From the 9th to the 14th I've been near Mumbai to attend
Pradeepto's wedding. I didn't spend time to visit Mumbai itself and
shared all my time between Panvel and New Panvel.
I of course, once again, enjoyed the food... Maybe even a bit too
much, I expect to come back home with some extra weight! I think it
was hard to avoid some of it anyway, during the week of the wedding
you end up with more meals than usual here.
I attended as many rituals as possible for Pradeepto's wedding.
Indian weddings are much more refined and complex than what we can
find in western countries. You have to get through several rituals
before the wedding, the ritual for the wedding itself is several
hours long, and the day after there's a few more rituals... At
least that shows an true dedication.
One thing I found interesting is that during the rituals the
atmosphere is less solemn that what we have in western countries.
So that's an interesting contrast between this particular
atmosphere and the very complex and meaningful ceremonies. The best
picture to show this is our own Pradeepto acting like a geek during
the wedding ceremony:
My only frustration while attending, is that I couldn't get the
meaning of all the rituals, but I learnt a few interesting things
nonetheless. Also, you have to keep in mind that this was a Bengali
wedding, and depending on the region, weddings can be different in
India (different rituals, more or less people coming, etc.).
So congrats to the new husband and wife:
So two weeks ago was my last day in Calgary. Aaron basically
explained a lot of stuff already and he's a much better blogger
than I am. That's why I won't add much... That said, I'll keep a
particular thought from the day trip in
[Banff](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banff_National_Park) which was
truely amazing. The Canadian Rockies are a very specific landscape,
the shape of the mountains looked exotic to me. Such a perfect
day.
Also, to be fair, Aaron told about a particular chipmunk we met
there. No, I don't have fifty pictures or it, and yes I have twenty
pictures of it... So, for the first time, let me introduce in all
his glory, and in FullHD(tm), Bob Chipmunk!
My recent life is so unusual to the pattern it had in the last few
years: work, hack, sleep, work, hack, sleep, hack, work, sleep...
ad nauseam. 2007 has obviously something special, I didn't envision
my life changing so much when I turn 27, but it happened. I'm
traveling much more than usual, and it shows on the way I'm looking
at the world. It seems smaller than I thought. I guess the trip to
Hawaii had something to do with it, it was really different than
the places I got before, it's such a mix of cultures. Really, I
think I enjoyed it more for the
[interesting cultures](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bishop_Museum_front-600px.jpg)
and the
[wild nature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:D50_007609.jpg),
than for the stereotyped beaches most people have in mind when you
talk about Hawaii.
So after being back at home, I had no time for working on KDE and
no time for
[procrastination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination)
either. You probably wonder why I focus that much on
procrastination... That's simply because it's an important part of
the PhD student life (well, at least that's what most people say).
And, I got a nice gift from my friends here, some of them being
also PhD students. I got probably the
[best resource about procrastination and the academic world](http://www.phdcomics.com/book.htm).
For those who don't know
[Piled Higher & Deeper](http://www.phdcomics.com/) it's the best
[webcomic about grad students life](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php).
When you're preparing a PhD you have to read it, it makes you laugh
a lot... and cry a lot because it pictures really well your current
life.
So, what was the reason for not procrastinating, and not working on
the
[changes I planned for yesterday](http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=118021590631281&w=2)?
Basically, because I had only two weeks to prepare the second draft
of my PhD thesis, and that consumed most of my time. Why two weeks?
why so much time pressure? Well, you probably got it already, I'm
travelling again. Tomorrow, I'm leaving for
[Calgary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calgary) and visit
[Aaron](http://aseigo.blogspot.com/)... Furious hacking, hiking and
working on the final draft of my PhD thesis are on the schedule for
this trip.
2007 has obviously something special, I didn't envision my life
changing so much when I turn 27, but I learned something
earthshaking (which will justify the title of this post):
*Travelling has a direct influence on procrastination. If you travel more, procrastination is inhibited.*
Unfortunately, it seems it also has a direct impact on your Free
Software contributions... But I'm looking forward to the coming
trip to confirm or not this point. I hope to prove it wrong.
