May 15, 2006

A day I shall remember for the rest of my life. Defended my PhD dissertation. An immense sense of satisfaction. The three years of hard work have finally paid off. I am feeling happy today. Hope to be back and chronicle my journey over the past 5 months, I am sure I can learn many things by documenting those experiences.

Another day another dime...

It has been a long day today. Really long, have been at work since the past 11 hours or so with no break, I have not stepped out today. It was a beautiful day apprently since everyone around me has been commenting on how unseasonable warm it has become again.

I was helping our Product Development Team. We were making our "New" product that will hopefully revolutionize coffee drinkers around the world and probably make them a little healthier! Cannot give away too many details here for obvious reasons, I am not sure we can patent our product yet, there are too many details that need to be worked out. Let us see how it shapes out.

I was also trying to check out all the job search sites whenever I got a spare second. Job search often seems very tedious but I often enjoy it, I like to present myself and write to people. I only feel bad when not all of them respond, but that is the way of the world. If only people found whatever they wanted in an instant, how would you savor the sweet taste of victory at the end.

Another important event occured today, D and I bought tickets to visit India this Summer. It has already been 1.5 years since our last visit. More on this later. Had been working on getting the best possible dates, times and price of course. Was happy at the end of it although not so happy about the 'financial adjustments' I will have to make to take on a debt of this magnitude, given my frugal assistantship.

Life keeps happening to me and I "keep walking".

The Struggle

Another Beginning...

Ok... here is my attempt to make another beginning at being able to post regularly. I really want to do it, recording my thoughts, my feelings and emotions. I wish I could capture all these highs and lows. However, sometimes I conveniently forget to do it and at other times, opening up "Blogger" and publishing itself seems like an unecessary chore. On my list of things to do everyday, blogging is not even on the "To Do List". I think I need to set a time and place to blog. Let's see how long this effort will last.

I have edited the previous post on my blog to reflect the 1st of January. It was more for posteirity and to maintain the continuit of the blog.

Many things happening these days... will carefully document them in the next few days here.

Gute Nacht!

Happy New Year-2006

May this New Year bring prosperity and happiness to everyone!

This will be another eventful year of my life, I am scheduled to graduate this Summer, search and hopefully start a new job, and a new life at another destination in my life.

May this year be good to me, my family, my friends, and the world.

Fighter Hamesha Jeet-ta Hain

Zidagi Hai To Khwab Hain,
Khwab Hai To Manzilain Hain,

Manzilain Hai To Faasle Hain,
Faasle Hai To Raaste Hain,
Raaste Hai To Mushkilain Hain,
Mushkilain Hain To Hausla Hain,

Hausla Hai To Vishwas Hai,

Kyonki Fighter Hamesha Jeet-ta Hai.

These words were penned by Javed Akhtar for an advertisement for a brand called Rotomac Fighter. I loved these lyrics back in the day when they used to air these advertisement (pre-2000). In fact the words were a source of inspiration for me during a trying phase in my life (read applications to Grad school). I still sometimes mumble to myself, "Fighter Hamesha Jeet-ta Hain" occassionaly. I chanced upon the full lyrics on a blog about 6 months ago, I cannot recollect the exact source, but I remember he was an MBA student from MDI, Gurgaon. Anyway, I took the lyrics from the blog and I look at them once in a while. Today, I decided to post them online in my blog. I am currently going through a phase where I sure can use the inspiration from these words. To me these words are nothing short of "brilliant".

Good night.

For Whom the Blog Tolls?

It has been a while since I have posted on my blog. Life has been very busy, as I might have expected. I am into the penultimate semester of my Grad school life. All the final experiments and research is taking its toll. However, I cant complain, I might as well struggle now and get my work over with. I have always wanted this blog to be my online journal capturing important events in the different phases of my career, so this blog tolls for me and I need to do a better job of helping myself.

There have been several events that have occured in the past two months in my life that have been quite important. So for posterity, I am going to try and capture them here:

1. I learnt Macromedia Dreamweaver MX etc...(I re-designed my Professional homepage)
2. I successfully completed a Graduate Teacher Technology Certification class, which means I am a certified TA to design undergraduate classes both in class and online.
3. I am currently a TA for an undergraduate class of about 80 students here in my Department. This is a lab class but it is taught in 4 sections and it involves a lot of advance preparation so this lab zaps up about 1/3rd of my time.
This class has also been a personal reveleation of sorts, I have come to realize I do enjoy teaching. However, I could use a break once in a while from teaching the same lab 4 times!
4. I was able to meet a lot of potential employers at job fairs on the campus, in fact I got a callback from one of my "Fab 5 companies to work for" so watch out Minneapolis, here I come once again! I still need to clear the second round of Technical Interviews etc so I am going to be busy this 'Thanksgiving Week' prepping for that.
5. I was able to write 4 abstracts for a one day conference here at the University with my funding agency ( I cannot believe I completed the Abstracts and the posters in the space of 72 hours... phew!)
6. Enjoyed all my Saturdays (alternate weeks) at the Football games... It was fun! Cheered for our University team though they were not having their best season (ouch)
7. Enjoyed most Sunday's watching the NFL action on TV, an old friend signed me up for a NFL Fantasy league and I sure was hooked onto it for sometime.
8. Currently trying to work on my second research paper and its making slow but steady progress.
9. Also trying to get an outline approved for my PhD dissertation, I cannot believe I am going to graduate in May!

So all in an eventful Fall, 2005. There have been so many other happenings mostly good stuff that has kept me going, I hope I carry the momentum into my final semester beginning next January.

Adios....

Cycle of Seasons

“Nothing is permanent except change”, but in a way I feel change is cyclical. Just like the cycle of seasons. So if we are ever feeling down, an optimist’s view would be to not despair because “good times” are right around the corner just as you look forward to the Fall after the heat of the Summer or the Spring after the bitter cold of the Winter.

Taking the ‘cycle of seasons’ analogy further, I feel the best part of living in the US thus far has been experiencing the four seasons in all their glory. The Summers are great given the extra hours of daylight, the good weather (just perfect to wear shorts!), the road trips and not to mention the peace and quite on campus. Summers are the best time to get research done since everything is quite, people are relaxed and everyone is free from the pressures of class work. Of course by the time you have your fill of the Summers, Fall rolls in. Fall is another one of those beautiful times when the surroundings turn into a kaleidoscope of beautiful colors! Nothing can be more scenic than the foliage around you. Fall to me also symbolizes the sense of excitement on campus with new faces, a new sense of purpose and the beginning of the academic calendar. As Winter rolls in during December, the snow seems to put a damper on the spirits but it’s a great time to enjoy the powdery, misty flakes. As someone who had experienced the 3rd worst winter of the past century in the good old “Prairies” of Minnesota, the best piece of advice I had gotten to Winter survival was to be an optimist, enjoy the weather (even if it was 30 below freezing with the wind chills, after all a good sense of humor always warms you right-up) and try to be outdoors as much as you physically can without being cooped up indoors for too long. How I loved to kick back on those cold wintery days as the days got shorter and the nights long, with a hot cup of coffee (or soup) and watch the latest action flick or college football, bliss!! After Winter, March followed in time for Spring and after having survived those three months of snow you are ready for the trees to turn green again. Spring is the time for ‘re-birth’, to plan ahead to the future and to contemplate on the year gone by. And then the cycle begins all over again, just like that…..