Wednesday, June 30, 2004
A Time to... Manage Time!
I don't know if procrastination is a universal human malady, but it definitely occupies a lot of my time. I dont think I am a really lazy person as such but this summer my life has been about tackling one emergency after another. I am supposed to do some research in fast addition,but it just keeps getting postponed for one reason or another. For the uninitiated, let me clarify here that I am not a precocious kid in Kindergarten but a Grad Student trying to implement the Han-Carlson adder from the Pentium 4 machines.
The first week after I got back from India was spent in helping my roommate who had an appendix removal and driving him to Chicago thereafter. The next week I spent a lot of time dropping a 1 credit course
that was meant to be relaxing. I was supposed to start learning Golf, but as stupid as I am, I didnt know that the course got over while I was back in India. So I had to go through the whole redtape of filling forms and getting a letter from my advisor and the like, to drop a course that no one really cares about. The worst part was finding the emeritus instructor who just never came to the university to sign my course-change form!!
So that taken care of I started watching many lectures by Jan Rabaey from UC Berkeley. I have to say he is one smart man. If you have any interest in digital circuit design, please visit Webcasts @ Berkeley. So I haven't been completely unproductive as I might have lead you to believe.
Murphy's law states that "The time required to complete a task = The time available" and I think that applies to almost all situations, whether you have too little time or too much. But another minor emergency crept into my schedule yesterday. I was losing health insurance today because I am not employed in the summer. Now losing health insurance is really quite a big deal here, because it means you have to plan your accidents really well. So I had to trudge my careful way to University Health Services, to buy insurance. With my health insurance all recharged, I decided to court danger and went on a nice bikeride on a rather decrepit bicycle around lake Mendota. If you buy something, you have to use it right?! ;) Well don't worry I didnt need to.
I don't know if procrastination is a universal human malady, but it definitely occupies a lot of my time. I dont think I am a really lazy person as such but this summer my life has been about tackling one emergency after another. I am supposed to do some research in fast addition,but it just keeps getting postponed for one reason or another. For the uninitiated, let me clarify here that I am not a precocious kid in Kindergarten but a Grad Student trying to implement the Han-Carlson adder from the Pentium 4 machines.
The first week after I got back from India was spent in helping my roommate who had an appendix removal and driving him to Chicago thereafter. The next week I spent a lot of time dropping a 1 credit course
that was meant to be relaxing. I was supposed to start learning Golf, but as stupid as I am, I didnt know that the course got over while I was back in India. So I had to go through the whole redtape of filling forms and getting a letter from my advisor and the like, to drop a course that no one really cares about. The worst part was finding the emeritus instructor who just never came to the university to sign my course-change form!!
So that taken care of I started watching many lectures by Jan Rabaey from UC Berkeley. I have to say he is one smart man. If you have any interest in digital circuit design, please visit Webcasts @ Berkeley. So I haven't been completely unproductive as I might have lead you to believe.
Murphy's law states that "The time required to complete a task = The time available" and I think that applies to almost all situations, whether you have too little time or too much. But another minor emergency crept into my schedule yesterday. I was losing health insurance today because I am not employed in the summer. Now losing health insurance is really quite a big deal here, because it means you have to plan your accidents really well. So I had to trudge my careful way to University Health Services, to buy insurance. With my health insurance all recharged, I decided to court danger and went on a nice bikeride on a rather decrepit bicycle around lake Mendota. If you buy something, you have to use it right?! ;) Well don't worry I didnt need to.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Auf Wiedersehen Deustschland!
I've had this childhood dream of going to Germany. Why Germany you ask? Well cos I spent 5 years learning German in school and it seemed only apt that I get to torture Germans with the beautiful harshness of their language, especially with an Indian Accent.(Okay and picture this, I spent 5 years learning German as opposed to my mother tongue of Marathi). Now I was definitely not as well-endowed with German language skills in school as Satyen or Shantanu (two of my friends who went on exchange programs to Germany), so I have to relish much smaller visits to Germany than them.
And out of the blue, my dream came true... my return flight from Bombay to Chicago made a stopover in Frankfurt and I was released into Germany for an hour. So I felt rather excited at the prospect of using my atrophied "Wortschatz" (translate vocabulary) and German "Grammatik" again.
But as is the case with most things in my life it turned out to be quite a funny experience. Okay in order to not appear stupider than I am, I havent actually spoken German for more than 8 years now and I barely remember some words and some grammar rules now. But okay so I took a brave foot forward towards this attendant lady and asked "Wo kann ich ein Telephon finden?"... (translate "Where can I find a telephone?")I was feeling mightily pleased with myself for having managed to make one complete sentence in German. I said to myself, "Well so let the plaudits flow pretty German lady!" ;) And she goes "Oh, there is a phone in the corner there!" And this stupid experience repeated itself over and over at Frankfurt airport... Each time that I managed a perfect sentence the stupid Germans just kept replying in English!!!(Ofcourse I am not telling you about the sentences I messed up... hehehe) Much to my dismay, it appears as though they were practising THEIR English on me! Haha you say...So feeling rather downcast at not having won any compliments on my excellent German, I went to the restroom. I kinda paused when I saw this rather unclean bowl and bolted. The janitor there noticed my predicament and pointed saying "Die Toilette dort da!" and I reply rather smartly "Oh you mean the one there!".
I've had this childhood dream of going to Germany. Why Germany you ask? Well cos I spent 5 years learning German in school and it seemed only apt that I get to torture Germans with the beautiful harshness of their language, especially with an Indian Accent.(Okay and picture this, I spent 5 years learning German as opposed to my mother tongue of Marathi). Now I was definitely not as well-endowed with German language skills in school as Satyen or Shantanu (two of my friends who went on exchange programs to Germany), so I have to relish much smaller visits to Germany than them.
And out of the blue, my dream came true... my return flight from Bombay to Chicago made a stopover in Frankfurt and I was released into Germany for an hour. So I felt rather excited at the prospect of using my atrophied "Wortschatz" (translate vocabulary) and German "Grammatik" again.
But as is the case with most things in my life it turned out to be quite a funny experience. Okay in order to not appear stupider than I am, I havent actually spoken German for more than 8 years now and I barely remember some words and some grammar rules now. But okay so I took a brave foot forward towards this attendant lady and asked "Wo kann ich ein Telephon finden?"... (translate "Where can I find a telephone?")I was feeling mightily pleased with myself for having managed to make one complete sentence in German. I said to myself, "Well so let the plaudits flow pretty German lady!" ;) And she goes "Oh, there is a phone in the corner there!" And this stupid experience repeated itself over and over at Frankfurt airport... Each time that I managed a perfect sentence the stupid Germans just kept replying in English!!!(Ofcourse I am not telling you about the sentences I messed up... hehehe) Much to my dismay, it appears as though they were practising THEIR English on me! Haha you say...So feeling rather downcast at not having won any compliments on my excellent German, I went to the restroom. I kinda paused when I saw this rather unclean bowl and bolted. The janitor there noticed my predicament and pointed saying "Die Toilette dort da!" and I reply rather smartly "Oh you mean the one there!".
Monday, June 07, 2004
A Passage to India ;-)
So I made my yearly voyage all the way across the globe to home in India. Some might call me stupid to visit Pune in the warmest of seasons but it turned out to be quite mild by Indian standards... The rain gods would smile each time the temperature reached 36 degrees (Celcius obviously)and the following day would be even cooler.
The best part about being back in India is the food!! Mum's cooking is as awesome as ever. Vaishali was ofcourse on the top of list for places to visit. Then came Natural's icecream... even though Wisconsin prides itself at being the "Dairy State", given the abudance of cow-like creatures (human and otherwise), they dont know how to make good icecream. I guess it is for the best... if there were such excellent flavors like Roasted Almond and Coffee Walnut, we would see many more pachyderms in the US. Fresh Mangoes with their heavenly taste are another huge reason why a summer visit is such fun!
Getting to meet so many old friends and relatives is also really nice. Everyone is kinda in a motherly mode, which does call for a lot of eating again but it's nice to have people fussing over you for a change. Ofcourse to offset all that gluttony, I frequented the Poona Club Gym every morning... I have gained some weight nevertheless, but I am consoling myself with the thought that maybe it is muscle mass! ;-)
And then there is the bird-watching... It's a relief to see pretty girls of your own kind and after a pretty-desi-girl drought of such proportions in the US, it makes one believe that there ARE plenty of fish in the ocean afterall.
But the one thing I hate the most about being in Pune is the traffic and the air pollution. The lack of road discipline is so phenomenol. No one walks on the footpaths at all.. they line up 3 people side by side and walk without a care on the streets. The arms of the road are never asphalted and people drive as if they were changing lanes all the time. I can't imagine surviving in Pune too long, I'd just have a heart-attack each time I go for a drive, when I get old. I hope Bangalore, the only place in India I am likely to settle down permanently in, is better than Pune in this regard.
So I made my yearly voyage all the way across the globe to home in India. Some might call me stupid to visit Pune in the warmest of seasons but it turned out to be quite mild by Indian standards... The rain gods would smile each time the temperature reached 36 degrees (Celcius obviously)and the following day would be even cooler.
The best part about being back in India is the food!! Mum's cooking is as awesome as ever. Vaishali was ofcourse on the top of list for places to visit. Then came Natural's icecream... even though Wisconsin prides itself at being the "Dairy State", given the abudance of cow-like creatures (human and otherwise), they dont know how to make good icecream. I guess it is for the best... if there were such excellent flavors like Roasted Almond and Coffee Walnut, we would see many more pachyderms in the US. Fresh Mangoes with their heavenly taste are another huge reason why a summer visit is such fun!
Getting to meet so many old friends and relatives is also really nice. Everyone is kinda in a motherly mode, which does call for a lot of eating again but it's nice to have people fussing over you for a change. Ofcourse to offset all that gluttony, I frequented the Poona Club Gym every morning... I have gained some weight nevertheless, but I am consoling myself with the thought that maybe it is muscle mass! ;-)
And then there is the bird-watching... It's a relief to see pretty girls of your own kind and after a pretty-desi-girl drought of such proportions in the US, it makes one believe that there ARE plenty of fish in the ocean afterall.
But the one thing I hate the most about being in Pune is the traffic and the air pollution. The lack of road discipline is so phenomenol. No one walks on the footpaths at all.. they line up 3 people side by side and walk without a care on the streets. The arms of the road are never asphalted and people drive as if they were changing lanes all the time. I can't imagine surviving in Pune too long, I'd just have a heart-attack each time I go for a drive, when I get old. I hope Bangalore, the only place in India I am likely to settle down permanently in, is better than Pune in this regard.
