SSDD.........'Same Shit Different Day'

The pic and the story behind it ....

2006-04-19T12:55:00.000-05:00

Hey Ppl...

I know i know the foto is so gud and completely captures me and my personality (LOL) .... Well this pic was take in Kalamazoo,MI..Its the place where one of my close engineering buddies studies ...It was after a gap of more than a year or so the 4 pof us were together ...By the 4 of us i mean Anil,Manik( he is the guy who lives in Kalamazoo), Kaushal (also known as daadi, for his french beard) and Me...We were project mates,party animals and they are amongst my closest frnds....So it was fun after we met after a gap of 1 and half years.....Had loads of fun and a lot of catching up to do ....We saw some places, went ice-skating ate lots of food and had plenty to drink... Here is a Pic of Kaushal, Me and Anil...Anil is the guy with spectacles and Kaushal is the guy with the sahdes ... (BTW I am the guy with the red cap in hand)

We were in Chicago for a day..went to Sears Tower...(it has a gr8 view btw) On a clear day u can see the border of Michigan ..Had loads of fun at Chicago as well... We went to Hard Rock Cafe ...ate dosa and chaat at Devon Street (which seriously looks like Commercial street....fulto desi)..Here are a few pics of the view from Sears and one of Hard Rock Cafe ....

This is the best foto looking downwards from Sears...

Us at Hard rock ...

Manik and Kaushal ....

This is how the world looks at me ??

2006-03-31T19:59:00.000-06:00

They think i am crazy and thats not without reason i guess...

Of Silence, Insomnia and Disappearence...

2006-03-08T03:04:00.000-06:00

Lets start where we left off. So the three things on my India List..got all of them done ..Met most of my frnds..they were genuinely happy to see me..went back to Chic city ( Chickballapur - my engineering college..) spent a night there in the room where i used to live as a student. Had loads and loads of fun. We sang all the stupid songs that we had made in engr. It was almost like old times not a thing to care just there to have loads of fun. Met Khil,Andy and Madan my frnds from convergys. Did meet Eshu .. the DJ who used to play at B11 and now plays at J-Cubez...Met Rags,Viv,Mallu got drunk ..sang songs and came up wit a new pick up line ( actually i didnt Rags did..."U have dandruff" ..yep that was the line.. lol .. yeah he was drunk too ). Didnt get to meet Sneh though he is still in Dubai..but did miss him a lot. Met my SHS US return Desis as well, Krtkn and Udin,Karthikram from my SHS days was also there. We met for coffee and had a nice time catching up on things. The sad part was that none of the other SHS guys turned up.

The second point on the agenda. Get things settled between me and Nivi. Well did that as well.Well she couldnt wait much longer and things were getting out of hand between her and her parents, so we decided to part ways. After six years we finally did what we were supposed to do ages ago, that is go different ways. The signs were there we just didnt see them. There is no regret on my part to the way things worked out. Did wish though that after six years somebody would fight for being with me. That didnt happen so..thats that. Things had to go one way or the other I guess it just went the otherway. There is so much to say on this topic but that would be wishful thinking. This did surprise a lot of my frnds though ( well they asked me if i didnt fight for her and if i fell for another girl... that definitely was not the case).

Now for part three-> had loads and loads of fun. Had all the dishes I had been craving for drank/ate plenty of tender coconuts (damn i miss that). Had lots of fun wit my frnds. Went out with my parents to Coorg and enjoyed myself. Made pasta on my cousins birthday. Had plenty of fun wit my sis. Met most of my relatives. Met my new Bhabi..( well i did meet her before..but now things are official :D). I did try to squeeze as much as i possibly could in the 20-30 days i was in Bang..but cudnt get enuf of it. Wish i cud stay there for longer. BTW watched Rama,Shama and Bhama, a Kannada movie, with my parents and my sis. It was 2.5 hrs of laughter. Its a hilarious movie with excellent performance from Kamal Hassan.

Now for the Silence part. Yes i have been silent again ( I have been guilty of this crime more than I wish to be) mainly due to the fact that I have been playing NFSMW a very addictive and awesome game. If there are any game enthusiasts chk out the graphics on this one. Its awesome. Also hav been trying to figure out a few things and clear up my mind. Am thinking of getting into a new relationship but i dont know.. Lets see wat happens...

Insomnia -> Havent been able to sleep til almost 3-4:30 AM for the past couple of weeks. I dont know if any of the above points are interelated to wats actually happening now. But it sure as hell is frustrating not to be able to sleep. Throws everything into disarray. I have laods of stuff ( yeah rite..ok some stuff) to do but cant. Well the one good thing abt this point is its gotten me to speak wit u guys again. Have tried different methods of trying to sleep ( yep tried counting the sheep too..) but none are helpful rite now. Started playing squash so that i did be shit tired and be able to sleep. But that doesnot seem to be working either. Did get addicted to Squash though. Its really awesome. Loads of runing and pushes u if the opponent is gud enuf (2 days into the game and i am already talking like a pro).

Disappearence-> I seem to have disappeared from my school as well. I only meet ppl I want to meet. I meet them occasionally havent been as visible in campus as i used to be. The campus isnt the only place i have been invisible from. I usually stay invisible in Yahoo as well..but offlate havent been talking to anyone other than Mallu and couple of my frnds (Havent done even that in the past 2-5 days). Sorry guys but i just havent been my complete self yet. I guess its just all the stuff thats happened. I havent lost my josh for friday nite parties though ( which is a gud thing) and have slowly started being more visible on campus so things are looking better. Did watch Swingers an old movie. Its a real nice movie which speaks abt a guy who is heartbroken and how he gets over it. Its a nice movie watch it if u havent already done so.

I did watch part of the last day of Nagpur test. It made me mad looking at the way Rahul Dravid and wasim Jaffer were playing. If you have almost the best lineup in the world why in the hell cant we chase 367. It wasnt that tuff...we cud have won that match. England challenged us with a score and we didnt go for it..thats not the way we have been playing for a while. We have been more aggressive than that. Speaking abt cricket..More's stupid comment saying Ganguly wudnt be chosen even if he places well kinda sucks. Why are they mixing politics wit cricet? If a player is gud he gets a test/one day cap..if not he doesnt. Shudnt that be the criteria?? Watever happened to actually playing well. You kinda feel sorry for that bloke..but hey shit happens rite ?? Isnt that why this blog is still crawling??

I guess thats enuf for today rather tonite. To the ppl who dont have video.google working here is google video setup and the gvp file needed to play the video. Its on rapidshare and is abt 4-5Mb. If that doesnt work let me know we will think of something.

Later....

The video is finally on google...

2006-02-26T21:40:00.000-06:00

Here is the video. Google has finally made it live so its view it all time. Chk it out and laugh ur heads off... I am not there in all the dances...( luckily for u guys )

Mission India

2006-02-06T10:24:00.000-06:00

Almost all the shoppin is done. Some of my frnds want me drop off some stuff that they bought for their family in Bangalore. Since I was one of the few who was going back I agreed. Now there is this whole mess of shopping items lying at our home. It belongs to me and a roomie of mine who is also visiting India. December 15th is my flight to India and on December 14th all my frnds turned up and helped me pack all the stuff. Now since i didnt do any of the packing I didnt know what went into which suitcase and what was missing. Everyhting was done by my frnds. All I was doing was giving them things to put into my baggage. Well the packing was finally done and I stayed up almost the whole night as I had some videos of my school to burn and some other things to take care off. It was finally the 15th and oone of my bestfrnds Pai was there to see me off at the airport. Both my baggages were overweight and I had to pay excess charges for it. Then began the wait to board the flight. The flight was from Wichita to Houston. At Houston I had to board another flight to Amsterdam. Well I reached Houston and at the check in counter was informed that there were no more seats available.. :O Some how the lady at the check in counter managed to get me a seat on to the flight and off I was towards India. The wait of 28 hrs to India was finally over when i landed in Bangalore on the 17th Dec. The feeling of belonging to a place. The fact that I was finally there was soemthing that took me a while to realize. My parents where there to recieve me. It was good seeing them the first thing. The look on my parents and sis's face said it all. They were happy to see me and i was glad to be home.

Well my trip to India had 3 points of action

1.) Meet if not all then most of my friends
2.) Get things settled between me and Nivi
3.) Have loads of fun and spend time with family

Wake me up wen .... December ends

2006-02-01T16:26:00.000-06:00

So .. I have been rushing through the last 2 blogs mainly bcos they are "Flashbacks" .. to the uninitiated its going back in time( happens mostly in Hindi movies :D ). So back to where we left off... the last 2 months had been busy wit organizing everything for India Nite. The nxt month would be hectic shopping.. Shopping for the trip to India. Sure nobody expects anything from a student coming down from USA...but u still want to get something for most ppl rite??? So the shopping begins.. start looking for good deals to buy camcorders digital cameras and the works. To help with the shopping along came thanksgiving with a few of its deals. Thanksgiving deals arent that gr8 down here in Wichita ( past experience ) so the thgt was to mainly skip it. But my frnds who had flown in for the FALL Sem where really excited abt it and wanted to go shopping. So there i was tagging along to giv them company. Stayed up most of the night and luckily CompUSA opened up at 12..which meant early relief for some of us. Now the rush for the best deal. Everybody grabbed watever they could and then started deciding if they needed it or not.The q for the chk out counter took abt 2 hrs to get thru.. Thats the sad part of Thanksgiving sales it takes too long to chk out. Bought some stuff for mom and sis. Got my dad a Camcorder ( he rarely asks for anything ) and shopped like crazy... Now hav to start paying all the bills which kinda looks huge... After all the shopping came the time to pack...The first week of December is wen everybody started to leave to India. So was helping ppl get things done. Sending them off and stuff.. In between all this was my Birthday which went pretty well ....So the time finally comes for me to visit my home town.. The place where my heart and soul will always be..The city of Bangalore..

Busy 2 months....

2006-01-23T21:28:00.000-06:00

So after the Teaching appointment I found myself a bit busy preparing for the class and all. Then it was time for the annual Indian Festival at WSU called India Nite. India Nite is one evening where all the Indians in Wichita gather at WSU for some good food and lots of desi entertainment. The entertainment involved lots of bollywood dances and songs. As a special attraction we had a Bharatanatyam dancer coming in from India. She is pretty famous her name is Malvika Sarukkai. This did attract a lot of crowd. The same crowd was very disappointed by the attitude shown by the dancer. She might be a celebrity in India but here she is just another dancer. She was very rude to the crowd and wanted the crowd not to clap for her performance and also made a lot of rude comments to the crowd.
Now for the main part. During the 2 months to the event we were preparing for a dance by a group of ppl.The theme was love songs from the 70s to 2004s. We worked real hard for the dance which was for 8 mins and contained a lot of songs. The dance did come out gud. Was also involved with organizing the whole thing. Most of the 2 months went away in practising, organizing and teaching my class. During the 2 months the average sleeping time was 3 am and wake up was 9 am. Had loads of fun during the whole time. After the event was over it felt really empty with nothing to do. Have uploaded the video of our dance on google videos....waiting for its apporval.. will post the link once i get it verified..

Hiatus

2006-01-18T04:49:00.000-06:00

My hiatus has been nothing short of a Bollywood movie...To get the whole picture I need atleast another 2-4 blogs...but first things first..

Some things never change....My disappearence from the blg scene for a while speaks volumes about my laziness. But laziness isnt the only trait that has to be blamed at the moment(Atleast thats what i think). Well after my GTA got stolen I was reinstated as a GTA for another class called Theory of Machines. The way I came abt to teaching this course was hilarious. Well so i had this GA position which involved me reapiring computers and helping other profs with things like moving stuff ....setting up labs etc. So me was roaming arnd the engineering building trying to help one of the profs with their stuff wen my prof caught me... He says "So ..Arvind can u teach this course??? " and hands me out the syllabus. I take a look at the syllabus and its Theory of Machines..and I am thinking well its not that tough..I can brush up my memory and can teach the course. By this time I was desperate to do something else other than the GA position that i had. So my prof says "Good take this sylaabus change the TA's name and make 45 - 60 copies and go to class.. You have a class in 15 mins time"... So I have to prepare for a class of 40-50 students abt topics which i hadnt studied for the last 2-4 years.. So i go to class looking like a dumb dude.. hand them out syllabus copies, tell them a few things abt the course and what we were trying to do and something else abt myself and let them go after 15-20 mins of class time ... Most of the students were glad abt the early let off. So after the first day of class it was time for me to prepare for the class. So my routine was to learn everything on the day of the class and teach them .. It was gud fun teaching the class as i got to re-learn the basics of Mechanical Engineering once again. Had loads of fun teaching the class the particular subject...

Best Laid Plans ????

2005-08-21T00:21:00.000-05:00

Me been pretty busy these past few days.. wat with plenty of new Indian Students coming in to Wichita State... So we plan this whole new freshers party for all the new students . We plan a Potluck and an open theater movie and loads of pop and fun ... U hav gud Indian Food a gud movie and ur outdoors rite ?? wat more cud u ask in a party ?? So the party is planned wat each and every household is gonna make is planned and everything is set . The big day arrives and guess wat ?? Its raining cats and dogs on that particular day. I mean how the hell can that happen...wat are the chances that u have a whole 2-3 weeks of gr8 sunshine and wen it actually matters it actually pours ?? So this rain is supposed to be a damper rite ?? ISA (thats Indian Students Association ) doesnt giv up that easy. We start to make alternate arrangements, we get to use a particular building for the occassion and its auditorium. The potluck is gr8, some of the best food many ppl hav had in months maybe years ( unfortuantely didnt get to taste even a single dish .....organisers fate i believe). Nothing goes as planned but the whole show turns out to be a huge hit. The new students were pretty happy, so were the veterans who had been here for more than a year, the movie was an excellent movie 'SARKAR' ( which is a bollywood style 'Godfather' movie ) . Did get drenched abt 20 times(not just me the whole committee members of ISA ...of course ) trying to get things organised but all in all it was a huge success. The satisfaction of an event which turns out to be a hit after all the hardwork is something that cannot be put into words, also realised that the best things that happen are not always planned but happen on the spur of the moment .....I have another story to tell but will not include that under this title ..

Grand Theft Auto just got stolen

2005-08-10T14:57:00.000-05:00

So...I am about to begin the Fall semester and trying to secure my "Funding"...which means i pay less in tution fees....One of my friends had left his job to get into the main jobstream (psst thats the H1B visa you get to work here for 7 years) where the pay is way better. So this job opening (in my school i.e) is for another GTA position...its a 20 hrs a week job (which means i get full tution fee waiver ) with a stipend of 3000 dollars...( yep me went into wonderland too.....i was all for ordering ipod and PSP)...Me thinks i got the best shot here.. I have been a TA for 2 semesters and have the recommendation of the previous guy (who btw had a gr8 rapport with the guy who is hiring now)..so the jobs mine rite.....I mean who could ignore 2 semesters of teaching sometimes 40 or more students..I am thinking me the strongest contender for the job....I get called for the interview.....the interview goes as planned everythings fine he even shows me the syllabus that I have to teach (which is rare in itself according to my referrer)...He tells me he has others to interview and he would let me know within 2 days. I go what the hell i hav landed this job..i am all happy and making plans of going to India and everything ..2 days later i am waiting for his call...he calls me up and tells me that there were some returning GTAs and hence he hasnot hired anyone....poof goes my trip to India, my PSP and my iPod...Thats the way life is isnt it ??? You count your chickens before the eggs hatch....sell them....buy the stuff you want with the profits and are already addicted to them....I was stunned by the reason given by the person i mean why the hell did i or the others for that matter have to go through with the interview only to find out none was being hired.... Now this puts me down for like 2 days and i am thinking nothing worse can possible happen.....Guess wat i am wrong again...I was hoping that my Prof would make me one of the TAs for "CATIA" a software which is used by Aerospace Industries....but that doesnt happen instead he gives it to another guy who has the greatest Indian accent if you know wat i mean (remember 'somebody gonna get a hurt real bad')....So i am wondering if i get a GA position atleast which saves me 2/3 rd my tution fees..i am hoping i can keep that ....I did get the GA position but the pay is lower than what it would have been with the GTA in Physics..But life goes on .....more later...

Bangalore Blues anyone ??

2005-07-26T12:39:00.000-05:00

Hey guys....

Me is been playing plenty of cricket in plenty of sun.... During my cricketing sojourn i did come across a few Bangaloreans ( psst bangalore is my hometown to the unintiated ). The general feeling of ppl (by people i mean the Desi's ) here is that US of A is much better a place and that its much better than their hometown. We Bangaloreans seem to differ on that point. Almost every Bangalore boy/girl I have run into has the same feeling. We feel that Bangalore is the one place where we did all love to be right now. Bangalores charisma and liveliness cannot be duplicated anywhere in the world. At first i thought such a feeling was attibuted to the fact that most of my frnds are in Bangalore and that i have been born and brought up there. If that's the case then the others who arrived here from different cities dont feel the same way (abt their own city ofcourse)?? They seem happy and comfortable here. Some of them havent even bothered going back to India for a visit and have no future plans of doing so...

The more i think (which is quite rare in itself ) the more i feel i know why we miss Bangalore so much. The fact that there is something always happening in Bangalore and that its a very livey place seems to be the main reason. Maybe its the fact that you know wat to do or where to go to have fun or do anything. Maybe its the fact that you know your frnds are a call away from being there for you. Here it seems to be a lot different. The fact that u fend for urself and that you have barely enuf time to worry abt urself seems to put this place in a different perspective. Will this place grow on me and will i like this palce the way i love Bangalore ??? I dont think so. Sure this place is a lot cleaner,easier to travel and not as crowded as Bangalore might seem. Maybe i like the crowded Bangalore and dont care abt its traffic. Maybe in my quest to find the qualitites of Bangalore I will miss out the essence of Wichita. Who knows..... but there is one thing i am sure most of them will agree with me. Bangalore has to be the best place in India. There is no place like it. If you havent been there you dont know wat ur missing.

Wassup????

2005-06-29T11:29:00.000-05:00

Hey guys.... Me done conducting that course that i was supposed to. It was a 4 weeks course and trust me i dont know how i was managing everything. It was one hell of a rush going thru the 4 weeks. Now that its finally over..feel kinda bored. Ok let me fill you in on wat i have been upto these days...

May23rd was when the class began..the first week of lab was real crazy 24 ppl asking me questions and answering each one of them took up a whole lot of patience..By the end of the week i was ready to blow a whistle..but then we planned a trip to Houston. I think it was a long weekend..so off we went to Houston. It was a fun roadtrip. Went to these awesome restaurants where they served some of the best Indian food that I have had in a while.. (Ruchi in Dallas is awesome). Went to Galviston Beach, NASA and this temple in Houston. Visited the downtown and stuff...visiting Houston was like going from a village to Bangalore.

Weeks 2,3 and 4 rushed by like there was no 2moro. Finally Friday the 17th was here. It was time to leave for Indianapolis. Yep me loves Formula1..So it was time to see Schumi race the prancing horse. The atmosphere there was electrifying. The sound of those engines was better than what i thought it would be. All set for the race to begin there goes warm up lap..and then the biggest let down of the century. 14 of the cars pulled out because they hadnt brought the rite set of tires. We were left watching Ferrari race 2 other teams that were no match to them. Sure Schumi won...but i went there to see Schumi beat the shit out of Renault and McLaren. Not a race where the only rivals were Ferrari itself with Braichello trying to beat Schumi. To make matters worse we had a splitting headache (results of no earplugs and an empty stomach). Sat thru the so called race and headed out to buy some stuff. Bought a Ferrari prancing horse cap and then we left for lunch.

Now abt this Indy GP. Michelin wants to blame FIA for being to rigid...well hello remember you were the guys who came up with the one tyre rule to "save cost", u were the ones who didnt get the right equipment and u were the ones who were sissys for not racing with the tires you had..and u go around blaming FIA and Ferrari for your faults ?? That has to be the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard. Its like asking the Spurs to play bear footed because the Pistons forgot their shoes or to injure someone because u were negligent and want to have a fair chance. I always knew Michelin and their troop of racers sucked but this has to be the final nail. After all the travelling and money we spent all we expected was a decent race and Michelin deprived us of that.

After an all night drive we were finally back in Wichita. I had some grading to do and a possible Grade scenario to come up with. Got that done and started helping out with the final projects of the students. Along came Game 7 of Spurs Vs Pistons. Watched it with my friends. It was a close game. In the first half Spurs looked like they were lost, maybe because Duncan wasnt getting his shots rite. Wallace of the Pistons was doing a good job of holding him back and was also shooting points down. Then came the 2nd Half were Duncan got his act together and started collecting points. His team up with Ginobli gave them the required lead they were looking for. With 20 seconds to go..Pistons werent out yet they still had a plan. It was 5 points to get at that point. Things didnt go as planned for the Pistons and they ended up losing by 7 points. It was a gr8 game to watch. Ginobli flying all over the place in the 2nd half and making some of the most incredible shots. Obe One Ginobli was what one of the posters read and it somehow sounded rite.

Friday the 24th of June is when the grades were released for the course i was conducting. It was time to relax and sit back and njoi. Thats exactly what we did. Had a match on Saturday (BTW i play cricket for one of the teams here) a day nighter. We are one of the best teams in the league and that makes us one of the least supported teams in the league. This was an away match played at Tulsa,OK. The opposite team batted first and scored 165 runs in 30 overs. We started of pretty well but lost our way in the last few overs. It was down to 2 overs and 19 runs to get. Yours truly and a guy called Iqbal were at the crease. We managed to score the required runs with 3 balls to spare. The look on my teammates face was worth the effort. It was a good match and plenty of fun to play.

So thats wat i have been upto these days..what abt the rest of you ???

Long time no see

2005-06-01T11:32:00.000-05:00

Hey guys,

Sorry for the delay but as mentioned had lots of stuff to do. My final week was crammed up like crazy. What with projects to submit and grades to be given out. Anyways me back onto the blogging circuit so shud be fun. Havnet looked at any of your blogs yet...but will do as soon as i am done with this blog.

There are a couple of movies that i would suggest for you people, which if not an explanation shows whats going on with the people here and why there are so many people dying due to guns. One of them is a Documentary called "Bowling for Columbine" its been directed by Micheal Moore(of Faranheit fame). Its a real good movie watch it if you can. The other is "American History X" directed by Tony Kaye. Another fantastic movie, its a bit violent but its good.

BTW there have been some new songs on the Radio that are good. "Daddy Yankee - Gasolina" is a Mexican song and has a very catchy tune. Check it out. There is also "Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway" which has wonderful lyrics. Another real good one is "Don't Phunk With My Heart
by Black Eyed Peas" another catchy song.

Till laters

Perpetual Mess????

2005-04-11T08:47:00.000-05:00

Now this is something i have to put up wit...since i live wit roomies i have no option but to look at our house and go gr8 wen is this mess ever gonna be clean..To the uninitiated i liv wit 3 other roomie here. Though 2 of them are not bad wit cleanliness this other guy is a total mess. He lets his shoe lie around, his plate is always in the sink uncleaned...his clothes are allover the place and he manages to mess up a perfectly clean house in a matter of few days...This is just the tip of the iceberg...there is more...He is obnoxiously loud wen it comes to speaking on the phone...the whole apartment complex can probably hear him thru the walls..it gets on our nerves wen he does that early in the morning and late at nite wen we are just abt to get some sleep or in the middle of a deep slumber...umpteen no. of jokes and cursings at him abt his loud calls have no effect on him and he still carries on speaking that way...

Why am i bitching abt it ??? It gets on my nerves wen he does that...i like it nice and calm no loud noises (until and of course its party time )...home is one place where i want to relax..with him around everything has to be loud...The music he puts on is desiradio.net and even that has to be loud...dude get earphones for gods sake...There was this blog where this guy compalined abt his roomie everyday but he stopped bcos he moved out.. maybe i shud do the same thing....noooo not move out guys..bitch abt my roomies daily wat say?????

Guns and US

2005-04-10T20:17:00.000-05:00

Recently one of my blog friends wrote on the shootings in school, and how she cudnt comprehend how guns cud get into the hands of a kid...for those interested u can read it here it makes for a interesting article... This is an extension on the same article... guns and how its actually being used here...

Yesterday cops were called in to a particular home by a 14yr old kid bcos her father was beating up her mother...this got a patrol of 6 cars to the spot and a S.W.A.T team (to the uninitiated it stands for Special Weapons And Tactics, an elite part of the force) for a domestic violence case ????? U can read that article here but the gist is that during the talk between S.W.A.T and the suspect something happened and there was gunshots..killing one of the officers on the spot and injuring another critically. All this for domestic voilenece???? Wat was the officer trying to do?? He was trying to save another person from being beaten up did that warrant him to lose his life??? Who is to be blamed for this ????? Was this a crime where someone was planning to loot a bank and runaway wit the money..no it was a domestic issue nt one which called for the death of a person...Try and imagine wat the officers family might be going thru..and all this happened bcos the guy inside had a gun.....

Another hold up by a gun-totting person results in the suspect being killed...the article if wanna read here how many more deaths till they realize that guns shud be held only by ppl who need them and are responsible enuf to own one...Its nt for every Tom,Dick and Harry. That a life cud be lost bcos of someone else's stupidity................How much longer ?????????????

Black

2005-04-07T18:34:00.000-05:00

Well this abt one more movie... Black, though its a bit old its a fantastic movie with mind blowing performance from Rani Mukherjee, AmitabBachan and the kid who plays Rani Mukherjee. Fantastic movie..the way its been made the way the actors have palyed their parts is truly amazing. The one scene that stays with u after the movie is the one where Rani Mukherjee gives her Graduation speech.. There are no words for their performance... also a gr8 direction by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. He seems to be doling out one good movie after the other.If there are ppl out there who havent yet watched it pls do..its worth ur time.. Similar movies that i liked are Phir Milenge, which had an AIDS patient as the protagonist. Another well thought out and a well made movie.. Have been hearing gr8 reviews of My Cousin Nikhil... lets see how that turns out.... waiting to see such movies.. At last Bollywood is making movies that are worth ur time and not just candy floss and girl meets boy movies. They have been doing that for a while but not as often as now... Raincoat is another such gud movie...real gud acting in that as well

Watched 2 old movies based on the city of Mumbai. One was Satya, a Ram Gopal Verma movie, the other was Bombay, a Mani Ratnam movie. Both excellent movies. Cant believe i missed these movies before....both picturizing in a completely different way...though Bombay scared me wit its Shiv Sena picturization...it looked like there was a new Adolf Hitler (in fact there were 2 in the movie the Muslim counterpart) in the world and we wud hav genocide again on our hands........

More later

Things i have been upto these days

2005-04-05T20:57:00.000-05:00

Hey guys

Have been watching the India Pakistan ODI series live. Man wat performances. Unbelieveable.... The first ODI Sehwag and Dravid perform a rescue act (which is way over Sehwags usual league and is a normal days work for Dravid).. Then in the same innings wickets tumble towards the end ending up wot a score less than the initial promised 300 runs. Sulman Butt says 'Kiss my b***' with a superb start and Ganguly's wats new feilding mistakes. Then comes the wonderful catch by Sehwag another one by Yuvraj and a gud one by Ganguly himself.As if thats not enuf Zaheer Khan takes a stunner probably the best catch of the series (not the girl wit the poster ). Then Sachin shows why he is so good, that wicket of Inzy was fantastic. Pakistan go down witout a fight. Second ODI Sachin is run out taking a run that was not needed, and out walks Dhoni.... we expect a quick 30 and his back but he surprises all wit an excellent(and sometimes arrogant) performance wit the bat. Dravid adds another fifty (god knows where he got those runs from ... dubba na???) none knows where the other 49 came from...and Balaji,Zaheer and Bhajji top it off wit cameos... Pakistan fight a bit but Dhoni was too much for them.. If you hadnt already noticed i am a huge fan of cricket... watching (yes sir watching) the matches live was an awesome experience (wat wit friends,beer and chicken to accompany the proceedings). Will probably watch the entire series if funds and bandwith are available...

Lets move on, have been listening to a few good songs. One of them is real weird... its called Akon Feat. Alvin the Chipmunk.. the name of the song is 'So Lonely'.. It sounds like there is a computer syntesized voice in it. At first it might sound weird but its a real catchy song and i luv it. Guys (and Gals of course) check it out...its neat. Other than that heard 'Rabbi' on musicindiaonline.... Pls search for 'Rabbi' and listen to 'Bulla Ki Jana' its refreshingly different..its like Oh Sanam by Lucky Ali (in terms of wat it did to the then POP industry)... also check out 'Tera Mera Pyaar' here..another awesome song..I know its a bit old but liked the lyrics...

Speaking abt songs lets move on to one of my fav genres...Rock. Heard this song (quite old now) JayZ and Linkin Park - Encore Numb... THough i did not like it in the begining i luv the song now..it sounds real good. Yo vivek wat do ya think man???

Thats all from me here.....

P.S Have been cooking a lot nowadays.. and have realized that i actually like cooking.Have learnt some real easy dishes and some tricks in the art of cooking... Keep watching i might come out wit my own cullinary Blog soon.

I miss you - Blink 182

2005-04-03T06:10:00.000-05:00

Another tragedy strikes. Its been a week of bad news as far as one of my close friends are concerned. First one of his friends meets with an accident and then one of his close friends father passed away today. Felt real bad abt it. He was real sad that he cudnt make it to Bangalore now and be with his friend. Reminded me abt the time when my GrandFather passed away. It hit me real hard. I know o havent spoken abt it to many ppl. The only ppl who know abt it are Snehal, Max, Khilan,Shubha and Madan ( my colleagues in Convergys). The day i saw my Grand Father in hospital the first time i knew it wud happen, i cud feel it and cried like a baby that day, though my father and Max consoled me i knew deep in my heart that i wudnt see him healthy again.

My grand father was a person i looked upto. He was the one guy who never depended on anyone. It was the toughest moment of my life when i had to see him for the last time. The next day i was listening to Blink 182 I miss you and it reminded me of him . I have stopped listening to that song since bcos it somehow reminds me of my grandfather.

The other day wen i had called Bangaloe one of my uncles recieved the call and his sleepy voice sounded like my grandfather and i was stunned i couldnt speak for 2 mins. I am reminded of him most of the times. He is a person i find hard to realise that he is not with us anymore. When i call Bangalore i speak with my granny and realise how tired she has become. I would giv anything to be with her rite now. She wants to see me in December and I shud be there in December, if for nothing else to see her. Max if u read this pls go there as often as you can. Dont let her miss you too much its really hard on her and i can feel it wen i call her. The pure delight she has wen she speaks is sometimes heartbreaking for the simple reason that i am not there. The fact that my cousins and my friends miss me as much as i miss them is sometimes hard to bare. I sometimes wonder if all this was actually neccessary. Staying far away from my friends, my family and my love all for a few dollars wen i cud hav stayed back earned a living enuf to support myself and the ppl i care abt. IS it worth it to stay away from all the ppl i care abt and study here not being sure of wat will happen in the future??? Life here is too contained to be fun. You stick to ur community bcos the Americans though friendly are not that good at being friends and my friends are ppl I can be wit for months together and not worry abt anything. Here its too busy.Very few ppl actually care abt wat u do. I might be boring u wit this but i wanted to get this out of me......

The Matrix

2005-03-29T14:49:00.000-06:00

Sorry guys,

Been real busy this past few weeks. Had a cricket tournament coming up that involved Pakistan, Bangladesh,Nepal,Qatar,Sri Lanka and India in our School. So we were practising for it. It was fun playing the game after a long time, wat wit all of us too slow to run now and too lazy to field properly. Did manage to win the tournament though.

Was speaking with a friend of mine the other day. He kept mentioning the real world very often. It has always been that people mention things like once u go there u will know wat the real world is or things like that. Makes u wanna ask wat the hell is the real world??? Is it a place where things are always against each other?? Is it a place where ppl are so hostile that u wud rather stay home and sleep than work??? Is it a place where friendly ppl hav no way of lasting long??? Is it a place where 'Foot in the mouth' disease wud get u into serious trouble???? Reminds me of this line in Matrix "unfortunately nobody can be told wat the matrix is, u have to see it to believe it".

Speaking abt Matrix watched Animatrix its pretty nice, the graphics is real good and the story is ok. Incase u can rent it there check it out its real neat. Have become a huge fan of David Fincher (He is the guy who directed The Game,Se7en,Fightclub and Panic Room) havent seen Panic room yet but did love the other three movies. Maybe not the game as much as Se7en and Fightclub.

Spoke to Max the other day gud to have cleared the confusion a bit now. Sorry abt that dude didnt know all that had happened once i left Bang, anyways waiting for December to be here. Hopefully i can be in Bangalore for a while. Have to catch up on lots of ppl and lots of stuff.

Till later

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

2005-02-27T06:52:00.000-06:00

Have been listening to this song by green day for a long time now. I fell it has one of the best lyrics with lots of meaning in it here is the first stance of the song"
I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone
"
This group is supposed to be the band that is actually keeping rock alive here in America (these guys hav a short memory how can they not listen to Metallica and stuff i cant understand). BTW Motley Crew and Slipknot are coming to town in summer planning to go to the slipknot one atleast.... Will try and catch Metallica sometime if they are performing any concerts ie. Speaking of Metallica the bandwas in town wen i firs came to US of A, one of my friends had been to the concert and he said that the show sucked i guess they are losing their charm now.

This may sound a bit strange but a new song by eminem called Mocking Bird has come out(I know rock and rap in the same page). Check out the lyrics and the song its real good especially the chorus. It kind of answers the ceaning out my closet critics.
"Now hush little baby, don't you cry
Everything's gonna be alright
Stiffen that upperlip up little lady, i told ya
Daddy's here to hold ya through the night
I know mommy's not here right now and we don't know why
We feel how we feel inside
It may seem a little crazy, pretty baby
But i promise momma's gon' be alright"

BTW have been watching plenty of movies here (not much other tp to do here), watched "Saw" (its a movie guys) its real good something on the lines of "seven" but not exactly that. Its real good. Watched "Texas chainsaw Massacre" as well (its the new one dont know when t was released) these are some good movies to watch. On the lghter side i would say "Euotrip" is probably the best comedy movie its real good. Hitch is supposed to be good. Want to watch "Constantine" in a theater might do that sometime soon. The best
comedy movies to watch would be, "Eurotrip","Shaun of the dead" (this is a real good movie watch it),"Garden State" (This is a bit slow but i feel its a nice movie) and "Napolean Dynomite" (another slow comedy but pretty good). Watched "Page 3" today, fantastic movie. Its real good. SOme of the dialogs are very funny. The movie seems to be aimed at TOI which kind of ives more impportance to P3P than anything else ( to the uniniated P3P stands 4 Page 3 Ppl). One of the Bangalore Times actually had how to behave at a P3P party and how to air kiss and stuff wat to wear and wat not. I hope somebody realises something after watching this movie. I think i will switch to Deccan Herald again wen I am in India.

Till later

There is always a silver lining

2005-02-20T17:36:00.000-06:00

Wokay so this Satyrday had been to Americas Pub(AP) had lots of drinks and came back to a friends place. We had a carton of beer cans so we started on it. While haveing beer and listening to rock songs and njoing ourselves talk abt working in USA started off. Well the palce where we were partying housed 2 veterans (as in been here for a long time like more than 2-3 yrs) and they started speaking abt how tuff it was to find an on campus job here and the kinds of jobs that they had to do. Well they started of with picking cigarette butts and cleaning the whole campus and cleaning toilets and working as janitors. Getting a job here meant a great thing to everyone and was real hard. So u can imagine how hard it wud have been to find funding at that time. Some of them have done all kinfs of odd jobs from washing huge utensils, painting buildings to cleaning toilets and working as managers etc... Just shows how tuff life here was a couple of years back. Ppl got funding generally in the 3rd sem here, but things are changing most of us hav found funding in he 2nd sem itself and had managed to find on-campus jobs in the 1st sem. We spend dolalrs here like there is no 2moro. But the exposure we had in India (earning money and owning cell and probably even a car by now) has made us want these things and sometimes we work towards buying those things. Looking back at their time i sometimes realise how lucky i am to be in a position where i dont convert dollars into rupees bcos of what i am earning here. Once u start converting its real tuff to survive here. Like the drink we had in AP it was Vodka with Red Bull and cost us $10, well if we converted that and thought abt it we wud never drink anything in our entire life(atleast in America). But things are defiitely working out pretty good here. Most of the ppl who have completed MS hav found good paying jobs, and ppl who cudnt afford cars bfore(i.e in MS) are buying BMW's and good cars (after finding good jobs here of course). I guess there is always a silver lining and we hav been just a touch lucky to be in US at the rite time.

Sorry guys

2005-02-17T10:59:00.000-06:00

Sorry guys have been out of communication for a while.. Have been real busy teaching "C" to my students (and learning it with them as well :D). Things going pretty normal. Plan to see Karthik and Udin and a few other friends during the spring break if possible but no plans as yet. Hey Karthik mail me ur academic calender if possible lets see if we have a long weekend in common or something so that all of us can meet up.. Till later

Missing

2005-01-28T02:05:00.000-06:00

Missing someone more than words can say. SOmetimes i feel was it worth the trouble and time away. I had a job was around ppl whom i wanted to be with. What the hell was i thinking??? First it was lets apply as if i will get an I 20 then it was wat teh hell like i will get a Visa and now here. Away from someone wondering wether it was really worth it. I had a job so what if it was a call center i still earned 15K rite.I had all the time that i wanted to stay there be with her. Now suddenly it hits me its going to be tuff without her. Its going to be really tuff not seeing her in real. I wish i could be where it mattered. I wish i was in Bangalore. Missing my luv too much. Hell me and my stupidity

GTA

2005-01-21T15:19:00.000-06:00

Yo guys its not Grand Theft Auto the game. Its Graduate Teaching Assistant. Yep finally got an assistantship wat a relief. Now i have to pay less fees and shud b able to manage on my own. It was lucky that i landed this job. Well i had to take up this thing called TSE (test of Spoken English) that was for the GA post i was try ing in the library and since the posts at Library turned out to be GAS i thought it was a waste of money (It cost me 50$ to take up the test). So after all the other sources of funding had dried up. I thought lets try our Doc and see if he's got something for me, ( i wish i cud do that Bugs Bunny eshtyle "Wassup Doc" ) so i ask hime if he's got a job for me. He says "Do you know C????" and i say "Yes Dr. I know C" (of course i had studied it like 2 or 3 times in Engineering :D i had a few backlogs :D) . and then its abt TSE which i had taken up. SO he made me run around for a couple of weeks which unfortunately was during the Power shutdown and he says u have the job. SO there it is. But this sem I am a GRA (that means research assistant) eventhough i am teaching that class, ( some kirik not sure wat) otherwise wud have to pay just 15-25 % of the actual fees. But hey i did save up a lot by this GRA so no complaints ( except for the thought of a couple of hundred dollars more in my account which is close to bankruptcy).

When the Lights Go Out.....

2005-01-16T19:00:00.000-06:00

Ok i am not speaking abt the song performed by 5ive. This is reality. Some of you might be wondering y i havent blogged in a while. Sorry guys me been just a tad busy. Also we had a power failure here ( yes sire u read that rite a power cut that lasted 7 goddamn days). Yep and rite in the middle of winter Bam!. Now this was due to an ice storm that we had here (the official term here is freezing rain) so the freezing rain freezes all the branches on the trees and the tree branches bcome heavy and unable to carry the weight they break off from the tree ( and while doing so bring down the power cables near it). So that left us with no power for 7 days with temperatures ranging from -7 to -15 degs C. Well to make things worse other houses near us too had a blackout. So the first night witout power was spent at our own home wearing warm clothes and lots of blankets. Then came day 2. With not many options left we went to a place called "Bangladeshi" a mess near our house. The house beside the mess is our friends and they had power and he asked us to stay there during the period of the blackout. Without electircity nothing works here so we cudnt cook nor sleep at our place and hence we settled into my friends place. It was probably the longest week of my stay here. God was it awful. Will try and send the pics of the Ice storm to the different groups (not yet tried to place the pics on the website here).

It just gets better

2004-12-20T14:19:00.000-06:00

So my last blog read like it couldnt get much worse and guess wat happens??? It does get worse. So my GA is dashed by GAS as Karthik puts it, and u assume hell its just one day that your luck is dried out and boom another one drops on your head. So my grades where out and I had done poorly in the last exam of one of the subjects. I had done well though in the previous tests and xams of the same subject and thought that should ride me through this one. Well as luck goes i get a "C" in the damn subject because of one bad day. So i had to call the grader up and tried persuading him to give me a "B" atleast. Not that i was worried abt a "C" but all my friends were like "C" :O. So it was catch hold of someone to get ur markds time again. Had to ask him like crazy to help me out. So we go back to the answer sheet and check for nething he has missed and find that he had not corrected one answer. So it was back to B. Well my luck seems to be holding at this point (rather making a late appearence). But hoping for the best (to get a GA i.e.). Karthik all the best wit ur GAS man hope u bcome one too this sem.

Reality Strikes

2004-12-15T14:09:00.000-06:00

Damn,

Here goes. I had applied for a GA (i.e is Graduate Assistantship) Post at the library where i work. I was not the only guy who had applied, but i was hoping for an interview atleast. Guess wat happens, a dumb person who does not know how to operate a printer gets a call and i dont. Tuff luck??? My ass. God i almost hate this place now. I still cant understand how she landed at the job in the first place??? She knows zilch abt computers and she was hired to be a Computer Help Desk. Fantastic. Life goes one here. Its bcome like a rat race here for aid here. Lets c wat happens.

Thanksgiving

2004-12-05T14:01:00.000-06:00

Hey guys . I did blog a coule of days ago. But for some freaking reason it was not published.So here goes. Last week was the thanksgiving week (shud i say weekend here). So there is this huge hype abt shopping on thanksgiving day and stuff. There is this offer about giving out vouchers to people who want to buy stuff there and this is handeed out on a first come first serve basis so most of them come in at the nite and stay there the whole night to get the vouchers and stuff there. One of my friends wanted to buy a Laptop and he had looked at a particular deal at a particular store. SO we went to this store at around 12 in the night so that we could be the first few guys. As it turns out its going to be a cold night and a long wait (the store opens at 6:00 ). We were there with some warm clothings and gloves and stuff. Luckily we met some other "Desi's" there. SO it was gud timepass. Went out grabbed coffee and sat there waiting for Morning. Well it was a long wait in the cold. It got real cold by the time it was 2am ( almost unbearable), the other guys had a car so we wud go and sit in the car for a while.By 3 it was to freaking cold, so we went to Walmart ( supermarket which is open 24 hrs) and bought a pair of gloves. It was a relief for another 2 hrs. The last half an hour (from 5:30 to 6) was too much to bare . Once the door was opened all of us rushed in and grabbed watever was the best deal ( at least the ones we thought were the best deals). BTW i grabbed a 100 pack DVD for 20$. Neways life goes on here and it sometimes gets boring but this monday was real gud fun had a graduation party for one of the seniors and had gud fun. Cannot post the details here but will try to send the pics to a chosen few.

Worst news ever

2004-11-18T23:06:00.000-06:00

Guys it breaks my heart to know that Britney Spears is a Saggi (oh no y o lord y?? Of all the ppl in the world u had to make her a Saggi)

Settling my ass

2004-11-18T21:27:00.000-06:00

Dude me not take long time to settle nywhere. U guys know as well as i do, place no bar for me. The thing though is an emptiness, u guys are not there nor are some other close buddies and one important person is far too. So its kind of lonely. Not exactly lonely, but wen ur alone u start to think abt how it wud be if u guys were here or shit like that. I am used to staying alone witout my parents or family, but never been away from my friends as such. I do have friends here but its not the same (i guess it cant be the same). I know i am rambling here so lemme take a min off to think and type some sense here. Ok done wit the relaxing. Come on guys post some news abt Bangalore and how its doing. Not the stuff that rags posts.
Now to get on wit life and wats happening here..... the weather seems to be ok(i.e its not chilly anymore) and the climate seems to b on the warmer side ( yes sir 11degs C is gud here) so thats fine. Everything till now was fine but.....We seem to b having trouble with some ppl here though. There was a robbery in the nxt street (desi's were robbed BTW) and my roomies car window was smashed ( yes sir they were but noone knows y? ) and there were some shootings here (gulp but they did manage to catch the culprit the one wit the gun that is ). My guess wud b its holiday time and these guys hav run out of dough (like they know how to save) and they r trying all means possible. So thats the excitment here.
Now Mr. Vevck u hav posted som beautiful picture on ur blog mind letting me in on how to do it?? U better post soon or mail it to me soon or u gonna hear a lot of bad words and u aint gonna like it. So get them here or ur blog or the group mssg asap.
Btw guys have learnt how to cook some gud suff here shud get better as days go by and Mc D has bcom a life saver. Grab one (rather two) as u feel hungry. Nyways Njoi maadi and chill maadi

MISTY

2004-11-16T23:47:00.000-06:00

Ok thats not the girl in the GTA 3 game (and neither is it of a person). Its the weather here that is actually misty. Yesterday i.e Monday 15th Nov was a fantastic day(rather the evening was awesome). I finished all my classes and came back home at around 4:30 (PM of course). I happened to look out as to how the weather was and surprise surprise it was all mist ( boy did it look gr8). Reminded me of all the times that i had at Kodai ( one of the best years i have spent of my life is at Kodai). Going away to Green Valley View to have pakoras in the Misty weather (wat fun). Well since we cudnt get pakoras here we (Ashok one of my buddies and I) decided to have hot burgers at least. The weather was real nice wish i cud have had Masala Puri or some pakodas in that weather i wud have given nything for it. So we had to settle for Burgers.

We came back and were relaxing wen we had a surprise coming our way. One of my roomies (who has been here for a year) started preparing pakoras. Oh man did he make some gud ones or wat. He made capsicum pakoras, Onions and brinjal pakoras. Boy they were so gud. It made my day here. But guess still miss those masala puris. Nyways more to come Adios amigos.

And Damn does it get Cold out here

2004-11-10T14:49:00.000-06:00

Sometimes u think it cant get ny worse and it gets colder (a freaking -2 degs C this week). God forget the world save me. Btw i bought a comp wit an Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 128 MB agp card. And have started playing games on the comp. Man hav i missed out on Need for speed Underground or what? Checked out the demo for NFS undrgrnd 2. Its awesome graphics(In case u guys where wondering y i havent blogged in so long now you know:-) ). Nyways found the photos for the India Nite fest ( I really look like a hanger wit some clothes on it, i actually thought my friends were joking abt it :-( ). I thought i wud post them here but i dont know how to :-) (Not yet a punter, forget punter not even a novice wit web designing). Gud to c some of my friends Blog like Karthik and Vevck (who btw has uploaded loys of images, how abt teaching me how to do that pal???). Dont know abt others if u do leave a comment and i will check ur Blogs.This friend of mine Gopi had come down for the weekend. So we took him out to Americas Pub and danced the night away and then came back and watched some movies. Speaking abt movies watched Shawshank Redempton and Seven this week real good movies wonder how i missed those movies??? If ny of u guys havent watched it yet pls watch them they are real good. Nyways i think thats all i have to say for the day or week or hour ( i dont know) other than that GTA Vice City is neat too). I also bought Enter The Matrix game which came for real cheap 2 dollars (yes sir u heard that or shud that b read that right 2 dollars ). Its a good game and always wanted to play it. So i bought it :-D.

Brrrr...... ITs Chilly

2004-11-03T17:14:00.000-06:00

Hey Guys

Sorry for the long break ( break my ass like i had a choice) that i took from blogging. The reason being that i had umpteen number of homeworks to submit and tests to take up. And had to help organize a function for the Indian Students Association. Well i have been busy the past few days (as u can see from the lines above). How did i help??? Well these guys here are awesome planners so planned everything ( and left it at that) so at the end time i had to create a Postor for ISA also a handout and run around for ISA. Well it was fun designing the postor for ISA ( its not xactly an original but its neither a complete copy). I kept the background and outer cover same and changed a few things around. The postor came out pretty well (especially in color) and i learnt Photoshop ( i know photoshop now).

So the India Nite ( name of the function ) was over on friday. And things cooled down a bit ( no Hectic running around ), and then it cooled down too much for nyones liking (the temperature as i write rather type is 6 deg C). So saturday was chill day ( BTW forgot to tell u guys, the president of ISA threw a party for all the volunteers later, beer flowed till 4 in the morning and the president performed a dance for the group). Sunday was travel day. We went to Kansas City to meet a friend of mine ( his name is Gopi and he is working for Honeywell ) and also to meet a roomies Cousin. It was a 4 hrs drive and was fun (especially bcos i was not driving) Had some burgers and we were on the way. It was fun driving to this place. The weather was overcast and the wind was cool. Went to the cousins place and had some gud food (after a long time) roamed around a bit and had food at Ruchi Restaurant ( Indian food at last ). Well my plans of having good masala dosa were dashed by the food that this restaurant gave us as Dosa's (bad was an understatement). And then drove back to Wichita. Then had to start of with the assignment submission. So it was a pretty busy fortnight. Btw the temperatures keep dropping almost daily

Another Blog so soon

2004-10-13T23:40:00.000-05:00

Hey guys

I know this is something new for me too. A blog again and so soon. Right now i am listening to RHCP - californication one of my favourite songs. Well i was browsing the net wen i hit upon this awesome site which has the almost all the pics off calvin and hobbes. Its really neat. U guys might want to check it out here is the link

http://members.tripod.com/Max_Simpsons/calvin/

Check it out guys its awesome. I love this comic strip. Its real neat. Nyways missing my friends real bad here. I mean i have friends here but its not the same. ( Now i have moved to the next song Papa Roach - Last resort another of my favs). The last place i heard this song was at B11.

I was thinking abt my last few days in Bangalore. My last day at work was a bit weird. Since i did not plan to work that day i went dressed in jeans to work (which btw is not allowed other than on weekends). Went and spoke to my ops abt the resignation and filled in some crappy forms and stuff. (Btw i had borrowed my uncles car, Y? for the heck of it). By the time it was done it was abt 12 and my mom had called me asking me not to come back till nxt morning ( dont ask me y? I dont know ok) so wat do i do?? I roamed around abt a bit went and spoke to my lcs (language coach) who is real nice and a gr8 friend of mine. Spoke wit all the lcs who had bcome gr8 friends of mine while i was working there (yep i make friends fast and easily). Since my friends were busy taking calls i kept loafing around eating drinking coffee and bugging my Tm and lc over and over again (u c they cudnt kick me out yet). Nyways i got tired and bugged abt doing that so i went back to my car and slept in it (trust me guys its not easy doing that especially in a maruti 800). My friends came and woke me up at around 6 and we left back to my palce wit a few gud friends of mine (by which time my mom had started calling me and asking where i was).

Now why am i blogging this ?? Well one of my roomies was speaking abt an incident where he had to spend time in car bcos he didnt hav id which reminded me abt this incident. (somehow everything reminds me abt the time i had wit my friends). I guess i miss u all too much

Nyways take care guys

Remmber dont drink and drive smoke weed and fly.

Long time no c

2004-10-12T18:48:00.000-05:00

Hey guys

Sorry abt the long time i took for the next blog.Been a bit busy of late. We had exams this week and i was tryng to prepare for it since the previous week. Now thats something new isnt it ?? I mean me and studies no way. Guess thats wat happened i tried to study and was still trying to wen the exams xame up wit just 2 days to go.

Guess wat we did?? As usual burnt the midnight lamp or oil (as well as the way too early morning oil, yes sir upto 3 am). And as usual i wasnt confident of doing well in the xams and i think thats wat leads to my doing badly in the xams. So now i have finished my mid terms for 2 of the subjects ( but i still have one more subject to complete and that my dear friends is the mother of all subjects because i have to start from scratch on this one). The way things are going dont know wen i will b screwed.

Nyways been to this pub here its called American Pub. It was not the most happening place but was gud enuf for a start. They had a live rock band performing as well as dance floor in the same pub which was pretty neat (especially since the band was playing some gud originals). So we spent the time dancing and head banging a bit. Now bfore we went to this place we tried one which was pretty close to our school (yes sir we call it school here). Its called Field House and it sucks (at least the interiors does).Well these guys ask for id nywhere u go and u need to have the age proof on the id(since i did not have one i was not allowed there until i got one from home ). We went into the place and this place looked like a bar in bangalore.I mean Guzzlers is better than this place (so u can guess how bad it was ). Nyways we had a gud time at the American Pub (it was a friends treat btw).

India lose the first test against Australia and some jerk posts a blog saying it was Rahuls fault bcos he did not concentrate enuf and was out. Now that's Ridiculous. How the beep can u blame Rahul Dravid for the loss??? Wat the beep were the other beepers doing u crazy beep??? Stupidity. Here is the website
http://o3.indiatimes.com/cricket/ goddamn crazy beep.

Btw hav been listening to this radio station here which plays only rock (it was pretty gud the first few days) but then they kept repeating some of the songs over and over so they got a bit boring. Some of the songs that i did like are Korn - Woed Up and Alter Bridge (previously Creed wit a new lead singer ) - Open your eyes, also a band called Breaking Benjamin - So cold, Marilyn Manson - Personal Jesus. Some of the songs i liked.

Nyways hope everyone is njoing?? Missing India and bangalore like crazy. Mostly bcos my friends r there. Wenever i listen to some of the favourite songs i think abt the Pubs that we had heard it in and wat a time we had in Bangalore. Wish all my friends were here.

America America

2004-09-28T20:50:00.000-05:00

I dont know wat came over me the last time i was blogging. I think it was the news that one of my friends was in ICU and i had too many things going wrong (Btw that friend of mine is fine now thank u for asking).So u guys wanna know how r things here??? I am in a bad shape here. U guys must hav heard of monday morning blues??? Well my mondays are real bad.

This is how my mondays generaaly are. My first class is at 10 am which goes on till abt 10:50 am and then we have a break till 1:00pm and a class again. This time a Lab from 1:00 - 3:30 pm. Then a class at 4:10 - 6:10 pm and after that a class at 7:05 - 9:05 pm.

Sounds simple doesnt it?? And u might as well ask wats the big deal?? Well for one each one of these classes put up an assignment to b submitted on monday. And the classes the from 4:10 onwards dont make sense at all they just go on and on and on (reminds u of duracell batteries dont they???). Whats more they are real tuff. I tried reading them (studying is too hard for me). So the time in between is taken up to finish up all my homeworks and stuff. So as i come out of a Sunday i hit rush hour big time .

I have been trying to help out a friend of mine to forget abt bangalore for a while but its not helping her much. I had asked her to blog watever she felt. But she has not gotten into the act yet. Nyways i find bloging helps relieve some tension and frustration and relaxes a person to a certain xtent (in fact writing of any kind does that) it takes ur mind of the blues of life.

Weird This US of A

2004-09-25T11:26:00.000-05:00

This place is got to be weird. I mean tell me which other country or channel or whatever would telecast a show abt husbands cheating on wives and boys sleeping wit their gfs mother and stuff like that. God this place sucks, sucks and sucks even more. Talk abt washing dirty linen in public ( i know these guys are experts in this field by now who can forget Clintons impeachment trial, kosovo war). These guys show ppl dressing in their inner garments and walking on the streets as if its a fashion show of some sort and this lady is supposed to be a daughter of two kids and thats the way she dresses nywhere she goes ( i dont know if i shud kick myself for watching that show, y did i ever watch it).

Well i guess our star plus is much better wit all the k series soaps that they have.Now why i am i bitching so much abt this plac?? I generally don do that. I try to find good things in almost ny place i go to (really, i was trying to find something good in the salty dog i had at Bageecha the other day my friends jagdish, harsha and vishwas will vouch for it). This place is calm, its green, the roads are good, it has its own rock station (FM of course) have some friends and all that (yada yada yada). I think i know the real reason why i am bitching abt this place. I dont have the kind of friends i had in bangalore. All i had to do in bangalore was call nyone of them and they wud be ready to do nything for me. If i cud not study i knew i had my friends kiran prabhu and others who wud help me out, if i wanted to party i knew i cud call these guys or maalu,raggs, vivek and snehal or even jagi and the gang. I have always had a friend who was ready to do nything for me. And i think most of them knew that they cud xpect the same from my side. Even though they hav a rck radio station its not the same as sitting wit my friends (the above mentioned included) kaushal, anil manik and arun and others at PH (purple haze), B11 or at Styx and banging ur head to some rock music. I knew that if i was low all i had to do was go to B11 at jaynagar and ask my friend Ishwar (he is the DJ there) to play some of my favs songs (3 doors down - loser, kryptonite or Pearl Jam - Jeremy) something that wud lift me up. But here i feel a bit lonely. I do have friends but its fend for urself here. Its not the same as in Bangalore ( i know i cant xpect it to be that way) it puts me down for sometime ( my low time is generally 30 mins but its increasing a bit). Y do i sound so low in life??? Bcos one of my firends is in the hospital right now (ICU) in bang and i goddamn cant do nything abt it............. I cant even freaking go see him now.

I guess i am not the only one who feels so down around here. I was on my way to work (at the library) when i saw this "Desi" looking up and she suddenly started to cry. We spoke abt it and she definitely felt better after that ( yes she was missing her parents). I guess i am a good healer i think i hav always been able to lighten the mood up by cracking a joke (or making a fool of myself in front of others). But wat abt the healer ??? who heals him??? I guess thats not possible. Atleast i hav the option of calling my cousin on a toll free no and speak to him at length, i guess that shud do. I guess i am missing too many ppl from bangalore and most of all i am missing bangalore.

One thing i can b sure of though is that if i had my friends here i dont think i wud have missed bangalore so much.

Y wichita ??????????

2004-09-22T15:57:00.000-05:00

The big question. Well the answer is I DONT KNOW. Its always ben that i land-up at a place abt which i hav heard once and mostly by chance. Y guys dont believe me. Try this then.

When i was in tenth i used to go to my friends place to study hindi (ya i was real bad at it, my shs and bgv friends will vouch for it). There during the exam i heard abt a college for the first time it was called B.N.E.S (ever heard of it ??? I guess no, bcos i hadnt heard of it myself till that day and i completed my PU there, get it, still not satisfied??). Now we had hindi in PU as well so back to this friends place for hindi classes. We had completed our PU exams (1st PU i.e) when this friend of ours comes along and speaks abt a college which has bus service (i.e for students to travel to and fro) and i was who the beep is gonna go there never heard of this place noways i am going there (and the place rather the college was SJCIT, chickballapur) and yes i did go there and bet my B.E degree there (dont ask me how i somehow managed to get a degree). Now i never planned to go to US of A. I always wanted to go to Germany for my masters and i heard (later i came to know that it was not a very reliable source) that they required GRE scores as well as toefl. So i registered for GRE and TOEFL classes(an utter waste of money never evr go to career plan they bloody cheated us) as well as Exam (r u wondering where this is leading u??? read on and u will know). So i am studying for GRE (from BARONS) during the night (which is the best time to study at least according to me). I was listening to Radiocity Rebel Yell (yes they did play awesome rock songs god knows y they removed it , Radiocity is bcome one hindi channel, god they play soaps on it now ) then this song came along called The Seven NAtion Army - By White Stripes (when awesome song check it out) and it had a paticular line that went " i am going to wichita far from the opera forever more" and guess where i landed (no points for guessing).

BTW it was the same wit convergys where i worked also nagarbhavi where i lived, i mean somethings very wrong or maybe right here isnt it???? Dont you think so????

Job Search.com

2004-09-15T18:39:00.000-05:00

We wait at class room 209 at the Ablah Library (i warned u abt the names) as the interview is from 3-5 pm. Since others had turned up much earlier than we did. We had to wait till the others were first interviewed. The wait felt similar to the job hunting waits that u xpect back in India we had to stand and wait for oue turn (old hindi movie ishtyle the only difference being that there was an AC running). I also made some friends while waiting there. There where this group from Andhra who probably thought they were in Hyderabad and were making enuf noise that cud b heard acroos the interview room. They went on and on and on............ like duracell batteries. (No offence meant and hope none taken). One of the ppl (out of the new friends i made at the interview) is a champion TT player who was looking for someone to play TT wit. We decided to play on an upcoming day (more abt that later).

The interview went fine and he was pretty impressed by my knowledge on computers and especially on windows ( yes i am pretty good wit computers and have seen the whole line of Windows series come thru). Then came the blow. Here they hav this Social security no. which identifies if a person is allowed to work or not. Its an important part of the hiring process and since i did not hav one (i had not applied for it as we had to get some stuff from the OIE bfor we cud do that and that was not available at the time) i was rejected. He did ask me to come back and speak to him once i did get one. It was the same wit most of the students. So it was back to another week of looking around for jobs. In between i tried to search around for assistantship (now that has to b a different story). I generally woke up and left home by 8 in the morning looking for on campus jobs and as luck wud hav it never managed to get another interview.

This friend of mine (who plays TT) is a pro. We have this leisure place called (ok another name i cant help it ) Heskett Center where we can play most of the sports, they also handout sports equipments like tt racquets (which is called Ping pong paddles here, now dont ask me y? bcos i dont know either) . The pro had his own custom built (i am not joking abt this) racquet while i had to make do wit one that was loaned to me by this place. The racquet was abt 3-5 mm thick wit another layer which was another mm thick. I lost most of the games (we palyed abt 30 games 11pointers and i won abt 5 of them)

One fine day there arrives a mail at my yahoo id asking me to meet the person who had interviewed me. The mail arrived at a bad time though (as i was trying to create my assignment report) and it was chance that made me actually check my mail at that time. I was trying to mail a friend of mine (whom i had promised to meet at another lab so that we cud work on it) to give him a different location to come to. I went and spoke to the person and was hired immediately. Thats where i chat wit Sharat (SHS), Priya (BGV), Vivek (Bang),Jagdish (Wright State), Kaushal (Chicago) ,Madan (convergys) and also check my mail. Its an easy going job and is good for my mind as well as my eyes.

P.S will blog more as things come up.

P.P.S Sad part is there are no party animals among the Desi's here :-(. God knows how i am gonna spend 2 yrs here.

At Wichita

2004-09-13T01:15:00.000-05:00

Ok now that i have arrived here wat do i do?? The big question??????? The seniors place where i was taken to from the airport where from bangalore (most of them) so it was much like a hostel to me. They are good ppl who let me ransack their kitchen and refrigerator. They prepared food for me (and themselves of course) the only thing that i had to do was to clean the plate or any utensil that i used, which was pretty easy. The first 2 days was mostly rest time for me. The only thing that we had to do was register at the office of international education saying that we were in Wichita (which hardly took 5 mins) and open a bank account here (which took another 5 mins). Now the same thing in India would have taken days i think (not sure bcos never bothered to open one there).

Day1 goes by and a friend of mine (another chap from karnataka who had arrived earlier) took us around (another desi) the campus and showed us some of the major buildings (which btw have dumb names Jabbara, Devlin, Linquist to name some). We come back home have lunch and sleep. Wake up in the evening some time and watched the TV (yes sir they had a tv, vcr and a dvd player to boot). Breakfast was mainly cereals, lunch wud generally b something prepared the previous night and dinner wud b freshly prepared by the seniors. It was easy going for a while.

We had to meet our grad advisor and register for classes so that we would not lose out on the major courses. After deciding on which course to take we went to Jardine Hall (another dumb name) and tell some old ladies (who were pretty sweet and helpful) the course of our choice so that we could b alloted to those classes.

Here is the campus map. Hope its helpful http://www.wichita.edu/online/map.asp, I live near the palce where it says Brennan Hall. Some more free time to spend. Then we had to pay the fees for the courses decided at (guess where???? another name of course) Rhatigan Student Center.

( you can also try this maybe more helpful http://www.wichita.edu/campustour/)

After some more time pass (which mainly consisted of watching tv) and finishing The Da Vinci Code (which is a good book btw but very predictable) it was time to get our Shocker card (th student id card is called that dont ask me why ok... I told u abt stupid names didnt I ). The peace was shattered by the seniors asking us to search for jobs on campus which meant roaming around the campus in the hot sun ( yes sir its burning hot here right now got to kick that a******* at eastern stores who said it wud b bloody cold there and made me carry an overcoat at this time). Its no easy thing to do. U have to go to every bloody building and drop in ur resume's there which again is done differently here, it has to b a single page and impressive as well (talk abt saving paper and the expect us to use paper to do u know wat? ) So ther is a job at the library is the news so all of us go there (there were 25 students for 5 positions and all were from u guessed it right INDIA).

Did i get a job???? Lets find out but not right now bcos i have to submit 4 assignments and take 2 tests 2moro and i am pretty tired.

Arrival at wichita

2004-09-08T23:46:00.000-05:00

This would b my account of life at the US of A. The supposed land of opportunities.

Arrived here at Wichita on the 9th Aug 2004. The flight as such from Bangalore, India to Wichita, KS started out pretty well. Trouble (as in inconvenience) started while landing at mumbai itself. The air hostess in Air India never bothered to ask us if we wanted cotton- wool for the ears . And while landing at mumbai the pain of leaving my fav city wit some very fond memories, special ppl was cubed with ear throbbing pain.

The food during the first lap (i.e till Frankfurt) was good. But then Air India managed to screw that up as well during the second lap of the flight (with some awful food). I did have company though. I was seated bside two desi's (sand niggers as we are known here) who were on the way to Chicago. The journey was good with some awesome views of the alps and the autobahn in Germany.

We arrived at Chicago at around 5:30 pm on Aug 9th. We were made to switch terminals abt 4 times which made me wonder if i was actually in US or some place in India. We finally boarded the plane at 8:30 instead of the scheduled 7:30 pm. Landed at Wichita at around 9:30 pm. The flight as such was good (bcos i slept thru most of it). Some of the seniors were waiting for us at the airport and picked us up.

To b continued.............