Globe Trotter

I had amnesia once - maybe twice

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Work++

Programming assignments, written assignments, presentation, surprise quizzes, Semester projects, additional projects and job search ..... phew..

To top it all is the weather which is getting worse by the day.. Its around 42 Farenheit here today and it is expected to get worse by the end of the week. Wondering how negative temperatures are going to be. I can still see people wearing shorts and thin t shirts.. people who feel this is summer.. very true because they know how its going to be two months from now..

Restricting myself to just a few trips from home to the lab. The couch in my grad lounge seems a rather comfortable alternative for my bed at home.

The whole of Minneapolis is kind of settled with some schedule for the week. For me attending interviews has become part of my schedule. Its all about being in the right place at the right time. Its all a matter of time. Things will become better... Yes.. I hope it will...


Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzy

Back after long...
I actually thought I spend a lot of time with comps even when I was back in college.. Now I can use the fingers of one hand to count the number of hours spent at home...

Have breakfast - go to campus - stay in lab - eat lunch in campus (which is invariably the bread I bring from home) - stay in lab - attend classes - stay in lab - home for dinner - sleep

The assignments and presentations have started to pour out already.. Can you believe it we are not allowed to copy assignments and have to code all by ourselves.. :O :O

The search for financial assistance is still on amidst all this.. Meeting profs.. sending resumes.. attending interviews... hmm... "Its a matter of time... " I keep tellling myself...

My courses are pretty interesting..
Operating System.. desi prof.. as soporific as any desi prof... interesting coding assignments.. lotsa desi students.. Mondays and Wednesdays 1245 to 1400
User Interface design.. fundu course... its all about one project.. most active class.. deciding on the project.. Tuesdays and Thursdays 0815 to 0930 .. I am stuck with getting up at 0700 in the morning as ever..
Computer graphics.. fundu prof.. again interesting programming assignments... Prahlad is doing this course too... Tuesdays and Thursdays 1245 to 1400..

The weather is slowly turning colder ... The crushing of leaves under the foot(especially mine) is becoming more prominent as FALL progresses.. Occassionally rains...

I have had very little time to even upload the photos, send mail to others, upload the blog ....
I shall try and organise my activities a bit and make time to update my blog..

Keep reading the blog...

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

School begins

Finally.. After being out of India for almost a month and after regular enquiries like "What on earth did you land up here so early for.. " the school finally started..

Felt the air.. after three days of imprisonment in my new apartment.. and used my UPass which is valid from today. I could take any bus in the city with this pass.

I have most of my classes only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have temporarily taken 4 courses for 12 credits though only 6 is the requirement. I might drop one of them which I am allowed to do after one week of attending classes. If I drop of my Operating Systems course I would be left with classes only on tuesday and thursdays which means that I need not come to school for 5 days a week.. :O Did sound exciting but after the foot fault it appeared that the lab was a better place to be than home.

So that makes my tuesdays really busy with three classes spanning 5 hours throughout the day. I have a class from 6 30 to 9 in the evening..

The classes that I've attended from monring are really different from those there. The projectors.. the monitors.. the slides.. the presentations.. the amplifying system for both prof and the student.. though fancy was not required..

The lab would be my haven until then..

COMING SOON... PHOTOS OF MY NEW APARTMENT AND MYSELF IN CRUTCHES.. lol..


Twist in the Tale

I know there has not been many updates recently .. Now that I have
shifted my apartment the access to the net has been restricted to the
computer lab at the campus which is around 20 minutes walk from my
apartment.

To add on to the fact was the brilliant soccer game I played on
Friday.. The only "goal" on everyones mind was exercise .. It went on
very smooth until I twisted my right foot further right and landed on
a twisted foot and fell forward.

What followed was a series of events that can only be recollected as funny.. My friends.. around 8 of them who were playing football help me slowly move from the ground to one of their houses nearby.. We were much deliberating whether to go to the hospital or not .. We were laughing over the fact that atleast one person would be using his insurance money effectively..

It was a Friday evening.. The beauty of the medical/hospital system here is that they work less than office hours.. The hospital is only open on Mon-Fri from 9 to 4.30. If you fall sick otherwise you would have to go to the EMERGENCY ROOM .. It was 10 in the night when we decided that we would go to the hospital..

However when we reached there at 11 the first few words the nurse told us where.. "Wait.. You would gain more preference only if there was blood trickling or you have a heart attack.. " So much for emergency room..

They made the most funniest of things by asking questions like.. "On a scale from 1 to 10 how much would you rate your pain.. " The last time or the only time I remember doing this was in the feedback form for my professors.

They made us wait for a few hours during which they took some X Ray, found some ridiculously few vegetarian items to eat. When they finally let me out I had in my hand a pair of crutches and a shoe which would have fit an elephant better. All of us were more amused and laughing because the pain was very mild unless I try to put pressure and walk on my foot.

The diagnosis was a stretched tendon which doesn't even bear weight. (God knows why all this for just that ) . It was good fun using the crutches for a couple of days.. Now I don't use it any more because I've resumed normal walking though it might take me a few weeks to resume playing soccer again.. :P

Everything about the event was more funny than painful. But the only painful part is still remaining to come which would be the bill. I really don't know how much that is going to be. I have my insurance cover a considerable amount of the bill but I still don't know what is to be paid from the pocket. Fingers crossed.. Or is it the toes..

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Apartment shifting finally...

616, 10th Avenue SE, #302,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55414
Ph: 612 331 5446

Time has come to say goodbye to temporary accomodation and move into our own apartment. And the effort is definitely worth mentioning.

Tuesday.. a very slow start.. got up at 11 and went directly with just a few mouthfuls even without taking a bath.. Spent 6 hours from 11 to 5 to move things from one floor to another and believe me I HAVE NEVER EXERTED MYSELF MORE THAN THIS...
One 3 seater couch (sofa), 2 single seat couches, 2 desks each of which weighs atleast 30 kgs (they took one hour each to move), 2 file drawers, one telephone table, one table fan, one light, telephone, laundry baskets, microwave oven, 2 spring boards (to place mattresses), 4 mattresses were among the things that we DID NOT SPEND A SINGLE PENNY ON..

Things here are very different.. I saw a 3 seater couch which is much better than the ones that we would retain in India, crushed to pieces by the garbage man... This is just a totally different culture.. We picked all that we need from people who were moving from that apartment on the same day... Never imagined to do such porukals job..

We went back in the night and arranged all the stuff.. Wednesday morning we went to walmart(a much much bigger version of Saravana stores) and Cubfoods(groceries) to get all the necessary stuff for home..

Rushed for orientation and spent the rest of the day at the department...




Another closed door

It was so obvious that I have never had exercise in a long long time. I couldn't sit in one place to do my Gayatri Japam on monday.

There was only one TA position open in our department for which there were 12 desi contenders.. The result was not to my favour and that closed one among the last opportunities of getting aid this semester...

The next openings would be only November where again the existing TAs would have more preference over the others.

Tommorrow(sep 2nd) is the research meeting with professors.. Lets see how this goes on..