Sighhhh!!

Today is a super stressful day. For no particular reason. Well, may be for a few reasons.

Yesterday I found out that there aren't enough funds for me to go to a conference in June. I haven't gone to any conference since 2011. And Last year is the first year in last 6 years that I did not go to atleast one. But I did not care much as they are not very very productive and I had too many things going on.
And then there were conferences in other countries, which I would have loved to go, but my visa at present does not allow me to travel. So I was kind of ok with it.
Then I went to visit the folks in SD and the entire expense came out of my pocket, but it was a good trip. I learnt a few things from them and, hey, you can't put money on that, right. And then there was this other conference in SJ, that my prof said I could attend, but only the conference entry will be covered. I thought, I had already paid for my ticket to SJ, so its ok. And I wasn't able to go for it anyway because the other project, "the review", I was working on had to be finished.
So it was kind of building up for a while. But I thought I would definitely be going for the June one. It was in the country, I would mostly not even require to stay in hotel as I will stay with my cousin and I have a poster accepted there. But yesterday when I asked, I found out that, someone else would be presenting my poster because of lack of funds!

Its not as much the not going to conference part, but more of the 'lack of funds' part that has gotten me really down. You see, when I started here two years ago, I thought, that I would move up, doing bigger and greater things quickly. But things are proceeding at a much slower speed, which is normal I guess. But that means that I am still at the minimum first year salary. The university only recommends giving NIH salaries, but has no structure in place to ensure that we get appropriate raises. I was planning to bring that up, but if there aren't funds for travel, how can I even expect a raise? And then T told me that three people got laid off today! What????

This whole travel back and forth hasn't been easy, emotionally and financially. It is bad enough that we both live alone, but on top of that, since the wedding, there has been an added pressure from both set of parents and on a smaller extent from J to move to SJ. I have been trying to hold my ground, because I don't want to be dependent and without a job. And I do not want to move at this stage in my career because I am worried that if I do, I will be kept as a post-doc for an even longer time. But after yesterday's events it feels like, that would be a possibility even here and how do I hold on when J seems to be making wayyy more than me? In addition to that, J was super stressed out yesterday because he felt like he wasn't performing as well as his colleagues. Am I to blame for that? Right now I am freaked out that I will get laid off if we think about starting a family. I am going to be 36 this year? Is it crazy to think that I should not be in this situation this late in my life? I don't know but the walls seem to be closing up right now!

Boston Marathon Bombing

Yesterday morning I was watching FOX news about the Boston marathon bombing. People were paying tributes to the victims who got killed in this horrible incidence. There were survivor stories of people who were marathon runners and now can't even walk as they have lost their feet or legs. My heart goes out to these people. First of all, it is not a small feat to run a marathon. It involves years of practice and patience and endurance. And then to have it taken away in an instant like that!

As my home for the last ten years, I went through a series of emotions from the first time I heard it on Apr 15. The first was of course anger and outrage. How can someone do this at such a peaceful event? It is a Marathon for god's sake. It is fueled by human sweat. Why would someone want to even do this? And then learning about the little boy who got killed and numerous victims that got injured, I was saddened. I couldn't even watch President Obama's visit as my eyes kept on tearing up. Can you really get attached to a foreign country so easily? I am an Indian. I grew up hearing about a couple of bomb blasts every month. May be because I was so young back then, that I could just shrug it off. But now when I hear about events like these or the Connecticut school shootout, it fills me with profound sadness and anger. I can't believe people can even process such a gruesome thought.

Then there was the series of almost movie-like events that followed which resulted in subsequent identification of the bombers as Tsarnaev brothers, the city being quarantined, the older brother being killed in a shoot out and finally the younger one being captured. I was really proud about Boston police and the speed at which this operation happened.

But as the excitement has died down over the last week and I am looking at the aftermath, I am trying to wrap my brain around the fact that, whether with additional help or not with preparing the bomb, the operation was carried out by the Tsarnaev brothers. One 23 and the other 19 years of age. The 23 year old had a wife and a child and they had their entire lives to look forward to. What makes someone so young capable of such an act? Ofcourse, they are being labelled Muslim extremists, but how does religion, which is a completely theoretical phenomenon, become larger than life itself? How does it become larger than the life of your young child or lives of your old parents, who will have to face the consequences of your actions?

I was always taught that a person is never good or evil, but there is some good and some evil in every person. Which makes me believe that there was good in those two boys as well. They recently aired a video of the younger brother playing with his niece. What makes the person in that video kill another boy the same age as his niece? I feel like the we as a society failed here. There must have been a way before it was too late for these people to reason with them. But we didn't. And as much I feel sorry for the victims of this tragic event, I know they will be remembered in a loving way in future. Anyone who got injured, we will provide enough support for them to pull through. But these two will be hated in the future forever. They will be remembered in history as the two villains. Anyone associated with them will never talk about the good in them. The young girl will never identify herself by her father's name. And their parents will die in shame. And to be honest, that makes the Tsarnaev brothers the worst victims of the Boston marathon bombing.