Anamikan

What's that again?"
Me: It is Pon/nap/pan Aru/mu/ga/nai/nar.
Oh, How do you pronounce your last name?
Me: It is pronounced as Aru-mu-ga-nai-nar
Wow, longest surname I have ever heared.
Me: Yaah! its my Dad's name. In the region where I come from, we use dad's name as the surname.

I am tired of the above conversation - everytime I introduce myself or get introduced to some body.

My first name too sucks! When I pronounce it in the authentic tamil way, people never get it (because of the stress on the "nn" and "pp" sound. So I have to pronounce it as ponapan. I always felt that I am carrying my grandfather's name (I am named after him) and my father's name and not my name. [Sometimes I do admire the linguistic beauty of my first name. It is made of only 2 consonants ('p' (ip) and 'n'(in)) and 2 vowels ('a' and 'o') ]

It would have been cooler if carried my community name "pillai" as a surname and my dad's name as a (rarely-used-only-for-document-purpose) middle name. But in Tamil Nadu, it is discouraged to have the community name as the surname . The reason is that such names kinder casteist feelings. But I found Tamil Nadu to be one of the most casteist place in India. People might have taken the caste titles away from their name, but not from their way of life. Intercaste marriages are very rare in Tamil Nadu. It should have been the otherway. People should take the caste prejudice from their social life and not just their name (infact taking it out of the name doesn't matter to me at all).

Case study 1

This semester, I am taking a course on Systems Pathophysiology. Major evaluation components for this course are a set of 6 case study and final project presentation.

I was one of the presenters for the first case study. The major theme of this case study was Cardio Vascular Diseases (CVD) , tissue Engineering. The students can choose any specific area in the major theme and have to write down the case study. Being a guy with the electrical engineering background, I chose to present on Atherosclerosis (blockage of the coronary artery by deposits of Cholestrol) and the imaging techniques available to analyse the extent of the artery blockage.

The structure of presentation was as follows
- gave a brief overview of the heart and the coronary arteries
- talked about the causes of atherosclerosis and the progression of the same in the vessels
- treatements available for atherosclerosis
- functioning of CT scan
- image processing techniques for obtaining the calcium score (amount of calcium deposit in the heart)
- future of cardiac imaging - like the analysis of the plaque content

Lessons learned:
- High level of adrenaline when making a public presentation. Should learn to reduce it.
- bad time management. Tried to give a lot of detail in the specified time (10 mins)
- Good bottom to top approach (Started from the basics)
- Wasn't bothered by the people who were yawning during the lecture. Good and bad . :)
- Didn't mind the cute girl (with the indian subcontinental features) laughing at me, at certain points during the presentation.