"A trip to Finland"

For the new year 2007, we were in a trip to lapland along with other 25 friends. I had great and amazing experiences there and probably all of those experiences were for the first time. Being in the place where it was dark for almost all time during winter, seeing the real Santa Clause and the Santa Clause village, seeing the line where Artic circle falls, seeing blue lights, doing snow mobile, sledding, walking over the river which was frozen, reindeer sledding, feeding reindeers, having drinks from snow bar, covering whole body with snow and many more things were my first experiences. I had a great time there in Finland which will be my life time memory.



Enjoying the blanket of snow.


Infront of the Santa Clause house (the blue line above me marks the artic circle).

Feliz Navidad Y Prospero Ano Nuevo

"Feliz navidad y prospero ano nuevo" to everyone.

At IESE, they traditionally organize a a lucky draw of 5 special "jamon" every year before the Christmas for the staff. Ths year the lucky draw happend on Friday (Dec 22). Aline, a Brazilian friend, who was not so fond of jamon told us earlier that she would give away her jamon to other RA's if she won. Surprisingly 3 out of those lucky 5 winners this year were Research Assistants (RA) including her, Luis and Olena. When she started getting congratulations from her friends and realized how valuable the jamon was (we were told that it costs more than 250 euros each), she changed her mind. Now she was thinking of sleeping with her "dear jamon" as a pillow. Another winner Luis, after knowing that I don't eat jamon, has promised to make a special jamon soup for me so that I will start liking jamon. Luis I will remember your promise huh!!! And the remaining winner Olena had already left for the vacation.

We were all having fun with all these things during cocktail organised by IESE on Friday. Every one were wishing merry christmas and happy vacation and I was not lagging behind to wish all my friends and whom I know there.

RAs including two winners (Aline,5th from right in the top row and Luis, 1st from right in the bottom row)

I was specially happy today after I got a christmas gift from one of the professors in the department for which I work. Wow..Christmas gift for me!

"Men´s club"

I was surprised to know that almost all the men´s clubs in America are named after animals: the Lion´s club, the Elks club, the eagle club etc.
Source: Social Capital: Measurement and Consequences by Robert Putnam.

"Theories"

Now the "finale" has come. I have been looking at lots of data and analysing them since long time back for my research work. Now I am trying to write a research paper that finalises all of it. This work is new and challenging for me. I need to read others' papers and find if they have done the same works as ours to cite them. Oppsssssss...so many papers..thousands of them..I am lost!! Lost in "Heisenberg theory", "Homeostatis Theory","Hofstede Theory", "Maslow's laws", "aristotelian view", "Jeremy Bentham philosophy" and hundreds of other theories. Hopefully all those theories will be "wow yeah, I know about them. They are very simple" in few days!

Fear of pain

Because of the fear of the pain which I would have, I didn´t go to a dentist once even after making an appointment. Well! I think it was also because I didn´t like the dentist who didn´t even give 1 min to see my teeth earlier.

However, because my upper right wisdom tooth didn´t have enough space to come out, it was continuing to be a problem to my jaws and affecting other teeth as well. So once again I made an appointment to a dentist, but this time a different dentist, the one suggested by one of my friends. That day he took the x-rays and saw the orientations of my "muelas" and gave me the appointment for last Tuesday for pulling the tooth out. I was again really very scared by the thought of the pain that I would feel when the anesthesia injection is given, while my wisdom teeth is taken out and after the effect of the anesthesia goes away.

But on the day of the appointment to have my tooth pulled, I was not feeling uncomfortable with my tooth. It was perfectly fine. So I was wondering if it was really necessary for me to have my tooth pulled out. Well! I had to go. I was solacing myself with one point! i.e. taking out the upper wisdom tooth won´t be such painful as lower (as always,I did internet research to find this information). Then the doctor came, asked me if I had normal blood pressure, heart beat and other basic things. I told her that all those things were fine but I had viral flu (that was true) hoping that she would postpone the pulling out of my tooth to some other day. But she observed me and started laughing and said "Then no problem, it won´t save you from me taking your teeth out" So sad......

She then started giving the anesthesia and to my surprise I didn´t feel any pain. She used a tiny needle which was painless. The image of being anesthetized with a long needle was completely wrong. I then started thinking, after finishing she will stitch a portion of my jaws and when the effect of anesthesia will go, I will feel pain. Then she started cleaning my teeth letting the anesthetics work in my jaws. The dentist was very friendly and I was happy that she was giving her time to help me relax. She was assuring me that she will start taking my tooth out once I became sure that it would not give me pain. I have met few doctors in Barcelona and I think she was the first doctor who was so friendly and had time and empathy to understand the patients. At least for me this is the most important quality I look for in a doctor, which is to relieve the patients a bit psychologically, without any medicine.

Finally, the main part was over. She took my tooth out. I could fell the pressure in my jaws when she was doing her work and it was great that I didn't feel any pain till then. Within 10 mins she told me that she was done and gave some instructions to follow for next 24 hours (e.g. hold the bandage between two jaws, don´t spit, don't eat hot things). Other then that nothing. She didn´t even stitch because my tooth came out easily just by pulling. Amazing!!!!!!All my postulations of pain was unnecessary.

For those who have to take their wisdom tooth out and are worrying, I want to say "Don´t worry". Its going to be much simpler than you have imagined.

me trying to capture all the beauty of Switzerland

Posted by Srijana

Pradeep and myself in Switzerland

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Celebrating Christina's B'day (Christina, Juliana, Sofia, Lidia and myself: from left front)

Posted by Srijana

Geetha, Pradeep, myself and Anil (from left)

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"Thanksgiving"

Yesterday we attended the thanksgiving dinner at IESE. Thats when I came to know the history of thanksgiving and its importance. After knowing all this, though late I could not stop myself from giving thanks to all my family, relative, friends and all my dear ones who know me. Thank you everybody for being with me.

The dinner itself war great. Dinner was followed by the talents shows (Pradeep also sang a Nepali song with an Irish girl who played flute beautifully: It was a great combination). Then the auctions were amazing. People bidded maximum of 4000 euros for the dinner that will be organised by first year girls and the guys were crazy to get it. (I think it was also some alcohol effect). Anyway total amount raised was almost 18000 euros from all the bidding of different things which was raised for a charity. Good job!!!

donde esta Srijana?

Wow.......I am writing my blog after a long long time and I am happy for it.

Not to bore you all my dear ones, I won't start updating all the things of 4 months.

I recently had a trip to Switzerland with Pradeep (16th Nov, 2006 to 19th Nov). He was in a trip for his project work and I didn't miss a chance to see Switzerland by joining him.

During my research work, I have been always dealing with Switzerland as the country with very high GDP, low mortality rate and natality rate, high life expectancy and one of the countries where most of the people are highly satisfied. I was really very excited to see the country about which I had been analyzing the data since long.

After we reached the airport, Pradeep headed to the company where he was supposed to be in a meeting and I went to the hotel. I rested for sometime there, had a coffee and waited for pradeep to be back. In the evening when he came back Pradeep and his project team mates and I went towards Zurich centre. I just got the glimpse of night-time Zurich as it was already late when we finished our dinner.

Next day in the morning Pradeep, Anil and I went to the small village "Trogen". It was 2 hours in a train from Zurich. We enjoyed the beautiful scenary on the way. All scenic landscape and the mountains really were amazing. I was surprised to see each and every parts of the hills, meadow, landscape well maintained. Well!!!!!!!! I know it is the country with high GDP and they have the money and resources to maintain it. Pradeep also had a horse ride (only for a minute or so!!!!!!). A beautiful girl from the village was the owner of the horse offered him the horse ride. In the evening we returned back to Zurich, had our dinner and went back to the hotel.

On Sunday, we had a flight in the evening. So we woke up early, went to the airport and checked-in our luggage (luckily, Swiss air had this facility of allowing luggage to check in before 24 hours of flight) and went to Zurich centre again. There we met Pradeep's friend Geetha. She took us around Zurich city for sometime. We had our breakfast (hmmm...with hot chocolate) in one of the oldest cafe in Zurich. Then she took us to the mountain Uetliberg from where we could see the beautiful views high mountains and the Zurich city with the lake. I was mesmerized my the beauty of nature there. But in few hours we had to go back to the airport.

It was a great weekend. I enjoyed my trip.