MMXV: A Review

2015! What a year!  The most challenging, and equally rewarding, year in my life so far. We welcomed our daughter! The most transformative experience of my life. Now TJN dictates my schedule, a rather uncomfortable situation for someone who has been a late night lab rat. To simply put, when she was delivered many of my plans got aborted! But it makes me happier, I guess. May be my daughter is my pleasant distraction from this stressful world. AK is happy too since the pregnancy went the way she planned, to the most part.

2015 witnessed many memorable, sad, and exciting events. CRISPR is (finally) selected as the technology of the year. Editing ones genome, who would have thought going to be so easy? The Syrian refugee crisis, attacks on beautiful city of Paris. And something we owe to our children, some positive signs from Paris climate summit. Alarmingly enough, 2015 is the hottest year in the recorded history of earth!

I had made several grand plans for 2015 in the last blog I posted in 2014. It was a hubris reaction to the successful accomplishment of 2014 resolution. I thought my plans would work easy-peazy, although we were anticipating arrival of TJN. But delivering a baby and taking care of the family without much social help is no simple task. That would sum up the first half of 2015. My plan of writing genetics studies did not pan out. In fact I made no progress on it. But few other things worked out. I am actively working on my bioinformatics skills. Getting comfortable with Galaxy, a web based tool. Although it may not give the dexterity with command line based approaches, it is a very good starting point. I am enjoying it. Also trying to improve my R and UNIX skills. Bioconductor is a very helpful resource. I am trying out some MOOCs courses. Will update if I get anything done. Also audited a course at UCSD earlier this year. But unfortunately missed most of the classes.

The second most rewarding experience was that my manuscript from Ph.D. finally got some positive reviews from a decent journal. Nothing is final yet, but I am hoping that it will come out soon. The process so far taught me some great lessons in life and career. As with any meaningful experiences, it taught me things to do, and most importantly, things I should avoid in future. To begin a meaningful project is difficult. The first observation that convinces you that there is something worth pursuing is tough in many ways. In my experience it is mostly a trial and error approach. But there are certain ways to improve one’s odds. I am still learning it. The middle game is usually easy, but if you are not well informed there are high chances that one can easily get digressed. I made this mistake. And in my experience the toughest part is the endgame, to decide when to finish a story. I screwed up there too. Well, that is apprenticeship all about.

The third major accomplishment was application for green card. Spent a lot of time (active effort for 3 months) and energy to prepare this 9 lb application. At the very least it gave me an opportunity for introspection on my accomplishments in my career and life so far. Since I filed it my self (with great support from AK and few other good hearted people) I had the opportunity to revisit my life from my 17^th birthday. i.e. from my undergrad days. Will I relive my life of the last 20 years? What will I change if I have a chance? What are the values I learned so far? I do not think it was a complete waste. But it could have been better. I really feel that I became aware of my strengths and weaknesses after meeting AK, who I think has been a mirror to me ever since. I still forget sometime that it is pointless to be angry at your mirror for reflecting your own deformities. Life is a gentle teacher. It sends you messages in a very subtle manner. You will be able to decode them only if you are sensible enough. I am convinced that one should have at least one such mirror personalities with you all the time to embolden you and also to keep you grounded.

Looking forward. What is 2016 going to be? I hope that it is going to be exciting. I have few resolutions as usual. To become an expert in analysis, interpretation and visualization of big data. I have bookmarked some great summer workshops. With a baby it is hard to stay away for 2 weeks. But lets see. I will wrap up at least one story and I should some how find funding to support myself for the next couple for years. And most importantly, I am still searching for my own niche. But I have to enter my active apprenticeship phase in 2016. Life is short and precious. Happy and Fruitful 2016 to all! May the force be with you!