After Six Months....

June 24, 2011

Carbondale, IL

The days have already started to creep, inherently long and dry, explicitly muggy and humid, life seem to freeze in the mid-day and waiting for more severe hot weather to experience. The hot weather has puffy effect in the life-style of an individual compelling them to stay inside office mansions or in an apartment. Nevertheless, days were extremely lousy most of the time but a kind of juxtapose culminated.

Trip of Kentucky to visit the biblical museum was not a noble idea proposed by Ben as we love to get indulged with atheism and secular humanism; however it was the decent idea to think the same from another facet of the cube, a metaphor for so hyped rapture. The trip was exciting when the Irene’s car got broke in the middle of highway, as we try to do drama of mechanic; the idea got flopped in no-time. Luckily, we were successful in reaching the workshop near-by with Eric’s calmness to drive, then got our car fixed and drive towards the museum. As we reach the museum, I was blatantly shocked by the comparison of Darwin’s Evolution Theory with God’s Evolution or Revolution Theory of seven days or whatever it is..!.  We walked through the each of the chambers, passing through the devout Christian each time; it was an embarrassing and illogical findings and comparisons that severely lack empirical reasoning. The movie they show at last not only undermines the achievement of human-kind in science and technology but on top of it, it uses the animation technology to describe the Christian religion and refuses to anticipate the development of science and technology. Later, we move to see the some horses and strange animals that make us feel better and finally we move towards our way after having wonderful Dinner at Meditarean, Louiseville, seeing the huge Ohio River and make our way towards Carbondale, Illinois.

The other day, Ben, Irene, and I made the wonderful hiking experience at the little Grand Canyon. It was such a memorable experience as we lost the trail and we got freeze inside the swamp. The mosquito bites seamlessly and the bruises were all over our body, a kind of scary experience but fully interesting, thrilling and adventurous when we lost the trail and had to walk straight through forest to reach parking lot.  As the Ben uses his compass compassionately, we were successful in making our way towards the parking lot and got surprised when we reach the place exactly from where we started it. It was lot of fun with so many bruises, at the end of the day, sleep was so strong and deep that I never realize it could be so beautiful and perfect unknowingly!!

The following day, we went to tear trail hiking. The hiking was very short but was memorable in a sense that we nearly got caught up by tornado when we were coming back. We got so surprised to see the power outage in the small town of Anna and sneak inside the rural ice-cream parlor to have strawberry ice-cream.

The other day, we end up in paddling boat in campus-lake and felt so sad when we saw couple of dead turtles floating in the water. Absolutely free-ride in US, never experienced something free like this!. The poor squirrel got fall from one of the tree near Campus Lake as we walking to the trail, it was staying standstill and we thought we have missed of the beautiful creature of this world. After waiting for a while, and getting disappointed about the pain of the innocent squirrel, I made the way towards it to see from near. Amazingly, squirrel ran away and head towards his/her home. Watching movie Panda in the theatre of University mall was another fun with full of laughter and amusement. It was after ages I have watched the movie like this but it was beyond my expectation and I enjoyed it so much.

Murphysboro Wine and Art Festival was so much fun with so many wine-stalls and music performed. I was so happy to see many peoples in the surrounding after a long time and it was amazing experienced as friends got drunk taking the sip of 36 different wines, they can taste! absolutely after paying the ticket price!

Band Perry performance in Herrin was one of the most wonderful moment I spend listening the live music in my life. With thousands of peoples and the beautiful weather, the chord of guitar looms far above the sky and echoes the ear-drums in the dawn. If I die young…., is a wonderful country side song sang by Band Perry, it just stretches further away very far away from this materialistic world making your tributaries in your mind relaxed.

Again, the sunset concert started this month and it was so excitement seeing another “Space Capone “band in the school. The chaos of coke and bear cans, the trash getting full in no time and crazy folks (including myself) dancing was so much fun, the indication of hot but beautiful moment of the year in door-step. It marks the end of six months in Carbondale, still inherently struggling hard to adapt in the academia and to enjoy free civilian life after a long military-service but the shadow is going farther away, melting faster than ever unknowingly.

The Wind Moves On..........

It was blatantly a horrifying and a thrilling experience when tornado was about to hit the Carbondale. As usual I used to hear the Tornado warning siren every Tuesday in the school and used to be curious of its importance and its existence in the beginning. The tornado passed through Carbondale that evening and It seems that peoples were so scared although I couldn’t realize what was going on as it swept away in the evening. It was an amazing and scary experience in the juxtaposition of inquisitiveness and fear as we get piled up inside our house and continue to check the website for the weather updates.

The school keeps on moving faster than before and I realized that everything is going to end soon, at least for a while. So there were lot of papers to write, many labs to finish and finals to take.  One of the weeks was the busiest week for me in the Carbondale, I became cunningly busy. It was an enjoyment and make me feel that time is moving seamlessly and endlessly. There were couple of field visits in different parts of town for the sustainable development class and I really enjoyed the surrounding of the school. Chef Bill’s interesting lecture about making the dining hall sustainability, GMO’s to Laura’s briefing on Organic farming. It definitely aided to visualize multidimensional facet of an environmental problems and social responsibilities. Although, I had never taken any classes in Human Geography, I felt it was the best class I had ever taken in my life although the hopes for sustainability cripples and creeps in horizon despite of global awareness in climate change. The advancement in technology and green technology practices we are adhering shows some glistening hopes ahead in contributing towards the sustainability of environment.

Secular student’s alliance picnic on May 3^rd at Giant City Park was fantastic.  As we move our caravan towards the park, it was beautiful dawn and we missed the way at first and were traveling towards the cemetery. Barbecue experiences and playing golf for the first time were amazing retrospection that would never get evaporated. Lot of barbecue parties was happening in the vicinity of the Carbondale.  The other day we went to Hanger 9 and It was wonderful experience listening country music.  It was a great time to cool down the grey matter after hectic weekdays.

The other day I met one of the students from Iraq who would be studying Physics soon.  It was a great time sharing each other’s experience about different facets of life. What are the barriers for non-English speaking students and how he is striving hard to make it work in short-time to start his PhD program? The park was a good place to explore the naturalism and It has already been my best friend to share the joy and happiness.  As we used to walk through the bank of reservoirs, the strong wind splashes into the water and it makes the reservoir lively. The fish starts to pop up and the fishing rods are ready! I was flamboyantly trying to understand the people’s keen interest in fishing. I would continue to dig more.

The poster completion was incredibly interesting and I made first poster in my life. It was a kind of accomplishment for me and I realized what are the basic things that I really need to take care of to make the poster. The department’s fare-well program was inspirational and we were happy to share the achievements of so many members inside our department.

Finally the semester was over and I am looking forward to start my summer ;) I felt I survived!!! for 140 days in Carbondale. Enjoy the beautiful weather and a summer ;)