march’s end

all around me are familiar faces
worn out places, worn out faces
bright and early for the daily races
going no where, going no where
their tears are filling up their glasses
no expression, no expression
hide my head i wanna drown my sorrow
no tomorrow, no tomorrow

and i find i kind of funny, i find it kind of sad
the dreams in which i’m dying are the best i’ve ever had
i find it hard to tell you, i find it hard to take
when people run in circles its a very very
mad world… mad world

children waiting for the day they feel good
happy birthday, happy birthday
and i feel the way that every child should
sit and listen, sit and listen
went to school and i was very nervous
no one knew me, no one new me
hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson
look right through me, look right through me

and i find i kind of funny
i find it kind of sad
the dreams in which i’m dying are the best i’ve ever had
i find it hard to tell you, i find it hard to take
when people run in circles its a very very
mad world… mad world
enlarging your world
mad world

after the concert

With barely a month of practice to make up for an eight year hiatus, I inevitably screwed up the presto semi-quaver parts in the encore piece, but it was fun!  I loved some of the pieces in the programme.  Schedule permitting, I wouldn’t mind playing in their concerts in future, if they need more numbers in the strings section.  Maybe I’m new there, but I didn’t sense any petty politicking.  After all, power play is just senseless when everyone’s part-timing and playing out of passion.  To me, and I surmise, for many others in the group, practices are much welcomed retreats from their day jobs and commitments.  The vibes with my fellow players were good, thanks to my instructor, who did all the introductions.  I wished we had more time for conversations.   Breaks and lunchtimes were usually at most half an hour long.  It’s too bad that everyone disappeared shortly after the concert.  There wasn’t time to exchange contacts.  Well, at least I won’t go in not knowing anyone besides my instructor the next time I play for them, and that will be in June or July.  That’s when I near the end of my dark journey and tread closer to the light of my “real-life”.  I’m looking forward to greet my new friends with higher spirits and renewed hope!

the past week

It was a hectic week with its ups and downs. It’s invigorating to be busy, outside the office, for once. I’ve escaped some shite from work as a result, and that’s always a good thing.

I could kill myself for not having more initiative, for retreating into the comfort of familiar companies, for that almost pathological flaw… It had happened more than once. I do fine when dealt mediocre cards, but falter when I get the best hand. What’s wrong with me?

I’ll be on the roads again! That’s more $$ down the drain. Now, I’m not even sure if I have enough to spend on my holiday.

Intentionally or otherwise, she declared herself out-of-bounds when she mentioned her bf at lunch today. Gah.

Maybe I’m numb to all the blood and gore they show in the theaters these days, but the chopped heads and blood in 300 looks curious and surreal. The scenes where the severed heads spent some theatrical seconds in midair gyration just looked like animated Surrealist artworks. There wasn’t even disgust to speak of. Weird huh. My friend thought better of the animation shown with the ending credits. Xerxes’ creatures look so fantasical, like some rip off from LOTR. Oh, and the word “freedom”, when used in movie dialogues these days, inevitably reminds me of Dubya.

It feels great to be playing in an orchestra again. My intonation got better, but I’ll still need to work on the semi-quaver passages. I wouldn’t mind helping out in group again, but just not every week. It keeps the fingers nimble and the mind alert (I sound old).

Tutoring throws out rather interesting questions at times. My E&M has always been shaky, so I’d appreciate any ideas on this. From Maxwell’s 4 equations and the Force Law (), and induced emf can arise in two ways — moving a conductor through a magnetic field (the Force Law’s at work here), or varying the magnetic field in a loop (Faraday’s Law ). So the question is, what’s the electrical potential in a wire loop in which emf is induced by one of these mechanisms? The suggested solution set claims the absence of any potential difference in the loop when the emf is induced by the Force Law, since only magnetic forces are at work here. The solution stops short of explaining what happens when induction arises through Faraday’s Law. An electric field will be induced in this case, but since , unique values for the electric potential cannot be defined at each point in the loop. What then is the resolution to this? The problem is described in the final paragraph on this page.

gained time

Gah… I feel so sick now, but it’s good to stay home. I get tasked to do so many mindless things in the office that there’s no time for more interesting pursuits. Well, to be fair, I can volunteer to do less mindless tasks, but I just can’t develop an intrinsic like for HR after a year and a half. I still feel like a stranger in there, and I sense I get the what-are-you-doing-here look when I have to introduce myself and my major in college.

A few of us had a discussion on two different betting systems in one of the weekly lotteries here. We were debating over the winning probabilities when we spend the same bet amount in the two systems. I got bored enough to while my days away calculating the odds and the expected winnings. Maybe I’ll write something up when I’m done.

I just got roped in to help out in a concert my teacher’s orchestra is preparing. It’s been eight years since I played in one! All these years I haven’t been practising on the instrument regularly. My intonation has definitely deteriorated. I hope I don’t suck too badly.

I’m still procrastinating on my holiday plans. The destination’s probably Japan, if I’m rational, that is.

Let’s see what’s lined up for today: it’s off to the doc, then I’ll read the morning papers. After that… I’ll practice on my instruments, research travel plans, source for “business”, do a bit of reading, and finally leave for lesson.

It’s paradoxical that I need to be ill to spend time more fruitfully.

clouded out

It was a cloud out this morning. I got intermittent peeks of the moon after the eclipse started. Elsewhere, people had better luck. Here’s a low-res shot of the eclipse in progress. I didn’t get to see any more than this.

The next total lunar eclipse visible here will be in August this year.

sunday morning session

Free from time pressure, Sunday mornings are the best times for observing. Any fatigue can be slept off later in the day. And I love the morning air. I got up at 4am last Sunday to observe V1280 Sco for the second time, but didn’t make any manual estimates. Some shots were taken and processed in IRIS, for the first time. Here’s the result (click for larger view):

The wonders of image processing… I never knew the Coolpix 5400’s capable of this much. I’ve done no post-processing except for a 3×3 binning, which revealed the 8 and 9 magnitude stars. And I cheated a bit: I didn’t take a flat-field. Well, this isn’t a science image, so…

A telling sign of good (decent for urban standards) is the sighting of the 5th star in Crux. The swath of celestial real estate stretching from Crux to eta Carinae was glorious. M4, M6, M7 and Omega Centauri were revisited before I call it quits at about 5:30am.

How fortunate it is that the upcoming lunar eclipse should fall on a Sunday morning! Unless I figure out a way to shoot the moon through a scope, I don’t think I’ll take any photos of the eclipse.