Saturday, January 23, 2010

The Countdown...

I didn’t know that the following days were going to become so hectic. Since I was left with only 45 days more, I had to really struggle and work hard to bring back at least some data. So I stayed in the lab throughout the night ..burning my midnight oil..I was in continuous working mode 24x7..I’d leave the lab around 3-4 am and come back by 9 am. My tour plans all were stopped abruptly. I started enjoying the delight in seeing some good results.

Our lab was to organise an International conference in Nutrition and Physical activity in Ageing, obesity and cancer (NAPA).. The whole lab was supposed to attend the program in another island of South korea called Jeju. It is supposed to be a dream place not only for the foreigners but for the natives, too. I took a challenge of presenting my work as a poster in this conference. Therefore, I had to double my efforts for the same. With the help extended by my friends there, I first succeeded in my abstract submission. Then, the whole pressure was on me to get a poster done by myself, in 14 days.

Meanwhile I got the shock of my life, when I learnt that Lenin was facing some problems in getting his visa. All these days I had dreamt (rather, determined) that he was coming to take me home, after having some enjoyable time together. I even personally requested to the Lady of the korean Embassy in India for the same. But all in vain…

I stopped visiting places, stopped meeting my friends there.. In fact, I had time only to work for my poster presentation. Finally, we were all ready with our posters printed and all set to attend the conference.

We were to take a domestic flight to the Jeju Island and stay there for 4 days (Dec 12-15) My return flight was on the 16th Dec. Only the chosen ones were to attend the conference. So I was to bid them officially on Dec 11th.

On that day, I was running around as usual, making corrections finally, before printing the poster. I saw people opening a cake (probably for celebrating somebody’s B’day, I guessed). To my surprise, later the lab chief informed me that it was for my farewell and I joined them. Almost all my lab members were available that day and the group looked a crowd. It was embarrassing when they asked me to say some words before cutting the cake. I thanked them for their sincere support and the help they extended to me. They impressed me by presenting a nice gift to me and a tasty sweet potato cake from the Twosome place (a truly awesome place to buy cakes, though quite expensive!).




I was to meet the BK friends for dinner and bid them too. So we - Lekha and myself, joined Room 502 around 9pm. Kesavan and Sampath were there. Hari and Suresh (the real owners of the room) were yet to return from the lab. All of them are pursuing PhD in the College of Agriculture, SNU. Well, about Kesavan, a simple guy from Madurai, who has very humble contacts like Shriya Saran, Nayanthara and others on the Facebook. He is very active and ready to extend help to anyone anytime. Sampath, his own cousin, is always over phone. Yes!, he’s going to get married soon. He tries to impress us with his cooking skills. A new dish everyday, whatever his would-be tells him to do. To be frank he cooks better than me..Hahaha

After a long wait, they arrived, imagining we would have prepared the dinner. They started to cook as soon as they entered. Puri , aloo masala, rice and rasam was the menu. Prabhu, a Post doc from IIT, madras, also joined us. Lekha was wonder-struck to find such an active group, who made us laugh throughout the time..Well, time is something which we forget when we are there. It was already past 11 when we started having food. We had a very hearty dinner. They flattered me by gifting me a farewell present. It was a beautiful thermal-mug with the logo of the university. Lekha joined them in gifting me another beautiful ceramic mug. Around 2 am we left them for the day. They invited me to join them for a dinner on the 15th Dec, if I return from Jeju little early.


1 comment:

  1. Dear raji,

    thank you very much for your scribble about me. btw, i am nt frm madurai. i'm from Salem. moreover so many our indians have contacted with actors through the social networks. anyhow, we hope you enjoyed your trip to seoul...

    ReplyDelete