Cute moment in Jaane Tu, Music of Sakkarakatti and Tempe rain

In the movie Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, there was a really cute moment. While Genelia asks, 'How did the 5 years of college pass by so quickly?', the mother is quick in saying 'Phone pe beta!' (On the phone!). So very true! Be it the not-so-far times when we used landlines or now when we have the cellphones, I guess most of the time after college goes in phone calls :)

The new ARR album 'Sakkarakatti' sounds refreshing, with tunes set in a futuristic way, however the Tamil rendition of the two of the singers in their respective songs is not so good. While they have sung it really well, they should have paid more attention to their pronunciation. Since I am not a great speaker of Tamil, I have no qualms about listening to the songs the way they are. Benny Dayal and Chinmayi are two singers who have utilized their potential to showcase their talent. Hats off to both of them. Even the Chinnamma song from Meenaxi which is reused in this movie sounds very different. I miss you song, reminds one of so many things :)

It poured in Tempe last Sunday, for pretty long. Long enough to flood the roads and probably a few apartment complexes.

Connections – I live there too!

I once complained that I spend half my life waiting for connecting flights. The good old airline of India has such a dubious distinction of making me wait at the Mumbai airport for 10 hours (actual waiting time for the connecting flight is 4.5 hours), every time. The connection is usually so late, that I also miss my other connecting flight in LA, and am made to wait for a few more hours.

All of these hours spent in waiting for a connection put together, at times turns out to be more than the travel time itself. I could have at least stayed home for a few more hours, instead of spending time at an airport, with nothing to do.

Now, my life has taken another turn, with me waiting for connecting buses too! The Valley Metro system is excellent, no complaints about it at all. But, the place I need to go to is sooooooooo faaaaaaaaar off, and the connecting bus is once an hour. A kind soul (colleague) takes me with him in his car usually. But the past week (while he was gone on vacation) was such a pain. But going by bus last week made me learn the cross streets of Scottsdale as well. I am pretty good with the road map of Tempe and Chandler, and now can add Scottsdale to that list too! Probably, I have slowly grown into a ‘nadamaadum’ GPS (walking GPS)!

Luckily, my best partner, my Sandisk MP3 player was with me all the time, and gave me good company. What would I do without you???

Konjam Jabber, Konjam Sense!

While it has been eternity without a significant post on this blog, I wonder if I have been so pre-occupied to be active on the blogosphere. Well not really, but quite a few other things have kept me busy.

While the ever-cribbing part of me, still complains about the Tempe weather as usual, today has been such a different day. Not so long ago, I wanted to see a day in Tempe which would remind me of my good old Bangalore. My wishes were granted, and here it is, a day with constant drizzle, and all gloomy (not a good day for photographs).

Bangalore weather has always been like that, never have we seen a rainy season when it would rain heavily at once and stop. The drizzle would go on and on and on, day in and day out. The dampness in the air could be felt for days together, and not to forget the dampness in the clothes :) . Thoranams of ever-wet clothes (to hang clothes to dry) would be tied all over the house, with the housewife always saying ‘it’s been ages since the sun came out.’ Especially in a house with kids, the white canvas shoe will always be stained with wet mud and the like, and to wash it, the kid or its mother would never dream of, for it would take forever to dry.

I have forever loved to get wet in the rain, but my ‘very healthy’ immune system doesn’t permit me, though I have done it almost every season. While getting back from school, sitting as a pillion rider on my mother’s vehicle, I have had a zillion rain coat covering me, and more importantly my book, but not my face :) . The splash of the rain drops is something out of the world.

While here in the US (specially Tempe), it practically doesn’t make a difference when it rains, since it is just once in like 3-4 months that you have a short drizzle. And I get to know of that only if I step out of the house/lab. A couple of moments relief from the HIGH temperature is something that the rain brings along, and this week it surely did. A raging 110 F to soothing 65 F. Wow! That’s a huge drop!

At this time, the best song to listen to is Chinna Chinna Mazhai Thuzhigal from En Swaasa Katrey, and obviously Barso Re from Guru.

Spring Break!

Having been in school for almost two and half year now, the Spring break seems to be a real 'BREAK' from the otherwise long and hectic Spring semester. The three long weekends in the Fall semester make it so well-spread out, however the same cannot be said about the Spring semester for it's week-long break. However, it is better than nothing at all! It would ultimately end with a mid-sem crisis, especially for those flooded with assignments and exams right after the break.

For me, it was a trip to Detroit and Chicago during my first one in 2006. Last year (2007), it was a mere relaxing one at home, with a few visits to school and lab. It was more of shopping too! This year, as of now there haven't been any plans yet, other than reviving my research, apart from working on the projects in my two courses. However, my plan of sleeping 8 hrs a day during the break is working fine! Plus, atleast half a movie a day! (I enjoy watching movies by spreading them over 3-4 days. My record has been a movie watched over 18 days, Thiruda Thiruda! I so forgot the story that I had to start from the same point almost 3 days in a row. But I watched it again in Dec 2006, this time non-stop).

Spring is a that time of the year, when Tempe becomes unassumingly pleasant, with the temperatures in the 60-70's. This reminds me of the Bangalore weather around the same time, which would be filled with some miscellaneous showers (especially in April). Hence, spending the Spring break at home, without the noise from the AC/Heater is a good thing to do too! And to top it all, listening to music from my music system.

Spring break is also the time, I try to cook something good at least once. However, it hasn't happened this time yet, partly due to my loss of interest of cooking (or should I call it lack of interest). But, I am sure, I will cook once for the newly wedded folks who are just back from India.

This time round, I also did some shopping in Target, Walmart, and Sunflower market (I love the place) for some good junk food! And also at Lee Lee's and Little India. I got my ever-favorite Murukku's, Banana chips and Marie biscuits :)

Clothes shopping (for myself) in the US has never interested me, though I buy things for people back home. Is it due to the plethora of clothes that I brought from India, this time around, or just the Made in India, Honduras, Vietnam labels that hinder a otherwise-relentless shopper to shop clothes? It happened this time too, when I saw good stuff in Target and Walmart, but also saw a Made in India/Vietnam label on them.

For those fortunate ones having a nice time out of Tempe (or your respective university town), Have a nice time, wherever you are!

Cooler Tempe

The temperature here dropped to the high 50's - low 60's this weekend. It was 64 F yesterday morning at 8 am when I got out of my school heading to school, it was like a typical Saturday morning... dull and gloomy. Last night it hit 58 F. Temperature going down to half the temperature in summer. We've seen a 118 F day this year and a 58 F day in less than 6 weeks.

A severe winter in store for us I guess!

Tempe - at minus 20 degrees

No.... I am not talking about a temperature of -20 deg F or 20 deg C. Compared to the usual 105-110 deg F, Tempe's been having unusually low temperatures at this time of the year. It wasn't so last year or the year before that. I haven't seen the day temperature go past 90 deg F which is surprising from the fact that not so long ago were the temperatures touching 115 F. Is the summer over or is some more sunshine in store for us, before the freezing winter?

Alas,(why alas?) the Winter has crept in! Will my joy be shortlived (as usual)?

2005 and Two years later......

A sudden gush of hot air greeted me, when I got off the aircraft on Aug 6th 2005 at 2 am. I was like - 'What place have I landed in?', 'Is this the place I am going to spend a significant portion of my life?(Then it was 2 years, though it is a lot longer now....)'.

Excluding the two month long lazy trip to Bangalore last summer, I really have been around Tempe all while. So it does make sense to put some thoughts about my life in this _____(read blank) town.

This guy who's never been away from home had set his foot on the US soil (read concrete) and was raring to go. A lot of expectations from within and from others made him pretty responsible and not take things too lightly. But would this thing last.....

No more relatives around, all friends(mostly new ones), roommates, (who could be the best thing to happen to you, or at times the worst too!), professors, bosses at work, students of other nationalities in the classes all would seem new to this person, who has never been in a hostel either. A not-so-frequent call to back home, counting the number of minutes spoken(or the duration the calling card would last for) used to be the case with most of us. But thanks to the ever reliable company, it did seem reasonable to talk to loved ones pretty frequently. Weekends used to be fixed for webcam chat and voice chat, by those who felt 'Seeing is Believing'. For me, weekend meant sleeping for long. I still believe so.

A totally new variation in teaching style, asignments, labs, exams seemed wierd initially, but not anymore. Waiting outside a professor's office, during office hours to ask help with assignments or to talk about being prospective research assistants(read funding!) all took place. And I did land up with a very sweet professor too! There's no feeling for an exam here as back in India, and the grades really don't matter after a while. Research does matter a lot though!

A sudden change from eating cooked food to preparing food without a transitional phase in between was something shocking. But it was handled comfortably, thanks to tips from mom, cooking turns amongst roomies and free food give-aways by the hotels here. Why would I speak more about the food, it should be more emphasis on other stuff done in these two years!

Shopping was something that fascinated me in this country and I would shop away to glory, after all there is a credit card to pay! Be it groceries or other things, I would enjoy it.

The types of people I came across would be either good or bad, opportunistic or helpful. This stint did teach me a lot and made me more independent, patient(after all who would listen to me shout, other than my family). I also figured out it improved my time-management skills etc. I found myself at the receiving end, when people helped me initially. But, I am able to do it now much to my satisfaction!

After all, these two years weren't two bad and hope the next couple of years would be as smooth as this, or perhaps smoother!

God bless me and the world!

Summer in AZ - My Experience

If there was an alternative to an hair dryer in the amount of hot air blown, it would be the wind in Tempe or in general the wind in the valley. It was this gush of hot air that greeted when I landed in Tempe. I never knoew I would be associated with it for this long. Last summer, I was in India, enjoying the monsoons, But this summer, here I am, enjoying the heatwave in Tempe.

It was a late summer, May was particularly pleasant compared to the last May. This June was like how last May was, the summer has had a one month offset. Hope August doesn't get too hot though. The temperatures scorch at 112 F on most days and have gone upto 117 F. This is the temperature in the shade apparently. So the really one is a few degrees higher. The worst time to walk in the sun would be between 3-5 pm. The least temperature would be 85 F at 4:30 am and may last till 5 am. I have seen the temperature hit 100 F by 7 or 8 am. The beginning of this week had some showers which made the next morning very humid. It was like Chennai, sticky and sweaty!

I chose to teach this summer, to keep myself occupied and for monetary benefits too. It would have been really boring if I had to immerse in research all the time, even though I am finiding it good to do that now. I didn't make a trip to India, in order to facilitate a faster MS thesis defense and PhD qualifier. Also I am working on a few conference-level papers, which I definitely need to have, since I have been researching for so long. I feel it was good decision that I made to stick around during the summer, since it is so relaxed and my only focus is on research.

My teaching experience this summer is something that I need to make a mention of. I was handling the basic Circuits class for the first time, even though I have TAed for the next course in circuits. But this was an experience, since it was mostly non-EE students and most of them had this as their first course in EE. The labs that I taught were pretty simple and not too demanding. I tried to experiment around introducing a new lab and giving guidelines for their reports. It did help me a lot, since I saved a lot of grading time. I should probably implement it in the next semester, if I am let to handle a lab all by myself. Also, I had the opportunity to set a lab final and it was like reliving my BE lab exam experiences. I did receive good feedback from the students, though there were these usual complaints. But one thing that I was surprised was that 'I was rude/impatient' from a particular student, so I learned what I had to control. Be it my saccharine tone or liberal attitude or my impatience, it needs to be offered only in moderation.

I didn't watch too many movies, probably because I found a lot of company to talk to. But I did watch Hrishikesh Mukherjee's two classics, Khoobsurat and Chupke Chupke, thanks to Kumar. I watched Sivaji, in a movie hall, and at home I saw Flavors, and a few other ones that I don't remeber at this point in time. I prefer watching TV, now that lot of India channels are up on the net for free. Also, I tried to build my music collection and I felt happy doing so.

Also my work at the administrative office in the university was of great relief from the stress and boredom :)

Overall, not a bad summer!