well, you can ask my roommate about the pandemonium which ensues whenever the team scores a goal, whenever my team scores a goal. Passion.

Mostly you will find my posts to allude to things close to my heart, like Music, Football, Grad School and such. Though external stimuli may make me philosophical and ramblicious(copyright Souptik Barua 09.52 local time) from time to time, at which point I fully expect to be crucified by people having far greater experience in philosophy than I do. But what the heck! 

So here we go again!

PS: Newcastle United's first kit is a black and white striped shirt with black shorts and black socks.