2009 has come, and it has crept in so silently this time, or maybe its just me who thinks so.Anyways HAPPY NEW YEAR folks.I sat down, the last day of last year and started retrospection, of how I started and ended the year, the result of which is a list, of what i want to do and how I want to do things this year.Lets see how far I stick to them.
It has been a little less than a week since the new year started, and to say the least, it has been great for me. Its now become a routine that I wake up after the noon, and then head straight for the basketball court at the schuman park, where we guys play cricket till the sun sets, the weather has been kind enough to us to let us play even in peak winter. Then chit chatting till 10 or 11, and then dinner...ahh as somebody said .."a guy's ideal life". Talking about dinner... it has been delicious indian food whole of this week... from chicken curry ...to aloo poori ...."majjaa ni life". I hope the year continues like this.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Back ........ yet again
I always get the feeling of "coming back" whenever i sit down to write something on my blog, which in the first place should not be there, since this is my blog and I am supposed to be here. ..But this is the way I have been... and now after putting a lot of thought into it have decided to change my ways.For the first time in my life I have prepared a list of to-do things, lovingly called resolutions. One of them being "not" coming back to the blog, but staying here.
I had decided to start writing from the first day of the new year, but "shubh kam mein der kaisi". First semester is over and I am quite happy with how it went and what i learnt, and of course happy with the gpa too. The break is proving to be a little too much, and I want it to be over soon, to get going again. The lethargy which had crept in during the break, has to be wore off and I promise it will be done.... as for now I am not coming back, I'll stay here.
I had decided to start writing from the first day of the new year, but "shubh kam mein der kaisi". First semester is over and I am quite happy with how it went and what i learnt, and of course happy with the gpa too. The break is proving to be a little too much, and I want it to be over soon, to get going again. The lethargy which had crept in during the break, has to be wore off and I promise it will be done.... as for now I am not coming back, I'll stay here.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Of ice cream, rain and birthday parties which pop out of nowhere
We four had our dinner and since praveen as usual was busy with his assignments, me, karan and rubal decided to have some ice cream from Mobil. So, what’s unusual about it? Nothing, unless it is 12 o clock of a November night, its 2 degree Celsius outside, it’s raining and its windy.
But if we want to have it, we just want to have it, so we packed ourselves up to brace for wind and rain, got our umbrellas and proceeded to Mobil which is about 10 minutes walk from 1300. It was allright till we reached there, but started pouring heavily while we were on our way back. We took shelter under the EE department building, when one wise man among us suggested that we run and beat the rain to 1300, lest it starts coming down even more heavily. And we started running into the wind with our umbrellas on our heads in the heavy rain. This soon proved out to be the worst we could do, as one of us had his umbrella turned inside out and all of us got drenched by the time we got home. But... mission accomplished and we had our icecream.
I and Rubal were in Havener's centre playing Table tennis, when we got a call that we have a birthday party in Jigar's home and we have to carry a bowl of rice, at around 8 in the night. Now which b'day party starts at 8? Anyways we got home, cooked rice and went to Jigar's home, sure there were a lot of people. It was a party allright, but the question was whose birthday it was, and nobody had an answer. Finally, it became known that it was Jigar's idea of having a get together, a good one at that. Although there was no birthday but whose complaining till we get Indian food.
But if we want to have it, we just want to have it, so we packed ourselves up to brace for wind and rain, got our umbrellas and proceeded to Mobil which is about 10 minutes walk from 1300. It was allright till we reached there, but started pouring heavily while we were on our way back. We took shelter under the EE department building, when one wise man among us suggested that we run and beat the rain to 1300, lest it starts coming down even more heavily. And we started running into the wind with our umbrellas on our heads in the heavy rain. This soon proved out to be the worst we could do, as one of us had his umbrella turned inside out and all of us got drenched by the time we got home. But... mission accomplished and we had our icecream.
I and Rubal were in Havener's centre playing Table tennis, when we got a call that we have a birthday party in Jigar's home and we have to carry a bowl of rice, at around 8 in the night. Now which b'day party starts at 8? Anyways we got home, cooked rice and went to Jigar's home, sure there were a lot of people. It was a party allright, but the question was whose birthday it was, and nobody had an answer. Finally, it became known that it was Jigar's idea of having a get together, a good one at that. Although there was no birthday but whose complaining till we get Indian food.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Back!
I am in the middle of a programming homework, a project and an assignment, I am stuck and I don’t feel like working anymore and that's one reason why I am back to my blog. I have been contemplating writing this for a long time. Each time I am free, I have two choices, either write a blog entry or cook something to eat to satiate the otherworldly noises coming from my stomach, needless to say I always choose the latter.
The last few weeks have been awesome, and I have been doing work like I have never done before. More so, because after a couple of years at CSC I had almost forgotten how it is like, to work. Each week I think, maybe I'll get some time off next week, to do the pending stuff, only to find that the next week is more packed than the last one. Working nights and sleeping at 4 or 5 in the mornings have become a norm, and this is coming from a person whose eyelids used to get heavy after 10 in the night.
BUT, this also has been a time of learning, ...learning and growing(not referring to my vertical growth), getting accustomed to the way of life here, and learning about the culture, the behaviour of people, there have been so many new things, things which make an individual grow, apart from the academic stuff.
Talking about academics, for once, I am learning by doing things and not by preparing for exams.
What have I learnt? I'll try to go over it one by one in my next columns.
I hope to return here more often.
The last few weeks have been awesome, and I have been doing work like I have never done before. More so, because after a couple of years at CSC I had almost forgotten how it is like, to work. Each week I think, maybe I'll get some time off next week, to do the pending stuff, only to find that the next week is more packed than the last one. Working nights and sleeping at 4 or 5 in the mornings have become a norm, and this is coming from a person whose eyelids used to get heavy after 10 in the night.
BUT, this also has been a time of learning, ...learning and growing(not referring to my vertical growth), getting accustomed to the way of life here, and learning about the culture, the behaviour of people, there have been so many new things, things which make an individual grow, apart from the academic stuff.
Talking about academics, for once, I am learning by doing things and not by preparing for exams.
What have I learnt? I'll try to go over it one by one in my next columns.
I hope to return here more often.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Kalkaji to Rolla
It was not until a couple of days before my flight that I realised I was going so far away from home, and many a times I felt like chucking it all and going back, but I was at a point of no return and decided that I should go ahead with what I was planning from more than 3 years.
Even after maintaining all the lists and packing my stuff in advance there were things coming up every now and then and before I could know it was the afternoon of Saturday the 2nd. Before leaving for the airport I decided to take a short nap. I reached the airport at around 7, met with rubal and karan, bid good bye to my family and went inside at 8.Although we reached there 3 and half hour in advance but still couldn't manage to find adjacent seats for the three of us.
Checked in the bags and cleared the customs, and here I was ready to embark on the journey.
We boarded the plane at around 10 30 and fortunately managed to find adjacent seats once inside the plane. The flight to Chicago was a long tiring one, and for the whole duration of the journey i kept checking the small screen in front of me to know how much time was left for deplaning. We three chatted for a while and then I started checking out the screen, There were movies, songs, TV shows and Kidstuff, after a while I settled for Peace Music. Dinner arrived after about an hour of take off, obviously I opted for Indian Veg and the quality was a harbinger of the kind of food i'll be getting in the US. The Airhostesses at American Airlines were hot, or at least as hot as one can be when on the wrong side of forty. Period. As I had already taken an afternoon nap, I wasn't feeling that sleepy so I decided to check what everybody else was doing.
The gentleman next to me was a software engineer from Cognizant and was going to Florida ,Just behind me on the isle was an oversized kid reading some novel. Most of the people were dozing off, trying hard to fit in their quilt. Its a cascading effect that when everyone around you is sleeping , you also tend to feel sleepy, so I decided to sleep too, checked the screen
we were flying somewhere over North Pakistan.
I woke up 2 hours later, people were still sleeping and I decided to watch a movie, picked up "What happened at Las Vegas", this cycle of sleeping, waking, watching movies ,listening to songs continued and a snack and a breakfast later we were hovering over Chicago, The night view of Chicago from the window was breathtaking and it looked like a Diwali night celebration of lights. Soon we landed at the O'Hare Airport at Chicago and before long we cleared the Immigartion and the customs. The Airport was huge and we had to take a train, to reach the Domestic Airport. Our next flight to St. Louis was 3 hours later so we decided to rest and soak in all the change slowly. Everything had become so different in a span of some 15 hours.We boarded our next plane at 8 in the morning, and soon after I started feeling airsick, luckily it was a short flight and we landed at St. Louis in an hour. It took us a while to figure out the baggage carousel, found it finally and took our luggage. We had contacted the India Association at the university in advance and they had a shuttle ready for us. The final part of the journey started, US was so different from India. we travelled the last 100 miles to Rolla in about an hour and half, although tired it felt good to finally be at the destination.
That was the journey, I'll be back with my first few days in Rolla in some time.
Even after maintaining all the lists and packing my stuff in advance there were things coming up every now and then and before I could know it was the afternoon of Saturday the 2nd. Before leaving for the airport I decided to take a short nap. I reached the airport at around 7, met with rubal and karan, bid good bye to my family and went inside at 8.Although we reached there 3 and half hour in advance but still couldn't manage to find adjacent seats for the three of us.
Checked in the bags and cleared the customs, and here I was ready to embark on the journey.
We boarded the plane at around 10 30 and fortunately managed to find adjacent seats once inside the plane. The flight to Chicago was a long tiring one, and for the whole duration of the journey i kept checking the small screen in front of me to know how much time was left for deplaning. We three chatted for a while and then I started checking out the screen, There were movies, songs, TV shows and Kidstuff, after a while I settled for Peace Music. Dinner arrived after about an hour of take off, obviously I opted for Indian Veg and the quality was a harbinger of the kind of food i'll be getting in the US. The Airhostesses at American Airlines were hot, or at least as hot as one can be when on the wrong side of forty. Period. As I had already taken an afternoon nap, I wasn't feeling that sleepy so I decided to check what everybody else was doing.
The gentleman next to me was a software engineer from Cognizant and was going to Florida ,Just behind me on the isle was an oversized kid reading some novel. Most of the people were dozing off, trying hard to fit in their quilt. Its a cascading effect that when everyone around you is sleeping , you also tend to feel sleepy, so I decided to sleep too, checked the screen
we were flying somewhere over North Pakistan.
I woke up 2 hours later, people were still sleeping and I decided to watch a movie, picked up "What happened at Las Vegas", this cycle of sleeping, waking, watching movies ,listening to songs continued and a snack and a breakfast later we were hovering over Chicago, The night view of Chicago from the window was breathtaking and it looked like a Diwali night celebration of lights. Soon we landed at the O'Hare Airport at Chicago and before long we cleared the Immigartion and the customs. The Airport was huge and we had to take a train, to reach the Domestic Airport. Our next flight to St. Louis was 3 hours later so we decided to rest and soak in all the change slowly. Everything had become so different in a span of some 15 hours.We boarded our next plane at 8 in the morning, and soon after I started feeling airsick, luckily it was a short flight and we landed at St. Louis in an hour. It took us a while to figure out the baggage carousel, found it finally and took our luggage. We had contacted the India Association at the university in advance and they had a shuttle ready for us. The final part of the journey started, US was so different from India. we travelled the last 100 miles to Rolla in about an hour and half, although tired it felt good to finally be at the destination.
That was the journey, I'll be back with my first few days in Rolla in some time.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Last Day at CSC
For the last day I decided to go to office a little earlier than usual and I was there by 9. A lot of new joinees were pouring in since morning and here I was running here and there to complete the formalities for the last day ,winding up things at office. "Winding up things at Office", much easier said than done.Not that its difficult to get things done at CSC, but because it also meant saying good bye to friends.
One standout thing which each of us will remember were the tea breaks. The tea breaks were not anything less than an occasion, often spanning close to an hour and two tea breaks in a day meant 20% of a weekday spent discussing something not even remotely connected to work. The topics of discussion ranging from management to appraisal, from needles to noodles, but never ever coming close to work. Senseless jokes and endless laughter were the order of the time. Neelam's PJs, Shelly's smile, Manish's wit, Nidhi's blunders, Pawan's photoshoots, Aman's blabbering and Balli's english made those 2 hours the highlight of each day, and its difficult to digest that I'll no longer be there in the breakaway. The lunch get togather and the chat meeting before lunch meant another hour of fun with friends and Office seemed more like college. Last six months at CSC have been one of the most memorable and fun time of my life, exactly opposite of what one would think of working in an MNC.
Most part of the last working day as I had thought was spent in running for exit formalities, but the farewell at the end of the day was a pleasent surprise, so much so that I couldn't think of anything to speak, although I wanted to. The farewell was warm and as good as any I have ever recieved, which was followed by the usual photoshoot. And here it was, my last day at csc coming to an end, the day for which I was waiting for so long, I now wanted it to last a little longer, so that I could gather as many memories in my mind as I can.
It dawned to me that I maybe seeing some of my friends for the last time, but such is life. I don't know when will I get a chance to meet you people again,but all of you have been special and I'll miss all you people. Cheers for the time we spent togather.
P.S : Special thanks to Shelly and Neelam
One standout thing which each of us will remember were the tea breaks. The tea breaks were not anything less than an occasion, often spanning close to an hour and two tea breaks in a day meant 20% of a weekday spent discussing something not even remotely connected to work. The topics of discussion ranging from management to appraisal, from needles to noodles, but never ever coming close to work. Senseless jokes and endless laughter were the order of the time. Neelam's PJs, Shelly's smile, Manish's wit, Nidhi's blunders, Pawan's photoshoots, Aman's blabbering and Balli's english made those 2 hours the highlight of each day, and its difficult to digest that I'll no longer be there in the breakaway. The lunch get togather and the chat meeting before lunch meant another hour of fun with friends and Office seemed more like college. Last six months at CSC have been one of the most memorable and fun time of my life, exactly opposite of what one would think of working in an MNC.
Most part of the last working day as I had thought was spent in running for exit formalities, but the farewell at the end of the day was a pleasent surprise, so much so that I couldn't think of anything to speak, although I wanted to. The farewell was warm and as good as any I have ever recieved, which was followed by the usual photoshoot. And here it was, my last day at csc coming to an end, the day for which I was waiting for so long, I now wanted it to last a little longer, so that I could gather as many memories in my mind as I can.
It dawned to me that I maybe seeing some of my friends for the last time, but such is life. I don't know when will I get a chance to meet you people again,but all of you have been special and I'll miss all you people. Cheers for the time we spent togather.
P.S : Special thanks to Shelly and Neelam
For the last day I decided to go to office a little earlier than usual and I was there by 9. A lot of new joinees were pouring in since morning and here I was running here and there to complete the formalities for the last day ,winding up things at office. "Winding up things at Office", much easier said than done.Not that its difficult to get things done at CSC, but because it also meant saying good bye to friends.
One standout thing which each of us will remember were the tea breaks. The tea breaks were not anything less than an occasion, often spanning close to an hour and two tea breaks in a day meant 20% of a weekday spent discussing something not even remotely connected to work. The topics of discussion ranging from management to appraisal, from needles to noodles, but never ever coming close to work. Senseless jokes and endless laughter were the order of the time. Neelam's PJs, Shelly's smile, Manish's wit, Nidhi's blunders, Pawan's photoshoots, Aman's blabbering and Balli's english made those 2 hours the highlight of each day, and its difficult to digest that I'll no longer be there in the breakaway. The lunch get togather and the chat meeting before lunch meant another hour of fun with friends and Office seemed more like college. Last six months at CSC have been one of the most memorable and fun time of my life, exactly opposite of what one would think of working in an MNC.
Most part of the last working day as I had thought was spent in running for exit formalities, but the farewell at the end of the day was a pleasent surprise, so much so that I couldn't think of anything to speak, although I wanted to. The farewell was warm and as good as any I have ever recieved, which was followed by the usual photoshoot. And here it was, my last day at csc coming to an end, the day for which I was waiting for so long, I now wanted it to last a little longer, so that I could gather as many memories in my mind as I can.
It dawned to me that I maybe seeing some of my friends for the last time, but such is life. I don't know when will I get a chance to meet you people again,
but all of you have been special and I'll miss all you people. Cheers for the time we spent togather.
P.S : Special thanks to Shelly and Neelam
One standout thing which each of us will remember were the tea breaks. The tea breaks were not anything less than an occasion, often spanning close to an hour and two tea breaks in a day meant 20% of a weekday spent discussing something not even remotely connected to work. The topics of discussion ranging from management to appraisal, from needles to noodles, but never ever coming close to work. Senseless jokes and endless laughter were the order of the time. Neelam's PJs, Shelly's smile, Manish's wit, Nidhi's blunders, Pawan's photoshoots, Aman's blabbering and Balli's english made those 2 hours the highlight of each day, and its difficult to digest that I'll no longer be there in the breakaway. The lunch get togather and the chat meeting before lunch meant another hour of fun with friends and Office seemed more like college. Last six months at CSC have been one of the most memorable and fun time of my life, exactly opposite of what one would think of working in an MNC.
Most part of the last working day as I had thought was spent in running for exit formalities, but the farewell at the end of the day was a pleasent surprise, so much so that I couldn't think of anything to speak, although I wanted to. The farewell was warm and as good as any I have ever recieved, which was followed by the usual photoshoot. And here it was, my last day at csc coming to an end, the day for which I was waiting for so long, I now wanted it to last a little longer, so that I could gather as many memories in my mind as I can.
It dawned to me that I maybe seeing some of my friends for the last time, but such is life. I don't know when will I get a chance to meet you people again,
but all of you have been special and I'll miss all you people. Cheers for the time we spent togather.
P.S : Special thanks to Shelly and Neelam
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)