Fashionport

If you like to see different clothing styles, all you need to do is to be in a major airport for an hour. You can see, especially in the summer, all kinds of clothing styles, materials, colors and cuts. You don't have to go to a fancy fashion show with all too perfect models. You will find regular people wearing from one extreme to the other, practical to absurd, traditional to funky.

What's the most weird/funny dressing you saw at an airport?

Jacklingual

"Chanagidhiya? Woh utah nahin abhi tak. Results bantha? Congrats! Party kab dhoge?", I overheard a friend conversing over the phone one morning when I visited them a weekend. If you observe closely, the friend used three languages in one short conversation.

I tend to do that too, use more than one language in conversations with friends. At times I wonder if I can really call myself multilingual when I can't hold a conversation in one language. I probably should call myself "Jacklingual", as in jack of multiple languages but master of none. :)

Book Drive

I've read people talk about audio books online but I never tried them. I'd rather read a book than hearing to its narration. I feel that reading and trying to understand the material in the book gives the brain a better exercise (I don't know if it is scientifically correct, so don't quote me on it). Recently I had to drive to a friend's place alone with the drive taking around 10 hours. I never drove longer than 5 hours before, so I was searching for ways to entertain myself and keep me awake. I remembered the audio books idea and I felt like trying it out this time.

I borrowed two books from the library, The emperor of all maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee and The stories of Sherlock Holmes by you know who. I tried The emperor of all maladies first early in my drive. It's an interesting book, with a lot of information about cancer and the narration was good too. But I had to repeatedly play the 3-minute tracks to comprehend the details explained in the book and also concentrated on the road. It took a lot of time to finish listening to just one CD (there are 16 of them total). After that, I tried the Sherlock Holmes stories. I was able to grasp the stories easily and didn't have to repeat the tracks much.

Based on my experience during this drive, I feel that listening to audio books while driving may work well only for topics or stories that one is already familiar with. The topics that are unfamiliar like the ones that have a lot of science may not work so well as they would need quite a bit of attention. Listening to the book shouldn't distract you away from the road.

Happy Listening!

Hardwired

On a nice spring Sunday morning, out of the blue a friend asked me if I can come for a quick bike ride to get some exercise and also enjoy the good weather. I said yes on the spur as it was pleasant outside. But then few minutes later, I started having second thoughts. I remembered that I didn't ride a bicycle in the last 15 years and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to ride it after such a long time. It'd be very embarrassing if I stumbled with the bike and fell over. Luckily, to my delightful surprise, I was able to balance and ride the bike nicely right away without any struggle. It looks like my brain stored a permanent record of the skill I learned growing up.

Incidents like this make one realize how cool your brain is. Way to go Brain! :)

Oh God, can you answer?

I was driving my 6 year old niece to her swimming class on a nice April Saturday morning when she called me from her seat.

Her: Hey maama (uncle in Telugu), do you know if God exists?

Me: Uhm, what?

Her: Does God exist?

Took a few seconds to think about how to respond to that question. I didn't want to give misinformation.

Me: Well, no one knows if God exists or not. Some people believe that God exists and some others do not.

Her: If God doesn't exist, how did the Universe come into being?

Wow, good question, I wish I knew the answer!?

Me: Uhm, scientists are trying to find that out.

We got to the pool by now and our conversation had to end.