Well, my imagination is not at its best now and thus the very simple and functional title for this entry. (Its just too difficult to come up with interesting names for uninteresting weeks!). The highpoint of this week were - a)the hiking trip and b)the setting up of my room.
On Saturday morning, I met Sheila didi and we had breakfast together. She is a very interesting person and I enjoyed our conversation. I like her field of study and we primarily spoke of things related to it. On my way back I bought my bed frame and lugged it back to my apartment. I then started the day-long process of setting up my room. It took a lot of time to get everything in place, but by the end of it, I was very pleased by the way my room looked. It is a nice, cosy, comfortable room now with a bed, a side table, a study desk, a book shelf and a high back leather chair. In the course of the day I also ended up going to a mall in the suburbs to buy my quilt, chair etc. The drive was quite scenic and I got my first taste of "fall colours". The trees turn uniformly yellow, orange, red, pink, maroon and and all shades in between. Its quite magical.
On Sunday, I went hiking with 3 others.: Soumyajit, a DBPC senior now at MIT, Stuart (who is Soumyajit's friend) and Antara (who is Soumyajit's family friend and now doing a PhD in history at Harvard). We went to Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire which is a 2 hour drive from Boston. Soumyajit owns a car and he drove us there. It was an enjoyable trek - though quite demanding. The ascent is 600m in 2 miles. Most of the trail is very rocky and there is always the danger of getting a twisted ankle if one is not careful enough. There aren't any life threatening dangers like the ones in the Uttaranchal area. It was great fun getting to know these people and we were enjoying our climb. We were about 500 m from the summit when Antara's knee cap dislocated! I don't think it was her carelessness or anything, but she was plain unlucky. For 10 minutes she was in severe pain, but then miraculously it popped back again into its place. But by then the Mountain rangers had arrived and they gave her whatever medical help she required. We abandoned the idea of reaching the summit because there was no way Antara could climb any further. She was still not able to bend her knee and the 2 mountain rangers decided to go all the way to the bottom with her, providing her with expert guidance and support to climb down roughly 3 kms with a bad knee !! We had a pretty leisurely walk the way down because the pace was set by her. It was quite enjoyable (though I cant say the same for her). So finally we reached the base camp and headed back. To speak the truth, I was not very disappointed at not reaching the summit. We all had a nice time and that we actually missed was a good scenic view from the top (and a sense of achievement!) . One of the mountain rangers was actually the Dean at Brown University (which is an internationally reputed university) who did this work as a hobby on weekends ! By the time we reached Cambridge, it was 9 pm and we were all quite tired.
Monday was a holiday and I spent the day recovering from my trip and looking at my assignments for the week. Since I did not go the university and both my room mates were out of town for work, I spent the whole day without actually uttering a word! It was ok for one day, but anymore than that, and I would have gone into depression !! Tuesday, Wenesday and Thursday just whizzzed past and all I did was work. I finally got a breather on Friday evening. I went to see Antara in her hostel to see how her knee was healing. The hostels are quite decent though the rooms are quite small. Maybe I'll try to move into them next year. I like my apartment a lot and it will be a tough decision. I dont know . Its too early to be thinking about it anyways. After that, I went to a "Bollywood" party organized at one of the hostels' common room. I did not enjoy myself too much. At American parties, all you do is make small-talk with others, something that doesn't go down too well with me. They were playing hindi film song videos and I was surprised to see so many "non-Indians" enjoying them. I came back at around 11, walking in the rain (Mummy, I had an umbrella so dont get worried) . Upon reaching home, I made myself a hot cup of Bournvita, made myself cozy in my razai, played some Kishore Kumar songs and read some poetry. It felt so relaxing not to have a impending deadline screaming at you.
Well that was the week. In general my lifestyle here is quite different from my IIT lifestyle and I dont think a change of location has much to do with it. There are suddenly more responsibilities. I make a mental note if I see the stove slightly dirty or paper napkins running out. I guess its the natural process of growing up. I dont know whether I prefer this or the carefree, almost careless Ankur, loitering about in the B2 wing of Alakananda Hostel, IIT Madras.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Friday, October 08, 2004
another week
Its been one helluva busy week. After yes-no-maybe-no-yes tinteretto, Ajit (aka Q, my IIT friend, who will be referred to as Q in the rest of this post) , Q finally made it to Boston. No sooner had he sat down on the couch than he received a phone call conveying the saddest news we had heard in some time. Our dear friend Pondie, (Narasimha Rao) met with a fatal accident. It was a big group going in a Tempo traveller to some nearby place, when a lorry hit them. He was the only unlucky person. Others escaped with fractures and sutures. It just reminds us all that we should not take life for granted. Pondie was a real lively guy who always looked forward to a new day. Its very unfair that, of all people, he should meet with such a fate.
Well, our spirits were considerably dampened, but we realised that there was absolutely nothing useful that we could do sitting in this distant country to help matters. Thus we decided to keep this aside as best as we could. I showed Q around Harvard. All along, we had a really nice conversation, meeting as we were after one year. For those of you who dont know, Q Parande and I spent the whole of last summer together. Q and I worked on similar BTP's , both of us were Shaastra events cores in our respective final years and in general we get alog pretty well. Of course, there's a lot more to Q ! So we had plenty to talk about. We watched some street performance at harvard square, browsed through books at the harvard book store. I bombarded him with all the trivia I knew about Harvard. In the evening we went for dinner with some of Q's batchmates who live in the Boston area. We went to a Bengali restaurant where I ate aloo-postu ! We were up till the wee hours discussing various things, but still we got up pretty early on Sunday because we had a long list of things to do. First, we decided to take some snaps of Harvard - for both his sake and mine. I'll be putting them up somewhere, soon . Then, we left for downtown Boston. This was my first time in the city too. The city is quite spectacular. Its a very healthy mix of heritage and modernity. A 70 storied skyscraper stands right next to a 150 yr old town hall. Everywhere its like that. Q, who has seen most other US cities said that he really liked Boston . Since I really cant compare it with anything, I'll merely say that I am happy to be living in this city. We took the famous freedom trail, which a 3 km walk through the city's oldest areas. In the afternoon, we went for a musical play. Q is a big follower of this composer called Stephen Sondheim and this musical was written by Sondheim. Indeed Sondheim creates some lovely songs. After that we went to meet Q's MIT Media lab friend, Vijay. He showed s around the campus and then we went to an Algerian (!!) restaurant for dinner. The food was very different from anything I had eaten before, and it had a very typical taste to it. It was enjoyable. Overr dinner, we got talking about globalization, and its impacts. The discussion got extremely lively and we headed to Vijay's apartment to continue. We spent another couple of hours talking about societies, cultures, genes, insticts and what not. We finally came back home around mid night. Next morning Q had a flight at 8 am. These 2 days I got what I had missing for quite some time. The company of someone who is at the same wavelenght as I am. It had been a long time since I had had stimulating debates about issues. It had been a long time since I had gushed on the almost sensual pleasure of engineering. Long time since I used IIT lingo. It felt really good being Mammo for a couple of days, rather than Ankur.
A weekend of enjoyment implied a tortorous week ahead - and guess what - the week lived up to its expectations. There was one deadline on Wednesday, 2 on Thursday and 1 more on Friday and I was yet to start working on any of them. Thus I pushed myself as hard as I could and tried to tackle them. I was decently successful I think. It just meant not having a full peaceful night's sleep any of the nights. Not that I didnt sleep enough - only that lots of things were going on in my head even when I was sleeping. The only things worth mentioning are - a mini dbpc reunion I had with 2 other dbpc seniors here and my improving sambhar cooking skills.
This weekend I plan to go on a shopping spree and hopefully meet Sheila didi. Somehow we are never able to actually make it
thats all for now
Well, our spirits were considerably dampened, but we realised that there was absolutely nothing useful that we could do sitting in this distant country to help matters. Thus we decided to keep this aside as best as we could. I showed Q around Harvard. All along, we had a really nice conversation, meeting as we were after one year. For those of you who dont know, Q Parande and I spent the whole of last summer together. Q and I worked on similar BTP's , both of us were Shaastra events cores in our respective final years and in general we get alog pretty well. Of course, there's a lot more to Q ! So we had plenty to talk about. We watched some street performance at harvard square, browsed through books at the harvard book store. I bombarded him with all the trivia I knew about Harvard. In the evening we went for dinner with some of Q's batchmates who live in the Boston area. We went to a Bengali restaurant where I ate aloo-postu ! We were up till the wee hours discussing various things, but still we got up pretty early on Sunday because we had a long list of things to do. First, we decided to take some snaps of Harvard - for both his sake and mine. I'll be putting them up somewhere, soon . Then, we left for downtown Boston. This was my first time in the city too. The city is quite spectacular. Its a very healthy mix of heritage and modernity. A 70 storied skyscraper stands right next to a 150 yr old town hall. Everywhere its like that. Q, who has seen most other US cities said that he really liked Boston . Since I really cant compare it with anything, I'll merely say that I am happy to be living in this city. We took the famous freedom trail, which a 3 km walk through the city's oldest areas. In the afternoon, we went for a musical play. Q is a big follower of this composer called Stephen Sondheim and this musical was written by Sondheim. Indeed Sondheim creates some lovely songs. After that we went to meet Q's MIT Media lab friend, Vijay. He showed s around the campus and then we went to an Algerian (!!) restaurant for dinner. The food was very different from anything I had eaten before, and it had a very typical taste to it. It was enjoyable. Overr dinner, we got talking about globalization, and its impacts. The discussion got extremely lively and we headed to Vijay's apartment to continue. We spent another couple of hours talking about societies, cultures, genes, insticts and what not. We finally came back home around mid night. Next morning Q had a flight at 8 am. These 2 days I got what I had missing for quite some time. The company of someone who is at the same wavelenght as I am. It had been a long time since I had had stimulating debates about issues. It had been a long time since I had gushed on the almost sensual pleasure of engineering. Long time since I used IIT lingo. It felt really good being Mammo for a couple of days, rather than Ankur.
A weekend of enjoyment implied a tortorous week ahead - and guess what - the week lived up to its expectations. There was one deadline on Wednesday, 2 on Thursday and 1 more on Friday and I was yet to start working on any of them. Thus I pushed myself as hard as I could and tried to tackle them. I was decently successful I think. It just meant not having a full peaceful night's sleep any of the nights. Not that I didnt sleep enough - only that lots of things were going on in my head even when I was sleeping. The only things worth mentioning are - a mini dbpc reunion I had with 2 other dbpc seniors here and my improving sambhar cooking skills.
This weekend I plan to go on a shopping spree and hopefully meet Sheila didi. Somehow we are never able to actually make it
thats all for now
Friday, October 01, 2004
Falling into a regular pattern
Well, life seems to be falling into a regular pattern now. Just the same old stuff. I dont want to describe what I cooked for dinner last night, because it is not a novelty anymore. Nothing "exciting" happens each and every day, as was the case initially.
I also realise that I complete one month in Boston today. Wow ! I dont believe it...it seems like 10 days ! Life is really hectic now, and days pass by in the wink of an eye. Its nice to be busy for 2 reasons - a) it means I am utilising my time well and b) i dont miss anyone much. Tin, Shreya you people actually miss me more than I miss you. I dont know if I'm being insensitive here.
Last week, I had my first proper project meeting with my professor. We discussed ideas for more than an hour. After that, we had our group meeting. Every Thursday, all the VLSI group people (profs, grad students and undergrad students) get together for an hour and someone talks about his/her research. Last Thursday being the first group meeting, we just introduced ourselves to each other. I also got allocated a corner of my own in the lab - called my office. Its a well equiped cubicle. At some point of time, I'll take some snaps and post them on a website.
On Saturday I went for a Sarod concert by Ustad Amjad Ali Khan at MIT. The concert was very good, though towards the end I got the feeling that its stretching on forever. I also met an old IITM friend who had come down from Brown University for the concert. All these days, I had been doing my "mattress research" too and finally I concluded it by buying one on Sunday. Sunday evening I went to my host student's home for dinner. He had prepared a full 3 course meal! It was a nice enjoyable evening where I got to meet a lot of students. He shares a house with 8 other Harvard grad students. In the course of our conversation, he informed me that while signing the lease, he had noticed that the date of construction of the house was 1892 ! Well, it looks no different from outside or inside than any other house that I know of. This has made me curious about the age of my building. It maybe 100 years old too !! Anyways, I am digressing. I was planning to invite Marcus (my host) for dinner too, but after seeing the effort he had put into the dinner, I decided to wait for a couple of months and hone my cooking skills before I invite him.
The whole of this week has been quite uneventful. There's tons of work to be done and thats where my days go. I realise that graduate student life is basically studying, cooking, eating and sleeping. But I hope to have more time at hand in the future semesters. This semester my choice of courses has made things especially hard. But I'm not complaining. I'm learning a lot of cool stuff, and in a way like never before. In the IIT system, or rather the Indian system, the performance in an examination determined the grade. Here none of the 3 courses have a final exam ! 1 doesnt even have a mid-term. The grading is on the basis of assignments. So the system forces us to be regular in our work. Also the work ethics are different. We discuss the assignments before submitting them, but only after we have genuinely tried them. Its OK to ask someone if you dont know how to do a problem. So there's a lot of real learning happening. At IIT, there was nothing stopping us from learning, but we could always do well in an exam even without learning much. There were certain courses at IIT where I would put in effort to learn the material - in others, I would just work towards getting a good grade. Here one implies the other.
I'm really looking forward to this weekend. One of my IIT friends is coming from Atlanta. I havent met this guy in more than a year now !!
I also realise that I complete one month in Boston today. Wow ! I dont believe it...it seems like 10 days ! Life is really hectic now, and days pass by in the wink of an eye. Its nice to be busy for 2 reasons - a) it means I am utilising my time well and b) i dont miss anyone much. Tin, Shreya you people actually miss me more than I miss you. I dont know if I'm being insensitive here.
Last week, I had my first proper project meeting with my professor. We discussed ideas for more than an hour. After that, we had our group meeting. Every Thursday, all the VLSI group people (profs, grad students and undergrad students) get together for an hour and someone talks about his/her research. Last Thursday being the first group meeting, we just introduced ourselves to each other. I also got allocated a corner of my own in the lab - called my office. Its a well equiped cubicle. At some point of time, I'll take some snaps and post them on a website.
On Saturday I went for a Sarod concert by Ustad Amjad Ali Khan at MIT. The concert was very good, though towards the end I got the feeling that its stretching on forever. I also met an old IITM friend who had come down from Brown University for the concert. All these days, I had been doing my "mattress research" too and finally I concluded it by buying one on Sunday. Sunday evening I went to my host student's home for dinner. He had prepared a full 3 course meal! It was a nice enjoyable evening where I got to meet a lot of students. He shares a house with 8 other Harvard grad students. In the course of our conversation, he informed me that while signing the lease, he had noticed that the date of construction of the house was 1892 ! Well, it looks no different from outside or inside than any other house that I know of. This has made me curious about the age of my building. It maybe 100 years old too !! Anyways, I am digressing. I was planning to invite Marcus (my host) for dinner too, but after seeing the effort he had put into the dinner, I decided to wait for a couple of months and hone my cooking skills before I invite him.
The whole of this week has been quite uneventful. There's tons of work to be done and thats where my days go. I realise that graduate student life is basically studying, cooking, eating and sleeping. But I hope to have more time at hand in the future semesters. This semester my choice of courses has made things especially hard. But I'm not complaining. I'm learning a lot of cool stuff, and in a way like never before. In the IIT system, or rather the Indian system, the performance in an examination determined the grade. Here none of the 3 courses have a final exam ! 1 doesnt even have a mid-term. The grading is on the basis of assignments. So the system forces us to be regular in our work. Also the work ethics are different. We discuss the assignments before submitting them, but only after we have genuinely tried them. Its OK to ask someone if you dont know how to do a problem. So there's a lot of real learning happening. At IIT, there was nothing stopping us from learning, but we could always do well in an exam even without learning much. There were certain courses at IIT where I would put in effort to learn the material - in others, I would just work towards getting a good grade. Here one implies the other.
I'm really looking forward to this weekend. One of my IIT friends is coming from Atlanta. I havent met this guy in more than a year now !!
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