Close call

Its not everyday that you have a story to tell. Today I do. So you can grab your pop-corn, but I do not guarantee that my story-telling is par-excellence.

Yesterday I went white-water rafting for the second time. I had been there last summer from Amazon, as part of an intern trip. This time Raja's team-mate organized it and I said yes. Unremarkably, I had been scared the last time. This time I was pretty calm and infact played the role of trying to pacify others who were scared. All in all, I was a little indifferent, a little complacent and I guess I did have an attitude of "I have done this before and nothing will happen".

Well for those of you who have not come across white water rafting, its an adventure sport where you navigate the rapids of a river on a kayak or raft. A kayak is a one person small canoe kind of boat but covered. A raft holds upto 8 people and hence seems more stable and you have company. :) A rapid is where the river is flowing across through rocks and creating waterfalls and swift currents. The fun or adrenalin rush is in navigating the rapids over those currents. There are upto 6 classes of rapids classified by the range of their difficulty, with class 6 being the kind only crazy people will attempt. (Like plunging down the Niagara Falls.) Class 5-4 are navigable by sane people, but include entrapments and hazards like strainers and sweepers. I have forgotten which is which but I will attempt to describe them both. One is something like a fallen tree trunk. The water current rushes against it at a high rate and pins you to it, incase you happen to be floating by :). As a result you have no escape and you may die because of it. The best way to overcome it is by using the force of the water to propel yourself over the obstacle or get on top of it. The second kind is a rock with a hole beneath it. As a result the water is gushing through it at high force. So even though you cannot see anything on the surface, is you happen to be again floating by, it might happen that you get trapped in that hole underneath the surface with no escape. Other kinds of danger might involve you getting hit or hurled against rocks or hitting the rocky bed of the river or even getting your foot wedged in the rock bottom. All these ofcourse are in the extremely unlikely situation that you happen to be in the river.

When we started out, there were 5 of us from my company, one guy Robert who was interning at the white water rafting centre - Skykomish White water rafting (I guess is what it is called), and Patrick , our guide. No sooner had we started off, than I lost my balance a bit, but thankfully the guys on the opposite side caught hold of my shoe and pulled me in. Unfortunately, Kelvin who was sitting at the helm, in front of me on the right, lost his balance and fell into the river. But he only ended up being a bit cold, because the rescuers on the kayaks had soon got hold of him and got him back to the raft. And we were in the relatively smoother part of the river still.

Most of Skykomish river has Class 2-3 rapids. The most exciting one is called Boulder Drop which is a class 4-5 depending on the water level. It has some hair pin bends, some pretty strong currents and some pretty nasty rocks jutting out. We navigated a few of the Class2-3 s before we came to the actual Boulder drop itself. There we had to get out and scout the rapid first from an overlook point, to see if we would like to go through it. It was series of cascading falls over rocks with the first one being about 4 feet and had gigantic rocks peering out from everywhere. We ofcourse did not ever think of not doing it and hurried back.

Once in the raft, and back on the river, just as we were approaching the entrance of the drop, Robert found that his helmet was unclasped and stopped paddling to attach it. As a result, the left side lost man-power and because of this instead of swerving to the left as it was supposed to, our raft went and hit a rock jutting out on the right. What happened after that is still vivid in my mind. I lost balance and got swept clean off the boat and into the water. I lost my oar as soon as I landed in water. I fell head down , and when I re-surfaced I saw the raft about more than few feet away from me. I did not comprehend it then that they could not have saved me in that position. The current was too strong and they had to save themselves and navigate the rapid. I only knew that I felt lost at seeing them float away...... ofcourse that was not for long. The water soon surged over my head, and I went under gulping mouthfuls. My life-vest kept bringing me up to the surface if only for a few seconds. But the current was now pulling me downstream the rapid. All the while, I only tried to follow the instructions the rafters give before the ride. I was trying to keep my feet up in front of me to avoid hitting any rocks with my knees and legs and also to fend off any obstacles like rocks, coming up in front.

The instructions had seemed easy at the time they were said. Believe me, when you are in a rapid, its an all-together different ball game. I did not have any control over where what part of my body was. Sometimes I was pushed upright to a standing position, sometimes I was plunged under water, sometimes I was just turned around and faced upstream which is a bad position to be in because you cannot see what you are going to hit downstream. The worst part was when the waves would crash in over my head, drowning me, because when you are under water you just don't know what you will be hurled against ....... if its a rock coming up against you ...... and the only fear running through my head was of getting wedged. I did get hurled against rocks, but they were smooth and I slipped past them with the current. I was even swept over some of them and squashed against and around others. One time, when I happened to be facing upstream, I caught sight of the guy who was sitting behind me on the raft also in the river, hanging on to his oar. It seems funny now, but I know that I thought then how well he was managing. Ofcourse, it was only much later that we both admitted to each other how petrified we were.

Well rescue seemed nowhere, and the rapid seemed never-ending. I kept at it for however much longer I could, but it was getting awfully difficult to breathe, the water kept rushing over me, and inspite of instructions to breathe only in troughs and not on the crests of waves, I could not manage any gulps of air at all. And I was starting to feel suffocated. On top of that, the water was chilling. And I was scared, and numb by then. My energy had started to give way on me and thats when I finally thought I was not going to make it....... not out of fear. Just because I did not have any energy left to ward off anything or try anything else. Yet I was surprised at how clearly my brain had functioned till then. I could remember it almost dictating every instruction to me. And I cannot imagine something so capable in the middle of that crisis.... if I may call it so. It was only then, with failing strength and almost on the verge of dismissing a rescue and life, that the rescue kayaker appeared and asked me to hold on to the end. By then I was simply whimpering, I did not have any energy left to emit a scream and I think I was sure I was going to die. And somehow nothing more than that would come out of my throat. I can still remember it, a low moan of fear and acknowledgement I guess. When the rafter told me that if you have any energy left....... try to stand on the bank, I just couldn't feel my legs under me. But it was only then that I knew I was safe. When he saw I couldn't stand, and I am sure he heard me whimpering all along, he took me a little further ashore and asked me to wait there for the raft.

My raft appeared a little later and got me on-board. By then I was smiling at their pacifications (cannot think of a better word) and their repeated talk of me having swum well. All I knew was I was alive and the ordeal I thought would not end, had ended. We picked up the other guy who had also been rescued and we wee both commended on keeping calm and making sch a great swim across the Boulder Drop rapid. Thank god, they did that and made it seem like no big deal. Otherwise I probably would have cried there.

After that we made it through a lot more rapids, we also stood up on one of them. All of them were class 2-3s. None as scary, none as eventful . I was very cold by then and was shivering and I just wanted it to end. I did not have the strength to row anymore but I did. A little later it was over. We, Han and I, were quite the topics of discussion. We even got t-shirts saying that we had survived the Boulder Drop.

What can I say..... that I am thankful I am alive....... that everytime I took a step today or did anything, I knew I might not have been taking it. ........ that everyone I met I re-assessed myself, thinking out loud about how they did not know what I had been through just moments back......
and all the time all I could ask myself was - "why me" !! I know these things happen, but there were only two people in the entire team of 50 who fell out and one of them was me. And more than anything, shock , fear or any other emotion, that is probably what hurts me most and maybe it is stupid, but I feel let down. The fact that I am alive pales sometimes in significance. And yet I know thats not how it is. But I wish I could make myself understand.
Since yesterday, my tears seem to be stuck, there is this huge barge which seems stuck at my throat. There were tears streaming down my eyes as I was writing but that huge barge does not seem to be breaking. My mom says I am in shock. Probably, maybe. And yet when I think about it, it does not seem a big deal. I will cry probably, over the next sentimental love story or movie that I watch :).

So that was my story. What did you think !!

Day 4

I watched Illusionist yesterday and fell in love with Edward Norton. I liked the movie a lot, but saying anything more would be a spoiler for anyone who hasn't watched it. In short, after Eternal Sunshine..., Prestige, this is one of my favorites in the 2000's. (There should be a longer list but I cannot remember the others.)

So I had thought I would be sleeping on a bed today finally. I got the mid-beam too. What I couldn't get however, was how to fit it into the bed. For the common sense of me, :) I cannot figure it out. (And I guess the tiredness of the day can also be blamed). So today did not go well. And I guess that's partly why I don't feel like writing at all. After watching Illusionist, I ofcourse got scared and remained scared through the night. :) I guess I haven't outgrown my fear of ghosts. Anyway, I got up from a bad dream, and somehow that never left me throughout the day.
Its happened before, if I do get up after a nightmare or a bad dream, somehow it keeps haunting me throughout the day, with its invisible tentacles. And that's the other thing of being alone. If you are scared, (as I know someone is :) ) of ghosts and spirits, living alone might not be your cup of tea. :)

Day 2

Considering that yesterday happened to be the first day that I actually spent the night at my new home, on a mattress on the floor :), today happens to be day 2. I got all my stuff from storage delivered yesterday. And they had been lying around, the big small brown colored cardboard boxes. Ofcourse they were occupying a lot of space and also getting on my nerves. But I was too tired to pay them any attention. And, with a night trip to Walmart and another spending binge, coming home at nearly midnight, all I could do was get some sleep to face today.

The problem with me is I guess I am sometimes too cautious! I don't even know if thats the right word. I'll pick up two of everything just so that I don't have to face a shortage anytime soon. Then I will come home and realize, that due to similar realizations in the past, I had done the same thing before and those detergents, soaps shampoos and what nots were still lying around...... unfinished. So now I landed up having 4 of the same thing and very much in the mood to switch to some different brand , just for a change. Yes I guess I should not have to see Walmart in a long time to come.

Then there is this other peculiarity, but I guess that might be a little bit in all of us. Once I start something I really want to finish it. Especially when that is emptying out the cardboard boxes and putting things away, just so that the apartment gets a semblance of normalcy. And then, even when I am ready to drop from having seen all the packed stuff that I could have seen for a day, there are still more boxes, still more putting away of stuff to be done. And I keep at it, even though the very notion of seeing another packing, becomes nauseous. But then its no longer about unpacking.... it becomes about just getting done........ just so I don't have to see another packing box in my life (ok, atleast for some months.) It becomes just about looking around and seeing everything stacked away in their right places.

Unfortunately, I gave up today after a sound piece of advice from Maa. I would rather complete my unfinished sleep since what seems like yesteryears, than put away any more stuff. So my house is still a mess. There are two boxes, untouched lying at the far end. There are planks of wood neatly arranged all along the drawing room wall, waiting to be built into a table, and there is a mattress ..... and this temporarily defines my living quarters. There is a bedroom too, but with the unfinished frame occupying more than three quarters of the space, I had to move to living in the so-called dining room space.

With all this around, I have hardly been able to actually realize that I am on my own. Infact this is even better than Hyderabad. There I had a room, here I have a home. :) There, even though it would cost me 5 rupees or 10 rupees, I would get these gerberas I think, from the florist at the bus-stop. I would everytime ask him to guarantee that the flower would bloom for a week and he would humor me into making me believe so. I would then happily go home, arrange that one stalk of pink or yellow or red flower beside my mattress on the floor (yes, I did not own a bed in Hyderabad...... funny that Seattle should start off in the same way. ) And sometimes the flower did bloom for a week. But just seeing the colors everyday made such a difference. If nothing else, that 5 rupees that I spent would give me the joy of admiring something beautiful everyday when I would get up...... till the day that the petals drooped and one by one fell off.

I like vibrant/warm colors. They keep you happy. And hence, even though the rest of my house is a faded beige and brown (the color of cardboard boxes ofcourse), my bathroom has a yellow shower curtain, a blue towel, a lavender hand towel, a blue-yellow octopus and other sea-creatures drawn toothbrush mug and a yellow bath-mat. In all the house, right now, this happens to be the most colorful place. :) Ok I don't know if this makes a very scary description of colors, but you are welcome to visit and look.
So till I add color to the rest of my apartment and my life, :) I guess I will sign off. But I should jot this last bit down. The day that I was actually a nerve-wreck with Ikea, I actually complained and cribbed to Maa about how, if I had a husband I could have made him do all the work. I would never have had to hammer a nail. And I would have had someone to blame for the mismatched chairs. :) Yes, quite the wrong attitude to have, I know. But still that seemed to be the only headache lacking at that time. Now on reflection, and as I had said, with a much more saner stance I can safely say that I am actually proud of myself for having completed what I did. Infact I look forward (with a little hesitation) to assembling the dining table. Well, so long, now that I have got out all the thoughts brewing in my system, I can go to sleep. :)
Goodnight !!

Immaturity and more...

Its so surprising how much can change in a mere seven hours. And its good that both these posts come one after another. It will always remind me of how I went from good to bad to frustrated to literally in tears. So the cable got setup fine, which I failed to check properly because my computer was already catching some wireless connection and before I could check whether mine was working properly, the Ikea delivery guys arrived. And I forgot all about it.

I knew Ikea goods had to be assembled but I did not ask for professional assembly help. Interesting, since I have never fiddled with screw-drivers before, never pulled apart a computer and joined it again, I am not sure how I thought I would accomplish this. I am not somebody who takes fun in assembling stuff (late realization). When its a group I might still join in, but when I am alone it would be one of the last things that I would do. So the first thing that happened, was that I realized I had picked up different colored chairs. The dining table happened to be oak and the chairs happened to be black. When I saw the chairs (that is the chair parts), I was almost too stunned for sometime too think. Then I unwrapped the bed. Well guess what !! There were planks, more planks, more planks and a lot of nails/screws. (Infact the only thing I have seen the whole day are planks of different shapes and sizes.)

I will not go into the whole adventure of assembling a bed alone by someone who will never call herself a carpenter. I splintered wood left and right (I think I messed up the screw sizes at one point). I managed to drop the heavy planks on my foot and will soon have either a black and blue toe nail or a missing toe nail. But in the end I did have a standing bed-frame. For everyone's advice that assembling Ikea products is easy, I will agree (with a lot of muttering under my breath and groaning with the pain of sliced fingers and aching hands)........ with the precondition that you should have all the parts. I unfortunately, had not got the mid-beam of the bed. And this, I realized, was sold separately only when I got to the instructions of Step 18 out of a total of 24 steps. Imagine the frustration of not seeing a so called finished masterpiece. Imagine having a bed frame with the empty interiors, and a new mattress standing and staring at you from a distance, not able to belong where it should. Imagine a whole room full of just boxes, and packing paper, imagine un-assembled dining table pieces lying about and imagine unopened boxes of black chairs which have to be returned.
And you will have imagined the condition in which I left my house.

I would give anything to sell everything off, wipe my hands clean off the whole mess and go away. :) Run away rather !!! And maybe when the hangover of hopelessness, amateur carpentership, absence of satisfaction and immaturity at things not working out the way they are expected to, wears of, I will be able to think more rationally and find solutions instead of more problems. But that does not seem to be a possibility anytime before tomorrow.

On my own

So here I am ..... sitting on the beige carpeted floor, of an otherwise empty drawing room..... except for an unframed Van Gogh's Sunflowers and a Renoir's Dancer staring back at me from the far end of the room. I just got done with the unpacking of the little stuff that I had with me.

There's still more to come.

Like the bed and dining table which I picked up yesterday at Ikea, (for those who haven't still made a visit there, Ikea is the one-stop shop for furniture, some say a little on the cheaper side.) among a lot other things and then stared in disbelief at the bill I had notched up. Believe me, for first-time shoppers, I did all the mistakes that one can make. I picked up table-lamps without getting bulbs, I got shower curtains without the rings, and yet I did manage to pick up a lot many of the other useful but not necessary things like the Academy award type ballet dancers in black and scented candles, and the little stubs which you attach at the bottom of dining table chairs.

So its fun :) definitely fun and very interesting too. And a little scary. And if I haven't actually named all the emotions, its also a lot of making you feel happy and a little bit sad at the same time. After I saw Ikea's bill yesterday, for a long time on the drive back I kept wondering what HAD I got........ and whether it was at all worth it....... and the cliched last but definitely not the least.....if I could return all the stuff I got in the worst case that nothing fit :).

Ofcourse, Ikea itself deserves a paragraph. We went in at 11:30 and came out at 5:30 p.m. Ikea is arranged into all the possible sections of a house ....from dining to drawing to bathrooms to workplaces. Each part is equipped with all the essential things you could want or think of. All combined, its a place you would definitely want to go to if you are setting up house. But then, to make decisions about dining tables, sofas, fhutons (sofa cum beds), beds ........all on the same day was a little over the head for me. Which is why, I have landed up with a bed and a dining table set ....... but no sofa, no microwave, no tv or tv stand, no bookcases and no chest of drawers or dressers. :) Another thing which I did not realize I could not do without....... are spoons. Unfortunately I realized this only after I had poured milk and sugar on my cereals. I am not sure about lunch yet. It will require some exploring. :)

The we that I have been referring to happens to be "Raja" and ofcourse, me. There are some times in life when you need good samaritans in life and they appear out of nowhere. I can probably safely say, that if Raja had not shown me around the whole of Seattle, I wouldn't be sitting here where I am in an cozy apartment ..... and I wouldn't have any furniture for quite sometime. Believe me, Ikea requires patience, having done it once for yourself, it is really a pain to patiently go through it again for a friend, their indecisions, their "I think white looks good" and a 5 minute later "No, I think I am going back for the beige." and another 5 mins later reversal of decisions again....... I guess you get the picture. I don't know about others but I wouldn't have managed this episode of my life without friends like these and I am more than glad they are around.

In the evening, I came back home along the piers. This has been my favorite walk of all times. But I have always been there during the day, and walking along it at night, with all the lights of the boats, the eateries beside the bay and the houses on the opposite is so beautiful, I don't think I will ever forget it. Especially since, the admirable location of the Marriott looking over the bay, and all the houses along Alaskan way commanding the same view ...... leave you wishing how it would be to spend a day in those houses.... forget spending a day , I would love to stay there forever. But then as was pointed out, I might not value such a view if I could see it everyday in passing. My apartment happens to be 2 blocks from the bay, but it doesn't have a view. So I live close enough, but will still be seeing the bay only once in a while. Having everything and then not quite something :). Wishing , envious :) and just dreaming.

While I was unpacking, I kept saving all the plastic bags and packing...... what if I need them when I move again. Then I realized that's not going to be anytime soon. And then it sunk in that this is what I am going to call "home" for sometime now. :) Cool !!

Passionate

So I had started writing about "something", and then there were so many things that I couldn't write on the "something" without revealing some other things which I did not want to reveal..... that I ended up totally lost.

So to start anew, I was rethinking my journey till here. Eventful yes, adventurous yes, enjoyable yes........ ....... my only regret ? Everything is in retrospect. Whenever I have actually been searching for an apartment by myself, or trying to figure out something really simple, the only thing that confronts me then is fear, anxiety and worry. :) Like I was on all edge just thinking that I would not get a house that I liked. I did not get one that I am raving mad about but its cozy for me... and for a start. (Wow!! Quite something ..... I actually managed to settle down in Seattle by myself and get a house by the bay which I had never thought possible in my wildest dreams.)

Work is fun because I am learning Perl. Another thing I never saw myself doing. And I know, we friends had these discussions that the last compilers project would have been particularly simple if we had known Perl and guess what!! Perl is a good language and a great tool to know. Imagine me, a non-computer geek and an un-techno person actually being ardent about a language.

I did forget to note, that this year I had three birthdays, three surprise birthdays , each one very unique and a lot of fun in its own way. And none of them on my actual birthday which I actually spent laundering. I guess I wrote about this before but I laugh so many times when I think about it, that I guess repeating myself makes sense.

Yes, now there are so many things to follow. For atleast some days , I probably won't have the comfort of a home as I know it. I have zilch furniture. It will be fun to shop but everytime I look at something I like, I end up sad that I cannot afford it. Or should I afford a $500 dining table set if I only have to sell it on Craigslist after a year or two. And then there is the despondency wave which overtakes me...... about the uselessness of setting up everything just to rip it apart again. :) But then that would/should/may be another adventure, who knows. So why worry !! ! In the meanwhile, I shall go back to catching up on Bengali movies for the time being while the next Netflix arrives. It so happens, I suddenly realized that I speak so ardently about going back to my roots and being close to my home-ground and feeling passionately about Kolkata only to realize that I know nothing very deeply about any of it.

I have landed ...on Seattle moon :)

Whoa !! I guess my interest in writing is directly proportional to my mood and so is my keeping in contact with friends, mails, chats and everything. :) Well there's been so many things thats happened and I never got time or the interest to put any of the down on paper or rather on screen.

I finally graduated. I am indebted to UofA for finally seeing me through to a Master's degree. Its been painful :) in a lot many ways but I am done with it. The graduation was a very proud moment , I just wish my parents, brother could have been there to see me get the degree. But thats fine. Maybe they will be able to make it for a more important degree.....

After that I was in Maryland for a week, at home with Paramitadi and Dipanda, and I had the most lovely break after graduation. Among all my batch-mates, I probably joined my job the soonest (within a week) but I never felt that I needed a longer break. Maryland ended with another surprise birthday party, (all planned by Paramitadi and Dipanda and helped along by my obvious stupidity and blindness and lack of common sense.) and even though it was two days in advance, I never felt the need for a birthday party on my actual birthday. I also visited Virginia and found it to be a beautiful state. We drove along Virginia roads to the song Take me home country roads, by John Denver. And if you have not seen it, it is exactly how I would imagine an English countryside to be.

I would have stuck with Virginia being the most beautiful state I have seen so far (yes even more than California....... because it has an untouched beauty about it which California does not seem to have, or maybe I haven't been to California in a long time.) if it had not been that I got a chance to see Seattle.

In the past 3 weeks since I have landed, I got to go around the most pretty roads of Seattle, The Lake Blvd, the Magnolia Blvd........ if its sunset, and you have the blue bay on one side of you and the most picturesque houses on the other, and Seattle skyline in the distance..... the only thing you can do is stop and stare.
Since I have spent most of my time in Seattle in downtown or Redmond, seeing something so green and beautiful so close to the city, and thinking that oh my god !! Seattle does have it all ..... is amazing.

Just for the record and so I always remember, I joined my job on my birthday. So I will age at my job as I age in life :).

Apart from that Seattle is the same old, there is the Ye Old Curiosity shop right in the middle of the piers, the Argosy cruises have already started, the weather is not very co-operative but is unable to dampen the fun of enthusiastic tourists. There is a sailing ride which takes off from the piers and has a special sunset tour, there is the duck tour which I had wanted to do before I left last time but didn't get time to. (Apparently, the tour bus is in the form of a duck and rides on both land and water.)

But I guess this time I will have time.

I was checking how soon I come to my cracking point and I found I really don't take time at all. The last three weekends and some weekdays were mostly spent on apartment hunting. It was very frustrating at times, especially when you take a wrong bus and land in a residential area and find you are lost and there is not a soul on the road to redirect you, but then these are part of the game. Also part of the game is getting apartments too expensive, or not in the right location or not with the greatest of fittings, or just not right or just not available.
But....I finally did land one, right in front of the bay. But.... I realized my demands were too much, a view , a deck, a downtown apartment, all for a reasonable price is just not the right mix of ingredients. And so I learnt that I have to compromise on somethings........ which were half the things in the above list. I still don't know why I took the apartment I did, its more like the apartment chose me. I was so hell-bent on this apartment in Redmond, I had hardly thought, that I would change my mind on the morning of the day I was supposedly going to sign the lease. And its not like the apartment has all the features I liked in other apartments or which I dismissed other apartments for. Infact, this is probably the first time in my life, I cannot boast of a room with a view.
But there is a beautiful rooftop deck which has a view of the entire bay in front and the top of the space needle at the back. And I think the location is perfect. :) I couldn't have wanted anything more in that aspect and the apartment itself should be a cozy fit for one person.

Well, this was to be the first time I would be completely on my own and I did want everything to be perfect. But then I learnt that you have to compromise :). And thats fine. I also learnt that sometimes happiness comes off being happy for others. And I am sorry I missed the formula of being happy on BBC. And I finally am sane enough to write again !! Well, life seems fine so far. :)

And farewells and next steps ......

The last few days went in a whirl. If anything, I wish they had slowed down a bit and I could have taken a breath........ no actually, I wish I could have slept a few more hours. :)
Every evening was eat out ...with different groups of friends at different places, delectables on 4th ave, downtown Tucson, el charro near museum of art, cactus grill on the 2nd floor of student union, ziggy's/something about noodles near river and swan, lucky's on park, park place mall, something sweet (my favorite for dessert - but I got the chance to be there only for the first and last time.), taco bell, jamba juice... and ending it all with Starbucks on University Boulevard. :)
Ofcourse in between there were also parties thrown by our cs juniors for us seniors, and Shalini's wedding party.
And the highlights were a graduation ceremony at UACentennial hall and commencement ceremony in McKale center.
First the feeling that I am actually done with all coursework, assignments, just going to school and just that I was done, took a looooong time to sink in. Then to be actually in the ceremony rather than a spectator was so totally different. :) You get a different perspective on things.....like how the stage and all the people in the audience look when you stand on the stage.......like stage jitters before your turn even though all you have to do is walk across and be hooded...... like being surrounded by the whole crowd in a basketball stadium (that was where the commencement ceremony was held) when the graduates walk in to the arena.......like the cheers which go up from the crowd ........ like the tortillas and balls being flung all over your heads by very enthusiastic under-grads....... like feeling the whole ground shaking under you from the foot stomping in unison of excited graduates............. like knowing you don't belong here anymore....... like being called an alumni. ...... like having the biggest group lunch at villa thai with your batch just after graduation...... like saying farewells and keep in touch....... like accepting there is a part of your life that you are done with ...... like understanding that there are two extra letters which can go beside your name now(M.S), :) and best of all...... like knowing that you have earned the degree even if it took each breath and each tear to actually pull it off. :)

Well so long Tucson. I wish I had had better experiences which I could have cherished..... and left Tucson with much better memories........
.......but they say finding one great friend as you grow older is difficult and finding more than one is impossible. I think I fared much better than that :) even though I am so difficult :P.

I know.......I am going to miss something about the life here. :)

Yun hi

Today I am done with every last bit of academics, project, report submission, classes, exams, presentations. And yet I know this is the life that I want to be in. This is what I want to do in life. I know it has never treated me well and that is probably why, even though I curse it so I always come back to it. It gives me the most security and comfort and challenges in life. I have always loved to be near books and around young minds. I would love to be associated with a university, with students and to take them through to the fulfillment of their career milestones and achievements and dreams. I know where I want to be but the question is if I will be able to get there ?
Well never give up as the movie said. The "movie" is "What dreams may come" and even though it is not like a 5 star movie, and the starting is quite slow, it is a fascinating movie about relationships and soul-mates and just sharing your lives. What touched me most was the line "Hey I found you in hell, don't you think I can find you in Jersey" when Robin Williams and his wife think of being reborn and his wife asks him how they are going to find each other. The imagery is fantastic. The picturization is so real that I can blame my crying bucket loads on it :).
I am trying to visualize my life now and for once in my life I know what I like to do. I know what I am in love with. And yes it seems very romantic but this is what keeps me going. Ofcourse I need a constant dump where I can unload all my frustrations and problems in life. For once I am sure of what I want. When I had left Oracle I had told myself I choose to do this, come what may.
I am hoping and praying now with all my heart that I don't leave this as an unachieved dream of "I had wanted to ........". But when you know what you want to do, isn't that when the maximum obstacles come across your path and isn't that why persevering to stick to what you want to do, makes it worthwhile ?
You know what to me now seems will be the proudest moments of my life, one will be when I hold my first child in my hands, the other will be when a paper gets published under my name.

So long then, till what dreams may come :)

Aimless

The day that I finished, maybe (but hopefully/un-hopefully (not sure at this point what I want!!)) the last exam of my life, I was so confused by what I felt. Happy and sad at the same time, what on earth is that feeling called ? :) I had a presentation due the next day but that was like the last thing on my mind. (notice the extra use of "like", now my lingo has been "like" that for sometime and I think I repeat myself from a previous post here). Ok , so I am right now, in this good mood, because I suddenly found friend(s) with whom I share a lot (like knowing Sharukh's dialogues by heart :), ok so maybe we WERE immature :)). There also seem to be friends in my life who can talk with me exactly like I did with Sheeba .... through analogies to the real problem, so that we solve the problem without even going into details. :) (Abstract??)
They seem to have germinated overnight, and I don't know when I came to share so much with them.

My mother will probably kill me for the above sentences, considering that day in and day out I have poured out my complaints, grumbling, cribbing, crying about Tucson and being friendless to her. Every time she would say, thats what happened in Trichy. When its time to leave you will feel bad. Correction: I don't feel bad about leaving, I like the place but that's it. First time in my life that I have not built ties to a place. (Please don't tell me its not the place but your attitude that matters. To my scatterbrained head its the place, always, with which I associate my experiences.)

Tucson taught me a lot, it taught me to speak up when I don't want to put up with something. It taught me its very important to have people in your life whom you love and who love you and some of them should be there within listening distance and same time zones :). You should have friends on the same mobile service as you are (to avoid wasting minutes) and willing to give you company when you walk home alone after late night lab sessions. :) Its very nice to receive but its even more fun planning the giving for other people and seeing their faces light up on seeing the surprise (I have hardly done that here, but I have experienced it first hand in Hyderabad and hope to revive the tradition before leaving Tucson.)

Today was Ramya's bridal shower, the first one I have ever attended but it was a whole lot of fun. (It was very interesting to find out that a wedding or your wedding is the least about you and mostly about people like family, relatives and in-laws. :) considering that I or for that matter all the girls I have ever known would have always planned or dreamt about how they would want their wedding to be...... from the color of their sari , to the chandan (sandal paste) design on their faces to the menu to the guests.... picking up details from all weddings ever attended. And how ironic that when your time comes, you might just be a mute observer.) All the games were about the bride to be and the wedding and I enjoyed seeing so much creativity. I think I will force my friends to throw me a bridal shower when I am about to get married. :)

Funny, how when you are in a good mood , everything can be seen from the lighter side. I wish I could hold on to it. (Inspite of the fact that I royally ruined my presentation...... I could literally see other students sleeping in front of me.)
I will be glad to be on my own. Apart from the fact that its a big change, its the first time I might have my own apartment, and furnish it the way I want. Not first but some time that I will be try to get accustomed to a new city all on my own and live a life for sometime atleast all on my own, for myself, by myself. :) It will be fun, atleast for sometime till I get bored of it.

Ok my good mood is wearing off, and so is my songlist on YouTube, so I had better wind up fast. This is the umpteenth time I am listening to "Chehra hai yaa" and my room-mate is also throwing quizzical glances at me.

p.s: I went back and read some of my own older posts, and I found myself so much better and positive than an endless saga of crib/crib/crib. :) Maybe I should just grow young again. :)

In pursuit of happiness

Considering that I have completed a quarter century of my life, you would think that I would be over feeling disgruntled, nervous/scared, anxious about exams. But I don't think I will ever grow out of the school-grown fear of facing question papers. Come exams, and my mood takes an about turn. So consequently, there is a dark black cloud hanging over my head which I don't think will go away till Wednesday. And then ofcourse, it will be "I am totally free, and I don't know what to do now with my time " clouds. :)

I came across this article in our college paper today, which , to quote, says:
"The question of what happiness really means and how it can be achieved has been a topic of deep human thought since Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Plato began to discuss the true meaning of 'eudaimonia', the Greek word for happiness.
They said the experience of happiness is satisfying and pleasurable, but in order to be truly happy in life, pleasure should not be the ultimate goal. They believed that an excess of materialism or physical pleasure would ultimately lead people away from happiness, instead of to it.
A study reported in the current issue of Scientific American:Mind shows that these Greek philosophers were right in suggesting that happiness does not follow financial success.
The study illustrates the human tendency to habituate to material goods and return to a set point of happiness after their basic human needs have been met. ....
But people can also increase their set point of happiness by engaging in certain exercises and cognitive practices.....
The best way to be truly happy is to have friends and work towards your goals.
Happiness should not be thought of as some sort of ultimate outcome. Happiness is first and foremost a means to achieve your goals by having happiness as a cushion that will break your falls in life and allow you to stand back up even stronger. "

A lot of funda ?? For me it was an interesting read on an otherwise cloudy day. :)

The weekend however was very different. I have always thought of writing about Luann but I think I have always just mentioned her. We have a program in our university called International Friends which pairs up foreign students with local families, so that there can be an exchange of cultures while building strong friendships. My international friend is Luann, and since the time I came to Tucson, she has been my omni-present silver lining. Through conversations, weekend outings (to a different activity/event/restaurant every time), through fun, and banter and advice and just hanging out together... she has been more than a friend to me throughout my stay (I may add that she has been a reason for my stay). Guide, mentor, friend, sister... she has been all-in-one. I had been out with her this weekend too and we talked about everything from buying a car to setting up my home to yoga classes to just about everything under the sun.
What saddens me most about leaving Tucson sometimes is the fact that I won't be able to hang around with her and enjoy her company... that she will not be there in Seattle !! There are some people who can spread sunshine in other's lives just by being themselves, and Luann is one among them. She is my first inspiration in Tucson, my second being my professor, Dr.Snodgrass. If I ever (and thats a big if) fulfil my dream of becoming a professor, then I want to be someone like the guide and mentor that Dr.Snodgrass is to his students.

The second thing which brightened up my weekend was: Vishnu and Tom, very sweetly surprised me with an advance birthday celebration, just bcoz we would not all be together during my actual birthday. So they planned it on a day exactly a month before my actual birthday and I was very touched. :)
I remember final year in college, when I had had three birthdays just bcoz my friends would not be there with me on the D-day. And each one was so much fun with the surprises, the cover-ups and later, all the piecing it together. Well, thanks to Tom and Vishnu, I was able to relive all that.
And to have a whole chocolate mousse cake all to yourself, well what more can you ask for. :)
We were all very tired at the end of the day but that did not stop us from playing Scrabble, and did not stop Tom from passing off words like vees and voom, of which, much to our chagrin, we found later that voom does not exist (Yes, vees it seems is a legitimate word). Nevertheless, we had not spent time together like this in a long time, or laughed so much in a long time. :) Hence, I could not agree more with the article..... that friends and family are all the buffer you need for happiness.

Words....

I have never been a good talker or a story-teller, though I have always loved to listen to stories. I felt writing always gave me more scope bcoz I could think....... and somehow the flow of words was never a problem. And contrary to when I want to say something and I often get things wrong, writing has never quite done that to me yet. Movies have been yet another form of expression for me. They have opened up so many new stories and so many new angles to life and creativity. I just finished watching Motorcycle Diaries and I simply had to write about it. Just like when you discover you like something, you are filled with happiness probably at the joy of discovering something new about yourself, I discovered I love road-trips. They seem to have grown on me since I came to this country. And motorcycle diaries is first and foremost about such a journey of discovery. It is also a travelogue about cultures of different countries within the same continent.
It is about realizations, and experiences and the effect that humanity and injustice had on the lives of two people. I finished the firstly part of my description, for the foremost part - it is based on a true story.

I finally finished and submitted my code. And after the hours of having moulded it and debugged it, it was like the joy of counting out the fingers on your new born child. I take that analogy too far perhaps. :) But that is what came to my mind today while walking to class. And after all the work, April 18th seemed a little lonely for me and lost. Its just like when you come back from a great holiday and then there is an emptiness after all the activity and fun, so too after a lot of work..... So I filled it by watching two movies in a row. One I already talked about, the other was Play Misty for me. Its the directorial debut of Clint Eastwood and a thriller. I liked the way the movie was shot , and especially the city of Carmel where it was based. The story though for me is by now an oft-repeated one, even though then it must have been a novelty. But I simply fell in love with the town and the drive beside the sea. :) I again allude back to my road-trip saga.

Well it doesn't hurt to write so I can just go ahead and put down my wishes. Someday I hope I get to know a little something about each country in the world. And I hope I do it by road. By going through the heart of each country rather than by flying over it. Someday ...... :)

A massacre....

There are 32 dead in a University campus. Through every normal step that I take to my classes and back, I can't even comprehend an iota of what those families and students must be going through. Everytime I look around the University of Arizona campus at the sprawling acres of students, going about their day to day activities, I cannot but imagine how it would have been just one such day, that many students found themselves facing gun-fire. How some were fleeing to save themselves, some instinctively stopping to save others, some taking their last breaths. Incomprehensible as well, is what the families and friends are going through and the scars that they are dealing with. The insanity and senselessness of it all is frustrating if not depressing.
And while the political debates rage on about gun-laws, the broadcast of stories that parents are telling, the newspaper death-reports of an Israeli professor who risked his life to save his students, a Lebanese student who wanted to make the world a better place by studying international relations and dozens of such others..... are what cannot be read through without breaking down.
In my small way, my condolences to all these families who are trying to grope as a part of their lives..........what I am trying to explain as newspaper reports.

Subho Nabo Barsho

For all non-bongs, thats Happy new year in bengali. Today is the Bengali new year and like all new years is entitled to a new year resolution. :) Mine is to revive my sense of humor. Like all illuminating ideas, I suddenly realized that life would be better if seen with a spoonful of sugar.

I was also seriously contemplating changing my blog to be a movie review site, which it already is. But then everyone (as my wish-to-remain-anonymous friend calls it) needs a hobby/past-time. Watching movies would not fit the category of a hobby, but then it is just one of the things which can take my imagination for a ride. And I am extra indebted to Netflix, considering that is what has made me survive the last two years literally.
So the latest additions were Namesake, Vertigo, Dial M for murder, half of Charulata, Dead Poet's society. And though I liked the Alfred Hitchcock's, my favorite was the last one. I have always been a sentimental fool, and the last one moved me to tears. Thanks to Shriram that I came across this movie.
About Namesake, well for me it was just home (considering it was filmed mostly in Kolkata too). I had found the book very depressing though good. I sort of identified with the plight of being aliens in an alien land. Strangely enough, so far I have only heard guys saying they liked it. :) Does that show that the guys were able to skip the nuances of the screenplay and get to the gist of the movie ? Or does that show that girls have moved on, and see no big deal or don't identify themselves with the movie ?

But after dead poet's society, I have found out that something missing from my life is poetry. :) As if there aren't other things...... but the jack of all trades that I usually aim to be, it is but too alluring not to try poetry.

At this moment, the center of my life is a compilers project which thankfully to two weeks of work, is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel finally. And I seriously feel like framing and hanging the 3000 lines of code , written solely by yours truly as one of my most enduring tests of patience. But there are still test cases to be done, projects, finals and presentations and all in 28 days. :)

p.s: on re-reading my own post, I cannot help but criticise that I have no idea about what I have been trying to write or whether I have been trying to write at all. I have skimmed over everything that I wanted to say and left many a thing unsaid, and I think this is the most logically written piece of the entire post..... but well , sometimes you can just indulge to be mad. :-|

A work of art :)

I got a new Mac. My first laptop ... my very own "precious" :) (read LOTR). This was something I had my eyes on from the very first semester. The interface, the genie effects of windows coming to the forefront and then disappearing when you minimize them had taken my breath away long back. But I could never get myself to actually possess one - there were so many reviews.... mostly about difficulty of use and incompatibility.

Believe me, the first day/night I was playing around with it, I realized that Yahoo and Google Talk did not have voice chat compatible versions for Mac. And since the majority of my time/energy revloves around chat, I was ready to throw the new acquisition at the wall.

But then came programming, thats the second most time/energy consumer, (considering I am in computer science - it had to be) and you have no idea about the comfortable position it has there. Since Mac is a unix based OS and all our programming is on that, I for the first time have the ease of use of Eclipse on my laptop. And you have absolutely no idea, just how much power shell programming gives you.
Enough of raving about my Mac. :) But I simply can't wait to get home all the time just to see and use it. New found love :)................. and I have to keep a note of Mac's birthday here else I am bound to forget - April 3rd, 2007.

p.s: 38 to go and counting....

Countdown

I seem to have given the impression that I am in love with Tucson and will miss it a lot when I leave. If I have done so from the scattered posts about sunsets and flora and fauna of my university, it has been in error. If I have ever been in love with Tucson, it has been by literally digging up every stone and rock and trying to find things to distract me. If I have ever written about memories and reflections that I enjoyed, it is because they were the only ones and there is nothing more I can write about.

Oh come now, you would be saying. A place isn't hostile by itself, your attitude is. Well for me, the only oasis in Tucson was Luann. I still believe she is God's gift to me and without whom I would not have survived the "life" here. I have made friends in Tucson by freak accidents, :) commonly shared blog interests (Ramya -I also took my first driving steps in her car), reading, hobbies, movie fans, old friends(Vishnu :) and friendship ties that brought her to Tucson) and working relationships (Lopa :) and our forays to Starbucks). If anything I have been so surprised by the relationships in Tucson that last for the semester, till when you need to have group work and projects and assignments done together. And then its just a hi or maybe not even that. And maybe I should not blame it on people, but on the fact that nobody has time for friendships outside of courses. But coming from where I did, it took me two years to figure that out. And believe me I am still trying to adjust. :) So if its an attitude problem, I am sure its not mine alone.

Ofcourse, we are all in that fearless twenties. Everybody get-set-go on their careers. The most lucrative job, the most comfortable life (your slice and only yours)....... its more about holding on to those dreams and making them come true than anything else. Maybe sometime, when we are older we will have the time to look back on well-established careers and then concentrate on the respective social circles. I just happened to catch people at the wrong time in Tucson I guess.
But each one to his own..........and I have my countdown which nevertheless, everyday, brings a smile to my lips by virtue of being one less. ...... 41 and counting. :)

p.s: If I sound disgruntled, its probably because I am.

All about ......

Last weekend was surprising even by my standards. I ended up watching 4 movies in 5 days. The first was "Happy Feet" - it was very enjoyable, the animation was amazing especially on the big screen. The second was "Premonition" - Sandra Bullock, it literally kept me guessing till the end. I enjoyed the movie a lot not only because it did not have a oh-the-usual ending but because at each step I could not figure out how the plot would shape up. The third was Pam's Labyrinth - also a very good movie in Spanish. It is on the heavy side, and is a very sad movie with a lot of torture that can hardly be seen by timid hearted people like me. But what gets you is how creatively the story is crafted. The last was "Dancing with wolves" - Kevin Costner, and all about red-indians and this lone american soldier who wilfully chooses a border-post for his assigned duty. 3 out of the 4 were oscar winners. And in themselves, very original and enjoyable in their own essence.

I also came across all these new songs from my yoga class..... no they are not meditation songs :). But they provide good listening pleasure all the same.
Warning: all of them are soft songs and my guess would be.... rock-fans would not like them at all.
Breathe (2 AM) - Anna Nalick
This year's love - David Gray
Just another ordinary miracle - Sarah McLachlan
Here comes the sun - Beatles
Thinking over - Dana Glover


Thats all for now, another 43 days till I leave Tucson. Meanwhile, I am missing one of my best friends - Monika's wedding in India. Little explained, little said..... there were times when we had naively planned all to attend each other's wedding, and to be there with each other through some of these life-defining moments.
Well if not in presence, then in spirit.... we are all there with you as you take this next step in your life. :)

Snapshots, sentimental drivel and philosophical non-sense

It is amazing how sometimes there are these little things....memories that get etched in life more than large or prolonged incidents that you have enjoyed and laughed or cried to.

Even in my last semester I had to take two courses, one of them being a core which leaves me with two projects that I must complete before the semester. This has started me off on coming to the department late nights (after 9 saves anytime minutes on my phone on calling safe ride - our campus shuttle service.) Day before I was so sleepy I had to tell Lopa (my partner in project) that I have to leave, only after an hour of brain-storming. Yester-night however both of us hit on the solution of Starbucks. As god is my witness (source - Gone with the wind), I can swear (sorry!!) by Starbucks. I am glad Seattle has one in every nook and corner....... and guess what I never knew..... that coffee actually makes you feel happy. No wonder they need it so much in Seattle,............ what with the weather and the job-pressure all you can be is on the brink of suicide. :)

Anyways, without drifting off, we walked down University Boulevard. (I know now that there is an University Boulevard in probably every campus in USA.) It is one of the most pleasant walks at night. Its a street lined with most of the good eateries and pubs and hangouts in the area. The trees on the pavements have lights spiralling around them giving the feel of christmas all throughout the year. There are always students hanging around in the open air spaces of the eateries, adding a constant buzz to the otherwise quiet night-air. Its beautiful, pretty and very romantic. (depends ofcourse on which eyes you see it through).
We both grabbed a cafe mocha, tall.... (I added sugar, chocolate and vanilla powder inspite of Lopa's dismissal that this did not need sugar)......... and we headed off. We walked back through the dark bylanes on campus where the springs had been turned on. The jets were spraying water all around and going a merry-go-round while they were at it. You had to literally dodge them in order to not get drenched.
But the muddy ground, now soaked, smelled exactly like that after fresh rain. And the air around was misty with the fine spray of water drops. I then remembered that this was one of my first snap-shots of Tucson. Four of us had been out on a freak midnight visit to the Udall park I think. There we had run across the water fountains and got wet. The sprays there had been reaching much higher heights and moving at faster speeds ...... which had made it literally impossible to dodge them. And then again, it being one of the warm nights, we had not wanted to escape.
Surprisingly, things changed a lot between some of us ....... there was a falling out and a on the surface make-over, and again, some of us moved off, for some of us the circumstances totally changed (and I am trying to be as vague as possible here). And its not possible that we will ever go back to that. But its amazing how there are these little things that stay on in your mind or how they come back sometimes that you get taken aback. And its amazing, how sometimes life points out the jarring headlines that you were missing that there are these small everyday things that are life. You were only too blind to see. (or too immersed in yourself to notice that life is speeding by).

There are so many times that I have thought that I have lived my life..... my best years of college and friendship are over and there is nothing more I could want from life. And this usually happens when either the motivation is lagging behind or friends or just depression seems to be overcoming you. I know for a fact that atleast a couple of my friends were on the same wavelength about having had lived the best years of their life.
And it is sometime then, that you look around and find a world ("a whole new world") you never saw before. ("Finding neverland ???") I just wish I would remember all this when I am down in the dumps..... they just don't seem strong enough to bring me out of the well then .


(P.S: This was to be expected, the more I come closer to leaving Tucson, the more sentimental drivel will keep washing up about the city which I did not try to belong to for two years, and now its trying to own me. )

Many ups few downs....

I don't think I will be able to continue with the Grand Canyon travelogue. Not bcoz it was not equally enjoyable and a hundred times worth mentioning, but that there have been so many other things in the offing that its fast fading from memory. :) Having said that, lets still give it a try.

The last time I was on a road trip, I was never in the driver's seat and all I could think of was how much fun it would be to actually drive on the curving, smooth roads that is California. Well, this time I had my wish. Karthik was indeed very sweet to take the risk of me wrecking his car which I did. I went over the road once when I was trying to reverse, which broke half of the new hub-cap on one of his tyres. I also managed to crash over a pavement on a very wild left-turn where I panicked. And yet, he let me drive on the freeway all the way from Phoenix to Tucson. :) Needless to say, the freeway was not without incident. I would have nearly rammed into a truck bcoz I was on a fast-ending lane with the truck blocking my only right exit, but thankfully as you can see I am still here, alive and writing. :)
We were late in setting off for Grand Canyon. Most of the time was to have free breakfast in the hotel and to pose for snaps. But we did finally make it around noon and just stood in awe in front of what can only be described as "grand".

Many have remarked, what of it! Its just a pile of rocks and a huge hole. Well you have to see it to know what of it. Its so majestic and at the same time so humbling. I couldn't thank my stars enough for being finally able to stand there and see it for myself. I loved it. I was just sad about having to leave it. We hiked for an hour down the Bright Angel trail, I think. The down slope was exhilarating, the up-slope was ...... phew ! very tiring. It seemed never-ending and quite steep. But it was fun. We finally made it to one of the viewing points for the sunset. Believe me, if you are ever at Grand Canyon, sunset is something you should not miss. The colors and hues of the canyon and the sky in combination, the departing sunrays, and a great friend's group amidst that is all you could ever want.

I had a rest of a day in-between before I headed off to Maryland. I could hardly have expected how great a trip it would be. I put up with Paromita di and Dipan da in their beautiful house. I could not describe the fun I had in those three days with justice. It was after a long time that I was in a complete, very quintessential bengali life. The evenings were marked by a lot of delicious bengali cuisine which so reminded me of home, and a lot of Pictionary and Taboo. It was so much of excitement, bickering, competition and enthusiasm that now probably any get-together without a game would lose its charm for me. I made a whole gang of new friends (Shouvikda, Moumitadi, Shantanuda, Arpitadi, Subratoda, Arindamda, Sneha, Kuntalda, Piyushda)and they accepted me so fast and instantly as a part of the group that I couldn't help falling in love with all of them.
And again, this was the first time, I was in a group where everybody was older or of the same age as me. Of all the times, of having been the eldest in the group and feeling more or less like a grandma, needless to say, I felt very young and the kid :). The other group that I met and befriended was Aninditadi, Debdeepda, Sabyasachi da, Baisakhi di, Gopalda and Khushi. Reading all these names here probably doesn't make sense to most of you, but I need them there if only say to a big thank you to all of them.

The saying goes, that with new friends, you should not forget the old....
I also got to catch up with Ayan and Mincy, my college-friends at Levantes in Bethesda. The name of the city itself is so quaint and old-fashioned. :) We had a good time, just catching up on who is where and doing what and touring Maryland, College Park campus. They have a lovely campus and it must be more beautiful in spring (I thought spring meant Feb-March but most of the trees were bare and it snowed while I was there).

I also got to visit Washington city. It has the most amazing architectures that I have seen in a long time and it reminds me so much of Romans, and Greeks and of my ideas of how Standford and the ivy league universities might be like.

I could not end this post without talking about the sweetest couple I have seen in a long time. Paromitadi and Dipanda went so much out of their way and did so much to ensure that I have a good time....... it was almost like being at home. They touched my life in a way that I might never be able to touch theirs. I am sure everybody who comes across them will leave feeling as special and wanted and accepted as I did. I can only wish that every relationship is touched by a little of what they share.
And I had the whole flight back, of 7 hours with stops, to feel sad about leaving the few days that I knew there or the "snapshot" as Paromita di called it. Its difficult to get back to life as I know it especially as room-mate problems are far more antagonistic now than before and I would have found it really difficult if it were not for Vishnu. But then..... there is yoga, and ball-room dancing and all the UA presents concerts and ...there is life as I know it............. even though its far-removed from the quintessential bengali life, which made me forget I was in USA.... for sometime. :)

Tale of 3 cities

Its been a long time since I have written a travelogue, mainly becoz its been a long time since I travelled. But as it happened, I got the chance to tour more than one city all at once.
The first city I visited was San Francisco - weekend of March 1-4th, for the annual CRA-W grad cohort. The conference in itself was very inspiring. You get to meet all the women in your field who have struggled through their careers and now become established. If not the round-trip to SFO,
or the stay at a five star hotel which in this instance was Westin St.Francis (right in the middle of Union Square).........meeting people from all across your field is motivating and awe-inspiring enough. One of the things I finally got done was get my name on my passport corrected. :) So I am no longer FirstName Surname (obscured because people scared me with privacy laws) where first name = FirstName Surname and last name = Blank.

But the best thing by far was making two new friends , Deepa from NCSU and Khushboo from TAMU. We met over the conference dinner and it took what 5 mins to gel .......just like that. I had been doubting myself for sometime on being actually being able to get along with people. Believe me, I couldn't have asked for two closer soul-mates. :) We had an adventure tour of the city around mid-night (to experience BART trip to Berkeley = the equivalent of metro in India). We danced to the tunes of ABBA and others at a Google hosted party (last time for me would have been college where I have had so much fun), we ordered margheritas but took two sips before settling for fruit mocktails , becoz we could not appreciate the taste, we rode the hotel elevators some dozen times until it became out of service to enjoy the view from the 32nd floor, we took pictures dil chahta hai style :). When it was time for goodbyes, all of us were equally sad to say farewell to the times together. The only smile was bcoz the conference would be shifting to Seattle next time and maybe we would be able to meet there for another rocking time.

SFO itself however did not welcome me like last time. So the entire Sunday morning I spent trying to study compilers in the hotel lobby. I did not have anybody to go around town with and thats when I realized that out of all the things that can be done alone....... touring places is not one of them. Maybe at another time I would have convinced myself otherwise,......... but then the very thought of taking the cable car and going alone to visit the water-front or Golden Gate bridge did not sound appealing at all. Nevertheless I left with happier memories than I had had in a long time.

Moving on, next stop White Mountain. The gang : Karthik, Lopa, Natasha, Swapna and myself
the cause: Road trip to Grand Canyon. Much as it seemed that the trip would almost not happen, it did and started off my spring break with a most cherished dream coming true. I did not want to leave Arizona without having seen Grand Canyon. Its like living in Kolkata all your life and never visiting the Victoria Memorial.

We started off at 7:30 a.m on Sunday, March 11th to the White Mountain, Sunrise run by the apache indians there. (The latter fact, by the way I came to know only today.) The road was amazing, there was snow around with pines and conifers sticking out, looming mountains in the distance with white snow covering them. The ski resort where we landed was just like one out of a movie with the cable cars plying up and down the slopes and people on skis and snow-boards all around us. We were beginners but that did not stop us from hiring skis to try our luck on the slopes.

Firstly, it is difficult to balance in the hard boots with two long poles attached beneath them (incase you haven't figured out I am talking about skis). Once you have lost your fear of falling, and learnt to balance and walk or slide around on the flat ground on your skis........then comes the part when you have to actually try it out on the slopes. We, brave or not, managed to get into line for the cable cars for the steepest slope. It was only when the operators saw us shaky and unable even to get on to the cable car without it stopping (like all the other skiers)...pointed us in the direction of the childrens' slope. Natasha, Swapna and Lopa after a lot of waiting and poising for the right moment, hoisted themselves on to the cable car in front of me. Lopa in the run, lost her skis however. So much for the effortless way in which everybody just stood in front of the cars as they came and just smoothly, (as if nothing could be more simple) plopped down on the seats as it started its journey up.

I took the next cable car and thankfully managed to hop on without much of an act. The cable car journeyed up the slope, with all tiny dots of skiers and snowboarders below us, jumping over the ice hills, falling down, getting up and continueing on. The difficult part seemed to be to get down from the cable car. Guess what, Natasha and group figured that they should jump. So no sooner than the cable car came close to the drop off that they jumped. Natasha fell, Lopa fell on top of her. Swapna stayed on and the cable car almost was on its way down when the operator stopped it. :) The skier next to me with his ten year old or so kid beside him, remarked how he had never seen that happen before. I was sure he would see more interesting things in a few moments. Inspite of his advice to just stand when the drop-off came and I would automatically start skiing down the slope,...... I stood up, lost my balance and fell. :) And then I couldn't stand.
I managed to push myself out of the way of the other skiers. Finally the operator came out and helped me out. I went a few micro-seconds before my feet flew up from under me and I was on my back again. Natasha was faring better, she was atleast standing. Swapna and Lopa were in the same plight as me. Swapna managed to stand , Lopa managed to slide down the slope on her back to where the others were. I could not stand. I had no idea how. :) No matter how I tried the skis did not offer any help. I finally decided to take them off, stand up and then re-wear them. Once I had managed to pull off one ski, and placed it on the snow......... guess what happened. The ski started on its own down the slope to where the others were a few feet below.
I started shouting , with one leg in a ski and the other in a sock. Natasha did try to hurl her pole out and stop it but alas! :) My ski apparently seemed to know how to ski and I didn't.
The only thought that crossed my mind then was what if it continues all the way down the slope .... I would never be able to follow it. :) Well the ski missed a turn and stopped. And I took off my other ski, hopped along in my socks on the ice and managed to grab it. I fastened both again
on to my feet. And then I stood up and fell again. This was impossible for me. Ice and I did not seem to be on the same ground. Well I did what seemed to me the best idea then. I took off the skis, held them and hobbled in my socks to the cable car drop-off. I would take the cable car back down.
To my embarrasment, I was the only one going down. Everyone coming on the up-ride stared at me and kids even managed to comment about whether I was too scared. :( Well I fared better than the others, who got on all three on one car and followed my cue. The kids did not spare calling them weepies.

Imagine my relief when I finally reached down, in front of all the kids and their parents asked the operator to stop the car and then got off. My friends followed up a few minutes behind me while I related to Karthik , our snow escapades. Then all of us noticed the children slope. It was a small-few-feet-high hill which would still have been doable, nested on the extreme right. We laughed and clicked snaps, posing as if we had accomplished a lot. Well we had, we had been on skis.... :)

Next stop Flagstaff before continueing to Grand Canyon. But I am too sleepy to write anymore. Will be continued........