The N-Dimensional vector !

Disclaimer: The post is not related to Mathematics or Machine learning. With my obsession towards Machine learning I gave this title! And one more thing.  Yeah, this is a lengthy post!

Seems like I am blogging frequently. I blog when I am elated. Yes, my guru, RP mam’s visit to my workplace yesterday is the strongest reason. Yeah, also when I am confused or worried or tired, I blog. I perceive writing as one of the mind massaging things. I thought of writing this post tomorrow after getting done with the tasks that are lined up. This semester I am relatively free on the academics’ front compared to my last sem. Last semester, The Design and Analysis of Algorithm just occupied my space like anything but this sem, I am handling two B.tech Machine learning (ML) classes and I have already recorded my lectures but still I have to do many Youtube lectures as I am handling more PhD  ML students this time. And yeah, patent  submission deadline is coming Monday and I have to write a solid algo to my  recent obsession to build Morphological Analyser for Tamil in Python with my co faculties, Karthick, Anitha and Srinivasan.  I preferred to blog despite all these facts, as I go by the decision taken by my arteries sometimes and delay the decisions of my neurons.

As usual after meandering in the first para, I am landing on the title here. This meandering is mainly due to the fact that I am talkative in the form of  both text and speech (Hey ! again NLP obsession is just popping up !) Looks like still I have not come to the point. Yes, coming to the point. The “N” dimensional vector means the perspectives of a person’s life. This vector you remember which had magnitude and direction which is associated with Mathematics and machine learning. Don’t worry if you don’t understand vector. That does not matter at all 😊  

This post is about my N-dimensional vector, I own at the age of 36. May be,  I may own some more as years pass by. The primary dimension of mine which strikes me is my “family” – dimension. I think the more happiness that is generated out of this dimension, the more it gets reflected to the other dimensions as well! Happiness does not come for free. compromises, Sacrifices, acceptance, tolerance, trust  are the building blocks. Love does not emerge or work out the way it is depicted on movies or like in the crap serials.  Me and Selva had to change a lot mutually. I used to get angry and fight with Selva  in the Past. Even now I do as he is the only eligible person to whom I can vent my anger once in a while  as I have almost stopped getting angry out of my home .  Earlier I used to be a severe Angry bird but one day my daughter said, “If you both fight like this, why I should be in this home”. That changed me completely.  Its true that kids don’t feel safe if parents don’t gel well. Also, my kid is learning life through both of us, so decided to be the way what we are supposed to be than teaching her theoretically. Also, I can’t avoid insisting my point to Selva. Mostly I will abide by him only when it comes to saving money, I will insist, and my daughter is also supporting me these days so I am able to handle.  Selva is one of the wonderful dads in the world (According to me!).  I thought of revealing this as the family-dimension of me is not only because of me it’s also because of him.  Selva is highly a short tempered and a strict dad but me and my daughter have the clarity of vision to see his love behind his scoldings. (He won’t accept this fact as we don’t follow his instructions mostly 😊) He treats both me and my daughter at the same scale as we both are messy creatures. Beyond all disparities, I feel him to be the most comfortable person on earth. When my mind is totally confused, a nap on his lap clears it all. Yeah, the angry birds are the truly affectionate creatures!

The other dimension of me is the society around me. Of course, you should have a good vibe around you.  Until I was in Tamil computing lab, Anna University, I felt as if I am at home. After joining SRM, I started learning people. I can decipher the truth and the lies hidden behind any spoken words.  I think so 😊. I generally have an approachable path to all, officially and  research wise.  Otherwise, I have become so choosy, I guess. I like the people who can speak to me appreciating the person in me.  I have good set of friends whom I trust unconditionally. Regarding opposite sex people, I have changed my views that I had, while working in Tamil computing lab (Tacola). We barely saw gender differences at Tacola. At SRM, I am avoiding unofficial conversations with the opposite sex but still I can’t tag all in this category. Men are not bad, I know, and I am not trying to build that kind of a picture here. I do have belief on a closed set of men (Their names are already mentioned in the beginning of this post😊), whom I am comfortable talking freely and  and I chose them to work with me or maybe they  also chose me to work with them for the same reason😊.

And the other dimension I would want to mention here is the , “me ” dimension.  I feel a person needs to be happy by herself/himself which can bring happiness to their family and society. I think a person needs to understand the root causes for their happiness.  I don’t believe in pulling out reasons to postpone happiness citing the time spent for family and the societal needs. He or she should have a vision towards life. Be it  choosing a career or not choosing a career, having a hobby or not having a hobby, listening to music or not listening to music, going to gym or not going to gym, being slim or fat! Whatever way we want, I feel we should choose despite the fellow- human views. I generally don’t like copying others for happiness, as their happiness can’t mean a happiness to me 😊. Two days back my younger brother, asked me to help him decide on his  shifting to Chennai from Mumbai. I said, right or wrong , you decide on which will bring you happiness.  I chose teaching as my career long back even before my PhD.  My mom being a Tamil professor did not give me this idea may be passed on the skills  needed  😊. The 9 months teaching experience I had at Saveetha Engineering after my M.E, told me that this should be fixed as my career and I had to move on to Junior Research Fellow job to pursue my PhD. Though I liked it I never loved it the the way I loved teaching, so I was travelling consistently in that direction. When things did not fall into place after my Phd , i.e I could not get a teaching job, I was about to enter Cognizant’s Rand D they call it GTO but for some reason It got delayed and reached me after I got int o SRM. I had to decide that time as the package was high which I did not  reach even now and had so many flexibilities. But my arteries and neurons voted more for teaching and consistently said that teaching will bring me happiness. Right or wrong I chose to be at SRM and I am happy for that decision I took. Also, I cant be happy If I am not writing or listening to my favorite songs and I can’t point on my family responsibilities  as the reasons. I decided to reduce my sleeping hours to align my hobbies that are happiness generators 😊 Yes, Happiness does not come for free !  

So, I will fix N=3, I mean I will stop with my 3 dimensions as of now may be as I get older and get those grey hairs (touch wood! only two to three hairs are grey! as of now 😊) , I will extend this post (Part 2?).  Lets see how this goes.

Oh ! You are still reading this post ? thanks for your time 😊

Subalalitha

A Perception on the Future

Today, feeling like, I am drained too much after having a packed weekend, Saturday, parents home visit followed by a boring movie in theatre, returned home at 11. Sunday morning had to get  up at 4 AM to prepare for a talk on Sunday at CEG,  followed by cooking and had to leave by 9 AM to CEG . Everything was of course fun but it drained a lot of energy and coming to college as usual without a breathing time, feels so heavy. Usually  I don’t write blogs in working hours but wanted badly to write . So decided to write post 3.30 PM when my biometric time ends but I have to  anyway wait for the college bus till 4.20 and so thought of making use of this time gap!. A convenient way of bending things the way we want 😊

Yeah not much time left, I must come to the point. This post popped up a week back when I was talking to a faculty. Actually she was my co-faculty in lab. She asked me if I could accompany her for a tea. I said yes but she did not have the tea as there was no sugar-free tea available. She is on Keto diet. I can’t be in diet as I am  already  consuming very less these days (may be I am aging that’s y not able to eat  much now!). On top of this I can’t imagine of diet. Coming back to that faculty,  She said she is depressed. I asked her why. She said, “my son is not talking much with me as he did earlier”. I think her son is in 7^th grade. She said she is feeling very lonely nowadays. I anyway told her to look at the positive sides and asked her to  think of gals who don’t have family at her age, or gals who don’t have kids at her age. She said ok and I think she felt better but I started feeling worse after that ☹.  Advising is the one of  the easiest tasks in the world but following it is not that easier.

I am generally obsessed with my daughter and I will get down to the core, mentally , if she goes to in-laws home. I can’t cross a day without conversing with her. I have also written about this in one of the earlier posts. But after that co-faculty said, I too thought, may be my daughter would also not converse the same way she is doing currently with me  when she grows and may be she will spend much time with her friends. She may have to go for higher studies and  Yeah one day she will get married and will have a separate family, separated from me. All this will happen but was thinking if I will accept this and cross with the smile on my face?

I could grasp this from my mom and from in laws. The way they wait for us and the way they feel when we leave, I could get it. When I tell my mom that I am coming this weekend, she will almost everyday  call and ask at what time you will come and ask what papa will eat. Would think how me and Selva will spend our Old age days. Selva gets angry if I speak too much of future. He does not believe in savings, but I strongly believe in that. He does not even believe planning for anything that will happen a month later. I like planning the tasks at least ahead of two months. I won’t bother if I complete them or not, but I will plan. I feel that way, I am organizing myself. Selva worries only about the Ongoing day. I am fine with it 😊

But what I feel is  that, we should be well engaged with some goals even during the old age. That way we may feel better. Of course, we should have proper health and enough wealth to get involved into an useful goal. An idle brain welcomes unwanted thoughts and emotions but a busy brain is too busy to occupy those stuffs. That’s what I feel when I am occupied and idle. Hoping that all will be fine till the end 😊. Good luck to me and good luck to you too 😊

Thanks for reading

Subalalitha

Thoughts Popped UP during my CEG Visit

At last happy to have caught up with my blog on my last day of vacation. Sometimes taking a break makes a difference and my eyes starts zooming on to each part of the house only during vacation. I mean I take a closer look towards the shelves and windows. Every month, I take off only to just clean that web on the walls and the dust that gets stuck to the  windows. Tambaram gets a lot of dust soon, and I don’t aim to have a sparkling clean home and it’s not possible when you are managing both work and home. In Tambaram, you can’t let go off that hard water stains easily on Washroom tiles without using excess chemicals which I don’t prefer! Oh my god I should not be complaining on hard water as many other parts of the city has dried up when we still by god’s grace  have ground water! Touch wood!

No, the post is not about Tambaram. Thought of changing my opinion to write on Tambaram as it is my favourite place. I should write about Tambaram esp about the Tambaram Market. I like walking on those narrow streets with that big shopper bag  and buy variety of vegetables.  I think my neurons are  still clinging on  to the topic Tambaram but will stick on to the title  from next paragraph.

Two days back, I visited Anna University to check with the issues in Tamil tools on which we were working on for the Tamil Internet Conference that’s happening this year in September. Neurons got busy screening the objects in the University and the incidents related to each object. Could not visit our Tamil Computing Lab (TAcoLA) as we had to solve the language tool issues in the IST department and our Tacola labs is  in CSE department but we visited our historical CEG canteen where we used to visit twice every day with our team once at 11 AM and again at 3 PM. Now at SRM, I don’t have that tea sipping urge and I rarely go to canteen may be twice or thrice a year! I bought a kettle to make green tea at least but then could not do that every day and  I stopped thinking of it ! Back to CEG, I was happy to meet Sai Ramesh, my junior at SSN college and now  teaching at CEG  and  Chezhian was with me who works at Karky Research Foundation (KaReFo) now, who also came to solve issues with the language tools.

I was bit angry with this Chezhian when I came to know that he got his second child recently and he met with an accident too. We are actually in touch through Telegram app through which we discuss about KaRefo  works . He speaks  very less on phone but  I never thought he is speaking this less to me! He is supposed to be my family friend too and he is yet to give appointment to visit his wife since his marriage which took place in 2012 or 2013. He says some reason every week, when we wanted to visit and that’s again a big story! Of course, I can’t carry the anger further with him as everybody have their own reasons which may  be logical to them!  Let us see, if he at least gives appointment to visit his second child.  What I mean is that the geographical distance sometimes makes an impact with few friends as they don’t converse the way they did years back!  May be that’s practical and may be the blame is on me too which I am unaware but happy to have friends talking the same way even after a decade.  Balaji and his wife Swetha always keep in touch.  He recently posted in the group that it is his fourth wedding anniversary and obviously I have to call  😊. Balaji does not remember my birthday, but I do remember his b day which is on August 8^th. HE once called  on my birthday when we were working in Tacola. I was thinking how come he remembers but I was right. He called to ask about a room in Red building for some invigilation purpose. This year also he called two days later after seeing all the wishes in the group. Wishing on birthday does not matter if you have good wishes for them throughout the year 😊 Rama who is a scientist at DRDO calls at least twice or thrice a year and Uma mam calls from Singapore . She works in Nanyang University . She was the first person to call on my birthday this year. Premalatha , Radhakrishnan send messages  on whatsapp and on twitter! I think Karthiga is hibernating!

 I update all my achievements be it big or small to RP mam and I wish her definitely on every Teachers day and on her Birthday. I am still hesitant to update regularly with Dr.T.V.Geetha mam  and Dr.Madhan Karky. I  was surprised to hear from Geetha mam student, Dr. Pavai who is working in SRM, vadapalani campus that she  once spoke proud about my works at SRM to her.  RP mam must have told her 😊 . I am associated with  Karefo run by Dr.Madhan Karky for few research related tasks at times .

Final Surprise at CEG was waiting when I took an auto from CEG to Guindy. That auto driver still remembers me, and I also remembered his face. He used to drop me from CEG to Velachery when I was doing my Phd five years back. He asked me if I have completed PhD and asked if I need to go to Velachery!  He was busy  deciding  while driving which is better for me  , taking a train or bus from Guindy to Tambaram, though I did not ask him!. Finally, he decided bus for me and he was right. I soon got a vacant bus to Tambaram. This  is valuable. People showering on you their care/concern/ wishes/love/   whatever you call it unconditionally! I value it much.  I hate Conditional ones but  they can’t be avoided as they are the majority when you step out of your home!

Thanks for reading!

My Learnings and Findings on Humans :)

My god last week was a happy week speaking to my old PG and Tacola friends as they were wishing for my birthday. Many forgot my birthday and few days later they confirmed with me and then wished 😊 Few asked when is my birthday on my birthday and then wished LOL .Anyways, they are the stress busters and make you feel young ( I am aging ☹), and bring out the ME, ten years back.  That day, I was speaking to one of my friend in my room using VAadi podi jargons missing to notice  the presence of my Phd scholars (who are co faculties too) in my room. They are my friends too but still I have dropped using those jargons and felt bit strange. I have become more formal these days in the way of talking except with few set of reliable people. Somehow these days I feel talking less feels better at times ( Again , I  am aging and changing ☹)

Yeah I am aging, changing and  I believe I am  getting matured but one person on earth will never  ever accept this. Selva always thinks that I am immature and treats  both me and our daughter on a same scale. He still thinks people deceive me. Recently, I felt bad when our common PG friends came home and Selva  was telling them that he is not even worried of our daughter but more worried of me and I am not even fit to cross the road.  He was citing one of 10 years old examples of turning my head left and right many times to cross that one-way-road before Anna University  and   he was waiting to pick  up me on the other end.  Adakadavule, he is still ten years back and my aging factor is  completely invisible to him. KAshtam da samy.  But the fact is that I am now ready to handle humans, Its not that I am unaware of ppl deceiving me, I know but I am ignoring their negativity.  If the negativity is ok to accept, I put up with them (You have no other go these days) but when the negativity is  very high, then I stay away to the max! But the good news is that I still   have large set of  people around  who I rely on and  can  talk without that precautioned mind .

I am sorry, I forgot to tell about what this post is about. At least  it striked me  after  typng  two paragraphs 😊. I just wanted to write my observations about humans. Like a Machine Learning Algorithm that trains with many data and during testing it can classify the unknown data,  now I am ready for testing and can judge people as I am aging and have seen many instances of humans. Still Selva wont accept this maturity in me but I am fine with that 😊 This post is about my findings and learnings on/from  Humans.

Let me start  about the nicest part. Let me bring the positive air in.  I believe in the Positive Vibe much, so starting with the brighter side and then I would append the rest.

Disclaimer: These are not pieces of advice and I don't have rights to do so. These are just my learnings and findings that match my way of thinking.  So no misunderstandings, please. Now, please go ahead :)

• ª       People are nice, and they reflect their nicest part better when you be nice to them.
• ª       You make friends with whom your wavelength matches the most despite few  differences.
• ª       Its ok to neglect the negativity of people when they are majorly positive and can’t be hated for that negligible part.
  
  
• ª       You will be surprised to see people whom you missed to notice respects you the most and comes to help when you are in need.
• ª       True friends don’t talk frequently but check with us if we are travelling correctly with or without our knowledge.
• ª       Blessings help and the more you get blessings from the elders, the more it pays back.
• ª       Its better to stick to ground and remain the same which attracts positive people to stay with you for long.
• ª       People who have concern on you does not reveal it by speech but show up through their acts. They see to that you don’t get into trouble and warn you whenever things are going wrong.
• ª       People respect you for your character, the way you treat them, the way you speak to them and they are least bothered about what you wear and how you look.
• ª       Way of Speaking, changing the modulation no matter of what’s boiling inside, changes and lightens the situation and even changes the person in due course of time.
• ª       We can earn respect by not responding to the unwanted conversations and the next conversation becomes purer.
• ª       Its ok to forget and forgive people for their mistakes but the learnings should be remembered as it will help later.
• ª       The more we keep up the calm and can’t be harsh in words, the more we get hurt. People test our patience, sometimes it's ok to tell them what we feel.
• ª       People who are consistent in their behaviours are reliable. It hurts when people change their expressions from  time to time, when we remain the same ☹
• ª       Sometimes we may have to struggle hard to make people  understand and believe  us, but the time comes and they will.
• ª       The Less we have expectations, the more we are going to extend our happiness. Expectation kills. There is no point in expecting.
• ª       Trying to change ourselves is easier than trying to change others.

The list is going  long. I stop here. I feel, people teach you more than any book or philosophies.  The more people you are dealing with, more easier the life would be as every instance of human we meet,  teach you to  handle the rest of their similar instances, good or bad (Sorry for this lengthy sentence . Hope you got it straight !) Accepting their positivity helps us to grow and be happy.

Please take positivity and be happy!

Thanks for reading till the end !

Subalalitha

Teaching - A Deeper View

                                                           

Thought of writing this after getting  done with that book chapter and patent filing tasks that are waiting in the queue in my to-do list. Was confused which one to pick up, book chapter or patent… When the neurons are so confused and dolo 650s are helping you to be alive, and you don’t have the habit of sleeping beyond 5AM, the level of confusion increases and you end up doing nothing. I don’t fret for that, as taking a break will increase my speed and I will surely be done with my to do list! (hoping so 😊) Yeah till now, no match has happened with the title, so will start now.

I feel teaching is getting redefined every day. Sometimes, I doubt if I will be able to teach for another 20 to 25 years. Every semester, I feel changes in many dimensions in terms of, students level of cognizance, many challenges in making students listen to you and many more that I am not able to count now.  And yeah with the increased number of YouTube lectures given by experts, its becoming tough to compete. You have to overlap with that Stanford Professor and deliver content better than him/her  to make students listen to you.

And yeah, the responsibilities of an Engineering student are also redefined. He/She has to take internships from a company, do Online courses, do projects , join Tech clubs and He/She has to listen to your lecture too 😊

On the other side, SRM has already started recruiting faculties having PhD from IITs and IIITs, maintaining the identity has become even more tough.  When I joined SRM there were 96 faculties out of which 16 PhDs were there including me. Today the count has become 50/50 ratio with the total population of 140 I guess. And in 2020 to be an Assistant Professor, PhD is must so it’s no more a pride being a doctorate!  Today you can’t survive if you are not balancing teaching, research and many other additional roles given to you. You have to stay ahead from the crowd or stand in that unique subset.

But the good news is that you can still  face these challenges with the big smile on your face.  Upgrading ourselves to the technology and delivering contents to the students with the updated knowledge, innovative way of thinking will make you feel better amidst all these challenges.  I always remember my roots. Thanks to the exposure given to us by my Anna University gurus, Dr. Ranjani Parthasarathi, Dr.T.V.Geetha and Dr.Madhan Karky. We were made to think, analyse and do our job with responsibility.  I don’t have any fear towards IIT faculties joining every year in SRM as we were exposed to IITs during our tenure as Junior Research Fellow at Anna University while working on the DST project 10 years back. Had I missed joining there I  don’t know what would have happened!.  

I feel a teacher should also be a studious student. My god, you should not visit my room before  the lecture hours. My  PhD scholars  Ms. Anita and Mr. Srinivasan who are also faculties here at SRM also share the NLP lab which is my room with me these days. I took this decision  so that I can pesture them anytime regarding research. I screw them up like anything but still they put up with me with enthusiasm. Should write on them soon 😊 . Yeah coming back to the visiting thing, We all three will be immersed inside the PC or book like anything. If I ask Anitha, what did you have for breakfast, I can only  expect a JAVA related answer as she will have JAVA class the next hour. The positive thing is that I will get the answer after the class is over for sure 😊. I am no exception before my Design and Analysis of Algorithms (DAA) class.

The ground reality is that such a preparation is required to give a contented lecture. I should talk about DAA here. I just loved this one and this time is the first shot for this. Initially it looked like a tough juxta puzzle. I did not like it as it had much of mathematics, time complexities. It was so yucky . I have to do justice as many data structures students (my previous sem students ) sent me messages that they  opted me for this subject believing that I would take that tough subject well. Trust is the strongest component on earth which keeps you going even when you are blind folded. I trust people a lot when it mainly comes to my family and friends. You can’t let go of them for some silly reasons. The same I had to do with DAA. Just because I hate mathematics I cant let go of my students and destroy their trust. The only way to enjoy life is that to love what you hate. That’s what I did . Spent extra hours , early monings meant 5 AM  earlier but  this semester it meant 3 AM most of the times. And yeah it gave a complete feeling. I  hope students too have the same feeling. Recently I confirmed that. We have assignment and quiz components that are part of internal marks. I told them I would give full marks for all. All they need to do is that to add value to the scores given to them   by doing some good projects thereby adding value to themselves. The idea behind is to kick start their responsibilities towards getting placed in a good company which is only possible when they have a good profile.  Yesterday, I sent my drive link to submit their project reports and screen shots and I was happy to see many students adding value to themselves despite the promise of full mark given to them.   I just don’t believe in being strict or compelling them. And yeah it does not work with the current generation teens. They feel happy when they are respected. And yeah, they are truly professional and they expect only a good teaching from you!

Hoping to emerge as a good teacher and change to the frequently changing system and feel satisfied even on my last day of work 😊

Thanks for reading till the end 😊

Subalalitha

  

Virtual Relationships

Working on a  Journal revision squeezes your brain like anything!. You have to have a perfect memory which I am lacking nowadays. May be I am aging of course, physically 😊 . back to journal revisions, you have to compile all the reviews given by multiple reviewers, review their reviews and look for similarity and disparity, recollect the work done two years ago.. My god. I want to escape from that task as of now and get in here!

This topic is bugging me  for quiet sometime.  A day of anybody these days wont cross without checking WhatsApp, facebook and twitter. If not facebook and twitter, at least WhatsApp is mandatory as it involves many official messages too.  I am sure of receiving at least 500 messages per day on WhatsApp  even after putting few groups on mute!.  I see few groups are created and as days pass on, we forget the motive behind and getting out is also not possible. I see in few groups, people interact heavily just to pass on time!

One thing that bothers me is that, anything virtual is useless and I don’t appreciate any conversations that happens just to while away the time. I do understand many ppl are made to be idle due to family situations but still these types of conversations make your situations even worse. I don’t have rights to advice but just felt pathetic for those active minds which can be used in a more productive way!

And yeah there is something bright existing in any dull thing.  WhatsApp is really useful to get in touch with really real friends who only contact for help or suggestion and to share happiness.  Mind, not to pass their time!  

I do believe in relationships that really works well in reality and not in virtual reality.  I have few friends with  whom I don’t converse even once a year but whenever I feel like talking I call and speak the same way we did many many years ago! I feel if this is possible, then you have a justification for your social network friends.  Also if you could remain the same when meeting the same friends at your home as you greet them on the social network then you even have a stronger justification.    Recently, felt bad for not making to one of my old students, Sathish’s marriage who came to my wedding ten years back!. I really had a tough time at work on that day. Hope he understands and sure will call you soon Sathish.  

I just thought of penning  (typing 😊)this thought  as I am afraid humans will get confused with the virtual and the real humans around them soon.   Certain chatbots are targeted to pass time for thepeople who don’t even have social network friends.  As per me, family remains at the top priority and avoiding them to chat with a virtual friend is dangerous. I appreciate friendship a lot as they influence your life journey a lot more than family members.  I am proud to say that I have good set of people around me who tolerate my jabber, silence and sometimes my strange replies.  I have a lot of policies which I will not violate whoever it is.  Initially my friends get hurt but later they understand and accept that with a smile.  Its quite not easy to get along with me but still I have good set of people of around only because I have not believed in the virtual relationships!  I feel we should have correct and true people around us which will really help us falling a prey to depressions and loneliness.

Hope I  did not hurt anybody and this post was meant to  create a positive vibe  and I hope it will not at least create a negative vibe.  Happy reality!

Thanks for reading

Subalalitha

Colours of Teaching !

Chose to blog in the midnight.  When the neurons are overloaded with many tasks that are  lined up in to-do list, they get noisy and wake you up in the middle of the sleep.  With those tired neurons, its better not to attempt those research or academic tasks as it will lessen the quality. Its better to choose one of those lighter tasks which are liked by the arteries much and that’s y I am here in my tiny world. Maybe I am finding reasons to blog :) 

 Teaching has so many colours. Apart from academic and research there is one more dimension, that is called, “faculty advisor”. A counsellor kind of responsibility where we will be assigned with 70 students right from their first year and we have to take care of their performances, report to their parents in case of any deviations, issue hall tickets, grade sheets forward important messages etc till their final year. In my first year at SRM, I was not assigned with this responsibility but in my second year, I was assigned with this. Initially, I totally hated it as you always need to be on WhatsApp and you always need to attend calls from students and also sometimes from their parents.  On the first day of this responsibility, I had put my phone on silent as I was in some meeting and I was shocked to have received around 100 missed calls, as the students were trying to contact to submit their details right after their admission. Found very hard to manage this one along with the already existing academic and research responsibilities.

As days passed on, found ways to settle down things, got used to tackle and now my students are in their third year. Started liking this one soon.  You tend to see different types of students and different types of parents.  It feels so happy when parents send wishes on New year and Diwali.  Sometimes, it feels so heavy to hear their pain and it gives immense happiness when we try to bring solutions. This responsibility taught me to see the students not only as a teacher but also as a parent!  This generation’s biggest problem is that they don’t have any problems. Anything could give  them stress and they  in turn cause stress to  their parents and they get baffled  and worried staying too far from them.  This responsibility has also taught me how to bring up my own kid and correct my mistakes now itself! But the good news is that most of the students are highly responsible. They know what they want and what to do right from their first year.

I think the post is getting so heavy, let me try to lighten it. I remember all of my student names. Sometimes I may not relate to their faces correctly. One student came to me recently to submit his course enrollment form. My section is H-alpha and yes we have k sections and each alphabet has alpha and beta. Around 1000 students get admitted every year in CSE! :) . Coming back to that student, his face looked unfamiliar to me. I asked him do you belong to H-alpha? Soon I had the feeling of dejavu. I felt I have asked this question earlier. I also asked him, “Have I asked this question  earlier?” He said. “Yes mam, you have asked me three times so far and he smiled!” Felt so embarrassing and guilty towards the kid. I somehow wanted to convince him, “I said I think you are a good student and I have not  dealt with any deviation issues of yours so far and that’s y I don’t remember you ”.  He also wanted to bring me out of my embarrassment. He said, “ Mam I did not get a chance to study  subjects  under you”. Students in SRM opt teachers during online teachers-polling, during when they select their favorite teachers for their subjects. But when a particular teacher reaches his/her total students capacity, then they can’t choose that teacher and they have to look for another teacher.  He said, “every time I wanted to select you, your name gets vanished from the list within 10 seconds!”. These kind of feedback gives more pressure to me than happiness. I do feel happy but these days, I am feeling a lot of pressure to match up their  hopes. I cross check my understanding for even a silly topic with many websites and get tensed and finally I give a big knock on my head and tell myself, “cool down and go to class!”.  Of course, this is making me as a better teacher as I am trying to explore in many dimensions even for the subjects, I  have handled few times earlier and we have to do this as technology gets updated and we can’t stay outdated! The way, I taught “Natural Language processing (NLP)” in 2015 can’t be followed now as many advancements have happened. This time planning to show demo of each topic. Thanks to the  Online platforms like text-processing.com, regexer.com and Kaggle which helps to show the demos of almost all topics making NLP more interesting! Thanks to the Youtube lectures by Stanford Professors whose ideas, I mostly follow as they get updated as the technology advances! and importantly when SRM students are highly advanced and updated there is no way of staying behind and thanks to them too :) Hoping to become even better and update myself whenever the technology gets updated!

And yeah, hope I also learn many things out of the responsibilities given to me apart from teaching and research, so that one day, even I will be ready to call myself as a good teacher! I think that  will happen only on my last day as a teacher!  Lets see how it goes 😊

Thanks so much for reading till the end!

Subalalitha

My Guru

Wow ! Today is my Guru, Dr.Ranjani Parthsarathi mam’s  birthday. Sent her a message as usual and I was about to tweet. Then I thought of doing something better than that making this Saturday more productive. Mam, this post is completely dedicated to you.

Though I have written many times about her and Anna University experiences, I just wanted to write completely about her some day and I am happy that I chose her birthday! Jan 5^th , the day stored in my neuron, when sometime in 2009 we cut a cake for her. I remember most of the celebrated birthdays of Tamil Computing Lab (TACOLA).  Jan 5^th has been always special to me!

RP mam,( that’s how she is well known in the CEG campus)  is one of those three fantastic gurus, I had in Anna University. The other two are Professor,  Dr.T.V.Geetha mam  and Dr. Madhan Karky .  these three gurus were my project head in which I was working as a Junior  Research Fellow. RP mam had an additional bond with me which is none other than Phd Supervisor. So she had a special place in my arteries. I am sorry Geetha mam  and  Madhan Karky sir. I do like you both and I have learnt a lot from you. I was at cloud nine when Geetha mam invited me for her son’s birthday recently  and even in that busy reception, she asked about my work progress.  Mam,  I do remember that you set one of those sparks of my PhD research problem  by mapping the UNL relations and RST relations. And about Madhan sir, I have learnt a lot from him. He is a blend of both guru and a friend.  I am happy that he believed, remembered and called me to get associated with his Karky Research Foundation. Its been a good experience for me. But I am sorry again, RP mam has a special place than you both and I don’t want to lie for this😊

I still remember the moment RP mam gave a nod to guide me.  The very first question she asked me was, “R u serious about Phd?”. I said yes though I did not know if I was really serious. The same question even I ask a candidate when they approach me @ SRM. A valid question right?

Then after registering Phd, I was not really serious.  I was not able to balance TACOLA work and research. Then came my marriage which added its own chaotic dimensions. At one point, I decided to quit coz I had to leave to UK with Selva . She asked to take a break than to quit.  The most influential decision of my life was taken by her at that moment. Thank you mam. There are more thank you waiting for you in this post.

Its only in UK, I discovered that Nanool Sutras have something to do with and I mailed mam. She was Ok with it and she added the Sanskrit Sutras and we were able bring out the similarities that are interwoven with them. And Again Mam asked to link “Sangatis”  with sutras.  Similar to Sangatis, we have RST a theory to link texts at discourse level. Then we had this UNL that links words. Me and mam linked all these concepts, UNL- RST-Sangatis-Sutra  ,connecting words with UNL -sentences with RST -documents with sangatis and then shortening it using Sutras,  which became my Phd Titled, “SemTReX- A Framework to build Semantic Structures ” (SemTReX- A short form for Semantic Text representation!)

Mam chose everything best for me. Right from Doctoral committee members she wanted the best. Dr. Umamaherswari Mam (Internal member) and Dr.Ravindran from IIT Madras were my DC members. Though, I was a mediocre student she wanted to bring  best out from me. This policy I still follow. Though a student is an average student, we should give him / her the best. Thank You mam. As you know I had a lot of throughputs from DC members. Though Ravidran sir has scolded me in each DC at the end, he was happy when I got that last signature from him. That day is unforgettable, we had to finish the thesis by some date due to Convocation. Mam had a severe stomach pain and  I had to go to IIT to get his signature. Mam waited till 7 PM right from morning to get things done. Thank You mam.

And yes IIT campus is an unforgettable for me and for mam too I think.  At some point we had a closer due date for my paper submission to Computational Intelligence journal. Mam was only available at IIT on that day as she had a workshop and that was the last possible date for us. She corrected my paper from 6 PM to 9 PM sitting in the  IIT corridor and I had to bring Nila on that day as Selva was not available. Though my parents assisted me, NIla was crying and playing around mam. Despite all odds she corrected that paper which is the only SCI indexed paper, I have now . Getting a SCI indexed paper published is no easy joke. This paper took 5 revisions, 2.5 years to get published and recently gave the pride of ranking me in the top 5 faculties in terms of Impact factors at SRM. Thank you mam.

Regarding paper publishing also, mam  chose only best for me. I initially had a confused mind and wanted to somehow finished PhD. Mam will not allow to publish in low quality journals. High quality ones not only demand quality and  also a huge time. But mam never compromised on quality. This one quality I am sticking on still with my Phd Students . Though we may fret and fume initially, we will feel satisfied for long later. Thank you mam for teaching this.

And yeah finally thesis. You won’t believe. Thesis is collection of all my published papers. Mam used to correct at least 6 to 7 times before sending to the publisher. Despite this, she corrected my thesis too 7 times. I mean it went 7 rounds of corrections. She will carefully watch each sentence and their link with the rest. I remember, twice I went to her home for this during her vacation.  At this point, I need to thank her mom too for that nice teas and snacks. Thank you mam for making things possible even during vacation.

Even for evaluating thesis she chose best for me. We had to choose a foreign examiner and an Indian Examiner. My thesis  was evaluated by  Professor, Dr.Barbara Di Eugenio at  University of Illinois, Chicago (https://www.cs.uic.edu/DiEugenio), who is a pioneer in discourse analysis. She had applauded the thesis like anything. The best comment was, “I was enjoying  while reading your thesis”. This was mainly because of those 7 rounds of corrections done by mam.  Indian examiner was  Professor, Dr. Amba Kulkarni, department of  Sanskrit Studies, University of Hyderabad (http://sanskrit.uohyd.ac.in/faculty/amba/).   She came to my final Viva and she was also happy that I was able to link both ancient and the modern theories from three different languages, namely, Tamil, Sanskrit and English.  Thank You so much for choosing everything best for me.

A perfect guru is the one who brings the best out of a worst student. And mam you did it from me. It all makes a difference of meeting correct people in life . I am lucky to have met  you. I really don’t know what would have happened if I had not met you, if you had not given that second chance to me.  The best pride I will have till the end of my life to get that tag, “RP Mam Student”. That tag is so powerful.  So many people ask me, neenga RP mam student ah? this question will speak a lot. I will try my level best to keep up your standards and try becoming another version at least by some good percentages.

Thank you so much mam and many more happy returns of the day once again.!

And yes thanks for the reading till the end.

Subalalitha