The Surrender

The crunching of the leaves, filled the night around

Footsteps followed the tranquilized breeze downtown

The mind in an absolute state of confound

Hoping the serene surround would clear the rebound.

The scent of the fresh soil lingered in the air

The rain drops descended the heaven's stair

It was a moment meant for all to share

But the place was engulfing him in despair.

As the lightning streaked across the sky

He let out a feeble and beaten sigh

The solitary abandonment he wanted to deny

But the beauty of nature seemed to make him defy.

The rippling of the water captured his mind

Fascinated was he to see the land and water entwined

As he made his way across the bridge, to nature resigned

His melancholy now seemed to have pined.

10 things that I have been doing lately!!!

10) I clean up a lot lately. Never before have I wanted things to be neat and clean.
 
09) I think a lot about the future. ( ok to put this more explicitly--> i day dream a lot )

08) I have been visiting my blog more regulary ( at least 2 a week during a certain class hour such as this one )

07) Playing table tennis. Though not on a regular basis but yeah the magic of ping pong is back.

06) Playing leather ball cricket very poorly. Not that I used to play like a pro before, but off late been playing really bad.

05) I play FIFA 2009, Need For Speed Underground and Counter Strike. Games that my previous system would never have supported.

04) How can I not mention the fact that I cook these days. ( How I cook? That I am afraid somebody else has to vouch for. People never believe me when I talk about my culinary capabilities )

03) I study more than I have ever studied in my life. ( OMG!!!!!! you must be kidding me if u believed this. )

02) There are a lot many other things that I do but would rather not mention them here.

01) Last but definitely not the least I sleep a lot. ( zzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ).

Whats in a name ???

Going by the title one could say that what is this guy writing about a used and abused topic. As a matter of fact it has been gleefully ripped and torn apart by many people. Well what the heck let me also join the long list of those people.

I bet this is one situation that many of us find ourselves in, atleast a minimum of ten times as far as their memory lets them rewind. ( Do not go by the statistics that I use, they are never verified ). So the other day I ran into this guy. Lets call the guy "this guy". This is how our conversation went on :-

This guy : "Hey how is it going ? "

Me : "Going good man. How about you?" [ Hhmmnn who the hell is this guy ? ]

This guy : "Good dude. How are the courses this sem? "

Me : "So far so good man. How are yours ? " [ What the hell man where have I seen this guy before? ]

This guy : " The course work is good, not too much of a load so far. "

Me : "Yeah the sem has just started, so its kinda easy as of now." [ Oh man I have absolutely no idea who this guy is ]

This guy : " Yeah i know, its going to get worse gradually "

Me :" Yep" [ His face does look familiar though. What the hell he is in the same university so obviously he will look familiar ]

ME :" Ok I got to go now, will catch you some other time. [ Crap I still do not know his name ]

This guy :"Yeah sure, good luck"

ME :" Thanks same to you" [ Great I keep having this conversation all the time ]

That conversation might be related to quite a few people around this world. As the saying goes, "Whats in a name?". Or is that my saying? Whatever!!!!

I am pretty sure I will be in such situations many more times in the coming future. God help me and the people like me!!!!!!!!!!

The Return and The Re-return

Its been a while since I even visited my blog. Almost 3 months I guess. I believe the title is aptly given. Finally I come up with a title other than "random", "very very random", "Utter-nonsense" and all the other weird names that I have come up with till date, which barely has any connection with whatever is beneath it. 

Barely 4 or 5 months into Masters life and I got the chance to return back to Home Sweet Home. Not many people get such a sweet opportunity to go back home immediately after the first semester. I did though and all thanks to my father. Phew!!! what a relief it was to be back home atleast for a few weeks. None of my friends expected me to come back and every body was in for a surprise or more appropriately a shock. I bet some of them might have wondered that I had given up on Masters and returned back home. Ok that is a little too much to think. 

Anyways that was the return. I had never felt so much better to be back home and to see my family. I wanted time to stop still, but as it happens time flies fast. This is in accordance with the theory of relativity as described by some great person which is anologous to Einstien's. ( P.S- I assume you do know this theory ). The time to come back to Tempe arrived faster than I could have imagined.

The re-return was not too bad actually. Well apart from the fact that I would miss my near and dear ones the journey back to the university was not bad at all. I was scheduled to arrive at Phoenix from Denver. The baggage carts at the airport in Denver was as horrible and bad as one could imagine it to be. The cart kept turning right for who knows what god forsaken reason. It was as if the cart was rigged to turn right even though I was pushing it to go straight. Before that I want to mention something really funny. I was checked at the airport for bringing in cummin seeds ( jeera ). The funny part was only one packet was checked. The remaining packets went un-noticed. Strange reasoning i felt. Ok here comes the funnier part. I was supposed to come to Phoenix by US airways. Because of the dumb trolley that I was pushing I checked into the first counter that I could lay my eyes upon. But then when I enquired about the boarding pass I was told that I had checked into the United Airways counter. I was assured that I would get my luggage in Phoenix. What I assumed was that they would route the luggage to my aircraft as it was tagged all the way from Bangalore. I waited for about 20 minutes at Phoenix airport only to realise that my luggage was not on that flight. Finally after enquiry I was told that my luggage was in another terminal and had come by another aircraft. The tension surrounding me and my luggage which housed a variety of food and snacks. As they say all is well that ends well.

P.S- I guess my standards in blogging has gone plummeting down just like Satyam's market value. Need to improve and need to continue blogging as much as possible.

I take back what I said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did I say that I do not like my computer?
I must have been possessed. I probably was in a drunken stupor to have made such a statement.
Well you must have guessed it correct. Things are normal now and I do take back my statement. I very much love my computer. It is my best companion. How I wish there were some artificial intelligence built into this machine. Well, I do want it all dont I ??

It is probably a human psychology. I got the spelling correct I presume.
When things go bad there is no remedy to come out of the dismal feeling unless there is something of the opposite polarity that could negate the bad effect. In other words there is nothing like a good news to cheer you up and boost your morale to god knows what limits. Just a few days back I was in this horrible state of not wanting to do anything and feeling totally screwed up. There were a ton of assignments due and project deadlines were fast approaching.
Things have changed now. Assignments are overdue, and project deadlines are almost banging on the door.
But amongst all this there is this fresh change that has come in like a real life saver.
I got through into the main campus for the next semester. From now on I will not be attending the Polytechnic campus for a degree. Its no longer a Masters degree in Computing Studies, but now it is going to be a Master's degree in Computer Science itself. Now that really does clear off a major chunk of the bad feeling. So as they say things are not as bad as they seem to be. After a span of bad days comes the good days. After every thing bad comes something good. It is a cycle.
Phew!!!!!!!
Look who is talking philosophy now.
Naah thats not my area of interest anyways. My area of expertise is to write crap just like I have been doing all along.

Gggggrrrrrrr

At the moment all I have to say is that I hate computers
Just for the basic reason that there is too much of complications involved as compared to the ease of work and life. Well anyways. This is my shortest post ever. May as well play frisbee with my laptop now!!!!!
Hhhhhmmmmmnnnnn, will keep that thought in mind.

Very Very Very Very Random

Its almost a month since I posted anything, and finally here is something. As suggested by the title, this is totally random. I could as well say that this is just for the sake of writing.

First of all, a few days back I met a friend's friend. After the introduction the first thing that the guy said to me was that he read my blog. To be frank it was like a bolt in the blue for me. Then reality dawned on me that people do read this. So first of all a very big "WELCOME" to all those visiting. Secondly a big "THANK YOU" for taking the time out to read this, which obviously will be of no use to you. Thirdly a small request, in case you are visiting, please leave a comment. Any kind of comment will suffice.

University life is so much different and so much more fun as compared to back home. For one nobody in the right state of mind in India will venture out at 12 in the night to the library like me. It is an altogether different story that I am blogging instead of burying my nose in some voluminous book with a specs clinging on to the end of my nose for dear life. Anyways as one of my Prof says "I digress". So here I am not at home in the middle of the night trying to study.

Cricket is a crazy game back home. As correctly quoted " Cricket is a game played by 11 fools and followed by a 11,000 other fools". How much ever the truth this particular quote carries the game is still ingrained in our blood. The best part of life here at ASU is that I have been playing more cricket than I played back at home. Playing cricket in the birth-place of baseball gives you a strange sense of satisfaction, especially when the natives question about the game and its rules. So here I am playing cricket half way across the world that too under lights at 11 in the night. That, I would definitely call it an interesting improvement coming here.

A very interesting and encouraging trend or rather program I would say is the International friend program. This is a program where international students sign up and are assigned foster families based on their likes and interests. I had been to a family's place through this program for dinner one evening. Their hospitality is to die for. The guy actually came all the way to our apartment to pick us up and promptly dropped us off after dinner and a light conversation. There is seriously a huge difference between the way they speak at home compared to the way our families speak back in India. Here is a small example :-

Mr M :- "Honey, where is the photographs that we took when we went for the hike ? "
Mrs M :-" Oh yeeaah!! They are right over there on the book shelf."
Mr M :-" Oh noo. Its not over there I just looked for it. You must have moved them some place"
Mrs M :-"Are you sure? I kept it there the last time I looked at them".
Mr M :-"Yeah I just looked for it and it is not there."
Mrs M :-"Hhhmmnnn oh okay gimme a minute I will take a look, it is probably there in the other shelf inside the room."
Mr M :-"Oh okaay!! I will go get it then, no problem."
Mrs M :-"Okaaay!!"

Eight lines of conversation. Keep in mind that these people speak very very slowly and they talk in a sing-song voice almost dragging and elongating each word. So all in all I would say that the above conversation would last probably for 6-7 minutes.

Here is a typical translation of the conversation back in India.

Mr : "ley aa tripige hogiddu photos yelle? " [ Hey where are the photos of the trip ? ]
Mrs ( in an irritated tone ): "nanige yenri gottu neeve ittiddu, neeve huddukoli" [ How am I supposed to know, you have only kept it, you only search for it. ]
Mr ( in an even more irritated tone ) : " ee maneli yenu timeige correct aagi sigalla " [ you dont find anything on time in this house ]

Three lines of conversation, keeping in mind that they speak fast and the appropriate time of the conversation would be 6-7 seconds.

It is not a very exact translation, as the situation varies from house to house and from person to person. I would say that 50% of the conversation would probably end here and there is a high probability that this conversation could lead to a nasty fight over some trivial matter which would have no connection to the first question.

Off course there is also a high probability that the conversation might take place in exactly opposite sense without any hint of irritation and full of sugary tones. As I said differs from family to family.

Okay there are so many things more that I would like to tell, but as of now I am blank. Will come up with more as soon as I find time, { which is actually just a plain old excuse, as usual } .