Feel Better Food - Baymax Cupcakes!

Anyone who knows me well is aware of my love for Baymax from Big Hero 6. I mean who doesn't love Baymax? So, last week I was down with flu and fever, I took Friday off and decided to make myself some feel-better-food, and guess what was that? Yes, that was none other than Baymax cupcakes! I saw the recipe on Disney's twitter post and wanted to make them for a while. So, on Thursday Maddie and I went to the grocery store to get all the ingredients (of course we came back with everything in the store as usual! :p). Here is the list -

1. Red velvet cake mix (you can use any brand, I got Betty Crocker)
2. Giant marshmallows
3. Edible marker or black gel (I couldn't find that kind of marker but the gel worked fine for me)
4. Cheese cream frosting
5. Possibly cones to add frosting
6. Eggs
7. Vegetable oil
8. Cupcake liner

Directions to make the cutest cupcakes ever!

It's actually super easy to make. At first you prepare the cake mix as directed. Usually you pour the mix in a bowl, add eggs, vegetable oil and water. Then you fill in the cupcake liners and bake them for about 14 minutes.

Once they're baked take them and let them cool down for a while because you don't want the cheese frosting to melt (I know it's common sense but I did that -_-). Then add cheese frosting on top to make the belly of Baymax in whichever method you prefer. The last thing that's left is to add its face and arms. Take a jumbo marshmallow and draw its face using marker or gel. Then take another one and cut it into half to make the arms. Attach them with the cheese cream and you've your super adorable Baymax cupcakes, your personal healthcare provide! :D 

I solely made them to make myself feel better, they were too adorable to eat. So I ate the mushroom version and basically left them as a decorative element on my kitchen top :p But I recommend you eat them as well.

Mushroom cupcakes

Aren't super adorable? 

A Day at the Topsail Beach

North Carolina is famous for some of the most beautiful beaches in U.S. We were planning on going to the beach since I moved here, but for different reasons we couldn't make it in last two months. But with the occasion of my friend Nate visiting, we thought this would be the perfect time to make this happen. So, finally we made it to the beach last weekend!

Blissful solitude

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I grew up in a beautiful port city called Chittagong, where going to the beach on weekends was a pretty usual fun family activity for us. Some of my favorite childhood photos were actually taken at the beach. But since moving to Dhaka, and suddenly losing my younger sister in water accident, my mom became overprotective about us and would never let us go to the beach by ourselves. The last time I went to the beach and actually played with water was in 2011. We went to the Shirahama (White sand) Beach in Isu island with a bunch of friends visiting my house, which was 4 hours by train from Tokyo. It was very beautiful with white sand and blue water, I still remember the day. After that I've been around the beach few times but didn't really go close and play with the water. So, finally going to the beach, especially with two of my most favorite people made me super excited! 

We wanted to start early, but we ended up staying unusually late, so couldn't make it that early. It took us about 2.5 hours to get to the Topsail beach and by the time we reached it was past noon. When I first dipped my feet in the sand it was hot as hell but as soon as we got into the water it was unbelievably comfortable and pleasing. It was supposed to rain that day but luckily it didn't. Both the sky and water were pretty blue color and there were surfers riding on the beautiful waves. 

Play time!

We played and jumped in the water for hours, after many many years it felt like I went back to my childhood. Also, after long time, I went out with my actual camera and took some photos. I lied down with my back on the sand where waves could come and touch me up to my chin, I could feel the relaxing rhythm of them coming and going by. We talked about adult life but played like kids, and captured the memories in some pretty photos to cherish them years after. It was an amazing day!

We left the beach after 5 hours being burnt and I couldn't move my back and feet for next two days. But it was totally worth going, and I'm looking forward to some more fun trips as fall is coming soon. 

Where's Home for You?

I've always found the concept of 'Home' or 'Home Country' very interesting and at the same time confusing. "Where do you come from?" is a very common and simple question to be asked by people, whether you're living in your own country or in another country. This identity is embedded with us mostly by birth, which we can't choose as we can't choose who will be our parents. But as we grow up we eventually learn to live without our parents, most start their own families. Similarly, we're living in a world where more young people are moving abroad for education or job, it's becoming more common to meet people with mixed identities, i.e. half American, half German. When we leave our home country at a young age and build our own identity, own world at a separate place, in a different country, how much does it really matter where we're coming from? Or what percentage of us remains the same as what we had when we left home?

It's been 7.5 years that I've left home. I remember the day when I moved to Japan in April 2009. I was sad to leave my family, loving siblings there for sure, but I wanted to see more of the world, was excited to learn a new language, connect with the people who don't have the same background as me and many more. In my first year I became friends with 13 people from 12 different countries in my language school dorm and we're still good friends. Not that I never had homesickness, I did. But I started to create my own definition of home. After 5 years of living in Japan and finishing my college, I had so many memories and so many people I was connected with that I could easily call it my home away from home. As years went by friends graduated, most moved to different places for higher education or job, and each time I went back home I'd realize I had fewer strings attached. 

Same thing happened when I moved to USA from Japan. It was a huge step for me to leave my secure comfort zone, what I called home. But I was lucky to meet some amazing people and be loved and cared by friends from my very first day, and it never felt different. It's been 2.5 years here, don't know if I can call it home yet but I love the people in my life who are always there to comfort me and give me the feeling of being at home. In my entire time of living abroad, this is the first time that I'm sharing house with a roommate, who has been a friend from the very first day of grad school and now colleague. She's probably one of the most caring people on earth if not the most, and I can't describe how lucky I'm to have her in my life. When Madison told me she feels less anxious when I'm around, and actually got a lot of work done that she was nervous about, I knew that I can call this place home. We both long to come back here after tiring days at work and probably spend the most fun time with each other cooking, watching favorite movies/TV shows, or just talking about life.

Home is where the hugs are. pic.twitter.com/Gw5JDUrTf8

— Disney (@Disney) August 15, 2016

When people ask me whether I miss my home, I can only say that I miss my family. That's the only string attached to that place. I loved the city where I was born and brought up - Chittagong, beautiful port town with beach and mountains. I remember crying and being depressed for months after we moved to the crowded capital at the age of 12. That was probably the first time I realized what depression is, and the fact that I'm more of a quiet person, crowded places don't suit me. Unfortunately I never fell in love with Dhaka as much as I loved my campus in Tsukuba, and don't feel excited to revisit that city itself. It might sound harsh to many, but I developed the concept of my own home, where I fell calm and enjoy the little things of life.

I came across Pico Iyer's TED talk "Where is Home?" as I started writing this post. He put it beautifully - "I've always felt that the beauty of being surrounded by the foreign is that it slaps you awake. You can't take anything for granted. Travel, for me, is a little bit like being in love, because suddenly all your senses are at the setting marked "on." Suddenly you're alert to the secret patterns of the world. The real voyage of discovery, as Marcel Proust famously said, consists not in seeing new sights, but in looking with new eyes. And of course, once you have new eyes, even the old sights, even your home become something different."

As long as I can travel, see new places, I'd always be excited about finding a new place that I might be able to call my home, and I'm a lucky to have several home away from home already :)

Another Transition in Life

Lately I haven't had chance to write much, though technically I was supposed to write more during summer break. But life hasn't been easy for last couple of months (not that it ever was!), and there has been a LOT of new changes in my life - some are positive and happy, while some other are sad and stressful. I've a lot of things to write about but I'm still trying to cope up with all the changes, and having tiring days and restless nights. However, I guess by now I should be able to figure out that it's not going to get better, and if I can't be more positive then this will only affect my productivity in every phase of my life. So, before going any further with other specific life issues, I'm writing today about another big transition in my life.

In mid-November I wrote a post on vulnerability, the fear of "What if?". I was in the worst transitional period where I had to figure out my next step - academia or job, USA or UK, leave or stay in Illinois and so forth. On top of the natural stress that every such situation brings, my hypertension, anxiety and depression made things further difficult. Fortunately enough in the end I had multiple options to choose from, but unfortunately it wasn't exactly the way I wanted. But still I can count myself as one of the privileged ones to have those choices. The end result is - I chose job over PhD, but the main reason behind this decision was it is based in an academic institution where I have the freedom to improve myself and enrich myself with some real life experiences. I've accepted the position as fellow/faculty at the NCSU Libraries (for more information visit the program Website). My home department is Digital Library Initiatives where I'm currently working on improving the search interface (or at least planning to do so), and my initiative is with Acquisition and Discovery Services where I'll be exploring the scope of Linked Data/Semantic Web. It's a very exciting position for me, and everyone in this library has been extremely kind and helpful. I couldn't possibly ask for a better work environment. Due to the location of my two departments, I'll be splitting my time between Hunt and Hill Library. Both are beautiful, especially Hunt is a more recent addition, multiple award winning library for its beautiful architecture. It's vivid with playful colors that can brighten up anyone's mood. We've bookbots there that's the first of its kind where people can actually see them in action when they request books.

Main reading area at the Hunt Library (view from third floor)

Lovely colors in the rain garden reading lounge

Besides that I especially like the Faculty Commons lounge where we have a separate reading and meeting space just to promote creativity. And it has some of the comfiest chairs ever!

Faculty Commons

It's crazy how time flies, will be three weeks soon that I started job. Still feels little crazy that I'm being an proper adult, actually stepped outside school and trying to contribute in real life. The tough part is being away from the people I love. I'm missing out my precious times with family. Not that it's new, but with so many recent changes in life, losing dad and many more, these days I feel like I'm living in constant fear of what's going to happen next. What if something happens to my family and I can't be there when they need me? But I'm lucky that I've Madison with me as my friend, colleague and roomie. She's one of those amazingly caring people who go out of their way to comfort someone. Well, I guess life decided to make up for me this way after constantly throwing all the shits at me. 

I haven't stopped hoping for a better tomorrow, but I now know that life doesn't stop for any negative events. Real life's messy, it doesn't always have happy endings like Disney movies, but we can't stop trying to make it better. I believe that if I can find one positive thing out of every stressful event, one positive thought to make the world a better place, and can be the reason of someone's smile while causing no harm to anyone, it's another win for me. While I'm writing this I know it's 10 times more difficult to actually practice it in real life, but I've promised myself that I'll try. May be I'll fail and I'll cry one more time, but I won't give up.

Dreaming for a better future..

It's Complicated

It's 4am. I woke up from nightmare for the second time in the same night. This time I had tears kissing all my face as I saw my dad again. May be it wasn't a complete bad dream because in the end I saw him alive, smiling, dressed impeccably in white ironed shirt. As far as I remember, in the beginning of that dream dad was missing, we couldn't find him anywhere. He wasn't a person who'd disappear like that. He could be late from work or be away for traveling, but he would always let my mom know because he knew she'd worry too much. But in my dream I was trying again and again to connect his phone, but it was out of network. He came back later after two days, in an ambulance that looked smoky inside and he seemed dizzy, though looking perfect. I kept calling him again and again, worried, terrified and he smiled and said "Ha, Baba (Yes, dad)."

This was a sad dream, but even more sad reality's it happened in real life without happy ending. My dad went for a trip for work, came back in an ambulance, but I never got to hear his sweet voice, ever again.

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I never liked celebration as much my whole life, so was never much excited about Eid even as a kid. Since I moved to Japan in 2009 that feeling got stronger as regular school and work days became part of Eid, no special vacation. 

Today was another year, another Eid. I woke up early morning, went to office, had a long day. Might sound strange to many, but I didn't feel anything, there was a strange numbness. The last Eid I spent with my family in 2012, dad was with us. I can still see him waking up in his beautiful green punjabi shortly before we took some family portraits. That was probably the first time after my brother was born and we lost our sister that we got all of us in the same frame, and also the last time. Deep in my mind I probably don't want to destroy the image of that Eid by any other sad Eid day without dad being around.

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I dream my dad pretty often. But I think I'm probably having more nightmares and suffering from insomnia these days because I'm getting more and more of that worrying too much problem of my mom as I'm getting older. I remember being annoyed by that when I was younger, but it's strange that it makes a lot more sense now. I know now it's the fear of losing the loved ones. Recently there was the most terrible and shameful terrorist attack in our country's history. The whole country's still mourning for the lost ones and not being able to be festive as they're still shaken by the horror. I can feel how terrified it was for those families whose members were stuck in that bakery during attack, and the panic attack they had when their dear ones came back in ambulance and never talked to them again. I know all these, that's why being away from family keeps me constantly worried consciously and subconsciously, hence the nightmares.

Lying on my bed all alone at 4am I'm questioning a lot of things about my life, which I know possibly have no satisfying answer. As we grow older we detach from parents, learn to live our own life, move somewhere else, invest on ourselves. These are all necessary for personal growth. I know if I hadn't made those decisions about my academic life early in my career and decided to leave my home country, I won't probably be where I'm today. But at the same time I had to make the biggest compromise of my life, staying far away from my loving family, the most important part of my life. Is it worth doing it? I can't probably answer in one word, it's complicated, and there are so many factors. But the only thing I can hope and pray for is that things will get better, and my family will be able to live in a safe country where we don't have to be constantly terrified about another attack, and I won't lose sleep worrying too much. Just wishing everyone has a peaceful and happy Eid with their dear ones full of love and happiness.

Painting is the Secret Cure - 2

Usually it gets difficult to paint as often when I'm busy during the semester, but lately I'm trying to utilize the power of this secret cure more. Painting really helps me to heal faster than anything else (well, besides eating brownies :p), and also take a break from stressful real life. So, just wanted to post the three new painting I've done recently.

The first one is a simple still life. I was actually planning to paint something related to spring that day, but changed my mind as I held the brushes as I hadn't painted still life in a while. Not super happy with the end result, but the process of doing that made me happy, and I guess that's what matters the most :) Oh, also I authored my own book in my own painting! :p Hope someday that happens in real life! 

The second one is inspired by a dreamy macro image I've randomly come across, and my most favourite. It was so pretty and dreamy that I decided to replicate that in my work, though usually most of my paintings are not based on any real life image but totally out of imagination, and the theme depends on my specific mood of that time. Also, I felt that I could utilize the real power and beauty of water color after long time in this work, so, pretty happy :)

The third one is the outcome of the euphoria after finishing the previous one. I was so excited that I didn't want to put down my brushes. Also, I have been missing a pretty sunset for a while. So, started randomly playing with colorful sky, then sea, then some more. It ended up looking little bit like Chicago (Lake Michigan).

Hope I'll be able to relax and paint more once I graduate :) Till then need to stop all sorts of procrastinations and push myself for 2 more weeks! 

Philly Trip for iConference 2016

After all the travel horrors I mentioned in my previous posts, I had a safe trip to Philadelphia, and it was an experience worth having. This was my first time attending iConference. Before starting grad school I saw the news on the departmental website about the students who made it to iConference, and thought someday I'll be able to contribute too. Luckily I had that opportunity before graduating. The project I worked on last summer at the Oxford e-Research Centre with Dr Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller and Dr Kevin Page got accepted at the conference to present as a poster, and not only that, I got nominated as one of the five finalists for Best Poster Award. Here's how the final version of my poster looked like -

iConference Poster for the BABY Elephant project

Day 1

First day in Philly was interesting! It was little cloudy and colder than it was last couple of days. I went out with my friend Kate to watch Zootopia again, which was definitely a lot of fun because this is the best disney movie of recent times! On our way back it started to rain with ice, which turned into snow later. It was very strange with the spring flowers blooming and snowing outside! Anyway, I had to present at the poster session next two days, so was little nervous but excited at the same time. Also, I found out my supervisor Joho sensei and Dean Sugimoto sensei (one of my most favorite persons from the university) from University of Tsukuba were attending the conference. That added lot more excitement as I hadn't seen them in almost two years.

Day 2

The first day at the conference started with a fine weather. I left home around 6:45am to make to the venue early enough for registration, and the downtown looked beautiful in early morning light.

Conference venue at Loews Hotel

After I reached the hotel and put up my poster on board, I saw Sugimoto sensei was sitting just at the opposite table. I was SO super excited that I jumped and hugged sensei (I'm telling you this is very unusual in Japan, so I was definitely planning not doing that, but couldn't control :p). It was nice catching up with the senseis. The rest of the day was pretty long, listened to many interesting talks, and then the poster session ended at 6:30. Then we had fancy banquet at the National Constitution Centre. I met some nice folks there and made two good friend from the Northwestern University. Also, forced Joho sensei to pose for me as he dislikes taking photo as much as I do :p 

I was dead tired after that, thought I could sleep the whole night straight, but woke up around 4am as usual. Don't understand what's wrong with my brain! 

Inside the National Constitution Centre

Feast! 

Sugimoto Sensei (left) and Joho Sensei (right)

Day 3

Second day at the conference started early again but was more low key for me. I forgot to mention that 95% students attending iConference are PhD students. So, there were a lot of events for the doctoral students. I didn't have a lot to do for couple of hours during lunch break, so thought I would explore the neighborhood. 

It was pretty nice out, I decided to visit Philadelphia's Magic Gardens, which was about 15mins by walk. After arriving there I found out it's closed on Tuesdays, so couldn't get in. But they still had pretty installations and murals in the surroundings. So, could take some nice pictures, and enjoyed the sunshine while walking back to the hotel.

This reminded me of Moroccan architecture!

Magic Gardens Surroundings

The day ended with the poster award ceremony, received a certificate on behalf of all. Then ended up hanging out with some friends from the conference. This time I was really tired to move or do anything at all. So, went to bed straight after getting back home.

The certificate

Day 4

This was my last day in Philly. Since all the conference sessions were over by noon, I decided to spend the rest of the day exploring the city. I went to visit the Eastern State Penitentiary. Opened in 1829, it was one of the oldest prisons in USA, and used to be one of the most expensive ones. This place was on top of my list because of its historic value and creepiness, and I thought it was worth visiting. I got to learn a lot about the history, and felt as if I was reliving those times as I was listening to the audio tour while looking at the pictures.

View from the staircase 

Crumbled room in the prison

After visiting the penitentiary I headed towards Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was second on my list. They had an interesting and unique special exhibition on international pop art. Besides that I enjoyed the Impressionist paintings, especially by my two favorites Claude Monet and Camille Pissaro. Overall, I liked the museum, thought they had interesting collection. And their gift shop was pretty big too! 

Front of the museum

Cityscape from the museum stairs

Another view of the museum

On my way back I saw a gorgeous sunset, bought some souvenirs, and happily came back home. Walking in Philly downtown is pretty straightforward, I loved that area a lot.

Glorious sunset

The next day I flew back to Chicago, and from there to Champaign. The weather wasn't terrific there, both the flight and bus were delayed. So, it ended up taking almost 11 hours from door to door where the flight is only 2 hours! I met another interesting person from UIUC on my way back. Though tiring, I think it was a good trip, especially since it fell during spring break, and I could have some time to recover before I go back to school.