if i don't write right now, i won't be able to ever. i came back from a stressful vacation, just because. my choice of not having drama in my life worked and i started worrying about work due to lack of problems.

also realizing i won't be able to go turkey to work (ok, maybe istanbul), i came back to heidelberg with great motivation due to a destroyed ego. mevlevi acolytes go into 40 days of seclusion just before their acceptance. if accepted they start out by cleaning, cooking and washing in the temple. before you give up your your property and everything worldly, you first need give up on your ego. it is self emancipating.

i met a lot of interesting people, and discussed a lot of interesting things during my vacation. from open source science to a cultural conscientious objection.

but before i write about them all, i need to leave for a workshop on sustainability. meaning, let's not listen to karl marx, and find ways to maintain conspicuous consumption, but this time reborn as environmentally responsible. physicist are collaborators in this story (sorry patrick!)

the right to be lazy and the vacation deceit

there have been a gap in the blog for our revolution, because it is time to come back home.

travelling is a marvellous thing. i don't know how you are but i am addicted to sensory input, either music or reading the news or watching a something on the side. this leads to basically not being able to finish any kind of work, mail the friends that you are missing out on, and more importantly have time to think.

sad that we need to say that we need "reflection."

we basically have a lot of things to "do" and not enough time.

augusto boal put it the best, "when you are in prison you are trapped in space, but you realize you are no longer trapped in time you are not bound by the pace of the daily life." (my words)

the conquest of time is not a new concept, that's what the bourgeoisie does, which the best reactionary example to that fact is the fight for the 8 hour working day. and for you dear young scientist, remember the adverts you saw about time management in your university.

anyhow, to return to the main point; traveling gives you the unique chance to be in limbo of boal's prison and freedom at the same time. while travelling although you are trapped in the receptacle of the means of transportation (train, bus, plane, boat) you are actually going to your planned destination. hence during the trip, we are partly free in time, with a time to reflect and think and realize all the things we hope to do and think or more importantly postpone the things that are dear to us and most humane.

it is time of "re-flection" or most probably deflection, deflection from the things that distracts us which we call daily life. deflection of a system that normally surrounds us and binds us in time to work be "productive."

i believe in the right to be lazy, and the best place to do it is while traveling.

(i wrote these while watching ghandi, i cut myself some slack from total meditative)

excerps from the miserable life

this week i had my birthday.

i hate birthdays, not because of this stupid fear of getting old but the significance of earth's movement around the sun escapes me.

i hated till last year, i came home exactly on my birthday. i tried to spend time with friends but it didn't work. i knew "home" wasn't home anymore. the life of a scientist, is the life of a heimatlos. who we have are each other, and i truly appreciate it, after seeing people leaving one by one.

i feel i came to the absolute climax of my phd experience. the closest i am to people, the most fun i had with my work, the most relaxed i am in heidelberg. and unfortunately everything will be downhill from now on.

from now on the job search, the thesis stress and separation from true comrades one by one start.

it is the middle thesis crisis.

i am happy and sad at the same time.

no i truly appreciate the friends i made here, how many nice people surround me.