What the.... *$&$&!!!

It was the second mid-term for the course for which I am the TA. You might wonder the thought process behind keeping a mid-term so close to the end of the semester, and that too just before Thanksgiving...well, my prof isn't a PhD for purely his technical skills, he decided to have an extended vacation by strategically positioning the test in this manner. Result?? We 2 TAs are left with a God-foresaken- why-dint-I-take-the-day-off prof from another department supervising this test. Paper was definitely simpler than previous years..imagine, what more do you want if a ckt. analysis paper doesent have one sum involving small signal analysis...(for my fellow students turned IT pros, small sig. is the infamous ECAD type model of tansistors!!!:)) )

Twenty minutes into the paper, I laid my eye on this stubbled guy sitting in the last row... left hand twiddling his hair and right hand on the table... I looked away and 10 seconds later, he is still in that position, a minute later.. yep..still there, 2 minutes later... and I began to wonder if the lead had dropped off his pencil or something... but alas! I knew it wasnt the case... he had no clue what he was doing there... I doubt if he felt the same way.. staring coldly at the wall in front of his eyes... I looked at him for the rest of the hour every now and then, and although his hands moved about... it never picked up a pen... and that didn't make me sympathise with his condition.. it made me angry!! :X

Forgive me if I am being over-zealous, but I bet he is amongst those people who've come across from India just for the heck of it... dont go awww!! there have been, are and will continue to be loads of such people who come over to the US every year. I refuse to address them as students because they arent.... they come spending, I'd rather say flowing away their parents hard-earned money, making them take loans... and find that all of a sudden they are totally void of those things that held them back at home. No tauntings by mom to come home early and eat dinner, no time restrictions, no bar on cigarettes, drinks and TV.... you have plenty of Motels and gas stations that are ready to emply you and pay you a decent amount of salary, even if it is legally "illegal"... and thats what happens to these guys then....

I mean, give me a break!! Every year, I bet we've heard someone whom we know or someother person who deserved to get his opportuity to come abroad for enhancing his career but got rejected for his visa... and you also find people like these after coming here. I believe you must not pursue something unless you have a goal or an ambition to fulfill. Be it materialistic, be it for the experience, if you take up something, it is your prerogative to see to it that you give your best towards accomplishing the task...have the focus, work towards it and success is guaranteed... i dont intend to sound phony but look back at every instance in life where you've been successful, you will find hardwork getting you upto there... It doesent mean burning the midnight oil day in and day out, but when you have a deadline and a goal...work and achieve it!!

All in all, the experience of witnessing that somehow gave me a lot of stamina today. Worked for about 5 hours on my project and got past the initial stage. Came to the lab in the evening covering up for Varun whose happily trekking away in the Bay Area (to be fair, he worked his way there) and intend to do a bit more work after dinner..

I came here with a goal, I've been fortunate to have had a bit of luck, a bit of perseverance and loads of good wishes in helping me succeed and I believe I am on a path which wont disappoint me or the scores of others who sometimes, I believe, have more faith in my abilities than me myself!! This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for all this and many more in life... but I still have a long way to go... the journey has just started.....

Random thought: Which site would I have visited most often if not for orkut??

Song currenlty listening to : None..dunno y the earphone is plugged in but I did not put on any song...last song technically was Tere Bina from Guru.. its just growing on me by the second..

Myriad thoughts!!

Its the time of the semester again...the one thing according to me that separates the system here from KJSCE... u work ur bit through the 14 weeks but still it all builds up towards the end.. and this sem has been difficult on more than one ways.... how to proceed towards the end on my Masters..and most importantly..when will UA 8865 lift off the tarmac at DFW airport ?? Random conversations with everyone around automatically veers towards the eminent trip back home... there's a sense of "I deserve to go back". Its been an unprecedented period of personal and emotional growth each one of us has gone through in these past 15 months. From the gleam I had on my face when I got my first paycheck or credit card... It feels good to be going back to Mumbai... yeah.. I have become too much of a MCP (M for Mumbai) here...

Its been one of the happiest moments of my life. Rahul got a fulltime offer from Cisco in San Jose. Of my closest friends who've come here, he's the first to cross the line beyond education.. he is a fighter and has earned every bit of this..way to go Tiger!!! Also, this upcoming week sees Urmila and Gokul go home..its like the initial trickle before the flood of people who came last August go back... I can imagine the excitement they must be feeling..

The music of Guru has released. ARR-Mani Sir combo is always special. I have listened to couple of tracks on musicindiaonline... Tere Bina is a masterpiece from the Maestro in his own voice... the tabla in the background adds that magical bit of percussion in the track. Its also very nostalgic to hear Hariharan render Ei Hairathe... I've missed his calm as the ocean voice and the track has a very Indian feeling to it... Guru is going to be a pretty special movie for me..It releases on Dec. 22 and after my short fly about the country, one I am back home on 25th, I hope to catch it in IMAX. The magic of bollywood on a multiplex looking at the hot girls who've come for their movie dates..the samosa in the interval... Indian cinema in its new avatar in one of the many screens, but the essence and soul still in place.. wow!!

I dunno when I'll blog. Thanksgiving weekend is next and I hope to do some shopping and maybe a short trip with Varun to refresh myself before a mad dash till the finals... but it still gives me goosebumps to think that the fouth saturday from now, I'll be 10000 odd miles away, halfway across the world.... in a place I call home....

Random thought: I know so many single girls, yet, why am I single still?.....

Song currently listening to: Tere Bina from Guru

Go Garba!

Its 2 AM, returned a while back from the lab. Meeting tomorrow... man... how I wish I could by-pass thursdays :P.... woke up for a mundane lab visit this morning at 7:30. Had to open the lab for a technician who was to come at 8...he never did (LOL!! yeah!! in the US, an amru dint keep his tryst with time:D)..leaving me groggy despite the hour of stifled sleep I managed in the evening. So basically, I just want to sleep now... but....

For GARBA!!!!!! Our good old gujju neighbours (ironically halfway across the world from Maharashtra!) have a birthday celebration going on. Normally, birthdays in student apartments are cake cutting, cake smashing, egg smashing , cake eating and crowd dispersing... quite dilligently in that order. I'd like to believe except for the egg (strict veggies aapdo gujjus), the rest of the events took place.. and to substitute for the egg, they are dancing away to songs , typical garba songs!!! In a coutry where the wooden walls shudder every time Shatrughan Sinha yells 'KHAMOSH!!" on youtube...u can imagine my apartment walls and the reverberations that are coming through.....

All this has been going on for atleast 45 minutes.. I'd like to believe there are 12-15 people in there, and I must say they are riding their luck pretty well, for going on and on in a place where all it takes for an anonymous caller is to dial 911, tell the emergency people his sleep is being disturbed and the cops would get here in no time... its happened before but quite luckily for them (and a wee bit disappointingly for me ), the party continues.. Garba ishtyle....

Random thought: Should I call 911??? MUHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!
Track currently on my nano: Main hoon Don - DON (2006)

Happy Diwali

Hey.. happy diwali everyone

Had a great time over the weekend. Friday evening started on a relative low missing all the people and goodies like murukku, jalebi and mysore-pak at home, not to mention family, friends and the noise and colours of crackers lighting up the morning sky in Chembur. Going to temple in new clothes, meeting near and dear ones from around the area... man!! those were the days.... called up my parents and oops!! served as an alarm as in my absence, they had set their diwali to begin a wee bit later than usual... but I guess it was in someways good that my voice triggered the celebrations for them.

Than the fun began... went with Varun adn Manali to Royal Sweets and bought jalebi, burfi, rasgollas (Sushant's special request) and pedhas. Good crowd at the sweet shop. Felt good to see the spirit high amongst the NRIs :P... of course, any visit to the desi adda in Irving is incomplete without chat so we obliged our stomachs and went to Taj Chat house.. good decent fare, too much crowd, at times driving the poor servers crazy .. buta very novel concept. You take a small menu booklet with a counterfile, tick mark what all u want... give the counterfoil to the person at the counter. The booklet bears a no. which doubles up as your order no. .. they shout out in weird accents stuff like rawa dosa and bisibela bhaat (agreed its tough for a bengali to tell puliyodharai rice)... and wait, you havent paid yet. At the end of it all, you go to the cashier and give him the booklet and he totals you. Depending on the kind of dishes, there are various booklets for chat, beverages, rice dishes, dosas etc. So sometimes if you've indulged in a good variety you may look like a waiter yourself with 2-3 chits on hand. Coming to the point, it runs on a system that places the onus on you as a customer to give the chits for what you have eaten and be charged accordingly. Amazing!!! Just comes around to tell you that trust begets trust and truthful actions alike. Saw acouple of uncles telling the cashier that they had bought so and so thing but had lost the chit and hence, requested him to bill them for it.... way to go .....

Of course, back home, dinner settled with Papdi chaat and mysore masala dosa, got into the groove to watch a movie... actually dont remember it coz I think I've watched 4-5 over this weekend:P. Sunday began late but spent half the day calling everyone all voer the US... kinda weird since I am not really the calling-types but tyohaar hai bhai!! Had Laxmi puja at baba's (Sagar) place before which I went to the temple . Not too crowded at 6 PM thankfully but some other friends who went later werent so lucky.... did some desigiri, line thodi and came back for the puja. Followed with a stupendous feast of potluck dishes comprising, kheer , 5-6 sweets, batata wada, pulao, palak dal and sabji.

A good beginning to the new year. Diwali as usual left me high in spirits... also passed a psychological barrier of 50 days left before heading home ;)...

P.S : Gifted myself an Ipod nano for diwali... its good... cute, sounds nice... am happy :)
Currently listening to: Strings - Najanay kyon (Spiderman OST)

Lets begin...

Hello all....
Been going through a few friends' blogsites of late and thought I'd start off again... on a lighter note, revealing the casual, cool- dude guy in me . So a new place, a new beginning... those heart-wrenching, emotionally heavy blogs will still go to Yahoo and I'll update you folks if I ever post there and you can go read it, at your own peril... I'll try and be innovative here, putting in small things which catch my eye, so I suppose I'd expect myself to update this page at a relatively good pace.

so lets begin......