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March 04 School fire and beyond...It was a reality check for all of us here today! All those mock fire drills, alarm codes and fire safety instructions were tested and put into effect. There was a fire in one of our transformers and all power supply to the school is out! There was thick black smoke all over and some twenty fire trucks in action... This is another pain of living in a zone surrounded by NYPD and nearly 10 hospitals. We all heard the sirens and promptly disregarded them as we hear them all the time... So, why panic??? Somone is always in emergency! Only this time, we really were in one! Realization that something was indeed wrong dawned only when the number of trucks kept rising and finally, we saw smoke! Panic took over when we realized that all the invaluble cell lines and glycerol stocks in the -80 freezers were going to be lost irreversibly... But when no one, and I mean no one, was allowed inside, all we could do was stand outside in the frigid air and wait... The colder it got, the more chatty we all became and I must admit, I listened to some very meaningful conversations in those few hours... Although most labs tend to share one common room for the -80s and that room is indeed on emergency supply, what about the -20s??? Isn't some really precious stuff stored in there too- like restriction enzymes, enzyme kits etc. These are very sensitive to freeze-thaw and so, isn't it a safer idea to apply the rule of -80s to the -20s too? Wouldn't it have saved a lot of worry and anxiety on the part of the whole school community if the -20s were also in one common place hooked up to emergency??? We could enter the building only close to midnight to salvage whatever we could from the freezers... Luckily for us, the emergency supply had kicked in around 7pm and the -80s were safe... However, only some of the -20s were on emergency... Atleast in our lab, close to five boxes of enzymes were/ could be affected! We managed to move stuff around and pool them all into fridges which are now crammed.... And the school's as cold as the outside air as there's no heating! Also, has made me think how much we could not do without electricity.... I can set up a restriction digestion (if the enzymes are still good!), but there's no 37degree water bath to incubate it. I can pellet cells but can't vortex it. I can't even cast a simple agarose gel!!!!!!! I can't do nothing............As you can see, life here has come to a standstill! And looks like it will continue to stand still for a couple of more days....I guess this is a good excuse for me to sit at home and work on my Qual!!! February 28 The hiatus...After a three-month break, here I am, back to blogging.... If you are beginning to think that I've been too buzy to blog, you are so completely wrong... I forgot my MSN password and so, after raking my head and trying to remember all the passwords I ever had, K3, the computer geek, gave me this software which could recover passwords. And so, here I am, blogging again! The weather in NYC's awesome- breezy, not too chilly and absolutely spectacular!!! Feels like spring already!!!! November 23 NiagaraPerhaps I forgot to type out a blog about one of the most memorable trips of my life - a visit to the Niagara Falls. Well, to be perfectly honest, before this trip I used to go, "So, What? It's just another waterfall...". Perhaps it stemmed from the frustration of having lived in New York City for over a year and still not visiting the great falls, when everyone who even passed by the east coast 'dropped' by Buffalo to see it! But, when a couple of my friends asked me join them for the trip, I more than jumped. And I realized that Niagara would never be 'just another fall'. She is THE QUEEN. We reached the falls on one rainy afternoon and were pretty diappointed by the rains, winds and cold. We couldn't gain any solace even from the spectacular light show at night or the awesome Dhaba food. All we could think of was getting back to warmth of the hotel room. It was with the same gloom that we woke up next morning and peeked outside and heaved a huge sigh of relief. A nice sunny day awaited us and after a quick coffee and Cheetos, we stepped out, hoping to the get the best of the weather. Man! The Niagara is simply breathtaking! My throat went dry when I saw the whole scene - Niagara and the Horse-Shoe! It was one of those weightless, timeless moments when you forget everything but the present. Still entranced we walked around to the Terrapin-point, at an incredibly slow pace, savoring every rapid and every scene and taking a tonne of photographs. Well, the mist completely obscured the stupendous cascade that was crashing down from the Canadian side that we really couldn't see a damn thing. We were getting completely drenched in the steady mist and we could only hear the falls. It took quite a bit of time for our eyes to adjust to the mist and actually 'see' the falls. I was spellbound for a good ten minutes and to think that this was only ten per cent of the total flow rate (the rest being tapped for power). Awesome! After cooling our heels in Terrapin Point, we decided to try the 'Maid of the Mist' ride. I was terribly excited when we actually got under the falls although a wee bit disappointed as I couldn't take any pictures. It, anyway, was a fun ride and worth the wait in the incredibly long line. Tired now after all the travel and adventure, we started back home with memories that would remain etched forever on our minds. November 22 Saturday nightHad dinner with friends at an Afghanistani restaurant, Bamiyaan, here in the city last Saturday. Being a veggie, I had a wee bit of worry at the back of my head that all I was gonna see on the menu would be biriyani, kebabs etc. I needn't have bothered though as the restaurant had a big collection of spicy, veg stuff and we had a wonderful time. Much of Afghani cuisine resemble Indian ( I couldn't pronounce most of the names on the menu though!), with appetizers resembling samosas and the main course tasting like biriyani. The similarities were especially striking in the desserts, the 'Phirni' tasting very much like one of those badam sweets... After three hours of non-stop gossip, we were done with the dinner but the fun wasn't over yet. Sara and Sam departed for a party and Masa, Beza, Patricia and I started walking towards Madison Ave to board our bus. Well, perhaps I should mention here that Beza and I have a serious laughing problem. We really need no reason to laugh and that night, being one of those carefree, jobless times and especially after such a wonderful dinner, turned out into a one in which the laughing-bug bit us real bad..... It all began when Beza started walking away from Madison, when we were supposed to board the bus near Madison Square Park. What began then went on for nearly 45 mins all the way up Madison. I mistook a rod sticking out of a building for stars (Now, don't ask me how I did that!) and Beza thought I really was seeing stars! Now, we had over 30 mins to kill before the next bus, so we decided to pop into one of those coffee shops along Madison. Two of the three shops were locked (which triggered another laughing wave!) and the only one that remained open didn't have any coffee! Now Masa feels guilty for sitting there without buying anything and buys a bottle of water and we were laughing over every funny moment that happened during the last two semesters (interspersed with thoughts of renting an apartment in Madison ave!). When we finally decided to leave the place before the guy kicked us out, we had tears of laughter running down our eyes............One hell of a giggly night that was!!! November 18 Casino Royale!Yaay! Saw the Bond movie first day and it was worth every bit of planning that went into it.... Today I guess the stars decided to shine down on me..... Or maybe the Venus and Jupiter were on the same line and smiling upon me when I woke up this morn! (Or maybe I should stop reading that horoscope thingy and add it to my spam!) In any case, my PCR worked big-time with a huge product band, my yeast and bacterial transformations seemed to have worked fine and........... I got to see the new Bond movie first day! Daniel Craig as the new 007 is simply awesome... He's classy, uncanny, smart, stylish, handsome, omnipotent and has a good sense of humor! The movie alludes to the terrorist plans of blasting off some US-bound planes in London and to 9/11. I'd say it was fast-paced, action-packed and has a lot of twisted plots set in Madagacar, Montenegro, Bahamas, and Miami.... I was truly impressed! And that title song was very creative! All-in-all, great movie, cool plots and a great Bond!!! And the movie ends on a good note - The name's Bond, James Bond! |
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