The Barefoot Life is a Better Life

First campus visit

Shiva and Tibbin came at about 11:30 a.m. to pick us up and take us to the campus. Today was a day of trying to learn more Indian names than I’m use to and I remember the names of four people so I’d call that a successful day. However, I have no clue on the spellings and I may even be messing up the pronunciations so I’ll try to get it close enough.

No shoes needed!

Morgan and I had a funny moment today because we were contemplating whether we needed close-toed shoes because we knew we would tour the labs we’ll be working in today but decided to just go in sandals and figure it out later. When we got to the lab Shiva took off his shoes right outside the door and we walked within all of the three different labs we visited barefoot…so that answered the closed-toed shoe question and also give reason for the name of this blog. I enjoy walking barefoot so this was nice but after a while my feet were starting to hurt most likely because they’re rarely unsupported on a tiled floor.

The labs were nice though and were air conditioned. It’s not a typical lab setting where you think of white lab coats but rather has the testing equipment within an office-like setting. The doors between areas of the labs were not American friendly because they were rather small and I definitely knocked my arm into the side of the door because I wasn’t paying attention.

I was surprised that I actually was familiar with the research Shiva was telling us about at the IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) – Madras (Chennai use to be called Madras when the silly British were here) CNDE (Center for Nondestructive Evaluation). I guess the brief training we did prior did help a bit and I even connected some stuff that I’ve learned with school – imagine that! The second guy I learned the name of is Rammil and he told us about thermography/infrared stuff which Morgan and I will be working on. When I asked him where he’s originally from I thought he said “Canada” and reacted as if he’s an unknown neighbor but later realized he said the most southern province of India, Kerala.

I think Evan got in the way but this is one of the entrances to the labs and we had to take off our shoes just before this door

A lab area for inferred stuff

This is a picture of a polar bear on a melting piece of ice. I'm guessing this is a message to avoid being a part of the problem of global warming. I've seen a few messages like this and asked my Shiva and Tibbin if this message is common and they said not really but it's good that I noticed.

The waiting game

The goal for the day really was to meet with our lead professor, Professor Krishnan, so we killed time by touring CNDE. We got to Prof. Krishnan’s office and had to wait at least 15-20 minutes to go in his office. In the mean time we talked with Shiva and Tibbin about places we should visit on the weekend. We finally was able to go in the office of the very busy and popular man, took seats in front of his large desk and waited at least another 20 minutes to actually speak with him. He had to reapply for his US visa because he didn’t realized it was expiring on July 7^th and he has a conference to go to in the US on July 20^th. He then also had to write a strongly-worded email to someone about something and then we were finally able to talk with him. It wasn’t really a big deal but just odd from the viewpoints of us Americans.

We then discussed the research topics Evan, Morgan and I will be working on and what we should be doing in the next week to work on stuff. It’s more open-ended over here than I expected which I kind of like because the research I’ve been involved in thus far has been quite guided and mostly spelled out. Morgan and I are working on the same project and we have to decide within the week how we want to damage our samples and then how we want to fatigue them. The goal will then be to report the ways in which the materials behaved due to different fatigue limits for different damages.

A crazy tree just outside the building of Dr. Krishnan's office.

Time out…what is “Nondestrutive Evaluation” explained in a way I can actually understand?

Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) is a field of research that studies the microdamages in a material (metal or composites usually) without destructing the material itself. This will often lead the development of sensors that can detect these microcracks in real life applications and will notify the owner when small damages occur to prevent big cracks forming.

Common applications are small sensors for airplane wings, or structural walls or even railways. For different types of damages different sensing techniques should be used including ultrasound, inferred, x-ray, and other stuff. Ultimately you send a certain type of wave through an object and if the wave is received in a normal way the object is good. If it comes back in a funky way then the thing is damaged and is bad news bears.

Back to Krishnan’s office…

We later talked about general stuff but mostly where we should eat and a bit about what we should try. We also all got offered coffee and tea and I had some black tea that was just like black tea I’d have at home. He also suggested going to a mall close by that just opened up, Phoenix Mall, where there’s also a food court with lots of stuff including American food…Pizza Hut, KFC, and McDonalds again. I wish America wasn’t known for this kind of shit in the world but, it really is representative of what we go to and at least the fast food here is made with better products (I’m assuming).

Oh, and since I met Prof. Krishnan and then also Dr. Prabu those are the two other Indian names I have learned today. Kind of feels like I’m cheating because I did know the names, not faces, before coming here but oh well, I’ll take what I can get.

The tea that I was served that made me miss the cay I had in Turkey with the cay glasses it was served in

 

Lunch time

Shiva then walked us over to a canteen/cafeteria called Tifanys not too far away and I enjoyed the walk because Shiva walks rather slowly and calmly. I enjoy this a lot because I’m not a fan of walking quickly across campus for example so this was nice. We also saw stray cats, deer that looked spotted like a giraffe, and monkeys, big and small. We were told that we should not carry plastic bags with stuff in them or even water bottles because the monkeys will come up and take them. They’ll never attack but if you hold the plastic bags up above your head they’ll climb on you. So I need to get a purse that will hold my water bottles to be unseen by the thirsty monkeys.

We decided to get what Shiva was going to get which was dosa masala. Dosa is a huge, thin crepe-like thing and then masala means it’s stuffed with something. Ours was stuffed with potatoes with some sort of spice and had three different types of dipping sauces on the side. I knew coming here that they typically only eat with their hands and most always only with their right hand (because you wipe your butt with your left hand). I would say I ate 90% of my meal with only my right hand to practice being as authentic as I can be but this was more difficult than I expected. I need to develop the muscles or learn new techniques for my right hand.

We talked about a few things over lunch. One was about the IITs and how they might differ slightly. I found it interesting because it seems to work like most all non-American (and maybe non-European?) schools because you first have to take a really difficult test and then the people with the highest scores choose which school they want to go to based on the number of seats available. The IITs themselves don’t vary too much except some may have more equipment in certain research areas. IIT-Madras is a better school for NDE because it has better facilities. We also talked whether they had sports teams and they do have teams that usually compete against other IITs or in other leagues. The sports teams consist of cricket (duh), football, tennis, water polo, field hockey and basketball.

Dosa masala - there was some yellowish potatoes in the middle and all three dipping sauces were good.

First bus ride experience

Shiva walked with us to the closest bus stop and we got on the campus bus for free. When we got on and there happened to be many Indian women on the bus but few males. This was fine but I did kind of lose my balance for a moment on accident which I was embarrassed about because I think I got a few chuckles on the bus. But I laughed about it too so it’s okay.

Shiva then walked us back to our hotel to show us how we should get to the bus stop tomorrow and we went back to the hotel. In the elevator of the hotel though we realized that it was 4:30 p.m. or so and none of us had gone to the bathroom while we were there indicating maybe how dehydrated we may be even though we had a bottle of water in our hands all day.

Then we went back, I checked a few things on the internet which really means I entered the wifi password 10 times in 45 minutes because the connection isn’t too hot, and then took a nap because all of us were really tired. Then we agreed to be awake by 7:00 because we didn’t want to let jet lag get the most of us too much but both Morgan and I slept through her alarm and I woke up at 7:20 to see it completely dark outside and we were pretty bummed. We figured the sun wouldn’t set until 8:30 or so like it does at home and were hoping to go to a mall and eat dinner there but then we didn’t know what to do.

Dinner plans?

We knew we were told that Morgan and I should only be outside if we’re in a big group at night so we weren’t sure what to do because the mall is supposedly rather close but we’re not familiar with the area. We then called Shiva and he said right away that we should go out so we didn’t and just had dinner downstairs where we ate breakfast. The cost was 100 Rupees each which is $1.75 and I got dal palak and a chapatti chosen by the good ol’ menu roulette method. Dal seems to be kind of a soup with chick peas and the chapatti is like a wheat tortilla. The server seemed to be a bit confused by me only ordering dal palak at first and I bet I should have ordered rice with it but oh well.

Now we’re chilling in our hotel rooms and I’m going to go with Shiva to get the other three Americans who will come in tonight. I normally wouldn’t want to go but this is my measly chance to go out and see a bit more of India than I would sitting in my room.

Tomorrow we have another meeting with Prof. Krishnan and I hope we don’t have to do the lab tours also but we also have a goal of going shopping tomorrow to get a few clothes probably and I need a purse that I can put my water bottle in so monkeys won’t snatch it out of my hands…

The view at 7:30 p.m. I was told that the sun sets at 6:30 or so here.

That’s all for now though. I expect either my next post or the post after that will pretty much just be a post with a bunch of pictures so look out for that I guess. Pretty much all the pictures I've taken you've seen because I don't want to take too many and make the locals feel uncomfortable or something…but for now, nanri (Tamil for thank you) for reading this!