Yesterday's Sunshine.......

When he came running up the slope ................ the mountain had seemed greener till a few moments before, the clouds a little nearer and the far away mountain slopes not so far away. But the world changed when he burst out shouting ....he had made it. He had just got news that the University had accepted him. There was hardly any time now. He would have to be there within a week or lesser if possible. I had never felt the ground slipping away from beneath my feet so fast. I turned away ...I think I did a good job of hiding some persistent drops of water in my eye .......and I am sure he did not guess. But I have later asked myself many a time........wouldn't it have been better to have let one stubborn tear drop escape and fall just so that he would have seen it ........ and realized and stopped and never turned to go away again. From that moment we hardly got time together. He never guessed or tried to realize the unspoken words......and I ......waited. I have no idea for what or why. It had just seemed so complete........him, with me , suddenly. It could hardly have been six month that he had intruded into my life, my mountains......... a new neighbor, eager to make friends, to get to know the people around. Before, the peaks sloping away in the distance .......had always seemed so remote yet so familiar. Somehow everything changed after he came. I had known myself to be independent and to know all...... after all this was where I had grown up. How could someone show me more about what I had explored and trekked so thoroughly. And yet he made me learn more about those same mountains that I had known more than him ....sometime. We ...would stand hand in hand at the edge of the slope............ drawing deep breaths from the steep incline in front of us and the vast greens behind. Those warm hands clasped in one another's...................... those clouds which bore witness. It seemed as if that was life. ...... this was life. There couldn't have been anything more complete....... than the understanding we shared. The dependency that had grown, the support we craved for from each other........ taking for granted that the other would understand..... it was not that we didnt fight. We would not speak to each other for days and then suddenly one of us would come running to show the other a new butterfly ...... and all the brawls would be forgotten. We saw the world through the colored eyes of a child and never knew when time overtook us....... and never realized that we would have to move on. And the same slopes that had been our playmate stood mutely watching as we said goodbye. A hurried goodbye kiss, a train waiting somewhere ........ it didnt wait for him to understand..... or did he. I always wondered whether he heard me say what I didnt say, I so wished he would. So wished he would stop and turn. I needed him so ...did he not need me too. I had always dreamt how when I fell in love everything would be perfect. My hero always at my side and always at my bidding. And I had realized that love was nothing like that. Love demanded as much as it gave........ but I had walked the world in his shoes and I wanted to share his life just as I had made him a part of mine. I stood alone on that slope that evening ....... it had been a long time since the mountain had seen me alone. And I wondered if it had been jealous ....and I smiled to myself and I felt the mountain echo my smile. And I turned to make my way back home as the lights started coming out ....dotting the cottages on the mountain side. inspiration : eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, a song playing on my ipod which must be "i never saw blue like that ", and alone at home ........

Yoga... and me

Its not that I have not tried yoga before. I remember the yoga classes I had dragged Monika into for a month and though we had enjoyed a trip to Coimbatore at the end of it, I know Monika will not ever bless me for that experience. What with all the asanas and the hypnotizing feel good talk ........... :)

I am just back from a yoga class. Luann and Sudhir and me ...... I loved it. I was quite the one out of shape....I didn't need the mirror in front to tell me that. Mine were the legs that wobbled when you had to raise them to the ceiling and hold them there. I wonder if I even managed to touch the ground without bending my knees once. It was Hatha yoga and they had music in the background. It was not the chanting music but felt something more akin to japanese ...... whatever it was .... it was soothing. The exercises were concentrated on breathing but involved a few of the asanas as well.
Towards the end of the class we were told to lie down facing up and to rest with long breaths. It was then that the instructor kept telling us to inhale love and acceptance and breathe out negativity, judgements, criticism, to feel the support and safety of the ground, to forget the day ahead or the morning behind us. He told us to think of three people in turn, one whom we loved, one who had just crossed our paths and one whom we found difficult and challenging and to direct our energies in wishing each of them well, assuring them of our good intentions.

I was so surprised at his words,...................was this what everybody wants in life. "Exhale criticism, negativity, judgements, inhale love and acceptance"........Was this the same question that plagued everyone. How did he know ...that I had been warping myself with these negative thoughts all day long. Or does everybody go through the same up and down as me everyday ?

That is a different matter altogether, that I have started to think of myself as a neurotic , nervous-disorder patient nowadays ........maybe thats why his words seemed soothing and to use the technical term in vogue "personalized " :).

I think a yoga class should be the next thing on my agenda. Maybe thats the only thing that will save me from insanity. :)

Reprimanding myself.

There are some things which I hate doing (like feeling sorry for myself) ....and those are usually the things I am ending up doing most of the time nowadays. It was of my own volition that I decided I am not going anywhere these holidays ....and then suddenly I had to fall sick which always takes a terrible beating on the emotional aspect of things. And thats it! Thats all I needed to feel sorry about ....about being left alone with no friends, nowhere to go and having only to work from 8-4 and then being too tired to explore anything else. The only thing I feel like doing all day is sleeping.

And if it had not been for me feeling unhappy and pitying myself at this moment then there are so many ...but so many things to do and laugh at. The most interesting would probably be the third point perspective. Standing aloof and looking at the world around you, whizzing by. I have led a comparatively sheltered life.............. no heart-breaks or heart-losses so far. And I have listened to both other girls and guys telling me about how they were let down. And somehow each side ended up saying that probably that is a characteristic trait of the other group. I wish I could tell them that it is the person and never the group that it is at fault. And speaking about fault, maybe even that I cannot be too hasty at judging.

I actually also screwed up one grade of mine.....and I think that is the cause that I am still deeply wallowing in self-misery/pity. Getting up and looking forward has somehow never been my cup of tea.

After a long time , yesterday I had to sleep with the lights switched on throughout the night becoz I was scared. Or was that also another emotional backlog !!!!

Usually at times like this only something drastic gives a sense of satisfaction. I was thinking of deleting my blog :) well thats only as far drastic as I can think. Unfortunately I cannot figure out how to do that and I need some pointers. Anybody out there ?????

Nature-ally

There is something which refuses to let me be tied to practical reality at all times. When I walk home from the University, I can't help imagine that the mountain in the distance forms the outline of a girl's face lying down , the pout of her lips and cheeks, her closed eyes ....... and here face turned to the heavens. I can't help but imagine that the house I just crossed with all its shuttered windows and practically with no movement to be seen anywhere might be the prison of the mad woman in the attic from the story ......(will fill in later when I remember).

A fickle brain, or devil's workshop or simply escapist .....well all of it has its charms. At the end of the day the house will just be a shuttered house and the mountain will just be another mountain. It was just that those moments of the girl staring at the sky and the mad woman following my movements from behind her shuttered prison just made them so real for a few moments ...... more real than they were never before.

I learnt today , yesterday........... its easy to mess up. Easiest when you put your whole heart to it bcoz you want it to go right. And there are those days, when you are least concerned about what happens bcoz it doesn't matter to you so much and ....that day everything goes right and you come out with flying colors. Is it bcoz you did not attach importance to it ......... that you just let yourself go that the latter(which mattered not at all) turned out better than the first(which mattered the world to you) or what !!!
Not in the mood to write anymore today.

Too abstract a post

Everybody has a past and we really don't give much time to think about it in our fast-paced lives. Its probably as some of you might argue, what people do when they have nothing else to do and failing memories. But sometimes there are these connections ..... and you are transported back in a second - and there you are...... standing in your school auditorium reliving a particularly embarassing moment or remembering and smiling to yourself at how you caught your parents acting Santa Claus.
If I sit and look back .....(not that I should be doing it, considering that I am in the middle of trying to get a filesystem working .....but both the monitor and I have taken to staring at each other for long intervals now and I thought I would take a break) the past that meets my eyes is one that kept getting better with time. And anything and everything that I could think of or want or wish for, I have had ......... maybe not at the time that I had wanted it but definitely when I had the maturity to accept it for what its true worth was and not just at face value.
With time, I have gained more acceptance not just because of myself but inspite of myself and those are things (things here do not even remotely come close to the word material) that I truly treasure because I know I am too lucky too have them. But further back in time, there are so many things that even if I were faced with today, I would try to evade , avoid .......... they were not unpleasant in themselves but I had lacked the courage to face them as I often have now as well.
But once I left my school days and went on to college, circumstances were such that I could not turn back and even if I have cried to go back to college after the long holidays at home ........... final year made up for all that in one swipe. You realise what you truly had when the time comes to part from it. College brought that realization to me more than once.
I sometimes wonder how important is acceptance, or rather if I may rephrase the question, how important is it to me...... and I know I give being accepted a lot more importance than I should.
I wonder if its the same with others as well......... and then I wonder (well you know how one trail of thought leads to another to another.....) why do I have this tendency to belong to a group and not just stand up alone ...... aside and independent. :) Maybe I was not built that way.
Everybody lives life on their terms, standing up for some principles that they believe in and believe to be right .......... and in the midst of it , in the midst of all this mumbo jumbo philosphy they are still trying to breathe and live and laugh ............... and in the midst of all of that , somewhere is where I should start learning to ..... too.

Laughing to myself.....

I had been thinking about starting this post off in a very philosophical tone (:)) just to show that I am on my way to becoming a philosophical guru) tone..... but as always, the blog itself takes a different turn when I start to write.
Thanksgiving was last week ...... and I don't know what kept me from writing about it for so long except that I had this project submission which finally got over yesterday night. Last week of semester, too hectic...lots ofprojects submissions and the finals. Among occassional spats, brawls and quarrels (I do sound like a cat here, don't I ?) thanksgiving day turned out too good to be true. Shalini and I tried our hand at baking a chocolate cake which turned out quite good.
Luann picked us all up by 11 and we were off to Sabino Canyon - her home. Her home was a cozy little house ....for me it seemed the coziest place to stay in. It had a backyard where she had planted bougainvilleas ......and it looked out to the Santa Rita mountains in the south. With portico chairs under an open sky,with the moutains far away....... I couldn't even dream of spending an afternoon otherwise. It seemed exactly like a cottage we would go to spend our holidays and where Maa would say ..... this is where you can just sit and write or read all day.

Sabino canyon is one of THE tourist spots here. It is interspersed with trails for hiking and I saw more people hiking and walking there than I have in my four months in Tucson. To say its beautiful is an understatement ........ if you look closely at the green mountains (green becoz of the saguaro or cactus) you will see the trails that wind around them and you would even be able to make out athletic people who had overtaken you on those distant mountain tracks. But what would probably be breath-taking ......would be when after climbing a little incline you looked back on a winding road and saw the green, yellow and autumn colored (....could find no better word to describe the color.......) trees standing tall over the road.
That was how Darjeeling was and that is what I love about the mountains. They seem so impersonal , holding back a mountain of secrets in themselves as if their lips are sealed.........and at the same time modestly displaying their expanse , and beauty. Some of the names which Luann pointed out and which sort of stuck with me were thimble peak, rattlesnake trail, esperrero trail, bluff trail......... I am sure I would have got lost pretty soon on the Rattlesnake trail....it was just a worn out path with rocks all around and quite a bit of climbing up and down and moving around the mountain side. I had been out of exercise for quite sometime (not that I ever exercise......my only exercise would be walking triangles in campus between department, work and home)...so you can guess that I was panting by the end of it. :)

The hike was energising but we were all ravenous by the end of it.... and the thought of the turkey seemed too inviting ..........(roasting in the oven in Luann's kitchen). During dinner, even though the turkey and cranberry sauce topped the list ...but they were joined by mashed potatoes, salads, turkey gravy, noodles in chicken broth , tofurkey (vegetarian turkey made from soy beans I think), a pumpkin pie, cheese cake with sweet potatoes and our chocolate cake. (It was quite a spread quite like a famous five dinner just before they start out on one their adventures).
Need I mention, we were too full to move after dinner....so we sat around the fireplace chatting, and exchanging thoughts ........ its been a long time since I have actually sat down and discussed something as if I were among friends. It was good to get the feeling back. My first thanksgiving ended on a brilliant note that day ...all thanks to Luann.
The week as all weeks go ....was just another waiting for the weekend to come. Though I managed to watch Kate and Leopold in between. :) Sweet movie and does bring a smile to yor lips.

Today I chance happened to come across this blog by Samit Basu becoz of Shalini. If I remember having read correctly, he gave up a management career to start writing. That ofcourse started me off on one of my day-dreams......... about why am I doing this ! Sitting here and studying when I could stay with my family and write. .....not that I write great :) but its something I like and which I can do with the least amount of stress or hardwork. .......... Well then I realised , maybe an authoress' life wouldn't be that easy too. (I am always looking for an easy life .......!!! :)) So why not just go ahead and do everything.....learn, study , watchmovies, write, read, hike.....I'll keep adding to that list :).
Today there were a lot of things which brought a smile to my lips. ........ right now what came to my mind was this comment by my physics tutor in class XII ........ you should be good at whatever you are, if you are a student be the best student you can be ..........(and he would end it off with) if you are a thief be the best thief .... :)
Well to leave you on that note.......bon voyage.

Aztecs , Indians and Ice-cream

Tucson has suddenly become cold..... its freezing when you stand in the shadows and warm , rather hot while walking under the sun. Luann, Shalini and I settled down on the lawn of the Arizona State museum where there was a mexican mask exhibition in the museum along with Indian (red-indian) jewellery displayed. Mainly ornate silver, german silver , brass and copper necklaces, bracelets, and belt buckles. Some of the necklaces had bear claws. There were even two pictures of the Red Indian, one in his office as a member of the US senate and one in his traditional costume with the feather head-dress and painted face. It sort of time-ported you to a different century.

Outside on the lawn, there were 4 girls and an old-man whom we later came to know was 63 years of age. Two of the girls were in the white flowing dresses with the head-bands...... like red-indian girls in pictures. The other two had elaborate head dresses on, with long feathers which swayed in the wind, and white and black dresses, and anklets which were actually made from seeds. The old man had long flowing gray hair tied back with a band. One of the girls had a rattle while the old man and the other girl held these hand-drums covered with cloth with short batons. The three of them formed a circle around a small platform which was arranged with two strands of the corn plant and some smoking incense and a conch. Then the drum beats started and simultaneously the three of them started their dance. They moved in and moved out, swayed and turned , constantly moving their legs, crossing them , bending and squatting and jumping back. The beats of the drums increased in tempo and then fell silent in waves. ......If you have heard the "dhols" of durga puja in Kolkata, you would know how your heart pounds to the echo of the drum beats, then you woul dprobably understand what I am talking about. I remember one time when as a girl I had been to this pandal as we call it, the place which houses the deity. I was right in front where the dhakis where.....the drummers. Then they slowly started playing their drums and moving around in a circle. The drum beats kept increasing till they were a deafening roar and the dhakis were dancing in a mad frenzy in the grip of their own beats..........pardon me for using a science term here, but it was probably the resonance of the drum beats with my heartbeat which made it pound so as if the sound was echoing through me.

At the end of the dance the old man talked about himself, an Indian, an aztec ...long washed out of history books. Did I not tell you that it was like being tele-ported to a different time. The last I think I had heard of Aztecs, was as one of the zones in the Crystal maze. But then the way the dancers were offerring their prayers to the sun, I did get a hint..... And also maybe bcoz as far as my limited history knowledge goes, I know of only the Incas and the Aztecs as those who worshipped the sun. The first dance as the old man later explained, was to ask dance to let them dance, which was amusing to hear.
Nevertheless, after that the three of us headed to Penguins where we tried out Peach Pumpkin, German Chocolate , and Chocolate Obsession flavors of ice-creams. Sitting under the warm Tucsan sun and eating our ice-creams while they melted ............ :) what could be better.

But thats not all what I have been doing on this long weekend due to Veteran's day. I got to watch three movies in two days. It started with Casablanca, and me falling head over heels over Ingrid Bergman and the story ....though I wish all old movies didn't turn out with such sad endings. It was a movie I had heard lots about......... and finally got a chance to watch. Then my department arranged for Charlie and the Chocolate factory movie (based on a book by Roald Dahl by the same name) to be screened using the projector in our classroom. This was part of the regular Thursday movie nights in our department. Only that, I haven't had a chance to attend many. This was a childrens' movie. There were a lot of songs and dances which I felt had direct Bollywood choreography influence. The movie did drag at times. Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka did not disappoint but he had a face masked with paint which hid a lot of his charm. The youngest boy from "Finding Neverland" starred as Charlie in the movie.

Later in the night, taking things a step further, Shalini and I watched Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in "You've got mail" for what must have been the fourth time for me. But I still did not remember all the scenes and many of the scenes brought different reflections this time round. Maybe I am getting old........they say that a book like Pride and Prejudice and other masterpieces should be read once every year or two .....bcoz each time it will bring a different meaning ..........bcoz of the change in your maturity and mentality and age. :) But the relationship that is shown in the movie has alwas been one of my favorites bcoz it so unknowingly touches your heart. "..but the dream of someone is still there......."- Meg Ryan. It just sets you off on one of the dreamy moods of the holiday season. Not that I do not dream on a weekday ......;)

Well ....a good weekend gone by and another week to look forward to. Semester is fast speeding by ........ it sometimes seems like I just arrived and yesterday was the 7th of August when I landed .........and sometimes it just seems like ages since I have seen home.

A spoonful of sugar....

Well the title of this post comes from the movie "Mary Poppins", starring Julie Andrews. It however does not have anything to do with the fact that I just finished watching "Sound Of Music" also starring Julie Andrews. But believe me, whenever you feel like losing yourself, and forgetting the world for sometime.......a movie is so much the spoonful of sugar you need to make the medicine go down.
Our professors here tell us to read a research paper more than once so that on the first reading, the idea becomes clear. The second and subsequent readings help you to analyse and criticize what has been done and proposed. I think , and don't kill me for the analogy ....that a movie works in quite the same way. I am not talking about every third movie ......but the masterpieces which are worth it and which you do watch a million times. Each time there is a little more detail that you pay attention to and which you would have glossed over the first time. It maybe the slight twitch of the eyebrow, or the pun at the end of a conversation or just the way that a card was flicked.......... its just what had added to give you the feel the first time that you saw it.....and which you are noticing only now.
Well ...by the amount I have been going on about movies, I should probably write my thesis on it rather than any computer science topic.
I sometimes feel I am so not meant for Computers. I should have taken Literature and studied about Jane Austen......... What all mistakes people end up making!! And all because computers seemed so glamorous when I had to take the decision about my career. I know I had refused to consider any other option because this seemed so much the "in" thing.
I should maybe take up something like creative writing as my minor now. That would be interesting ...I have even heard about courses in writing fiction and short stories.
What I would write before.... were mainly, rather only, stories - love or murder (because the only twist my love stories would have was getting one of the pair killed at the end :) ) ......... where the girl or heroine usually had long hair with curls bouncing on her shoulders. :) Yes sounds exactly like a sunsilk shampoo ad.
Anyway, right now when I write .......there are no heroes and heroines to compose stories on. And its more the story of my life, as and when it happens. Sometimes when I go back and read it ..........I can't say turn back the pages, hitting the back button of the browser would be a more appropriate term, I feel my life or anybody's life for that matter is so of a story. I think all of them would be great to write about.
And guess what!! I could become a celebrity overnight by writing them. Ahh! If only dreams had wings ...........:)) Well goodnight for today.....I guess three blogs in three days more than makes up for any blog writing inactivity in the last two months.

(I should maybe put up a warning in the description of this blog, "Do not venture to read unless you want to be gobbled up by abstract dreams and figments of imagination. I felt like using the word altruism in the last sentence.......I think the word means truth or practise. It has a very nice melody to it, but I just couldn't make a suitable place for the word in the sentence. Anyway it still finds a place.....if only in the next sentence. ")

To end with :
Climb every mountain, cross every stream,
Follow each rainbow till you find your dream.
- Reverend Mother
&&

To laugh like a brook that trips and falls over stones on its way,
To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray.
- Maria
&&

I have confidence in confidence I have.
- Maria

&&

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand.
- Nuns at the abbey

&&

Have you ever walked the footsteps of a stranger,
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew.
- Colours of the wind , Pocahontas.

The Truman Show

I find so much similiarity between the way my blog is and the Truman show. This blog is just turning out to be a narration of events and things happening to me and in my life, from my view-point. I guess it is sometimes interesting to read about a character's life, especially when you find things similiar in your life. Knowing how the character behaved in a similiar situation gives you the strength that if they could, then so can you. Drawing on that strength, it seems easier to go on. You have a light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to.
I took a day off today and yesterday night...(that makes a one and a half day off actually).
Yesterday night was to watch "A Roman Holiday". This is what ...I guess the fifth time I am watching this movie and I cannot say I am bored of it yet. But then yes, I do have an inclination for sentimental and mushy movies.... The movie was a nice spoonful of sugar. And right now, I think i'll settle down with "English August".
The conscious decision to stay away from studies and project is taking a toll too. At intervals of 5-10 mins I end up feeling I am wasting my time and that there will be this whole backlog of homework and studies to deal with.
Whoa!! Take it easy ...two deep breaths ...and I am trying to enjoy a holiday here. :)

Two roads.....

There are two roads in front of me now....I can choose to stay and continue for my Masters, and I can choose to give up and go home. I still can't figure out whether I am the one giving up so easy ........why so ...when I can see people take up the load with smiles. Is it a question of attitude....... well that was always something I had to work on.
There has been a point in my life where I have done this turning back stint already. I left my school in class 5 because I got admission in one of the best schools in the city. After a month I came back to my old school because I could not adjust. I am asking myself whether I should let history repeat. Why is it that I am letting this "not-coping" bit go so to my head, I am not sure.
Maybe if I had a same frequency gang of friends, I probably wouldn't have had time to think about all this. And yes, loneliness leads to depression leads to frustration to .... vicious cycle as it is, once you are caught in it, it is difficult to break through.
The only thing I keep telling myself, is that things are bound to get better. I am bound to make friends and find the right kind of company to enjoy with, sooner or later. The only thing is , whether I will be able to hold on for so long.
I miss speaking to Shobana, Shalini, Vishnu and discussing the latest music, and movies. Going out together or just hanging around beside the lake. I so curse myself sometimes for having done what I did. How could I have left Hyderabad . Then I had told myself that I choose to do so. Now even if I want to, I will not be able to choose to go back to Hyderabad . What I can choose to do is leave studying for master's and the only thing holding me back is whether I will be able to justify this decision to myself in a year's time.

Trick or treating.....

Life has been trick or treating me for quite sometime now. :) The term trick or treat is a halloween effect ....... after having read so much about it in books, I was actually able to see and experience it. To start off, Luann gave me a halloween bag of goodies. On the day itself you could see people dressed up in long witches hats.....dressed up as pirates with swords....I even saw a hobbit and goblins ......... and to top it all off I was able to glimpse Mars through this 21 inch telescope at our university observatory. I also saw the phoenix mars lander which is a surface surveillance gadget soon to take off for mars.
The best thing about halloween was the realisation that I am actually walking through and living in what were pages being turned in a book.

Apart from that, its been a long time since my last update, and that entire time was filled with ......welll i can't say back breaking labour, but yes, quite enough of it to keep me on my toes. For someone who would moan and groan before going to office every Monday and have fun throughout the weekend, living a life of only party and party harder ....... the last few weeks were work and work harder. There was too much of load....a diwali day project submission, mid term exams, reading reports and homeworks. There were so many times I just felt like putting my hands up, and leaving for India. Infact I was feeling like that just a few hours ago....or should I say a few minutes .....:)
(That is one of the reasons I am writing infact....maybe writing will put some sense back into my head). The projects were not or rather are not happening and finding out what was wrong seemed incomprehensible. Things haven't quite turned out right as yet but they are enough to worry about in the background so why spend the entire parah on them......(come to think of which, I already have done so.)

But guess what , having said all that, I don't think I would have been happier doing anything else than what I am doing now. Though it is making me cry ....its the only kind of work that makes me happy.(Ok, now if you can remember what we call this in english ....fast ....oxymoron!!). And even though I am really bad at dealing with the stress right now, I am sure I will get around it sometime.
What could be better than learning and discussing the ideas people have had over the years about those very things that we take as technology-for-granted each day. What better than to learn the origins of what turned into our text-books ............. but I only wish, I had 48 hours in a day. 24 seems by far too less.

Tucson is becoming more cold, and more beatiful. Daylight ends by 6:00. Sunsets are beautiful. And if you have ever seen pictures of red and orange and mauve sunsets , with clouds in shapes of funnels and striations....all that I can say is I get to see them live :).

When everything doesn't go right.

Today morning was not the best of all mornings. We had managed to get the bathroom door locked from inside and we had to use the other rest-room, which does not have a bath. I just dwiddled away some time in the office and then came back....... and after walking in the scorching sun , the only thing I could think of was I have to get a nap. After coming home and cooking for my turn, Niyanta and Nigel, the two under-grad freshmen who have joined this year came over. We all went over to my department where we had our grad tea. The feasting was on ice-creams and cakes. Soon after was the meeting for WICS, or women in Computer Science. I had three slices of pizza with coke. Then in the night we had a reception in the Arizona state museum for International Friends. The spread was awesome, with cookies, brownies, salads , dips, ........ but I was already too full to even think of another round.

Just sometime in the afternoon, I was telling myself how good life seemed. This seemed to be exactly what I had wanted to do always. The exchange of ideas, the freedom of expression, the teacher's love for what he was teaching ....and this automatically followed from his work in the area, the open debates and discussions and finding faults and criticising what we knew as facts, questioning the grounds, assumptions, validity , weaknesses..... it was a whole new experience, and something which I couldn't enjoy more.
:) It turned out in the afternoon that I got less for a slipshod assignment I had turned in. That was ofcourse enough to turn my smile to a frown. It doesn't matter but anyways.

The other thing I noticed was my english is totally going to the dogs. I am always out of proper expressions these days, searching for an appropriate word to phrase my thoughts in. When I re-read my last post , I realised how badly my english is decaying.
Thoughts for the day ....hmmm...... look at the flip side of the coin. :) and you'll find a reason to smile.

Something in the air....

Something is definitely in the air, life has been great for sometime. What this has done is given me some time to look around myself and appreciate the little things ....which would usually be clouded by worries on next paper submission, programming assignment , which data structure to use....and Tucson would be this hot scorching desert , nothing even close to California.....
But then when you actually see from that third eye, there is a clock tower which chimes every quarter of an hour. The ground in front of old main stretched green and provides ideal pastures for playing frisbee.....
On Sunday last, even though I had not finished the reading report for Monday , and I had a presentation lined up on Oracle's support for XML data, I went out with LuAnn to a pop concert. It was arranged on a grassy knoll sloping down to a stage. Only the stage had a half pod like covering...we were out in the open , under the stars and a full-moon night.
There were all these people, old couples, families with little children, everyone had spread out tehir folding chairs and spread out a picnic and were waiting for the concert to start and the full moon to rise.
The best piece of orchestra, that I loved.... was by Brahms. Why ! If you ever listen to Brahms and close your eyes, you'll see flitting images. I saw dancing ballerinas, one among whom was very beautiful. And she seemed to be flaoting across the stage on her tiptoes, in the spotlight, wearing the ballerina's white dress. And she seemed to be playing and teasing her lover...arguing , breaking up and finally having to leave him.....
well that was my imagination at play. But music does conjure pictures.......

My first champagne ...

I remember the first time my mother asked me "how is the college?", I had replied that "my department has an amazing view". My department building is the tallest in campus with ten floors. It commands a view in the northern side stretching right over the UofA campus , across to the Catalinas. The Catalinas rise up and stare back at you , solemn and grave. But the play of sun and shade is amazing. The clouds are usually low enough to either touch the peaks or cast their shadow on them. So the mountains are always alternate dark and light. And you can make out when its raining there .... becoz it will be a haze of dark misty clouds covering that part of the mountain. The picture below is a more distant view than from the ninth floor of Gould-Simpson building which houses my department.

What follows is a view of the Old Main, the oldest building on campus. The college was started with this one building, founded by two gamblers .....:)

Yesterday I had my first sip of champagne. I remember Vishal had told me as if he could predict it, that I would start drinking and had given me a list of advice in this regard. I knew I wouldn't.....there are very few things in which I trust myself completely but this was one of those exceptions. Champagne is different :) or maybe I am saying so to excuse myself ;). And I had heard so much about it that given the chance, I did not feel like letting it go. So, I has a sip...one sip. How does it feel .....like something hot stuck in your throat...just at the point where you swallow.
The occassion happened to be the birthday of my room-mate Savitha. And we made it to be a surorise pot-luck. Pot-luck is where each one cooks something and brings and it ultimately is a picnic of sorts. Our menu comprised of pakodas/bhajjis, tortilla chips, coke, sprite, chole, jeera rice, pudina rice, pao-bhaji, cake and custard with fruits. The last was prepared by Shalini and me and unexpectedly turned out to be quite a hit :). Later we (Subha, Shalini and myself) watched "Scent of a woman" in Subha's house. Al Pacino was marvellous....you simply get floored by his acting and frustrations and power in the movie. Chris O Donnell was very sweet. But my favorite part of the movie was the tango that Al Pacino dances with a beautiful girl. He plays a blind man.....but the way he leads the girl across the floor ...twirling her and stepping to the beats....well, why don't I just let you all watch the movie! :)

Can you imagine.....

Imagine steep mountains, a dark brown in color ....(a brown not like the one you get in camel water colors, a shade darker and a bit redder......) imagine green interspersed cactii or saguaro (pronounced "suaro") dotting the mountains, each saguaro a tall green post with an arm or two jutting out . From a distance they look like sentinels standing at guard .... Imagine two mountains racing each other down to a valley and then try and see the green plan land stretching out to the distant horizon where they are encircled by a range of blue mountains. A blue sky covering the scene and some white and grey clouds ...a briliiantly yellow sun rapidly disappeariing behind the clouds and then emerging again from below only to quickly drop behind the next layer of clouds in a magnificient display of orange, red and mauve.
Well , I didn't have to imagine all that bcoz I saw the sunset at a place called Gates Pass and I have tried to recollect it exactly as it happened. We were sitting on the mountain sides, perched on some white rocks and commanding a view over the valley. The best thing was just sitting with your face cupped in your hands and pondering in silence about nothing and everything ....as for just those moments you felt alone and not quite alone but part of a bigger universe. I know what I was wishing for ...to have all of you reading this sharing it there with me. But if wishes were reality then pigs would definitely fly .......:)
Now imagine a road which curves back from some height , and you have parked your car at the heighest place as far as you could have driven (beyond is a private house and you would feel jealous of the view they command but nevertheless.....). You stand there, your arms folded and look back over the road you came on ..... the road winds away into the darkness of the night but there at the place the road disappears lies the entire city of Tucson...(pronounced "two-saan" probably bcoz its too sunny :) ) .....glittering and shimmering in golden city lights. It forms an auditorium ...one of those roman colloseums, surrounding you and drawing you into it.
That was Campbell point.....
We also spent the weekend with LuAnn, in the botanical gardens ...feasting on a picnic of chicken salad and chips in a creamy cheese sauce, and home-made cakes. The botanical gardens had all variety of cactii also called "aguvae" I think. And the butterflies had just started flying in .... the pictures they formed seemed to be right out of an Enid Blyton story book.

Did I tell you about the story of my name ... well the story starts in Trichy when I put my entire name as my first name in the passport ...so it read Firstname Surname (obscured since people scared me about privacy) in the first name with no last name. I followed the same thing for applying for i20 , visa etc. When I landed here , it seemed my name had been entered into the system as FirstName surname NoLastName. Well they corrected that but they needed to have a last name and so put my entire name in the last name......which means my name is essentially now Blank FirstName Surname...that is no first name. I cannot think of any other permutation combinations that they could do with my name now ...and I am practically ok with anything as long as they have my firstname and my lastname in it somewhere. So there goes...is an identity crisis valid for me or what !!! :)

Rantings and ramblings of a.....maniac

I love to crib...its one of the things I am most comfortable doing as you would have seen through the remainder of my blog. And today , in retrospect gives me a whole lot of things to crib about.
I remember how whenever we had a bad day, or a submission went badly, or late, or we had managed to do and submit it in time,..... the reason ranged from depressed moods to hunger to me just urging them on , Monika, Sapna, Komathi(sometimes) and myself would head to the ice-cream shop in our shopping centre or s.c for short. Its amazing how spending a little money makes you feel good or better or temporarily satiated :).....

Anyways getting back to where I was, my day went badly because
1. I was having trouble understanding the head and tail of Dijkstr'a paper on the structure of a multi-programming system.
2. I had zilch or nil class participation today ...since it was the same paper that was discussed. The only thing I learnt was "take things easy " .
3. My interview for a job, the second round went horribly. It was very nice of them to try to match me with the kind of job I would like....namely data mining , but as soon as it came to answering questions part it back-fired .......I could recall nothing of any A.I algos I would have studied or not studied while passing Bachelor's .
Sigh! There is nothing worse than making yourself out to be a fool.....I mean proving that you ARE a fool to someone.

And just to get over these two incidents, Shalini has decided to accompany me to Gallagher theatre ...its the on campus movie theatre and we have an offer of one ticket free with another (student discounts books- are available all over campus which have all these great deals like free pizzas and movies).
Plus LuAnn has planned a weekend for us in downtown, for a festival celebrating the founding of Tucson. So there is a lot to look forward for the weekend. I am also planning on a new laptop ...not getting it free ...I have to buy it for now. And my brother is really after me to get an Apple, becoz the Ipod is free with it. Only thing will be getting used to the Tiger O/S. But I am still leaning towards Dell, since it will be out of my loan money it should be on the cheaper side with the best configurations :)..............

So long for now, who would have thought I would be having not-getting-a-job blues after having worked for a year .......

Classes... :) dawn of a new era

Yesterday the 22nd of August, I attended my first classes in the UofA. It was fun ....each of them in their own way.
Why ! Well I somehow never imagined that networks class would turn out to be studying papers over a span of forty years to see how the internet developed, of the then and now.....how the ideas were before their time, how some of those ideas are now taken for granted, like for example the basic concept of a distributed system for the internet. Next I had my Advanced Database course, and that turned out to be on designing databases for XML. The course may involve a project or final exam. The final exam option is to ease out the workload ...... but the project sounds interesting.
Today was Operating Systems, and though this too will cover the beginnings and progresses of the modern day os, today the professor concentrated on giving us a picture of "what is the so-called world of research", its currency of publications, from where the funding comes from ....which are the research labs in the country.
Well none of it is a piece of cake, even with a three day weekend I find myself wishing for an eighth day in the week just so I can complete reading all the papers and doing all the assignments.
But yes, it does give a new dimension to things, new examples to visualise what is going on around you and what was going around in the past.......

Apart from that, job search still on. :) Its difficult alright, to search for a job after having had the comforts of an office and a personal system .......and easy incoming hard cash. :) But for once, or for today, I am not complaining.

Warm welcomes

I am just back from a stint at the zoo. Oops, I guess I am starting off nearly at the middle of the chapter. Well here goes then ...... There is an organization called International friends here in Tucson, who arrange to have a student matched with an american family, so that there can be an exchange of culture of sorts. Yeah! I know, I never usually go into all this.....come to study , so why get into anything else but this was highly recommended by my senior here, Pooja. So I was a little excited when I was contacted by LuAnn a few days ago. She happens to be a judge here in Tucson.
She planned an outing for me today, August 21st, Sunday.
When today finally arrived I was looking forward to the evening with all smiles. This would be my first proper outing in Tucson and for somebody like me who scarce stays indoors or works 24 hours a day......it was going to be a welcome break. Shalini would have been left alone at home ,so she also joined in.
And it was precisely at 5:15 that LuAnn herself came knocking at our door. After a brief round of introductions, she handed over a complete goodie bag to me, there was a packet of wild rice with spices and instructions on cooking, some masala naans, a packet of sweets, a water-bottle and some Tucson postcards .....which she told me I could write home with. There was such a wonderful and almost carelessly included sense of warmth in her gesture and in each carefully chosen gift..... which astounded me.
Her other international friend, Sudhir from bangalore, was already waiting in the car with her boyfriend Dennis. They drove us to a restaurant called Chopped, where I ordered a chicken sandwich which was delicious. LuAnn, Sudhir,and Shalini opted for salads. The sandwich was delicious, and I got lemonade too with ice. LuAnn kept us alive with jokes throughout and asking us about what surprised us the most about the states and our first entry here. I replied it was the diversity in their topography ...India has the same thing but on a very small scale....and that people here were so friendly. They said New York would be different, Tucson being a small town people were very friendly.
We were met at the restaurant by two of LuAnn's friends, Sue a school teacher who had the summer off and had joined a research expedition to Africa on the trail of wild elephants. And Veronice or as LuAnn called her, V, who was a judge too and also an athlete. She was talking about having biked to Mount Lemon on the top of the Catalinas and then run down the slope.
The greatest thing about it all , was the amazing range of professions on that table......... and the backgrounds alone, of all the people sitting there, could have told stories till breakfast the next day.
We left Sue and V to go to the zoo. It was a 5-10 mins drive. On the way LuAnn pointed out the park, where people were roller-skating, doing squat exercises or simply running. The mountains bordered the lush green park surrounded by tall palm trees, and it was beautiful.
The zoo had an ice-cream safari on, and on going inside I had an ice-cream sandwich. It was ice-cream in between two slices of chocolate cake. I had been complaining just two days back of how I had not had a ice-cream since I had come and here I was.........
The zoo was not San Diego, .......there were kids all around , some having their faces painted , others with popsicle sticks, and with the word "popsicle" I felt as if I had stepped right into a story book chapter of the Five find-outers. But the zoo was not like Alipur zoo in Calcutta, where your nose warns you of what animal is next to come in sight. It covered a very small space and within it, it had tried to recreate the jungle atmosphere. Walking under overgrown bamboo trees hovering over our heads and thick bushes beside the walkway......our first encounter was with the rhino. Then the pelicans on one leg, zebras and antelopes....and there in a pond, the first thing which made me stick to the railing for a few seconds , were two little ducklings........a shade of brown and black , not much larger than the palm of my hand , who were wading from one end of the pool to the other in glee and showing off their newly developed swimming skills I guess. Their mother kept a watchful eye from the shore .....but they in their own companionship and the coolness of the water seemed to be having the time of their lives.
In Hyderbad it had been Charminar which had first made me stop and love the city. In Tucson, two little ducklings are responsible.
Later from the lion's cage to the rhea to the camdary (I have forgotten its name) to amazingly colored macaws and parakeets, and elephants, and tortoises that looked as if they were rocks, and a snoozing polar bear which looked totally like bruno while sleeping ...trying to snap its nose and running as if living his dream, and sprinklers which suddenly shot out of the ground and started watering the plants like in Jurassic park, and with melting ice-creams in our hands ,...........and a mountain which hovered in the distance but seemed closer , much closer .....
well that was how today turned out for me.
I was amazed by the warmth of it, the warmth of the hug LuAnn gave me with a wish for the "all the best" for classes, the drink Dennis toasted to the start of our classes...... this was the first time I shared a conversation on a dinner table about elephants and research on their dna , and mount lemmon and climbing and jogging it for your workups, and books and jhumpa lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, and Life of Pais..........three indians and four americans across sandwiches and salads ina restaurant called "Chopped".

Scattered reflections....

I was debating over the title of this blog-entry yesterday night.....whether to name it as "Randomn reflections" or what it stands as now. But I decided on "scattered" bcoz it immediately brings to mind scattered sunlight, scattered glass.....and holds much more warmth than "randomn".
I was writing my diary , musing and brooding and pondering over happenings, going back in time , forward in time, in a sense I was jobless. :) Till classes start from Monday I am, so bear with me. And it is truly said that an idle mind is the devil's workshop. So it was that I had so many millions of thoughts floating and roosting in my head that I thought I might as well put down the ramblings of a jobless, lots-of-time-at-hand, lonely and half-crazy mind.
Before I came to USA, it was one of the "THE" things to do. Somehow whether it was your company sending you or whether it was through higher studies, this was one way of coming to a different life. It was only a few days before coming that some true pictures actually started to unfold. Examples ??? ...... mugging, security, carrying ten-twenty dollar bills on your self.........
But even then that is only half the picture. There is always a difference in each of the situations life puts you into. When I was in college in Trichy, I was away from home (this will recur as a common factor again) .....we shared rooms, we were dependent on our parents for money, most of us were out of our homes for the first time and far away from it, and all of us .......the batch of 2000-2004, were trying to learn to survive. We had ragging, we cried back in our rooms to go back home, the stronger among us did not cry either in rooms or on the phone.....we attended classes after walking what seemed like two kms in the hot sun, half slept or totally slept in classes.........and we weathered it through, through to our final years and our graduation. And we emerged with Bachelor of technology degrees from NIT Trichy (bringing to nought the proud claim that the chemical people had had before of being the only btechs in REC). What developed were some of the best friendships that college brings....of having lived, shared and fought it out together through assignments and ragging and professors and pennilessness and treats and cycling and walking around campus...."chumma" (rec slang meaning "just like that").

The important word in the last parah........"weathered".

The next phase of my life pushed me into Oracle, quite before I could comprehend where I was and what I was doing with my life. The only thing I knew from the first day was, I know I am going back home soon. But that wa smy earning life, and when you earn believe me ....there is a confidence which overtakes you from nowhere. Money power ...you could call it that or you could call it as standing on your own feet, which is one of the most amazing things .... (I realise it only now and ofcourse, when my mother had told me I was too blind to think about it........I was getting money, enough of it, and all I knew was how to spend). When you earn, there comes automatically with it a sense of "I can afford it" and hence magnanimity. And things are happy, becoz you get to do what you wish and live how you wish.

The important words in the last parah........"independence" and "earning".

Finally, I land up here in USA. Back to student life, but not quite the same. Note you are not earning anymore, (you will probably soon in the future) and there is a loan at the back of your mind to be settled. So every dollar that you take out and buy eggs or rice or chilli powder.........something is calculating a multiply by 50 and you are stifling a groan of "Oh my god, so much for this!." Maybe once you start a part-time job and start earning on your own , the money power (now in dollars) will come back and you will be magnanimous again. But as for the part of fighting it out together, surviving, or for growng comradeship........forget it! Remember you are alone here and you have grown to depend on yourself for yourself. And your horizon has narrowed down a lot , you are here to survive so why care..........

The important unsaid words in the last parah : selfish, serve yourself.

Life ! probably teaches you a lot. Just living from day to day is a lesson. There was a time when I had seen nri's on Tv and pitied then and felt sympathy for them somewhat for having to celebrate festivals in an alien land, for having to shop and pay $5 for 1 kg rice. They immediately brought to mind, a wealthy dollar-making class but huddled and small. Yesterday when I was shopping in India stores where you get all the indian spices, rice, bournvita even......I realised I belong to the class of people I once felt sorry for.
At the end of it, it doesn't make much sense writing all this down, except that it is a phase of my life and when I look back, I want to remember that I once felt like this. For now, its just go on living ...and while at it and while going through it, keep the ray of light at the end of the tunnel in sight ....... and probably that will make life a lot easier for now...........till the devil has time to move out of your mind. :)

Opinions .... count ??

I have been attending orientation upon orientation ...today was GATO = graduate assistant teaching orientation. It is meant for all the TAs or teaching assistants, that is the graduate students who will be teaching american under-grad students. The entire program was based on a set of do's and dont's in class. We cannot discriminate, we have to give space, how should you capture the student's interest ...how to introduce new ways of making the class involved.
In some ways, I think it applies to American community as well and not only to the students. Space is something very important to them , so is not speaking out about your political reservations. But the point was, so many of us from different countries were sitting there and learning how we should treat American students, how they could come in chewing gum, or wearing night suits or keep their legs on the tables and we were not allowed to question. As to why this is amazing to me, is because we come from quite a different culture , where we do believe in independence, but we do also believe in respect. However informal everything is, and however much freedom is given to the students, it does seem to me that this is on the border line or over it.

I was contacted by my international friend. International friends is a group which pairs up students with American families so that there can be an intermixing of cultures. I found out my international friend is LuAnn Harley, a judge in Tucson. She already has some other international friends in the campus itself and she is arranging a get-together for all of us on Sunday which is very sweet of her.

Today was also the first time I was able to show my parents the house and me typing away at the computer using the webcam. And when I spoke to Maa later, I learnt how surprised and happy they all had been on being able to cross oceans and continents in a matter of seconds and see me like that....... And I was grateful to the same technology which has always seemed mechanical and robotic to me, for once.
I have been waiting for my brother to logon for ages and he has finally come online, so its back to harnessing the advances of technology for me again :) .......bye goodnight all for today.