Painting is the Secret Cure - 4

Time goes by really fast! It doesn't feel like I last painted more than a month ago. I've been feeling the urge of painting for a while but couldn't make time for it last weekend. I had a lot to do this morning too but decided to spare couple of hours to paint. It was gorgeous outside yesterday with low temperature and lower than usual humidity. All I wanted to do was walk outside and listen to music or read book. Of course I was at work and didn't have the flexibility to just be out all day, but painting that mood made up for that (little bit). I found this quote from Blaise Pascal the other day -

"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing."

I decided to use this as the title because it just felt appropriate for this painting. However, I made a mistake when giving the finishing touch - got the date wrong. Also, this marks the ending of my favorite sap green color, almost ruined a brush trying to dig into the tube (-_-). Other than that I'm pretty happy with it :)

Going back to yesterday's weather, I ended up walking a LOT in the afternoon. I walked for almost two hours! Not all of it was pleasant as I had my heavy backpack and then grocery bags to walk with. But there was one particular moment I found very special. While walking by a busy street with construction site on my left, I looked to my right and saw this serene little green land. At first I thought it must be someone's backyard (may be it was) but there was no house too close and no person there. Little hesitantly I walked in and amazingly all the noise from the busy street was masked there. I could hear the birds chirping and insects buzzing. It was shaded by huge green trees and sunlight peeping through them was lighting up the green grasses. I'm not sure if others may find this little too poetic but standing there I felt that life is probably about collecting these simple yet beautiful moments. Life might be chaotic most of the time with our harsh realities but we just need to look for those little simple things that make it worth living.

That's the spot!

Cali Trips - LA and Santa Cruz

Could I start this post by saying how much I love Saturdays? If I could cwtch Saturday I totally would! So glad it's finally weekend. Falling sick last weekend made the week feel really long but I'm feeling a lot better now. While staying in bed last weekend, I went through thousands of my old photos from all three phones I ever possessed! I usually try to write a post after I visit any cool new place but realized I never did any for my trips to Los Angeles and Santa Cruz. Both of those trips were back on back, and right after I moved to my new apartment. So, it was pretty hectic and after I got back I got busy with unpacking and then again travel... Anyway, even though I was in a time crunch, I got to enjoy some of the charming beauty of California during those trips, so thought I'd post the photos.

I went to LA in March for the Code4Lib Conference 2017. I presented a talk and taught a half-day workshop with my colleagues. Also, I'm grateful to be recognized as one of the Code4Lib Diversity Scholars. We had few meet-ups arranged for the scholars and their mentors, so all in all it was quite busy. The conference center was located at UCLA campus, so I had the chance to walk around little bit. Honestly speaking, I wasn't impressed by LA as much when I traveled from the airport to UCLA. Everyone drives in LA, so traffic is pretty bad most of the times. However, I LOVED the campus. I really like big campuses with historic buildings. It reminded me of UIUC campus in many ways. Also, Cali had one of the unusually big rainfalls this year, so it was very green, apparently that's not how it looks at that time of the year. Luckily the weather was great the week we visited and I absolutely loved how crisp and fresh the air feels there. We had lunches outdoors under the sun every day, which was really lovely! (I know I'm overusing "love" but that's how it felt)

En route to LA, looking over San Fransisco

Lovely afternoon at UCLA 

Lunch time!

Gorgeous library!!

On the last day of the conference I made a quick trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Anyone who knows me should know that art museum is the first place I visit wherever I go. The museum was pleasant, they've pretty good collection. I went around the city little more but had to be back on time for my flight. 

LACMA entrance

Was pretty amazed by that water drop detail in that painting

 Oh, forgot to mention that we went out for a group dinner in downtown. LA culture and downtown area seemed very different than the other places I visited before in USA but it was interesting. Got to see a pretty sunset too (which is always a plus)!

Umm..?

Dreamy sunset

Immediately after I got back from LA, I had to go to Santa Cruz for an interview. That was a very stressful trip. Not because of the interview but because by water bottle decided to spill water while we were taking off and my MacBook happily drank it and died within half hour (my usual travel horrors -_-). That's whole another story but the only thing I want to mention here is that Santa Cruz is very beautiful. The beach was about 20mins walk from the hotel I was staying in, so I made a quick trip after I got back from the interview. It was really peaceful and de-stressing to be able to walk on the beach. I saw many unique plants on my way back too. I'm not moving to California but I'd love to visit again, especially San Fransisco and San Diego area.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Pretty plant!

UCSC Library

I've to get back to my weekend activities and more travel planning now but hope to be back with new post soon!

Power of Choices and the Pursuit of Happiness

I should be writing now - research proposal, not a blogpost! But I guess writing my blog is still a somewhat better way of procrastination than spending hours on other social media. I was feeling little lost, restless and stressed lately. So, I wanted to pause for a bit and thought about the things that are unique about me, things that make me happy and help me convert my restlessness into positive energy. 

I'm trying to cut down my time on social media. I haven't used Facebook for a year (which feels great) and deleted the Twitter app from my phone. Instead I'm trying to read more - both academic and leisure reading. Also, since the rough summer is soon to be over, I'm trying to get back to my running habit. Still running indoors but soon I can run outside in the evening and breathe fresh air. I'm also trying to find some time to paint and planning on writing regular blogposts. Most importantly I want to live in the moment and feel happy in my heart. I realized that I'm constantly worrying about future and often forgetting to focus on the present. While planning for the future is definitely very important, overthinking is harmful. Soon I'll be introducing two TED talks that tell us about the importance of staying in the moment and the secret of happiness. 

As I was saying, emotional well-being is THE most important thing for any human being, yet so many people in this world are lacking it. Probably that's why pursuing happiness is such a hot research topic these days. Not that people didn't focus on happiness in the past, but the modern world is making it more complicated by adding millions of external factors. That's why I like reading about behavioral economics. It's very interesting to see how people make decisions and how external factors can cause bias in our decision making process without us even realizing. 

I've been reading the Art of Choosing book by Sheena Iyengar, who is a professor at Columbia University. By combining her personal life experiences with scientific experiments, the author shows us how the act of making choices can depend on different factors including the society we belong to and cultural background. I'll mention few of my favorite quotes from the book -

"Ask yourself: When making a choice, do you first and foremost consider what you want, what will make you happy, or do you consider what is best for you and the people around you. This seemingly simple question lies at the heart of major differences between cultures and individuals, both within and between nations."

Turns out those who grow up in Western society learn to prioritize themselves, whereas culturally the ones from Asia tend to consider other people's happiness more. Whichever route we choose, turns out theoretical formulas can't always be applied when it comes to personal happiness. The author mentioned about one of her colleagues who was offered a position at Harvard but Columbia then proposed three times higher salary to keep him. Both are great options, yet he had a difficult time making the decision even though he's an expert of telling people how to make choices. Also, pros vs cons approach isn't always helpful because it focuses on concrete, measurable criteria, often to the exclusion of emotional happiness. 

"Personal happiness is always a very serious matter. It's all well and good to propose formulas and strategies to other people, but we're not sure we should trust them when our own long-term happiness is clearly at stake." 

One of the important take-aways for me was to understand how the automatic and reflective system work in our brain (You can read this article on Of Two Minds When Making a Decision). In general the automatic system is always active in our subconscious mind but to we need to practice more to use our controlled system for making better and logical decisions. I like the lines below the most and probably should remind myself again and again when I'm upset with my own decisions.

"Near the end of Oh, the Places You'll Go!, Dr. Seuss warns that we are sometimes our own opponents in the game of life. When we're struggling against temptation, or when we feel let down by our own decisions, we may wonder how we can possibly win against ourselves. It's enough to make us want to wave the white flag of surrender, but we have to resist the impulse."

I was watching few TED talks last night. The Surprising Science of Happiness is definitely one of the most interesting ones out there. The speaker wraps up with the core message that "our longings and our worries are both to some degree overblown, because we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity we are constantly chasing when we choose experience."

Another talk is Want to be Happier? Stay in the Moment where the speaker demonstrates study result that the ones who can focus on the present are the happier ones. Even though I think the study can be further elaborated by differentiating the activity types and the level of mental effort necessary. For example, he says that it's probably better to focus on your commute time even though it's one of the most annoying tasks to do but I think we also need to consider productivity and time.

In the end I'd say that defining happiness is both simple and difficult. We can't generalize and apply the same theory to everyone because every single person has his/her own definition of happiness (we can write a whole essay on those different criteria!). For me the most important thing is to figure out what makes me happy and share that with others through compassion and empathy. After all, if we can't assure personal happiness, it's almost impossible to make anyone else around us happy.

Life will Happen but Resilience is the Key

Last two weeks or so have been extremely tumultuous, too much happened. I wonder whether it works the same way for everyone else, but my life has always been like this - it's either a series of positive events or negative events in a row. However, this time it's slightly different, my good and bad days took turn alternatively, making it look like a sine curve. 

I don't think I properly slept for a month with so much stress and anxiety resulting from uncertainty. After so much happened over two weeks, I feel everything - happy and sad, excited but stressed, relieved but anxious - all at the same time. I've always had this issue that my brain doesn't rest, it's constantly thinking and active. I was reading The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage today, and one quote about Lovelace's life sounded like it could be me too (of course she was WAY more genius!).  Lovelace died of cancer at an early age of 36. Florence Nightingale wrote to her friend of her death - 

"They said she couldn't possibly have lived long, were it not for the tremendous vitality of the brain, that would not die."

The way my brain stays restless, it might make it difficult for me when I'm in death bed. Anyway, I learned quite a bit about Lovelace and Babbage today. I got the book as a goodbye present from the Oxford e-Research Centre folks and reading all the lovely messages inside warmed up my heart again, especially the one from Terhi. I really admire her, such an amazing person!

I wanted to have some relaxed time this weekend so that I could possibly start the next week feeling less overwhelmed. I painted last weekend, couldn't make it this time, but I exercised, read book, baked, socialized with some old friends (!! it's rare I know!) and listened to music. Sounds pretty great but unfortunately as life goes, there were unhappy events too that left me feeling stressed even after doing all those fun activities. However, just to focus on the good part for now - I was notified about two awards two weeks in a row! I wasn't really expecting anything as they're quite competitive, so that made me quite happy and boosted up my confidence level little bit. I was feeling low lately, so I needed that. The awards are ASIS&T New Leaders Award and DLF Forum New Professionals Fellowship. Anyway, since I don't get to share my happy news with dad anymore, I don't really express my emotions much. It's always a mixed feeling that makes me happy and depressed. My friend David Tully was funny when I shared the news. He couldn't believe that I had a straight face while giving an excited news (but I think he's learning that that's how I mostly am! :p). 

Last three years have been pretty difficult for me, especially last one year since I left UIUC campus and friends. Getting settled in a new place, dental treatment mishap, losing all my belongings in Canada, having to go home twice, visa stuff, having to move twice in less than a year, remaining friends' leave - so many stressful events happened one after another that I felt like I'm stuck in a cursed cycle. On top of that, countless failures were only gravitating me towards depression and low self-confidence. 

The struggle isn't over yet and I know it'll never be. But I've learned not to give up even though everything else seem to go wrong. I believe if we want something with our whole heart and if it's the right fit, nothing can stop us from achieving it. Well, when I say nothing it still means considering other external factors that we've no control over. For example, as an international student/employee my life is 150% more difficult than any U.S. citizen or PR. We can't avoid the reality but we're also here because we're some of the very bests in our country, which means we just have to find the right option and prove we're the best fit. It's easy being said but much difficult in reality. However, I won't stop fighting for my dreams and as much as rejection hurts, I'm trying to be more receptive, because when we dream big failure will be a part of it and we should take it as a push to improve ourselves and overcome all the barriers. 

I met a grandpa yesterday and he called me a piece of diamond and despite his seniority he didn't hesitate to tell me how much he admires the people who are ambitious and work hard. I know I still have to go long way to actually prove my worth but his words gave me courage. Guess I just need to keep trying.

Painting is the Secret Cure - 3

I forgot when was the last time I painted, it's been that long! I've been really busy and stressed but funny that whenever I was stressed in life I'd go back to painting. It helps me heal.

I wanted to paint for last few weekends but didn't manage to do so. This weekend the weather is nice after long time and it's bright and beautiful outside. I was thinking how to bring the light and shadow effect in water color, so even though I'm supposed to study all day today, I couldn't help playing with my colors and brushes for some time.

I wanted to paint something I had in my mind but I had to get the human figure right (which is not my best skill in drawing). Usually I don't draw with pencil but just use brushes, but as I was drawing my human figure I realized that I don't have eraser (-_-) (I forgot to get one after I lost my backpack but that's been months!!). Long story short, I changed my scenario to something else and it turned out like this -

A Sunny Sunday

I know it's not perfect but it kind of depicts how my balcony looks. I often like to sit there and work, but sometimes I just read books and watch the green trees happily soaked in sunlight. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to see if I can use the light and shadow technique right. For now I'm happy with it but I need to learn it better and try other scenarios, of course some other day. Need to get back to studies, already late.

Oxford after two years

Can't believe it's been two months that I wrote my last post. A lot happened over past two months, mostly a lot of traveling, jet lag, recovering, catching up with normal life and traveling again. Finally I'm home almost after 3 weekends, so thought I should look back and write a post.

In 2015 summer I was in Oxford for 6 weeks for the Oxford-Illinois Digital Libraries Placement Program. That was my first time in U.K., a place I always wanted to be. It's especially endearing to me because my dad was at Cambridge for 6 months and we grew up hearing those stories. Being there was a unique experience for me, something that reshaped my professional and personal life, for better or worse. I loved the campus so much (who doesn't, right?) that I wanted to be back for grad school, which hasn't happened yet because of the U.K. educational funding system. That's a different story, but I went back this year again for the Digital Humanities Oxford Summer School (DHOxSS) to present my poster on special collections discovery methods and participate in the machine learning workshop. 

The famous Radcliffe Camera

Being back to Oxford was a bitter-sweet experience for me, it brought me back many good memories I hold really close to me. As I walked the streets, all the familiar places made me nostalgic and I wished I could go back to 2015. May be I would do few things differently if I could go back. Anyway, summer school was a mixed experience too. I learned some and it was great seeing my favorite faces from UIUC and OeRC but I was hoping to get more out of the workshop. The city was beautiful as ever and luckily we had a nice sunny week. Here are some photos -

Christ Church College

Loved the sculpture under window

Another favorite sculpture

Weston Library for Special Collections

Bridge where Harry Potter was shoot

Also, this year my workshop took place at St Anne's College, where I stayed last time. I could see the backyard garden full of lavenders, which I really adored. Another thing I should mention is food - one of the great things of summer school is the variety of food, they always provide awesome lunches and desserts (and I never say no to desserts, so tried most of them :p).

St Anne's backyard

Got to see a pretty sunset

One week went by pretty fast and I was beyond exhausted by Friday. Unlike last time, I didn't get to go to my room and rest the whole evening. I had to pack my luggage and get ready for a ridiculously long trip. Also, unlike last time the ending of summer school was less heartbreaking, I was ready to be back home. Oxford -> London -> New York -> Washington -> Raleigh, after three layovers and a night at the airport (did this second time in my life and never doing it ever again), I finally arrived home and bravely went back to work the next day. Not sure if this was my last trip to Oxford, time will say but this is a city I'd love to be back again, may be at some different time of the year.

Pitfalls of U.S. Immigration System and Life of Foreign Nationals

This is a long due post but I think this story needs to be written down somewhere and people need to know the challenges foreign nationals face in U.S. (especially those from developing countries). 

I came to USA in Fall 2014 to study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, so definitely I was on student visa. Close to graduation I got to learn that, the student visa becomes invalid on the graduation day even though the length might be longer in your visa. To stay in the U.S. after graduation and look for jobs you've to apply for F1-OPT extension, which allows you to work for a year with the same status. However, you must be able to secure a job within 90 days of your graduation. I was the lucky one, I already had a job offer before graduation but still there's some particular timeline by which you've to apply for OPT and it can take up to a month to receive your Employment Authorization Card (EAD). All that worked out, I started my job and it's been almost a year now. My employer's sponsored me H1B visa and that got approved as well. Now you need to get the new visa stamped on your passport in case you travel outside of U.S. You can stay within USA without any issues but if you cross the border, you'll have to show the visa to re-enter. Well, that's how generally things work except for Canadians. BUT you can't do it within USA even though you're living in the damn country! The options are - going to your home country, Canada or Mexico and again, they don't tell you how long the process will actually take. There's something called "Administrative Processing", in which case they might decide to dig into your case and that'll prolong the whole process.

I don't plan to just stay inside USA border for unlimited time. I'm an academic librarian and I travel pretty frequently for conferences. So, I finally managed to take the time to travel wholly to take care of the visa stuff, and I decided to come home even though it costs me a lot more money and 30+ hours journey just in case there's any issue. Also, I must include that I had to face the new electronics ban on airlines rule because I don't have too many options other than using Turkish or Emirates Airlines - both are not allowed to carry laptop or any electronics bigger than mobile phone when you're flying to USA. So, I had to leave my MacBook home because I don't feel safe checking it in my main luggage.

Anyway, I arrived home without any trouble and went for the interview the following morning. The appointment was at 8:30 but I couldn't reach the window until 10:30. First of all, there was about 2 hours wait time for 5 mins interview. Then I could finally attend the interview and the consular officer and she said it'll be ready in 3-4 business days and that I should receive an email. On the 4th business day I check their website for any option to track my passport because I didn't receive any email from them and it says my passport is still with the U.S. Consulate and that it can take up to several weeks! It also says to follow any instructions given to me at the interview. But there was no instruction given unless confirmation that my passport will be ready to pick up! Also, they tell you in case of Administrative Check not to contact until 60 business days, by which they hope to resolve your case. 

So, I've a proper job and I earn money using my brain and time. Do these people value any of these?  I've been living abroad for 8 years now and I don't have any background here at all. If they needed more documents during the interview to check my background I could provide them all. This is not a rational or logical system and this is not how it's supposed to work. Also, most Americans have no idea this is something foreign nationals go through and it's my duty to explain this. I know most will empathize but I want some rational people to fix this system. Now I just need to wait and see whether I can be back to work in U.S. on time or I've to buy another one way ticket with hundreds of dollars!

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Update: So, there wasn't any issue on my side with visa processing. Apparently, that was a system error and affected others as well. However, the error message was confusing, user experience issue I guess. In the end I just want to reiterate that there should be a better and easier way to process visa, especially for those who are already living in USA. In the age where most things are digital and digitized, spending a good amount of time and money for a printed visa does not seem to be an efficient way to operate. Unfortunately that's how immigration systems still work but they can at least try to simplify the process.