Time to start breaking myths...

Weekends in the USA...

To say boring would be an understatement.. People back home reading this might be surprised, but it's damn true!

I used to think that getting up at 10 a.m was late enough....Sadly, graduate life in the US has pummeled my sleeping habits into oblivion! The earliest I've woken up on a weekend is 11 a.m. Sometimes I wake up at 12 noon, skip breakfast and head straight for lunch! I guess waking up late helps to delay the boredom to come ahead..

..

This is a rule of thumb for a computer science graduate student with 3 courses - "There will always be an assignment on every weekend for each of the 16 weekends in the semester".

Next rule of thumb - "Each of these 16 assignments will never be done on any of those 16 weekends..they will be relegated to the coming Monday."

..

Yeah, I do not have any relatives in the US...atleast in this sense, I stand out from the local crowd here...the lone ranger from my family!!

Man.. every Indian student I know here has some form of near or distant relative in the US. I guess their sole purpose of coming here is to meet them, and not for graduate studies. The topic inevitably slips into every other conversation...

Me: "What plans for December?" (December.. winter break)

X:"I'm going to meet my aunt in California."

Y:"I'm going to stay with my sister for a week."

X,Y: "What about you?"

Me:"No relatives , therefore no plans."

X,Y(In unison!): "You don't have relatives here? Wow..".

I love the fact that I'm all "alone" in the United States. Miles away from home, fending for myself, funding my way through college.. It's been a tough experience, and it's been worth the risk.

Meandering on...

Most students (please interpret as Indian graduate students) here live like monks .. No television, no newspaper (sigh.. I miss both..) . ..completely unaware of what is going on in the country that we are residing in!

We hear the 'headlines' or 'top stories' only by word of mouth, in this era of the internet! I'm seriously considering purchasing a TV.. (although my dad vehemently opposes the idea!) Electronics are cheap in the US .. especially if they are refurbished goods..yeah, the US lingo for "second-hand" or "used stuff"..

I see that most of the post content was hardly related to myth breaking.. But then again, "Meanderthal's the name, and meandering my game..."

Networks final tomorrow...Long way to go before I can consider myself prepared..

Posted on December 1, 2005... Heaven knows what's wrong with blogspot's timestamp mechanism...

Brrr..

Had my first brush with negative temperatures 3 days ago..Also, happened to snow that day ( November 16, 2005 - had a C++ quiz - nothing memorable about this day, and I realize how sad graduate life is when I'm using dates of quizzes/midterms to recollect landmark events! ) .. the first time I saw flakes in life [not really ;-).. I know a lot of "flakes"..and quite a few are also friends!.. I really wish I could mention names...].

One thing that really irks me is how people here in Chicago come up to me and ask - "So how does seeing snow for the first time feel like? ". Now that's fine, but here comes the irritating part - after my reply, they go "It's gonna get worse man" ,"You've seen nothing yet" ,"The refridgerator will feel warmer"(Ok, I made up that last one!). Thanks for all the warnings , but no thanks!!

For a man who's lived his entire life (almost!) in the tropics , experiencing sub-zero temperatures ( -11 deg C , and dropping!) was a revelation.. I was relieved to find out that I could actually withstand this chill!

Another pain in the butt is getting ready to go out. I'm that kind of guy who takes 60 seconds to dress up...This figure is impossible to reach when you are going out to face the cold.. first comes a sweater, and then another (and maybe another), and then a jacket, and then the gloves, and then a cap.. man, I'm already complaining .. Wonder what state I'll be in when the refridgerator starts to feel warmer..

Hell.. it's 3 a.m in the night... Am not yet asleep..common sense seems to have drained out of me when it comes to sleeping early!

"If looks could kill.. I should have been in jail!".

Good night!

Of things to come..

- My blog will not be an autobiography ( was about to type "autobiography of my life.. ha ha ha!! for those who didn't get the joke, this should probably be your last visit to my blog. ).

- Behind the scenes - A Master's program in the US..

- How food in the United States sucks! I will devote lots of blogspace to this for sure..

- Stuff I miss about India

- Miscellaneous/Etc.

As of now, I'm stuck in the middle of a networks course assignment. But I'll be back..

Also, my postings will be arbit/meandering/not at all to the point. This is w.r.t both inter-postings and intra-postings.

Good night!

Why I have started to blog..

Please note: All my blog titles will end with the '..' Don't ask why... idiosyncrasy, i guess.

(Forgot the spelling of idiosyncrasy.. Googled it. How? Typed in the wrong spelling, and got the right one from google's infamous "did you mean..")

Coming back to why I have started to blog:

1. I am too lazy to create a website of my own (Yeah, shame on me! I'm a computer science engineer after all! ).

2. Just felt like blogging today ( Nov. 11, 2005.. I know.. the timestamp is up there! But I know there are some people who will not observe that. Also, there will be some people who will not know what a timestamp is.. ).

3. Can't think of a third reason.. so watch this space!