Today I rediscovered a way of getting back webpages that have been deleted or lost. Its a tool called the wayback machine @ archive.org and amazingly it works!My first task was to try and recover my previous blog which I lost when webs4christ was hacked. I held my breath and searched for the page and after a painstaking wait of about 10 seconds…. voila!… I had access to previous entries in my old blog. The images and layout was all messed up but the entries were still there! I felt euphoric and was soon cutting and pasting all my previous entries onto my new blogger blog. It was a loooong task, but I really enjoyed reading the older entries as…

I had been working on the comp till late night and left it on and crashed out a couple of nights ago. I had some important database files for my thesis which I had worked on. I woke up at 3 AM and realised the lights in my room were all flickering and there was a brief power failure. I realised my comp was on and sleepily noted that it was on battery. I fiddled around and the power adapter didnt work. Since the battery is an old one, in less than an hour it ran out and I hibernated my system. Normally I create an online backup of my files, but in the night I’d forgotten. In the morning…

One of the important things that Jitto had to do on his trip to Chennai was to work out a Visa extension. It was a miracle that the visa interview was in Chennai and not in Delhi and it went on uneventfully and the visa was approved. So far, so good!The visa and documents are supposed to be couriered to the home address within 48 hours. They were flying back on Saturday and on Friday, the visa had still not come in. We got a little worried. After some desperate phonecalls and emails, nothing moved. Appa managed to get another phone number from my uncle which was a direct number to the visa couriering place, but it was constantly engaged….

I continued working on my thesis today. One of my tasks for the day was screening the 8000 entries in the labor room register of births for 2004 to pick the newborns with a low APGAR score – by no means a simple task. I pulled out 6 LAAARGE registers from the inner room and kept it out to do the job in the night. Luckily Zothan, an intern, is posted with us and I had no problems getting him to help me. So at 7PM we started off – each laaarge page of the register has seven entries and we had to scan the column which said APGAR. It takes only a couple of seconds per page, another couple…

I had been working on the Literature Review section. Normally this goes to 15 pages or so. After a session of vigorous internet searches, journal-poring and typing there I was….. with all of 4 pages. I finally spoke to Dr. Anil and got some suggestions…. putting in more details of some trials etc etc etc. Hope I can expand it!

I actually finished screening the 8000 results! I got about 120 of them with a pH less than 7.00 and made a list. I now have to submit the list to pull out the records of these babies and see how they were treated and how they’re faring now. I started work on the actual thesis writing and started the Literature Review.Things are still tight. The charts may take time to get. What if I dont get all the data I need? What if I overshoot the deadline?Peace… Be still!

I shuttled between the office and the accounts section (that’s 2 floors down, a 1 minute walk across a corridoor and then back.. and .. forth!) till I got all the required signatures for my clearance to join my new job! Finally I submitted the forms and asked the ket question – “Er,.. Madam… when will the last month’s salary come in?” The answer was 2-3 days. Felt good about it!….. and the number crunching continued!

I continued to crunch numbers on the comp today and finished more than a 1000 numbers! It’s goinf faster than I expected, but the task ahead is quite big. I also managed to scoot down to the Principal’s office 8 KM away and submit the Late Submission fees and get the clearance forms at the same time. I’ll take each day at a time. What I need to do today I will do. No point worrying about tomorrow!

After a fairly uneventful night duty I got about working on my thesis – the main reason for joining the Neonatology unit. But unfortunately I’d ended up making a terrible error. I thought the last date for submission would be around July 2006. But I casually checked in the office today and I was informed that the last date was just 15th March and I could extend it by 15 days only. The situation was grim and I felt like kicking myself. After some discussion with Dr. Jana and Dr. Anil, an alternative strategy was worked out which left me with a decent shot at finishing on time. I was exempted from regular ward rounds and responsibilities as there were…

After the busy night duty I still managed to get to Church today! They had a special Praise and Worship session with only Hymns. I went in late and missed half of it. The rest of the service was great and Pastor spoke on Nehemiah. The best surprise came after church when Dr. Edwin, who’d just been to a Haggai Convention, met me and handed me a guitar plectrum! I was so excited! I havent played at church for quite some time now and hope that soon I’ll be able to use it!