Chennai Damaka

It was an eventful week last week. I made a long trip to Chennai with a tightly packed schedule and had a lot of things in mind.... getting my Letter of Recommendation from my College professors and Transcripts from my University, meet family and frens, movies... to name a few. But smack down in the middle (literally) of my vacation was the main purpose of my trip, mein Geburtstag ("my Birthday" for the uninitiated).

17th July Sunday : The vacation has jus started and I happy to meet some of my frens after quite some time. I also had to forcefully pull out some of them from their (MBA) classes and went straight for a movie, only to be bombed. "Sorry sir, no tickets" was what we got.
Big deal!, we thought, now we have some thing better to do, Foosball ! ! !. We drove straight to the our favorite (and only) Foosball hang out Du Bowl, only to be bombed once again "No Foosball sir, its not working". Having had enough of this we jus left for Cafe Coffee Day (formerly 'The' hang out place, but now it's losing its sheen). After some chit chat and some bird watching we headed to play some Pool at Pot Shot. The evening was brought to a close with the *famous* sandwich-around-the-corner.

18th July Monday : Spent most of the day at Madras University (it took more than 2 freaking hours to get a single D.D.). And after running helter-skelter from one block to the other I was finally able to submit my application for Transcripts. Phew!!! Talk about things being unorderly, talk about Madras University!

19th July Tuesday : Bought my mom a nice pair of earring and a saree. Did a little shopping for myself.

20th July Wednesday : My Birthday! - spent the day with family... with special breakfast, even more special lunch and I-had-enough-specials dinner. The day went by talking to and mailing frens, reading their wishes and spending quality time with meine Familie apart from a little shopping again. A Saturday night party with frens was also planned.

21st July Thursday : Nostalgia! Back to college. Spent the better part of the day there getting my recos, meeting professors and having a snack at the ole bunker..err... canteen! Nothing's changed here so I headed back home.

22nd July Friday : Met a lot of relatives, grandpa, grandma, aunty, uncle, cousin... etc... etc... After all that I needed some time to chill. It then dawned on me that one important intent of my visit was still unfinished! So I decided to call some of my frens and headed for Satyam theaters.... the movie - Anniyan.

It was nostalgia again... this time the fun of watching a movie with Avaiz (aka wtfdude). I almost forgot how he used to scream and joke during most of the movies I have seen with him, I clearly recall his antics during Matrix Revolution and it was fun. Every thing came back again when he started screaming ANNYIAAANNNNN now and then and I cudn't help but laugh. Of course I can't blame him, I made him watch a movie that he has already seen umpteen times!

23rd July Saturday : Another day another movie. This time it was the movie "Sarkar" with Ajay and Deepak (aka Alpha) at Mayajaal where I also met a very close school buddy of mine, Idhris. The movie was really good as wtfdude had said in his blog. It was really fast paced and deviating from the usual Indian masala movie it did not have any song-and-dance sequence. Another point is that unlike the usual movie plot where the first half is jus laying the foundation of the story and the second half is all drama, in "Sarkar" felt I like it did not have any typical first half. It was all action and drama right from the word go.

Next was party time.... at Mainland China. It was great to have a mini get-together of frens. It's been a long time overdue. Although I missed "Hog-king" Shafi, I was glad to see Zuber after a long time. And of course the long time contender for the "Hog-King" title, Avaiz was more than happy to fill Shafi's shoes. As the lone vegetarian in the group Deepak had some troubles. His "Veg-XYZ-ABC Noodles" was untouched by others, so was his vegetarian side dish which Ajay described to be a vegetable salad only a little wet! I tried it and concurred with Ajay. Tariq still dressed in formals (effects of Great Lakes institute) had his eyes riveted on the birds in the neighboring tables. As they say 'A bird in the bush is better than none in hand'. Jus kiddin Tariq ;-)

After a filling dinner I was surprised by the guys when they brought to the table a birthday sparkler and a cake! But there was another surprise awaiting me and it was truly the icing on the cake....literally. And the icing was me! This is when Avaiz shoved my face into the beautiful cake while I blew the candle. To add sweeteners over the icing, Ajay took eons to take a snap with the whole population at the restaurant laughing and gigling at yours truly!

I crashed into my bed well past midnight and by the next day my vacation will officially be over.

24th July Sunday : Relaxed for some time with the help of my idiot box and started packing off to the wet and windy H.Y.D. On the train there was this newly wed couple sitting straight opposite to me. I concluded them to be newly web based on inference of their behavior and nothing else. Dam... more often that not I jus wanted to shout at them "Get a room!!!" I tried to focus on the book I had and not be distracted but people shud know what is acceptable by the Indian public and more importantly what's not!

Anyway I am back to my office after a long break and got some new things on my hand right away. Catch u guys soon!

Whats been happening?

Long long ago... well that's the time between my last post and this one.

Whats has happened so far? Is there not anything happening thats Blog worthy?
Lots actually. A lot of things have been happening like FSF-IIIT, new project(module), YOGA, Wind River, Study, MS, Univ selection, research, research, research... Needless to say that the last few items here took most of my time.

Free as in...

Lemme start the proceedings with Free Software Foundation(FSF) meet at IIIT, Hyderabad.

There was this two-day FSF meet at IIIT. Three of my project mates who are alumina of IIIT were involved in organizing it apart from giving a presentation during the event.

We have all attended some meet or symposiums or sumthing of that sort during our college days. But we were students then. Here I was in a meet with an overwhelming majority of students and I was "a guy form the industry". hehehe

It was different (slightly funny too) when I was introduced to some of the other "industry people", I can see all the eyes in the crowd shifting its focus. Mind u these industry people are not fresh bloods like me. I was interacting with bigshots for the Geological Society of India, Life Insurance Corporation India, Professors for top univs and the likes. (And I wasn't even dressed for the occasion!!! I wore a dress that was more casual than a college dude! Hey after all it is FREE Software workshop ;-) )

The event itself was very successful. Was interacting with the students and everyone is very impressed. They should be after a stupendous presentation from my colleagues. I am not saying this jus coz they are my frens but it is the fact. Their presentation was undoubtedly the best part of the two day event.

Deja vu. OD or On Duty. Something we all wanted when we bunked classes in College on the pretext of doing some world-saving-work.

I was given OD for attending this event ;-)

It was a break from the mundane office routine. I badly needed it.

Time for another break

Buoyed by my new found energy (I realized I felt better whenever I missed office on week days... dunno why...hmm...), I already needed more. And things couldn't have been better.
1. An invitation to my PL attend a product launch by Wind River Technologies
2. My PL asks his team members to go.
3. Wind River are in to Embedded Systems (I like that) and their product is over VxWorks and Linux (I love that)
4. A break from office with a definite OD ;-)
5. Lastly, the product launch was at a 5-star hotel. It included Lunch (Hurray!!! .. decent food after a long..long..time. Ppl eating canteen food EVERY DAY wud know)
Mind u reason 5 was NOT the reason I went there but it was a nice addition ;-)

Again, in less than a week, I am an "industry guy" meeting other "industry people". My company brand attracted a few people (who are marketing this product). I was a neophyte trying to talk like a pro and did a good job at that. (Dam... I lost a few points when I did not have my own visiting card... but there will be other meets, I felt).

Its All in Your Head

Back to Office work. I wanted to add a post here some time back abt the work module I was allocated. Its not that it is a better-than-building-Mars Rover type of work but it is something I had told my peers a few months back that I will not be able do it as it a bit complex involving a language (NOT programming lang) that I did not know. And I started working on a different module.

Some of my frens (Deepak aka Alpha) advised me that it will not be all that difficult once I got that prejudice off my mind. This thought has always lingered in my my mind and I wanted to tell the guys that I will give it a shot if they need me.

One day without me asking, I was asked if I can take it up again. I immediately replied in affirmative.

Ok, so whats the big deal about that you ask?

Well this work that I was scared of initially was so easy that I finished the first half (my major work) of it in TWO days!!! Come to think of it, now I can't justify why I refused to take it up on the earlier occasion.

I now realised in any task that we do the biggest obstacles are those created by the mind. Once u overcome those its pretty much smooth sailing from there on.

Yo! ga sa nam

Did u know that Kapalabathra improves your concentration, invigorates your brain, stimulates brain activity?

Did u know that Sarvangasana helps ur digestive organs - ur pancreas, stomach and intestine?

Did u know that Ustrasana helps ur vertebral column and strengthens your lower back?

Did u know that I have been attending Yoga classes for the past one month but still can't sit in Savasana (a supposedly relaxed posture)?

Did u know that I am flummoxed when my instructor starts speaking purely in terms of Asanas and for most of it I don't know one Asana from another?

Phew!

But alas all is not lost, there is hope for guys like me. I have learnt a lot in this one month. I have jus started to discover the wonderful practice of Yoga! And already I can feel the effects of it in my body.

If only I can kick my lazy ass to practice it every morning it would have been even better!

Time Eater

@Avaiz: Yeah dude I shud have updated my blog but the thing called univ selection is a lot time consuming that I thought.

The more clearer I get on the course I wanna take the more univs I have got to throw off my list and go look out for new ones! I have to finalize the list before approching for my recos in a couple of weeks. And yes I would be dropping by at Chennai pretty soon.

Got some plans to watch Chandramuki, Anniyan, etc... My (tamil) frens and roommate here have seen the Telugu dubbed version of Anniyan, "Apparichidu" twice. But I am adamant to watch it in Tamil. Hope I can get some time shuttling between college and Madras univ for my apps.

Catch ya soon

[EDIT] Happy Birthday America. Hope to c ya soon [/EDIT]