I was never the guy who looked around the world and tried to understand what is going on. The reason for this being that I was never the guy in the news. It wasn't even anybody I was remotely acquainted with. But that luxury didn't last forever, and it made me look around. "Search for meaning" or "make sense of it all" as they say. I am not saying I put in much effort to do so, but even to my ignorant self everything seems illogical (although this might be self-explanatory).
The obvious absence of optimality in the schemes of killing innocent people is apparent by the vague goals of the schemes. I mean other than the very common "spread terror" and "send a message", I don't see what else they accomplish other than obtain the brunt of public hatred and bad faith of people in power (this doesn't mean that they actually care, but do it just for the sake of it because everybody wants to look good; I don't mean to say not caring is bad, I am not judge of that, I am just saying that lot of times people do/say stuff they are supposed to do/say, but actually don't care about it). I am not sure where I am going with this but I can't understand what is the agenda of terrorism. However, if a "powerful" country did what they do, it would just be the protection of independence (read Israel and China). But these countries do seem to have agenda - it amounts to land = money = power = etc and at times just suppression of opposition. I was just wondering if terrorism will be called anything else if they got themselves a more concrete agenda than "freedom of holy land" and "punishment to innocent people just because they have been wronged". I mean they must want something. They don't want to spend their whole lives fighting (although the futility of the point is apparent in the fact that the leaders are the people who actually don't do the dirty work and live in luxury, equivalent to leaders of any country using its military forces). They must want something - money, land, what. Or is there hidden agenda - population control, and they are doing a favor to the world?
Lot of things that I have said here lacks a lot of general knowledge and information and I am just a bystander standing really far away, and although I might be in someway affected by all this, I wouldn't know about it until it hits me in my face.
Come to think of it, with the same argument, I can say that the spending of millions of dollars for running a huge collider to understand the origin of mass and sending a huge telescope to figure out the origin of the universe is equally pointless. Or huge build up and the eventual victory and celebrations of the first African-American president of the United States. It is probably because I am an alien here, but I don't understand why this is considered a great leap in democracy.
But a little thought makes us realize that we do not always need to look big issues or events to understand that the lack of logic in human action. I have heard of people living their lives as per some great quote by some great person. I mean how do you understand anything by applying something someone said thinking god-knows what. This doesn't mean the quote is not artistically great (and I can't be any judge of that either), it is just that it was about some other person. What I feel is that we try to justify what we do by these things. It is not the reason, rather the justification. We have already made the decision, we just want to look good to others, so we compare ourselves to somebody whom most think of as great. But like history, the greatness of something or someone depends on who is talking about it (read whoever in currently powerful).
Talking of the way we make decisions, I feel our decisions are generally locally optimal (not necessarily temporally, rather on the number of people being affected). Religion, as I see it, is just the same thing, but with some people spending time to find a global optimum. I am not saying that any religion is more optimal than other or that they have been able to obtain the global optimum.
But if I am asked if I would like to change something, I would say no, but that is mostly because of my lack of knowledge, not because of the non-existence of anything better. What I feel is that the world as a whole is trying to find a global optimum and these perturbations happening all around are implicitly intended towards that. What we need is a guide for the world, analogous to the gradients in any optimization problem. But on the other hand, if we reach a global optimum, what next?
Friday, January 09, 2009
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Random Rants I
When you are running a race, you can't breathe. Because your heart is pumping hard to keep you going forward. And even if it is not getting what it needs, it keeps going. It keeps going it wants something. It wants it bad. But you know that at the end of the race you can stop and breathe. But what happens when you are chasing something. When do you stop and breathe?
I have made many false starts in the past months, but I could never go around to writing again. Blame it on work, laziness or anything. But I feel it is because I am changing. I am changing into a person who no longer tries to see the different perspectives of things. A person who only looks at the bad side and keeps complaining. Maybe that is why I cannot think of anything to write.
Lot of things have happened over the last few months, but I feel that nothing of consequence has happened, and hence I do not feel the urge to write. Among other things, recent incidents have been such that it should have prompted me to feel. But now I feel what is the point of writing about it. What is the point of saying it aloud. It does not mean anything. I mean there was a time I used to write my journal and believed that it is just plain ridiculous to express my deepest inner feelings on a public platform. I have not written regularly in my journal for around 7 years now, and I think the last entry was sometime in August 2007.
I got distracted here. Brought myself back after some time.
Well I feel I have been running too fast for sometime now. Did not get a chance to sit back and look at the things around me. And not just see it, but really look at it. And since I have been running, I am just breathing in puffs.
I have made many false starts in the past months, but I could never go around to writing again. Blame it on work, laziness or anything. But I feel it is because I am changing. I am changing into a person who no longer tries to see the different perspectives of things. A person who only looks at the bad side and keeps complaining. Maybe that is why I cannot think of anything to write.
Lot of things have happened over the last few months, but I feel that nothing of consequence has happened, and hence I do not feel the urge to write. Among other things, recent incidents have been such that it should have prompted me to feel. But now I feel what is the point of writing about it. What is the point of saying it aloud. It does not mean anything. I mean there was a time I used to write my journal and believed that it is just plain ridiculous to express my deepest inner feelings on a public platform. I have not written regularly in my journal for around 7 years now, and I think the last entry was sometime in August 2007.
I got distracted here. Brought myself back after some time.
Well I feel I have been running too fast for sometime now. Did not get a chance to sit back and look at the things around me. And not just see it, but really look at it. And since I have been running, I am just breathing in puffs.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
A really long weekend
Well that's usual for me. Having a 5 day weekend and a 2 day week :-). But those weekends are mostly spent inebriated or trying to recover from it by sleeping 12 hours a day. But this weekend was different. It included me doing somethings for the first time, including going to my sister's house for the first time although she has been away from home (as has had her own house) for almost 6 years now. No. Come to think of it this is the second time I visited my sister . This is first time I visited my sister for the first time in the US.
Phew! The thing I did do for the first time was canoeing. And I must say I suck at it big time. And I mean real big time. Actually if there was any sport for drifting on the water with a boat (as opposed to with a car on the road), I might be considered a good beginner. But it was fun anyways. The only sad thing was that the water at the creek was so "dirty"ish (I don't know what to call it exactly since it has high content of blue green algae and that actually is not dirt but instead is a life form in its natural habitat) that it was not safe to swim in it. Otherwise it was a perfect day for a swim at the creek. Things to try after this is kayaking, jet-skiing and wake boarding (which from what I hear can be a little bit painful).
Following that, I played mini-golf for the first time, and realized that I am just too strong for mini-golf. I ended with a score of 19 which means worse that one shot below par for each of the holes, which is not too bad, considering how I started. On the same day I tried my hand at the batting range; and being the overconfident guy that I am, I went into the fast lane. As expected, I managed to hit just one out of 20 pitches. But I wouldn't give up easy, so next time around I made some adjustments to my stance and positioning and finally managed to make contact with at least 10 of the 20 pitches. This was pretty good for my ego, but as it turns out, not for my hand. I found out first hand why the batters wear gloves in baseball.
I also worked on hurting my hand in another way. I started playing Mortal Kombat on PS2. This was also a first for me, and after the first 10 minutes, I realized that my thumb was going to regret it big time. Although I could do some stuff, I was unable to explore that whole depth of the moves in that game because my thumb just wasn't fast enough.
So I must say it was a great weekend, but it was incomplete because I went to Indianapolis, the capital of NASCAR and kart racing, and I didn't watch any (not that I am sad that I missed it, I am more of a formula one fan). I did kart race once although that was not a first time.
And how could I forget. I managed to break the left Ctrl button of my laptop. That was a first too and probably the last. For sometime now my laptop is going to look a little ugly :-(
Phew! The thing I did do for the first time was canoeing. And I must say I suck at it big time. And I mean real big time. Actually if there was any sport for drifting on the water with a boat (as opposed to with a car on the road), I might be considered a good beginner. But it was fun anyways. The only sad thing was that the water at the creek was so "dirty"ish (I don't know what to call it exactly since it has high content of blue green algae and that actually is not dirt but instead is a life form in its natural habitat) that it was not safe to swim in it. Otherwise it was a perfect day for a swim at the creek. Things to try after this is kayaking, jet-skiing and wake boarding (which from what I hear can be a little bit painful).
Following that, I played mini-golf for the first time, and realized that I am just too strong for mini-golf. I ended with a score of 19 which means worse that one shot below par for each of the holes, which is not too bad, considering how I started. On the same day I tried my hand at the batting range; and being the overconfident guy that I am, I went into the fast lane. As expected, I managed to hit just one out of 20 pitches. But I wouldn't give up easy, so next time around I made some adjustments to my stance and positioning and finally managed to make contact with at least 10 of the 20 pitches. This was pretty good for my ego, but as it turns out, not for my hand. I found out first hand why the batters wear gloves in baseball.
I also worked on hurting my hand in another way. I started playing Mortal Kombat on PS2. This was also a first for me, and after the first 10 minutes, I realized that my thumb was going to regret it big time. Although I could do some stuff, I was unable to explore that whole depth of the moves in that game because my thumb just wasn't fast enough.
So I must say it was a great weekend, but it was incomplete because I went to Indianapolis, the capital of NASCAR and kart racing, and I didn't watch any (not that I am sad that I missed it, I am more of a formula one fan). I did kart race once although that was not a first time.
And how could I forget. I managed to break the left Ctrl button of my laptop. That was a first too and probably the last. For sometime now my laptop is going to look a little ugly :-(
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Dying brain cells
Something is off. I can't think of anything useful to talk about. I mean I just ended an internship at a big company like Google where the work was interesting too (in a way :)). I spent 2 months in India where I met family and a lot of friends after quite some time. Even met some people whom I remembered as kids themselves have kids. I heard about friends getting married and things happening. And even after all this, I don't feel like writing. Something is way off.
Maybe it is just plain laziness, lack of patience to just type for so long. But now that I have managed to start somehow, I'll try to make something coherent of it. Let us start with "not-so-life-changing" experiences. Two months at internship with a lot of luxury somehow made me realize how much I liked to be in grad school. Today morning I was having my usual humongous breakfast and it took me an hour to cook and eat it and clean the dishes. And while I was cleaning my dishes, I was remembering how I just used to eat a huge breakfast and then just dropped the plates and left. But somehow I liked this thing more than that. It was like everything was in my terms. Maybe it was just the change that makes me like it right now. So I can't say anything for sure, but it felt nice (doesn't mean I didn't enjoy being in the company). The bottom line is that it was really a great experience to be in an internship in that company and to work with my really smart and helpful mentor, but I really don't mind swapping that life of luxury and money (lots of it at that) with poor and hard (people say so, I don't, not yet) life of a grad student.
Moving on. Met some good friends in Bangalore. It was really fun checking up on them (although I was indecent enough to not bid farewell to them properly, but then I believe goodbyes are too overrated, why waste time in goodbyes and (maybe) tears when you know you will meet again and have more fun than ever, and even if you don't meet again, you'll remember the good times together and not the painful goodbye you had thinking this is the last time you are meeting. The best goodbyes are those you have thinking you'll meet very soon). With some I relived the fun times I had earlier, and with some I had some awesome-r time than ever before. I also spent something like 5 - 6 consecutive hours playing AoE after a year, and I realized that I sucked at it as much as I used to if not more.
Coming back to school wasn't bad either. Met up with them and caught up with two months worth of action. Got back to cleaning my own shower and scrubbing my own dishes, and it didn't feel bad or sad at all. Got back to water polo practice after more than three months and it was painful (more than usual). Have taken some courses which should be fine too. But one thing I haven't got back to yet is research and thats whats really worrying. I have two months' worth of research to catch up with and I don't know where to start. Actually I think I know where to start but can't think of a good way to do it. I hate not doing any research because it is actually fun if you can get past the stage of going through pages of existing literature.
Well I am interrupted now so maybe I'll try to think again. Right now maybe I am just breathing in puffs.
Maybe it is just plain laziness, lack of patience to just type for so long. But now that I have managed to start somehow, I'll try to make something coherent of it. Let us start with "not-so-life-changing" experiences. Two months at internship with a lot of luxury somehow made me realize how much I liked to be in grad school. Today morning I was having my usual humongous breakfast and it took me an hour to cook and eat it and clean the dishes. And while I was cleaning my dishes, I was remembering how I just used to eat a huge breakfast and then just dropped the plates and left. But somehow I liked this thing more than that. It was like everything was in my terms. Maybe it was just the change that makes me like it right now. So I can't say anything for sure, but it felt nice (doesn't mean I didn't enjoy being in the company). The bottom line is that it was really a great experience to be in an internship in that company and to work with my really smart and helpful mentor, but I really don't mind swapping that life of luxury and money (lots of it at that) with poor and hard (people say so, I don't, not yet) life of a grad student.
Moving on. Met some good friends in Bangalore. It was really fun checking up on them (although I was indecent enough to not bid farewell to them properly, but then I believe goodbyes are too overrated, why waste time in goodbyes and (maybe) tears when you know you will meet again and have more fun than ever, and even if you don't meet again, you'll remember the good times together and not the painful goodbye you had thinking this is the last time you are meeting. The best goodbyes are those you have thinking you'll meet very soon). With some I relived the fun times I had earlier, and with some I had some awesome-r time than ever before. I also spent something like 5 - 6 consecutive hours playing AoE after a year, and I realized that I sucked at it as much as I used to if not more.
Coming back to school wasn't bad either. Met up with them and caught up with two months worth of action. Got back to cleaning my own shower and scrubbing my own dishes, and it didn't feel bad or sad at all. Got back to water polo practice after more than three months and it was painful (more than usual). Have taken some courses which should be fine too. But one thing I haven't got back to yet is research and thats whats really worrying. I have two months' worth of research to catch up with and I don't know where to start. Actually I think I know where to start but can't think of a good way to do it. I hate not doing any research because it is actually fun if you can get past the stage of going through pages of existing literature.
Well I am interrupted now so maybe I'll try to think again. Right now maybe I am just breathing in puffs.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Enough! Enough now!
For the past four months, I have been obsessing about the new Batman movie. And now that I have seen it, I don't know what to do. I tell myself that enough with this obsession and now it is time to move on. But all this time when I was eagerly waiting for it and obsessing about it, I never thought of what I would do once I did see it. It was a great movie and I enjoyed it a lot, but here today I am not going to give a review of that movie. I am just wondering what to do with all that obsession'al' energy pent up inside me with nothing to direct it to.
As in obsessions are good if used properly. It can be used as a motivator to do something you need to do, but are not actually too excited to do. I have found this technique very useful. But I must admit, that all my obsessions ended with me obtaining the object of my obsession (a sentence with too many words starting with 'ob'), and me not knowing where to go from there.
I am pretty sure that like always, I will again obtain a new object of obsession and the cycle would continue. It is just that every time I reach the point I am at right now, I feel a bit lost and confused and disinterested (yes, I am like this right now just because of a stupid movie). As all the wise men say - "All things that are, are with more spirits chased than enjoyed".
People say that obsession is bad, but I feel that obsession drives me forward, much more than I would have normally tried for. I guess it does have the capability to push us into the abyss, but I have always been too stubborn to learn from others' mistakes. I take pride in making my own mistakes and then blaming myself for the rest of my life. So I shall continue with this flawed cycle of obsession until one day I become wise enough to say "Enough! Enough now!".
Till then I shall continue searching for my new obsession or chasing one.
As in obsessions are good if used properly. It can be used as a motivator to do something you need to do, but are not actually too excited to do. I have found this technique very useful. But I must admit, that all my obsessions ended with me obtaining the object of my obsession (a sentence with too many words starting with 'ob'), and me not knowing where to go from there.
I am pretty sure that like always, I will again obtain a new object of obsession and the cycle would continue. It is just that every time I reach the point I am at right now, I feel a bit lost and confused and disinterested (yes, I am like this right now just because of a stupid movie). As all the wise men say - "All things that are, are with more spirits chased than enjoyed".
People say that obsession is bad, but I feel that obsession drives me forward, much more than I would have normally tried for. I guess it does have the capability to push us into the abyss, but I have always been too stubborn to learn from others' mistakes. I take pride in making my own mistakes and then blaming myself for the rest of my life. So I shall continue with this flawed cycle of obsession until one day I become wise enough to say "Enough! Enough now!".
Till then I shall continue searching for my new obsession or chasing one.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Homeward bound
Sitting at the new Bengaluru International airport and having an hour to kill, I thought writing a post would be not too bad an idea. Considering that I have had a pretty awesome experience with flights, I decided that today I shall get to the airport in time. For that, I took the shuttle to the airport which reaches the airport around two and a half hours before my flight. Turns out, the traffic was better than usual today and we reached the airport half an hour before schedule.So here I was at the airport, three hours before my flight. I was in time for my flight though.
Well the thing is that I am going home (finally some would say) to meet my family. Took a couple of days off from my office. My mentor was awesomely accommodating about it. He is quite experienced though, and luckily I am getting to learn some things from him.
Unfortunately, right now I am feeling very sleepy and no ideas are propping in my oh-so-fertile mind. Although I must mention that the Bengaluru airport is pretty awesome (much much better than the Kolkata international airport) and the fact that it is so far from the city is not that big an issue if you consider the fact that the authorities have provided the cities with hourly shuttles from all over the city all throughout the day. I kinda like it, though it is a bit inconvenient for domestic flights compared to the previous airport and for frequent domestic fliers. The thing is that Bengaluru does need an international airport and this is a price the city has to pay for that. But you can always look at the bright side and say that the city is getting a chance to expand instead of cramming up in that minuscule of a city.
I am slowly realizing that I am one of those kind of people who have an opinion to give on any topic under the sun, even if they have never heard about it before. And this just reduces my own confidence in the reliability and credibility of my own opinions, which is kind of sad and disappointing. Although that is in no way going to stop me from continuing that.
Moving on. As I mentioned earlier, my gymming days always end in tears. Slowly but surely, I can feel my will to work out every morning become weaker every morning. And now that I am going to have a five day break, I don't know if I can force myself to get back to that schedule. Lets hope for the best.
Now I guess the next post will be after I come back from home. So later readers!
Well the thing is that I am going home (finally some would say) to meet my family. Took a couple of days off from my office. My mentor was awesomely accommodating about it. He is quite experienced though, and luckily I am getting to learn some things from him.
Unfortunately, right now I am feeling very sleepy and no ideas are propping in my oh-so-fertile mind. Although I must mention that the Bengaluru airport is pretty awesome (much much better than the Kolkata international airport) and the fact that it is so far from the city is not that big an issue if you consider the fact that the authorities have provided the cities with hourly shuttles from all over the city all throughout the day. I kinda like it, though it is a bit inconvenient for domestic flights compared to the previous airport and for frequent domestic fliers. The thing is that Bengaluru does need an international airport and this is a price the city has to pay for that. But you can always look at the bright side and say that the city is getting a chance to expand instead of cramming up in that minuscule of a city.
I am slowly realizing that I am one of those kind of people who have an opinion to give on any topic under the sun, even if they have never heard about it before. And this just reduces my own confidence in the reliability and credibility of my own opinions, which is kind of sad and disappointing. Although that is in no way going to stop me from continuing that.
Moving on. As I mentioned earlier, my gymming days always end in tears. Slowly but surely, I can feel my will to work out every morning become weaker every morning. And now that I am going to have a five day break, I don't know if I can force myself to get back to that schedule. Lets hope for the best.
Now I guess the next post will be after I come back from home. So later readers!
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Moving on
Most days I promise to myself that tomorrow would be better. By better I mean more productive. But I guess I can't change things in one go. What ends up happening is that when I ...... wait!! What the hell am I saying. Moving on.
Got myself in a routine again. Wake up in the morning, go to the gym and work out (although I know that this never ends well and I will never have a well shaped bod), then go to my table and press a bunch of keys, then come back home and sleep. Oh I forgot. I hog. A lot. I mean A LOT. A more of a reason why the working out at the gym is not going to make too much of a difference.
Well I must add that Google does take care of their employees. I was thinking of writing about my experience here at the internship, but well I haven't had any. It is just that I have a problem and I am trying to solve it and not being very able to do that much yet. Well one thing though. My desktop machine here is a 4 dual cores (that means 8 cores - I know it is simple math but I just wanted to emphasize on that point) with 8GB ram and I don't know how much hard disk. Just that it is a monster of a machine to be a desktop machine alone :-). I should probably run some of my personal experiments on this machine ;-).
Being in Bangalore has its advantages (other than the royal treatment by Google). Atlanta is scorching hot at this time of the month, whereas Bangalore has a cloud cover most of the days with an occassional day of rain or two. And I get to meet a lot of friends from undergrad and even earlier. Met up with a family friend from my school days, and I also met her two year old daughter. It was good. I am an uncle now. And in that room, I felt I was of the intellectual level of the kid and could only relate to her. The rest of them were talking about work and stuff. I am still at school!!! Well the point I am trying to make is that I feel I am too young and immature to be an uncle, but I guess most of the times you do not have a choice. Just that it was nice to catch up with people from the past.
Well I forgot to mention one thing. I went bowling the Friday before and totally sucked at it. I mean I kind of mastered the art of aiming at the far right corner and taking just the tenth pin out on my first roll. On Saturday we went go-karting and paint balling. Inspired by the likes of Schumacher, I tried too much in the go-karting and ended up spinning out and giving way to the pack behind me. Paint balling was different. I never realized it was so much more about planning than about shooting. Shooting seemed to be the last step. But this is pretty much the outing I had during my stay at Bangalore.
Nothing much to say. Surprisingly because I am writing after a long time again. But then as my sis says - all I have to do all day is go to office, hog and work out, I guess life (literally) doesn't get any more interesting.
Got myself in a routine again. Wake up in the morning, go to the gym and work out (although I know that this never ends well and I will never have a well shaped bod), then go to my table and press a bunch of keys, then come back home and sleep. Oh I forgot. I hog. A lot. I mean A LOT. A more of a reason why the working out at the gym is not going to make too much of a difference.
Well I must add that Google does take care of their employees. I was thinking of writing about my experience here at the internship, but well I haven't had any. It is just that I have a problem and I am trying to solve it and not being very able to do that much yet. Well one thing though. My desktop machine here is a 4 dual cores (that means 8 cores - I know it is simple math but I just wanted to emphasize on that point) with 8GB ram and I don't know how much hard disk. Just that it is a monster of a machine to be a desktop machine alone :-). I should probably run some of my personal experiments on this machine ;-).
Being in Bangalore has its advantages (other than the royal treatment by Google). Atlanta is scorching hot at this time of the month, whereas Bangalore has a cloud cover most of the days with an occassional day of rain or two. And I get to meet a lot of friends from undergrad and even earlier. Met up with a family friend from my school days, and I also met her two year old daughter. It was good. I am an uncle now. And in that room, I felt I was of the intellectual level of the kid and could only relate to her. The rest of them were talking about work and stuff. I am still at school!!! Well the point I am trying to make is that I feel I am too young and immature to be an uncle, but I guess most of the times you do not have a choice. Just that it was nice to catch up with people from the past.
Well I forgot to mention one thing. I went bowling the Friday before and totally sucked at it. I mean I kind of mastered the art of aiming at the far right corner and taking just the tenth pin out on my first roll. On Saturday we went go-karting and paint balling. Inspired by the likes of Schumacher, I tried too much in the go-karting and ended up spinning out and giving way to the pack behind me. Paint balling was different. I never realized it was so much more about planning than about shooting. Shooting seemed to be the last step. But this is pretty much the outing I had during my stay at Bangalore.
Nothing much to say. Surprisingly because I am writing after a long time again. But then as my sis says - all I have to do all day is go to office, hog and work out, I guess life (literally) doesn't get any more interesting.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
The Summer
Since it was summer time, you would expect me to be free and hence go on a flurry of blogs. But then, the god of Machine Learning does not believe in the existence of summer. Or atleast our idea of summer. His/her vision of summer is to work like a madman because you have no other distractions like classes. That is why the god of Machine Learning decided to put the submission deadline of one of the biggest conferences in machine learning smack in the middle of the summer (The conference is by the way NIPS). Not that I have anything against this conference, but it is just that it is not something you would expect.
That is one of the reasons why I have been a bit lazy about writing on this blog. I had an excuse that I was working towards publishing in this conference. Well as usual, I spent a lot of time trying to do something contributive to submit. Then after a month of hard (apparently not hard enough) work, it turned out that we couldn't accomplish what we set out for - this just means I was not able to submit.
But my summer didn't end there. I had something else in store for me. I had the opportunity to do an internship at Google, Bangalore for the summer, and the Google people were 'googly' enough to accommodate my schedule (since I had to work on a submission). So I flew the day after my submission deadline.
I should give a detailed description of the flight which was via Paris this time but I don't feel like. I'll just mention that my stop over time at Paris was just an hour, and my flight left Atlanta 30 minutes late. Eventually we reached Paris half an hour late, and I literally ran to get to the next flight. But the good thing was that there were a lot of people that were connecting to that flight, so the plane was delayed a bit for us, and we made it to the plane in good time. Other than that the flight was pretty uneventful, and I was lucky enough to have nice neighbors in the flight. I reached the Bangalore airport around 1 in the night. The airport did seem a lot different, but it didn't strike me until I was in the taxi 10 minutes later that I found out that this airport is some 30 - 40 km from the city. But I did reach my place in an hour or so, and so ended my journey from Atlanta to Bangalore.
And the next day I started at Google, and I must say, Google does care a lot for its employees. Not that I am rooting for Google or anything (because there is a rumor going around that the world is going to be ruled out Mountain View in a few years), but I give them credit for what they are doing. And as the reputation goes, they do have a really good kitchen.
Being in Bangalore is awesome in some other ways too. I get to meet a lot of friends here. It is good fun.
Frankly, other than the unsuccessful paper submission, I have a full opportunity to make a great summer out of this. I just need to work hard and party harder. Just wish me luck with that :-)
That is one of the reasons why I have been a bit lazy about writing on this blog. I had an excuse that I was working towards publishing in this conference. Well as usual, I spent a lot of time trying to do something contributive to submit. Then after a month of hard (apparently not hard enough) work, it turned out that we couldn't accomplish what we set out for - this just means I was not able to submit.
But my summer didn't end there. I had something else in store for me. I had the opportunity to do an internship at Google, Bangalore for the summer, and the Google people were 'googly' enough to accommodate my schedule (since I had to work on a submission). So I flew the day after my submission deadline.
I should give a detailed description of the flight which was via Paris this time but I don't feel like. I'll just mention that my stop over time at Paris was just an hour, and my flight left Atlanta 30 minutes late. Eventually we reached Paris half an hour late, and I literally ran to get to the next flight. But the good thing was that there were a lot of people that were connecting to that flight, so the plane was delayed a bit for us, and we made it to the plane in good time. Other than that the flight was pretty uneventful, and I was lucky enough to have nice neighbors in the flight. I reached the Bangalore airport around 1 in the night. The airport did seem a lot different, but it didn't strike me until I was in the taxi 10 minutes later that I found out that this airport is some 30 - 40 km from the city. But I did reach my place in an hour or so, and so ended my journey from Atlanta to Bangalore.
And the next day I started at Google, and I must say, Google does care a lot for its employees. Not that I am rooting for Google or anything (because there is a rumor going around that the world is going to be ruled out Mountain View in a few years), but I give them credit for what they are doing. And as the reputation goes, they do have a really good kitchen.
Being in Bangalore is awesome in some other ways too. I get to meet a lot of friends here. It is good fun.
Frankly, other than the unsuccessful paper submission, I have a full opportunity to make a great summer out of this. I just need to work hard and party harder. Just wish me luck with that :-)
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
After 8 months
I have been too lazy to write. Not that I was overly busy. It was just that I didn't feel like writing. But today I somehow convinced myself that I would write something, however crap it may be.
First I want to announce is that my dear dear sister graduated this Friday. Congratulations dear sister. You are freakin' awesome! Knowing you as I do, and hearing all about your lazy husband (nothing personal Smruti, in your defense I would say that we all guys are like this, it is not your fault that you are a guy; in fact I would be much worse than you when my turn comes, but lets get back to the original sentence) and your oh-so-awesome adviser (I must say something here lest people think that advisers are demons whose only purpose in life is you screw you over....remember Prof. Smith...but what I am trying to say here that advisers are humans like us, and only when we have been in their shoes do we have the right to comment on how they 'advise'..enough about advisers...let get on with the business), you have accomplished a lot. You inspire me to be an all rounder. Thanks a lot! And also congrats on your job :-). I really wanted to attend your graduation, and am really sorry for being such an a$$ of a brother (for people to understand the extent of my crime you should know that I did not attend my sister's graduation because I was busy, but because I FORGOT about it). Readers must be wondering why my sister still talks to me. Well I'll tell you why. Because she is freakin' awesome.
But when I was thinking about what to name this post, I thought why not reminisce on my quest to answer questions. It has been 8 months (2 semesters) since I started doing research. I must say I have learnt a lot. But the thing is I could have learnt so so much more and I have wasted so much. The good thing is that I have a very encouraging adviser who keeps guiding me in the right direction, but I should really start walking now.
Other than research (about which I don't know much actually), I have learnt how to LaTeX. I must add though that I just know very elementary stuff, but before I came here I knew squat, and now I can make presentations in LaTeX.
I haven't learnt much about coding. I am still afraid about pointers and every time I do some stuff with pointers, there is no way I can get it right without one seg-fault.
I have learnt a bit of water polo. But not much. I have learnt how to get beat up mostly :-D. But I have learnt how to party at the water polo tournaments.
What I feel like my most useful but most unused lesson is that time flies. I can't even comprehend the fact that two semesters have passed by already. Days go so quickly and if you don't be careful, a month goes by with you having zero progress (or maybe negative progress when you start forgetting stuff). The thing is that even though I know this thing, I just can't take heed to it. I still keep wasting time doing useless stuff (and by useless I don't mean playing water polo or learning guitar).
When I was starting this post, I thought I was on a roll. But now I am starting to feel very sleepy and my brain had switched off around two minutes ago. So me off to my new bed.
Hopefully more coming soon.
First I want to announce is that my dear dear sister graduated this Friday. Congratulations dear sister. You are freakin' awesome! Knowing you as I do, and hearing all about your lazy husband (nothing personal Smruti, in your defense I would say that we all guys are like this, it is not your fault that you are a guy; in fact I would be much worse than you when my turn comes, but lets get back to the original sentence) and your oh-so-awesome adviser (I must say something here lest people think that advisers are demons whose only purpose in life is you screw you over....remember Prof. Smith...but what I am trying to say here that advisers are humans like us, and only when we have been in their shoes do we have the right to comment on how they 'advise'..enough about advisers...let get on with the business), you have accomplished a lot. You inspire me to be an all rounder. Thanks a lot! And also congrats on your job :-). I really wanted to attend your graduation, and am really sorry for being such an a$$ of a brother (for people to understand the extent of my crime you should know that I did not attend my sister's graduation because I was busy, but because I FORGOT about it). Readers must be wondering why my sister still talks to me. Well I'll tell you why. Because she is freakin' awesome.
But when I was thinking about what to name this post, I thought why not reminisce on my quest to answer questions. It has been 8 months (2 semesters) since I started doing research. I must say I have learnt a lot. But the thing is I could have learnt so so much more and I have wasted so much. The good thing is that I have a very encouraging adviser who keeps guiding me in the right direction, but I should really start walking now.
Other than research (about which I don't know much actually), I have learnt how to LaTeX. I must add though that I just know very elementary stuff, but before I came here I knew squat, and now I can make presentations in LaTeX.
I haven't learnt much about coding. I am still afraid about pointers and every time I do some stuff with pointers, there is no way I can get it right without one seg-fault.
I have learnt a bit of water polo. But not much. I have learnt how to get beat up mostly :-D. But I have learnt how to party at the water polo tournaments.
What I feel like my most useful but most unused lesson is that time flies. I can't even comprehend the fact that two semesters have passed by already. Days go so quickly and if you don't be careful, a month goes by with you having zero progress (or maybe negative progress when you start forgetting stuff). The thing is that even though I know this thing, I just can't take heed to it. I still keep wasting time doing useless stuff (and by useless I don't mean playing water polo or learning guitar).
When I was starting this post, I thought I was on a roll. But now I am starting to feel very sleepy and my brain had switched off around two minutes ago. So me off to my new bed.
Hopefully more coming soon.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Life: Totally upside down
The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months sleeping completely protected from everything bad in the world, and you are in the safest place in the world.
A friend of mine just put this idea into my head and I started wondering that it does seem an attractive idea. So much so that the fact that I have this huge thing I need to finish for tomorrow has to wait for some minutes while I jot down my brainwaves before they vanish into the ether. As I was saying (since I don't have time to wander into irrelevancy today) this does seem a great way to live life where things always get better, as opposed to the present paradigm of life which just seem to get worse (as in we always waiting to get to the next thing, and we do get excited once we get there, but the excitement is short-lived and all that is left is a lot more worries). I so want to elaborate on this point but don't have the time.
Just think about it, and that would serve my purpose.
A friend of mine just put this idea into my head and I started wondering that it does seem an attractive idea. So much so that the fact that I have this huge thing I need to finish for tomorrow has to wait for some minutes while I jot down my brainwaves before they vanish into the ether. As I was saying (since I don't have time to wander into irrelevancy today) this does seem a great way to live life where things always get better, as opposed to the present paradigm of life which just seem to get worse (as in we always waiting to get to the next thing, and we do get excited once we get there, but the excitement is short-lived and all that is left is a lot more worries). I so want to elaborate on this point but don't have the time.
Just think about it, and that would serve my purpose.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
The return of the Sun!
Another arbit post
This has been a really weird year (that's what the people who have been in Atlanta longer keep telling me). Well as I was saying, it has been so weird that it has snowed in Atlanta in March (although it was just flakes you could see and they melted way before they touched the ground). Then there was this freak tornado you must have heard of on the TV. Although the weirdest thing was that my house was very very (literally very) close to where I live, and I didn't feel a thing. The way I found out about the tornado was my sister calling me up from Bloomington because she saw this on the news (ironically, the most damaged building was the CNN headquarters I think, and as put by someone, "they finally got to use their 'situation' room"). Damn I keep losing track of what I am saying with these parentheses.
So as I was saying, this year has seen the weirdest of things happen to the Atlanta weather. I guess this is just the global warming kicking in, and I think its high time we get that huge chunk of ice from Neptune and drop in the Arctic ocean. I don't know if it is actually correct, but I feel there is a pattern in the weather. It follows thus: A really sunny day with really pleasant temperature of 15 degrees centigrade (I still can't figure the Fahrenheit thing), followed by a really sunny and hot day. Just when you think that the winter is over and start packing in your winter stuff, you see really dark clouds in the sky followed by really hard rain. And the rain really brings down the temperature to around 5 degrees centigrade, and it is time again for the warm clothes. Now you go on with the warm clothes for a couple of days. Then one fine morning you leave house wearing a jacket and/or a sweat shirt, but surprisingly, by the time you reach the school, you are sweating. Then you take out your computer and see the temperature, and you find out that it is a fine 17 degrees centigrade. Well thats how the weather has been going on in Atlanta for the last month. I am not saying that it is bad - in fact I find it kinda hopeful, considering the fact that it does get really hot in Atlanta, and I loathe the heat although I am from a place that is really really hot throughout the year.
Well today was one of those pleasant sunny days where everything is just perfect. And on a day like this, I find the trees really blooming with flowers and you can see a variety of colors around the campus. Luckily I had my camera with me and I managed to capture certain stuff that caught my eye. But I kinda feel this is end of the really weird weather and the sun is back for good, and we are really in for a hot summer - the real wrath of global warming.
Well weather aside, I wish I just get out of this rut I have so brilliantly managed to get myself into. I really need to get loads of stuff done, like every other graduate students. I keep making lists, but they never materialize, and the list just becoming longer and longer. Maybe I am kind of linked with the weather and the moment it makes up its mind, so can I and get stuff done.
If nothing, this post just gave me a candidate to blame for me not getting any work done :-)
This has been a really weird year (that's what the people who have been in Atlanta longer keep telling me). Well as I was saying, it has been so weird that it has snowed in Atlanta in March (although it was just flakes you could see and they melted way before they touched the ground). Then there was this freak tornado you must have heard of on the TV. Although the weirdest thing was that my house was very very (literally very) close to where I live, and I didn't feel a thing. The way I found out about the tornado was my sister calling me up from Bloomington because she saw this on the news (ironically, the most damaged building was the CNN headquarters I think, and as put by someone, "they finally got to use their 'situation' room"). Damn I keep losing track of what I am saying with these parentheses.
So as I was saying, this year has seen the weirdest of things happen to the Atlanta weather. I guess this is just the global warming kicking in, and I think its high time we get that huge chunk of ice from Neptune and drop in the Arctic ocean. I don't know if it is actually correct, but I feel there is a pattern in the weather. It follows thus: A really sunny day with really pleasant temperature of 15 degrees centigrade (I still can't figure the Fahrenheit thing), followed by a really sunny and hot day. Just when you think that the winter is over and start packing in your winter stuff, you see really dark clouds in the sky followed by really hard rain. And the rain really brings down the temperature to around 5 degrees centigrade, and it is time again for the warm clothes. Now you go on with the warm clothes for a couple of days. Then one fine morning you leave house wearing a jacket and/or a sweat shirt, but surprisingly, by the time you reach the school, you are sweating. Then you take out your computer and see the temperature, and you find out that it is a fine 17 degrees centigrade. Well thats how the weather has been going on in Atlanta for the last month. I am not saying that it is bad - in fact I find it kinda hopeful, considering the fact that it does get really hot in Atlanta, and I loathe the heat although I am from a place that is really really hot throughout the year.
Well today was one of those pleasant sunny days where everything is just perfect. And on a day like this, I find the trees really blooming with flowers and you can see a variety of colors around the campus. Luckily I had my camera with me and I managed to capture certain stuff that caught my eye. But I kinda feel this is end of the really weird weather and the sun is back for good, and we are really in for a hot summer - the real wrath of global warming.
Well weather aside, I wish I just get out of this rut I have so brilliantly managed to get myself into. I really need to get loads of stuff done, like every other graduate students. I keep making lists, but they never materialize, and the list just becoming longer and longer. Maybe I am kind of linked with the weather and the moment it makes up its mind, so can I and get stuff done.
If nothing, this post just gave me a candidate to blame for me not getting any work done :-)
Friday, March 28, 2008
The Future of Computing
Disclaimer - this entry is totally based on MY interpretation of the talk and not what the speaker actually might have meant and I might have misunderstood, and most of the things here are more of my thought than anybody else's.
We had this talk by Jeannette Wing (also known as the Dragon Lady by the people who know her). She was talking about her vision for computer science for the future. This talk made me ask some questions to myself, and I hope one day I might be able to find and answer to them.
The most interesting thing I found was the title of her presentation - Computational Thinking and Thinking about Computing. The way she put forward the idea of Computational Thinking was of the essence of the ability to comprehend a problem and systematically trying to solve it. That is what she claims to be one of the things we learn as computer scientists. She had the vision of trying to teach everybody this way of thinking. The first thought that came to me was the idea of coding/programming - as Douglas Adams put it - "you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with". Somehow I felt this is the most basic and elementary way of picking up computational thinking.
According to her, the biggest question is "What are the effective ways of learning (teaching) computational thinking by (to) children?". Here she provided the analog to mathematics and how children are taught numbers in Kindergarten, algebra in 7th grade, calculus in 12th grade. She wants that computational thinking should be somehow incorporated into the education system as Math itself.
But somehow I feel this thing already exists. It is in every facet of life - it is just that we learn this the hard way through experience. And what I feel is that it is kind of thing that you have to learn, you can't put it in somebody's mind. Maybe I am totally wrong!
Somehow I think of something different - I feel we are trying to answer the wrong question. I feel the main purpose of computational thinking should be such that we can find a solution to any problem, but somehow utilize the good things about computers. The computers themselves cannot solve problems of any consequence (or maybe they can) - but they are useful in a lot of many different ways and it would be a lie to say we can't solve difficult problem relatively easily with the help of computer. So the goal should be to teach people to optimally use everything that a computer has to provide for our help, but also develop better computers which are more helpful - a symbiotic relationship if you may (if you consider computers alive that is, but then they have some intelligence and they can accomplish non-trivial things, so maybe they are actually living things).
I don't know, this is kind of what I feel computer science should be - to help people solve problems - not make people dumb, but I don't know how that can be achieved in the right combination.
Another thing I found interesting about her talk was her reference to how people are attracted to certain sciences - origin of life leads to biology, the origin of time and universe leads to physics. I guess the origin of intelligence leads to computer science. It is just that maybe in all the different things going all around in computer science, we have lost the actual question.
We had this talk by Jeannette Wing (also known as the Dragon Lady by the people who know her). She was talking about her vision for computer science for the future. This talk made me ask some questions to myself, and I hope one day I might be able to find and answer to them.
The most interesting thing I found was the title of her presentation - Computational Thinking and Thinking about Computing. The way she put forward the idea of Computational Thinking was of the essence of the ability to comprehend a problem and systematically trying to solve it. That is what she claims to be one of the things we learn as computer scientists. She had the vision of trying to teach everybody this way of thinking. The first thought that came to me was the idea of coding/programming - as Douglas Adams put it - "you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with". Somehow I felt this is the most basic and elementary way of picking up computational thinking.
According to her, the biggest question is "What are the effective ways of learning (teaching) computational thinking by (to) children?". Here she provided the analog to mathematics and how children are taught numbers in Kindergarten, algebra in 7th grade, calculus in 12th grade. She wants that computational thinking should be somehow incorporated into the education system as Math itself.
But somehow I feel this thing already exists. It is in every facet of life - it is just that we learn this the hard way through experience. And what I feel is that it is kind of thing that you have to learn, you can't put it in somebody's mind. Maybe I am totally wrong!
Somehow I think of something different - I feel we are trying to answer the wrong question. I feel the main purpose of computational thinking should be such that we can find a solution to any problem, but somehow utilize the good things about computers. The computers themselves cannot solve problems of any consequence (or maybe they can) - but they are useful in a lot of many different ways and it would be a lie to say we can't solve difficult problem relatively easily with the help of computer. So the goal should be to teach people to optimally use everything that a computer has to provide for our help, but also develop better computers which are more helpful - a symbiotic relationship if you may (if you consider computers alive that is, but then they have some intelligence and they can accomplish non-trivial things, so maybe they are actually living things).
I don't know, this is kind of what I feel computer science should be - to help people solve problems - not make people dumb, but I don't know how that can be achieved in the right combination.
Another thing I found interesting about her talk was her reference to how people are attracted to certain sciences - origin of life leads to biology, the origin of time and universe leads to physics. I guess the origin of intelligence leads to computer science. It is just that maybe in all the different things going all around in computer science, we have lost the actual question.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Spring Broken!!
Last day before spring break I start this blog.
It is said to be normal to feel lazy on this day and have zero productivity. Moreover, the gloomy weather of Atlanta adds to the effect. So nobody can blame me for not doing anything substantial today and eventually turning to my blog. But wait!! Hasn't my whole semester been like this?
I have just 2 courses, and luckily my schedule worked out just perfectly such that I have classes only on two days a week. So technically, I have just a 2 day week. I wouldn't go on to say that I spend the rest of the days enjoying my five-day weekend. I do go to the lab every day and try to do some work, and later in the night chip in a little more. But for me spring break is no new thing. I have been having it the whole semester. So why am I having this pre-spring-break-laziness syndrome.
Well I guess being lazy is what I am. Everybody has there calling, I guess mine is being lazy.
The whole spring break went by and I am here one week later, adding to this post. I might have said that I have done a lot of stuff in this one week, but alas I haven't.
The highlight of my break was when one of my friends' parent came to Atlanta from India. They cooked and called us for dinner, and that they I ate so much that it literally hurt to move. And the food wasn't over even then. So much so that they packed us the leftovers for later. I found out eventually that they have been cooking for around six hours for us. And to think that they had just had a flight across half the planet.
The rest of the week was spent sleeping and playing my guitar. I forgot to mention that I got myself a new guitar (Kramer Focus series). The guitar is really good, probably too good for me. I have to practice for a really long time to be good enough for the guitar.
Well there was this issue about a project submission today (yes, a project submission in the middle of the spring break). But to think of it, it wasn't that bad. I didn't do anything the whole convincing myself that I can accomplish all this in the break week. And I also took up a thing about which I had no idea about. But as always, I got lucky and got the exact required papers and so I managed to implement the whole system as required.
One thing was weird though. Generally when I go about coding, once I finish the preliminary coding, it doesn't take too long to get rid of the compilation errors, and in no time I get my program compiling without any error.
The second stage is taking care of the seg fault (better known to people as segmentation fault(), sometimes you do have core dumped too, but I haven't yet been fortunate enough to encounter that in my life - touch wood!!). So I was saying the next part was getting rid of the stupid memory assignments I might have made all over the place and shot myself in the foot. Generally it takes some help from gdb and a bunch of printfs to actually get rid of them.
Surprisingly, I was done with them pretty quickly. I was a bit amazed, but I continued with the final stage. The stage where we check if it is actually giving the output which we expect. The most weirdest thing was it gave the exact result in the first try itself without any unexpected weirdness which I inevitably face in this stage. There is this other thing I am working on, and I have spend around a month now trying to get through this stage and still haven't. And now I get through this program in one go. Thats impossible!!!
So I spent some time to figure out whats wrong with it that it isn't giving any error (yes it is as weird as it sounds). But I still couldn't figure out, so I have made the submission still feelings sure that although it has worked fine with me, it will break down in the first trial when somebody else is testing my program.
Now here it is, the last Friday of the spring break and I haven't had no fun nor did any substantial work. Just answering my calling - lazing all the time.
It is said to be normal to feel lazy on this day and have zero productivity. Moreover, the gloomy weather of Atlanta adds to the effect. So nobody can blame me for not doing anything substantial today and eventually turning to my blog. But wait!! Hasn't my whole semester been like this?
I have just 2 courses, and luckily my schedule worked out just perfectly such that I have classes only on two days a week. So technically, I have just a 2 day week. I wouldn't go on to say that I spend the rest of the days enjoying my five-day weekend. I do go to the lab every day and try to do some work, and later in the night chip in a little more. But for me spring break is no new thing. I have been having it the whole semester. So why am I having this pre-spring-break-laziness syndrome.
Well I guess being lazy is what I am. Everybody has there calling, I guess mine is being lazy.
The whole spring break went by and I am here one week later, adding to this post. I might have said that I have done a lot of stuff in this one week, but alas I haven't.
The highlight of my break was when one of my friends' parent came to Atlanta from India. They cooked and called us for dinner, and that they I ate so much that it literally hurt to move. And the food wasn't over even then. So much so that they packed us the leftovers for later. I found out eventually that they have been cooking for around six hours for us. And to think that they had just had a flight across half the planet.
The rest of the week was spent sleeping and playing my guitar. I forgot to mention that I got myself a new guitar (Kramer Focus series). The guitar is really good, probably too good for me. I have to practice for a really long time to be good enough for the guitar.
Well there was this issue about a project submission today (yes, a project submission in the middle of the spring break). But to think of it, it wasn't that bad. I didn't do anything the whole convincing myself that I can accomplish all this in the break week. And I also took up a thing about which I had no idea about. But as always, I got lucky and got the exact required papers and so I managed to implement the whole system as required.
One thing was weird though. Generally when I go about coding, once I finish the preliminary coding, it doesn't take too long to get rid of the compilation errors, and in no time I get my program compiling without any error.
The second stage is taking care of the seg fault (better known to people as segmentation fault(), sometimes you do have core dumped too, but I haven't yet been fortunate enough to encounter that in my life - touch wood!!). So I was saying the next part was getting rid of the stupid memory assignments I might have made all over the place and shot myself in the foot. Generally it takes some help from gdb and a bunch of printfs to actually get rid of them.
Surprisingly, I was done with them pretty quickly. I was a bit amazed, but I continued with the final stage. The stage where we check if it is actually giving the output which we expect. The most weirdest thing was it gave the exact result in the first try itself without any unexpected weirdness which I inevitably face in this stage. There is this other thing I am working on, and I have spend around a month now trying to get through this stage and still haven't. And now I get through this program in one go. Thats impossible!!!
So I spent some time to figure out whats wrong with it that it isn't giving any error (yes it is as weird as it sounds). But I still couldn't figure out, so I have made the submission still feelings sure that although it has worked fine with me, it will break down in the first trial when somebody else is testing my program.
Now here it is, the last Friday of the spring break and I haven't had no fun nor did any substantial work. Just answering my calling - lazing all the time.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Water Polo + Cover Trees = Blue Screen!!!
Damn I am tired right now. As I always am after two and a half hour of intense water polo practice. After that, trying to wrap my head around something like cover trees has the same effect on me as the 'Pan Galactic gargle blaster' (for those of you who haven't read 'The Hitch hiker's guide to the Galaxy' nor seen the movie, this is what they have to say about it "the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick").
All this started when I decided to torture myself every Mondays and Wednesdays with water polo practice. It starts with warm up, which goes on for so long that halfway through it, I forget how much I already have swam. And I am so slow and have so less stamina than my teammates that they lap me a million times. I spend the next half of the warm up praying to God when will this torture stop...
Once this is over, every single time I make the mistake of convincing myself that it would be all downhill from here, which it generally is not. The actual practice starts off lightly, and I start to feel good and not too tired. And then they start shooting at me. Even thats not too bad. Its when they start passing around and then suddenly shooting that it gets crazy. You don't know which side the shot is coming from, and you need to keep covering every side, and trust me, treading water continuously from one post to another is no light matter. Sometimes the whole move goes on for so long that I start losing my temper and have that urge of shouting out "make up your minds a@#@#$#s and shoot quickly". But today wasn't the worst. They didn't ask me to put on the weight belt (yeah it is what it sounds like, and for those who haven't figured it out yet, I play goalie).
Now that this gets over, I try to get back as much energy I can get out of chugging down Gatorade bottles. I need that energy to bike back home, and it is not pleasant experience on days like these. Then somehow grabbing something for dinner, I get to my room and my bed. But alas, if only I were that lucky. First I need to shower to get rid of all the chlorine from the pool, and then smear my whole body with cream to counteract the dryness of the skin the chlorine causes.
Now that all this is done, I still can't sleep. The reasons are threefold: Firstly, ever heard of the feeling "too tired to sleep". By this time, the whole body is aching so much that I just can't sleep. Even if I fall on the bed, I won't be able to fall asleep. Secondly, it is always the case that even at around 12 a.m. in the night, I have a substantial amount of work to be done thats due the following day (which technically has become the same day by then), which leads me to the third reason. I have gotten myself in this awesome rut for the past few months where I just can't sleep before 4 - 5 a.m. in the morning, and I end up waking after noon (and even thats early for me).
So I am only left with one option - start working. And off late, I am working on this tree data structure called Cover Trees. Now the thing about cover trees is that among almost all tree data structures (e.g. ball trees, kd-trees), this is supposed to be the fastest in most cases for different types of nearest neighbor operations. (For those who do not need to know these things ever, the whole thing in a nutshell is that in a dataset in an n-dimensional space, if you want to find the nearest points to a particular point of interest, the general practice is to store the whole dataset in form of a tree, where you can reduce the number of computations required to find the nearest points by climbing down the tree and cutting off branches of the tree which are farther away than the nearest point I have found as yet. Now there are many kinds on trees used nowadays, and this cover tree thing which is supposed to do this thing really great. Now read on because I think it might make sense to you now.)
One thing about these trees is that there is no proven worst case time complexity to do these computations. They are supposed to be awesome empirically (i.e. experimentally). But this cover tree thing HAS one such worst case time complexity, which is a first in this field, and hence a big deal.
But then there is a thing that almost everybody has learnt from experience - nothing so awesome is rarely trivial and simple. Neither is this one. It took me teeth clenching and hair tearing to understand the paper on cover trees, but once I got to the code, I was plain pissed off. Dead tired, I was trying a while ago to understand the code, and within half an hour, I had this hateful urge to bang my head on the wall or the head of the coder (no offense to them actually, I must commend them for this truly great idea, but if only they could have commented the code, I would have been a much more happier person). And my tiredness from the water polo practice wasn't helping either.
But as any other problem, I am sure I'll find a way to figure things out. And then come next Monday/Wednesday, you'll see me leaving my lab at around 7.30 p.m. for another gruesome session of water polo.
All this started when I decided to torture myself every Mondays and Wednesdays with water polo practice. It starts with warm up, which goes on for so long that halfway through it, I forget how much I already have swam. And I am so slow and have so less stamina than my teammates that they lap me a million times. I spend the next half of the warm up praying to God when will this torture stop...
Once this is over, every single time I make the mistake of convincing myself that it would be all downhill from here, which it generally is not. The actual practice starts off lightly, and I start to feel good and not too tired. And then they start shooting at me. Even thats not too bad. Its when they start passing around and then suddenly shooting that it gets crazy. You don't know which side the shot is coming from, and you need to keep covering every side, and trust me, treading water continuously from one post to another is no light matter. Sometimes the whole move goes on for so long that I start losing my temper and have that urge of shouting out "make up your minds a@#@#$#s and shoot quickly". But today wasn't the worst. They didn't ask me to put on the weight belt (yeah it is what it sounds like, and for those who haven't figured it out yet, I play goalie).
Now that this gets over, I try to get back as much energy I can get out of chugging down Gatorade bottles. I need that energy to bike back home, and it is not pleasant experience on days like these. Then somehow grabbing something for dinner, I get to my room and my bed. But alas, if only I were that lucky. First I need to shower to get rid of all the chlorine from the pool, and then smear my whole body with cream to counteract the dryness of the skin the chlorine causes.
Now that all this is done, I still can't sleep. The reasons are threefold: Firstly, ever heard of the feeling "too tired to sleep". By this time, the whole body is aching so much that I just can't sleep. Even if I fall on the bed, I won't be able to fall asleep. Secondly, it is always the case that even at around 12 a.m. in the night, I have a substantial amount of work to be done thats due the following day (which technically has become the same day by then), which leads me to the third reason. I have gotten myself in this awesome rut for the past few months where I just can't sleep before 4 - 5 a.m. in the morning, and I end up waking after noon (and even thats early for me).
So I am only left with one option - start working. And off late, I am working on this tree data structure called Cover Trees. Now the thing about cover trees is that among almost all tree data structures (e.g. ball trees, kd-trees), this is supposed to be the fastest in most cases for different types of nearest neighbor operations. (For those who do not need to know these things ever, the whole thing in a nutshell is that in a dataset in an n-dimensional space, if you want to find the nearest points to a particular point of interest, the general practice is to store the whole dataset in form of a tree, where you can reduce the number of computations required to find the nearest points by climbing down the tree and cutting off branches of the tree which are farther away than the nearest point I have found as yet. Now there are many kinds on trees used nowadays, and this cover tree thing which is supposed to do this thing really great. Now read on because I think it might make sense to you now.)
One thing about these trees is that there is no proven worst case time complexity to do these computations. They are supposed to be awesome empirically (i.e. experimentally). But this cover tree thing HAS one such worst case time complexity, which is a first in this field, and hence a big deal.
But then there is a thing that almost everybody has learnt from experience - nothing so awesome is rarely trivial and simple. Neither is this one. It took me teeth clenching and hair tearing to understand the paper on cover trees, but once I got to the code, I was plain pissed off. Dead tired, I was trying a while ago to understand the code, and within half an hour, I had this hateful urge to bang my head on the wall or the head of the coder (no offense to them actually, I must commend them for this truly great idea, but if only they could have commented the code, I would have been a much more happier person). And my tiredness from the water polo practice wasn't helping either.
But as any other problem, I am sure I'll find a way to figure things out. And then come next Monday/Wednesday, you'll see me leaving my lab at around 7.30 p.m. for another gruesome session of water polo.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Viva Los Angeles - Chapter 2 - Season Finale
Previously on Viva Los Angeles.....the laziest guy on the planet reached LA for a 21 day trip, and spend the first 4 days sleeping and hogging.
Day 5
So I was asleep as usual. Then Rumi (whom I had gone to visit in LA) woke me up. She asked me if I wanted to go to Marina Del-Ray with her because that was where her office and she had a meeting over there. I gave her some really sorry reason and promised her that I would wake up and have breakfast and lunch when she would be gone. Then she left. Next I remember, I was woken up by her kicks on my a$$. Next thing I realized was that I was dead hungry because it was like 4 in the evening.
She cooked me some food and as usual I hogged. So ended my fifth day in LA. Rumi swore that the next day we would go somewhere. And we went to sleep with this dream in our eyes.
She cooked me some food and as usual I hogged. So ended my fifth day in LA. Rumi swore that the next day we would go somewhere. And we went to sleep with this dream in our eyes.
Day 6
So we woke up with a goal. A goal to get out of the house for once. Then I checked my watch, and it was 2 in the afternoon!! But we wouldn't give up so easily. After getting something to eat, we decided to get dressed up. Our logic was that if we get dressed, we would be obliged to go somewhere. So we got dressed, go we did...to a grocery store (for all future reference, it is called the Ralphs) which is like a 5 minutes walk from where we put up (and yes, we did walk there). And then we got a lot of stuff, thinking we would get the free grocery shuttle to drop us to our place. But when we got out, it was 9.40 p.m. and the last grocery shuttle left at 9.30 p.m. So we had to walk back with all those stuff. I know the place wasn't so far away, but when you are walking with so much stuff, even half a mile seems like a whole damn trek.
Thus we got back from my first outing in LA all pissed off. But then my luck turned, and we were invited for dinner at some Rumi's friends' place. And there we met this whole bunch of people. Every one of them was an awesomely interesting character, and it was really really fun to meet them. And the food was also good. Even though I had just met them, it never felt like I didn't know them. But somehow they got the impression that I am this really nice quiet innocent guy!!! Don't ask how that happened, I keep asking myself that. And once I figure that out, I am sure that whenever I meet my parents, they would be immensely pleased.
Well the night didn't end with the dinner (I must thank Mandar and Punit for the really awesome food, lest I forget). There was this other friend who had a birthday. So we went over to his place at midnight to celebrate his birthday, cut a cake, and obviously, smear his face with that same cake. And then the night ended.
Thus we got back from my first outing in LA all pissed off. But then my luck turned, and we were invited for dinner at some Rumi's friends' place. And there we met this whole bunch of people. Every one of them was an awesomely interesting character, and it was really really fun to meet them. And the food was also good. Even though I had just met them, it never felt like I didn't know them. But somehow they got the impression that I am this really nice quiet innocent guy!!! Don't ask how that happened, I keep asking myself that. And once I figure that out, I am sure that whenever I meet my parents, they would be immensely pleased.
Well the night didn't end with the dinner (I must thank Mandar and Punit for the really awesome food, lest I forget). There was this other friend who had a birthday. So we went over to his place at midnight to celebrate his birthday, cut a cake, and obviously, smear his face with that same cake. And then the night ended.
Day 7
Seven is a lucky number, because this was the day I finally had a meaningful outing in LA. But it was one of the brightest hours of my intelligence (you'll know why soon enough). So on this day we got ready and went to the auspicious place called 1282 (it is the place where only Anu, Anisha, Anamika, and Megha lived, but everybody, and I mean everybody, hung out). We were greeted with a usual huge crowd of people. A plan was brewing - to go to the Santa Monica beach and bathe in the sea. So did we go. We reached the beach at 6 in the evening on a cold December day. And then we attempted to get in the water, and guess what - it was @$%#ing freezing. But we braved onwards and got completely wet. Well there is just this tiny little detail I must add - I was smart enough not to get myself a change of clothes nor a towel!!! So when we got bored of getting parts of our body parts numb from the freezing water, we decided to go to the Santa Monica pier.
But getting to the pier was a whole different story for me. Wet clothes, soaking with freezing water, cold wind from the Pacific hitting my body, walking down the whole length of the beach - I was praying to God every step of the way, promising him that if I survive this one, I would never ever be so dumb again. And I really really want to forget the whole thing up until the point I finally got to a GAP store and got myself a change of clothes.
After I finally got back to normal, we went around for sometime. Then we celebrated another birthday of another one of us. And after going around Santa Monica till 1 in the morning, we came back to have 'kheer' at a friend's place. And the 'kheer' was good :D. So on the whole, it was a great day, barring my stupendous stupidity.
But getting to the pier was a whole different story for me. Wet clothes, soaking with freezing water, cold wind from the Pacific hitting my body, walking down the whole length of the beach - I was praying to God every step of the way, promising him that if I survive this one, I would never ever be so dumb again. And I really really want to forget the whole thing up until the point I finally got to a GAP store and got myself a change of clothes.
After I finally got back to normal, we went around for sometime. Then we celebrated another birthday of another one of us. And after going around Santa Monica till 1 in the morning, we came back to have 'kheer' at a friend's place. And the 'kheer' was good :D. So on the whole, it was a great day, barring my stupendous stupidity.
Day 8
Having such a great day on my back, I wasn't gonna stop now. But unfortunately, the whole gang seemed so tired out for the previous day. But I had to go on. So we decided to compromise. So we went for a movie. And after enjoying the beautiful Christmas decoration and the really cool fountain dance at the Grove, we watched a crap of a movie called The Golden Compass.
I must agree my plan backfired, but at least all of us went out somewhere instead of rotting on our asses at home the whole day.
I must agree my plan backfired, but at least all of us went out somewhere instead of rotting on our asses at home the whole day.
Day 9
So came Sunday and Rumi decided to cook her awesome "chole" and call her friends over for lunch. After lunch, we just relaxed till the evening, when we finally decided to visit Hollywood Square. Frankly speaking, there is nothing much of interest of me over there, but it was damn crowded. After roaming around that place for sometime, we came back home and planned to watch a movie at 1282.
But that night, Rumi's friend (christened as "heroine" by Punit) was supposed to arrive, so we picked her up and went to 1282. And the moment I got there, I convinced everybody to watch the awesome movie called "Gunda". Thats a totally different issue that we stopped watching the movie within 5 minutes of its start :P.
But that night, Rumi's friend (christened as "heroine" by Punit) was supposed to arrive, so we picked her up and went to 1282. And the moment I got there, I convinced everybody to watch the awesome movie called "Gunda". Thats a totally different issue that we stopped watching the movie within 5 minutes of its start :P.
Day 10
Christmas Eve. We planned to do it right. The whole stage was set. We found ourselves a skating rink and a church. And the skating was simply AWESOME! I had no idea how to skate, but I never give up a chance to give up on something fun. And man it was fun! I must have fallen atleast couple of dozen times in a span of an hour, but I wouldn't give up. And my sole purpose seemed to seek out Kaushik in the crowd and crash into him. Trust me, skating is something you really should do atleast once in your life.
Once we were done with this, we roamed around a bit in Downtown LA (when it was pretty deserted). Then we went to a church to attend mass. After the mass, it was time to get home. But since it was Christmas, we couldn't get ourselves a cab. So started the hunt for the bus which goes to the place where we live. So you can imagine - 2 a.m., Downtown LA, completely deserted, not a soul in sight, a bunch of people running down the street when they caught sight of a bus standing around 5 blocks away. It was scary as it was out of the ordinary. Thank God that we had that bus, or we might have had to spend the night in Downtown LA on the streets.
Once we were done with this, we roamed around a bit in Downtown LA (when it was pretty deserted). Then we went to a church to attend mass. After the mass, it was time to get home. But since it was Christmas, we couldn't get ourselves a cab. So started the hunt for the bus which goes to the place where we live. So you can imagine - 2 a.m., Downtown LA, completely deserted, not a soul in sight, a bunch of people running down the street when they caught sight of a bus standing around 5 blocks away. It was scary as it was out of the ordinary. Thank God that we had that bus, or we might have had to spend the night in Downtown LA on the streets.
Day 11
Merry Christmas. We decided to go to Mexico. Well not really, but almost close to the border. We went to San Diego.
Enter Sea World. I was threatened all the way of being fed to the sharks, but apparently I survived. So we started with the Shamu show of the Orcas. And on another cold winter morning, we decided to sit in the splash zone without any cover. And the show was awesome, and the whales was very well trained to soak us wet. This resulted in all of us roaming around the rest of the day in wet clothes, and it sucked. But then all the shows were really great and we had a good time watching.
Once we were done with the sea world, we decided to go the Gaslamp district. We didn't find anything interesting there, except for an Indian restaurant where we dined, and a Ghiradelli store where we bought a lot of chocolates :D. So ended a really fun Christmas.
Enter Sea World. I was threatened all the way of being fed to the sharks, but apparently I survived. So we started with the Shamu show of the Orcas. And on another cold winter morning, we decided to sit in the splash zone without any cover. And the show was awesome, and the whales was very well trained to soak us wet. This resulted in all of us roaming around the rest of the day in wet clothes, and it sucked. But then all the shows were really great and we had a good time watching.
Once we were done with the sea world, we decided to go the Gaslamp district. We didn't find anything interesting there, except for an Indian restaurant where we dined, and a Ghiradelli store where we bought a lot of chocolates :D. So ended a really fun Christmas.
Day 12
After a trip to SD, we decided to take the day off and have a nice time inside with friends and hogging on good food. And so we did. And also watched a movie "Darjeeling Limited". And it didn't make any sense.
But around 12 in the night, we felt this sudden urge to go out somewhere. After going around google maps for sometime, we decided to go to Malibu. Luckily a friend of ours had a car, and so we drove down the legendary Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu. It was luckily a moonlit night and the Pacific looked awesome. But when we got to Malibu, we made this awesome revelation that the pier closes off in the night, and there was no open parking lot anywhere. We couldn't find a parking space so two of us got out of the car and started walking down the PCH looking for a spot. Just then a cop car crossed us, eying us suspiciously. That was kinda scary, but luckily we did get a parking spot.
Now that the car was taken care of, we started to look for a way to get to the beach. I tried to convince my friends to jump over the gates to the pier, but no one was in for it, so we had to ditch that plan. So after some exploration, and jumping over some rocks, we got to the Malibu beach. We hung around there for sometime, and then drove back home all satisfied :). After feeling good about ourselves and congratulating ourselves on the success of our spontaneity, we went off to sleep
But around 12 in the night, we felt this sudden urge to go out somewhere. After going around google maps for sometime, we decided to go to Malibu. Luckily a friend of ours had a car, and so we drove down the legendary Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu. It was luckily a moonlit night and the Pacific looked awesome. But when we got to Malibu, we made this awesome revelation that the pier closes off in the night, and there was no open parking lot anywhere. We couldn't find a parking space so two of us got out of the car and started walking down the PCH looking for a spot. Just then a cop car crossed us, eying us suspiciously. That was kinda scary, but luckily we did get a parking spot.
Now that the car was taken care of, we started to look for a way to get to the beach. I tried to convince my friends to jump over the gates to the pier, but no one was in for it, so we had to ditch that plan. So after some exploration, and jumping over some rocks, we got to the Malibu beach. We hung around there for sometime, and then drove back home all satisfied :). After feeling good about ourselves and congratulating ourselves on the success of our spontaneity, we went off to sleep
Day 13
Now that we were having so much fun on a daily basis, we decided to do something awesome for the New Year's eve. Now to think of something, I needed some rest. So I decided to chill that day. I got back to the hibernation mode - hogging and sleeping.
Day 14
After a day of contemplation, we decided to be awesome, and planned to go to Vegas for the New Year's Eve. Now that requires some level of planning, and we ended spending the whole day Googling away for Hotels and car rentals and stuff. You can imagine how hard it would be to find Hotel rooms and cars for the New Year's eve. And luckily we found ourselves a decent hotel and a SUV at reasonable rates. Although I must add that it is as easy as it sounds. Millions and millions of bits were moved all over the places to accomplish something like this.
Day 15
Now the wheels had started rolling towards Vegas, we didn't want to waste the days we had in between doing nothing. So we decided to do something classy. Hence we went to the Getty Museum.
I must say that it has a really awesome location - you can see the whole LA skyline at sundown, and it is really poetic.
And after looking at a million painting, none of which seemed to appealing to me, we went in a medieval exhibition. Now that was interesting with all those swords and armors and killing instruments (I know I am being a guy stereotype here!!).
So eventually after feeding my artistic hunger enough for the rest of my life, we decided to go back home. But on our way back, we took a detour to Hollywood Square because Rumi's friend wanted to visit that place. After that, we came back home.
I must say that it has a really awesome location - you can see the whole LA skyline at sundown, and it is really poetic.
And after looking at a million painting, none of which seemed to appealing to me, we went in a medieval exhibition. Now that was interesting with all those swords and armors and killing instruments (I know I am being a guy stereotype here!!).
So eventually after feeding my artistic hunger enough for the rest of my life, we decided to go back home. But on our way back, we took a detour to Hollywood Square because Rumi's friend wanted to visit that place. After that, we came back home.
Day 16
T - 1 day to Vegas trip. We spent most of the day finalizing everything. Actually we just decided to lay back before the big day, and hence ended up doing nothing interesting.
Day 17
The day. Woke up bright and early. Went to get the car from the rental. After some initial hiccups and funny navigation incidents, we were on our way. Then after some pit stops and a long drive through the desert and mountains, we reached the Las Vegas. But so close to our destination, we took an opposite turn and went a really long way before we came back in the right direction. Following that, we reached the street where our hotel was supposed to be. But alas it was nowhere to be found. We even stopped and asked at some stores and joints by the road, it was of no help. After going up and down the whole street a couple of times, we finally found our hotel. It turned out that the hotel had just opened up the previous day and not many knew about it.
We napped for sometime and then got ready. We were around 25 miles for the Strip so we decided to head out early with the hope of finding a parking spot close to the Strip. But the receptionist at the hotel desk gave us a pretty useful tip.
After that we headed towards the heart of Vegas, and the view was worth watching. In the middle of dark mountains and plain lands, you see a golden center, all glowing and twinkling - I am not well versed enough to describe it in words, but it was just awesome. You can't imagine there can be so much light. That was the perfect time as any to say those three words - "Its Vegas baby!".
So we did manage to get a parking spot close to the Strip, and we got to the Strip on foot, and it was awesome - beautifully lighted Casino on both sides, a million people awaiting the countdown to the New Year, and the best part - free beer trucks down the length of the Strip - it was awesome. We were hungry too, so found ourselves an Asian joint where we had a pretty decent buffet.
After that we started checking out casinos. The first one was New York New York. There I found out two things - I can do a pretty good job in Blackjack with the computer (the table was too costly for me - a minimum bid of $25, and thats a lot for me), the second thing being that the slot machines are very very addictive. All the money I managed to earn playing Blackjack was all lost on the bloody slot machines.
Then suddenly we realized that it was almost midnight, and we ran outside just as the countdown was starting, and as you can expect, Vegas blew up at midnight....it was awesome, thats all I can say. It was one of hell of a New Year.
We decided to explore some more casinos. Some of us went to the Excalibur, some to MGM grand, and we finally all got together at the Monte Carlo. You must know that it was freezing outside and we didn't feel like going out much once we got inside one of the casinos.
Rumi and I decided to explore inside the casino, and we wandered into a disc which was playing live music. It was pretty fun and we danced for a while. But the the most weird thing happened. The band concluded with 'Bhangra' music. Who can imagine a band would be playing 'bhangra' on New Year's eve at a Las Vegas casino disc. What are the odds???
At around 3 in the night we decided to get back to the hotel. By that time, the Strip was almost empty and the cops were picking up those who were too sloshed to go anywhere. And then there was the bed and it was a long day
We napped for sometime and then got ready. We were around 25 miles for the Strip so we decided to head out early with the hope of finding a parking spot close to the Strip. But the receptionist at the hotel desk gave us a pretty useful tip.
After that we headed towards the heart of Vegas, and the view was worth watching. In the middle of dark mountains and plain lands, you see a golden center, all glowing and twinkling - I am not well versed enough to describe it in words, but it was just awesome. You can't imagine there can be so much light. That was the perfect time as any to say those three words - "Its Vegas baby!".
So we did manage to get a parking spot close to the Strip, and we got to the Strip on foot, and it was awesome - beautifully lighted Casino on both sides, a million people awaiting the countdown to the New Year, and the best part - free beer trucks down the length of the Strip - it was awesome. We were hungry too, so found ourselves an Asian joint where we had a pretty decent buffet.
After that we started checking out casinos. The first one was New York New York. There I found out two things - I can do a pretty good job in Blackjack with the computer (the table was too costly for me - a minimum bid of $25, and thats a lot for me), the second thing being that the slot machines are very very addictive. All the money I managed to earn playing Blackjack was all lost on the bloody slot machines.
Then suddenly we realized that it was almost midnight, and we ran outside just as the countdown was starting, and as you can expect, Vegas blew up at midnight....it was awesome, thats all I can say. It was one of hell of a New Year.
We decided to explore some more casinos. Some of us went to the Excalibur, some to MGM grand, and we finally all got together at the Monte Carlo. You must know that it was freezing outside and we didn't feel like going out much once we got inside one of the casinos.
Rumi and I decided to explore inside the casino, and we wandered into a disc which was playing live music. It was pretty fun and we danced for a while. But the the most weird thing happened. The band concluded with 'Bhangra' music. Who can imagine a band would be playing 'bhangra' on New Year's eve at a Las Vegas casino disc. What are the odds???
At around 3 in the night we decided to get back to the hotel. By that time, the Strip was almost empty and the cops were picking up those who were too sloshed to go anywhere. And then there was the bed and it was a long day
Day 18
A whole new day. A whole new year. And what better way to start it than getting a dose of vertigo. So we decided to go to the Stratosphere. When we got to the top of the towers, the slanting glasses did give you a chill down our spine. But we wanted it full blown, so we got ourselves tickets for the rides on top of the Stratosphere. After standing in line for a long time, when we did take the ride, it turned out to be a dud - at least for me, I don't speak for everybody. But must say that the view was very beautiful for up there, less scary and more beautiful. A chop chopper once flew past us, and that kind of make us realize again how high we were.
One thing I forgot to mention. The elevators which took us to the >100th floors, they were so fast, I think we were doing around 5 floor per second.
It was already late by then, so we quickly grabbed some lunch, picked us up some souvenirs, and headed back to LA.
The drive back was far less eventful, and after just one pit stop, we reached our places far before midnight, and then fell off to sleep soon after.
One thing I forgot to mention. The elevators which took us to the >100th floors, they were so fast, I think we were doing around 5 floor per second.
It was already late by then, so we quickly grabbed some lunch, picked us up some souvenirs, and headed back to LA.
The drive back was far less eventful, and after just one pit stop, we reached our places far before midnight, and then fell off to sleep soon after.
Day 19
After Vegas, anything we did would seem pointless, so we decided to do nothing. And that pretty much set the track for what was going to happen for the rest of my stay in Vegas. We hogged, slept and played cards. The Vegas fever had gotten into us, but since we were such a huge family, we mostly played bluff or trump. We did have a member come back to the gang from NY (she spent her New year's eve at Times Square with her special friend ;) - correct me if I am wrong). Unfortunately another member of our gang was under the weather.
Day 20
This day was pretty much the same as the day before. Except that we had the heroine go back to Seattle. Our very own 'main hoon na' hero was pretty heartbroken. Well he always seemed to have a rotten luck, everybody seemed to just leave and go off :P. I am not sure it was this night or the night before, but it had 8 of us sleep together under 2 blankets and 2 sleeping bags. I don't know how many of us actually go to sleep much.
Day 21
Last day in LA. Time to bid farewell to the wonderful people I met and had fun in this short span of time. And also to say goodbye to my girl friend for a really really long time. I don't exactly remember what all I did, but I hope I had said my goodbyes properly. These bunch of people who took me in as one of their own and let me have one of the best vacations of my life. I thank you all for the great great winter I had. And last but not the least, I thank my dear dear Rumi....my winters couldn't have been any better...all thanks to you.
The last day
Time to come back home. Time to pack again. My flight being at 12p.m., I started packing at 8 in the morning. Once the packing was done, I made a brilliant decision to take the bus to the airport instead of calling a cab. And as fate would have it, it was just awesome.
When we reached our connecting bus, we missed by literally seconds. And the next bus was nowhere to be found. But thanks to certain people, I made just in time to check in my luggage at the airport. They had just announced that the luggage check in for my flight had just closed, but they were nice enough to check mine in.
Then I somehow made it to the plane, and slept the 5 hours of flight to Atlanta, where I took the Marta back to my place. And thats how ended my winter. And guess how much work I got done in these 21 days - ZILCH!!!
When we reached our connecting bus, we missed by literally seconds. And the next bus was nowhere to be found. But thanks to certain people, I made just in time to check in my luggage at the airport. They had just announced that the luggage check in for my flight had just closed, but they were nice enough to check mine in.
Then I somehow made it to the plane, and slept the 5 hours of flight to Atlanta, where I took the Marta back to my place. And thats how ended my winter. And guess how much work I got done in these 21 days - ZILCH!!!
Friday, February 22, 2008
The day the world slept
Or the people in the Klaus building (for those who don't know, the Klaus Advanced Computing Building is home to half the department of Computer Science, whereas the other half lives in the posh 'TSRB'). Well, the whole topic of 'Klaus vs. TSRB' is never spoken of, and deserves a post of its own, but I think it has been succinctly been put by my friend from TSRB as "the grass is always greener on the other side, but then there is TSRB". By the way, my office space is at Klaus, and I say "no comments". Now going back to the thing I actually wanted to talk about. Today was a day I noticed a lot of people dozing off.
The group I am a part of is a really hard working (like every other group at Tech). What I am trying to say is that you would rarely see anybody slacking off when they are at their table. One of the reasons maybe the fact that our group finishes off a bag of coffee beans in less than four days. But surprisingly, today when I entered the lab at 1.30 p.m. (well thats early for me :D ), I saw three guys dozing off on their respective tables. Mind you, all of them had a coffee cup in front of them, which seemed to have been just emptied. It was a completely new sight for me. And then I see another friend of mine with bloodshot eyes, ready to close any second. I got confused as to what is happening around. It is usually me who is always sleepy and dozing off all over the place. What has happened? Have I managed to rub my laziness upon my lab-mates? Or was it a bad bag of coffee beans? As I was pondering over this oddity, I realized that it was time for class.
As I was going for class, I saw more people in the lounge area with there laptop open on their laps (I am sorry but couldn't figure how to put it in better words) and their heads resting on the sofa fast asleep. This sight brought me mixed feelings: a feeling of relief that I was not responsible for what happened to the people in our lab, and that it was something more universal, but I was also worried as to what was wrong with the world. But I temporarily put my quest to find the answer to rest and went to class.
While I was coming back from class, I just glanced outside, and it struck me. It was the gloomy weather! (sorry if you were expecting something more dramatic). It was cloudy since 5 a.m. in the morning (yes thats went I came back from my lab last night :D), and it had been raining since 7 a.m. And there was no sign of the rain stopping. Who can blame us mere mortals for feeling sleepy on a day like this. We just succumbed to nature. In fact it is 12 in the night and it is still raining. But then this is in a way good, considering the fact that Georgia was facing a drought few days ago.
Well now that it is already Friday, I should wish my dearest sister "Happy Birthday". I hope I could say that I dedicate this blog to her, but it ain't that great :P.
The group I am a part of is a really hard working (like every other group at Tech). What I am trying to say is that you would rarely see anybody slacking off when they are at their table. One of the reasons maybe the fact that our group finishes off a bag of coffee beans in less than four days. But surprisingly, today when I entered the lab at 1.30 p.m. (well thats early for me :D ), I saw three guys dozing off on their respective tables. Mind you, all of them had a coffee cup in front of them, which seemed to have been just emptied. It was a completely new sight for me. And then I see another friend of mine with bloodshot eyes, ready to close any second. I got confused as to what is happening around. It is usually me who is always sleepy and dozing off all over the place. What has happened? Have I managed to rub my laziness upon my lab-mates? Or was it a bad bag of coffee beans? As I was pondering over this oddity, I realized that it was time for class.
As I was going for class, I saw more people in the lounge area with there laptop open on their laps (I am sorry but couldn't figure how to put it in better words) and their heads resting on the sofa fast asleep. This sight brought me mixed feelings: a feeling of relief that I was not responsible for what happened to the people in our lab, and that it was something more universal, but I was also worried as to what was wrong with the world. But I temporarily put my quest to find the answer to rest and went to class.
While I was coming back from class, I just glanced outside, and it struck me. It was the gloomy weather! (sorry if you were expecting something more dramatic). It was cloudy since 5 a.m. in the morning (yes thats went I came back from my lab last night :D), and it had been raining since 7 a.m. And there was no sign of the rain stopping. Who can blame us mere mortals for feeling sleepy on a day like this. We just succumbed to nature. In fact it is 12 in the night and it is still raining. But then this is in a way good, considering the fact that Georgia was facing a drought few days ago.
Well now that it is already Friday, I should wish my dearest sister "Happy Birthday". I hope I could say that I dedicate this blog to her, but it ain't that great :P.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Viva Los Angeles - Chapter 1 of I-don't-know-how-many
Well this is going to be one long blog, I am kind of feeling lazy writing this whole thing. But it is something so memorable, I'll kick myself for the rest of my life if I don't write this down before I forget all this. So here it goes...
What do you do when you have a three week vacation, in which you have to loads and loads of work to do, lot of programs to code up, lots of papers to read...I guess you get the idea. So what do you do in such a situation. Well if you are anything like me, you should go for an exact THREE WEEK VACATION TO LOS ANGELES. Mind you, when I prepared for the trip, I had full intention of working this whole vacation. I had taken all the required papers, and my laptop was all set to work. But probably I should have given heed to the words of my much more experienced sister. When I told her I was planning to work during my trip to LA, her reaction was "Well ok, we'll see how much you work...".
I thought of starting from the beginning (;)), but I don't think anybody would be interested in knowing that I started packing at around 2 a.m in the morning when I was supposed to leave at around 7 a.m., and I was too tired to pull an all-nighter. But the bottomline remains that I reached the airport well in time thanks to 'lalaji' who dropped me off at the airport, and within the hour, I was off the ground flying to LA.
After that I just went though the motions of flying 5 hours, getting my luggage, changing 2 buses and a rail to reach the street where my girl friend lived. Well I won't bore you people with the story of my rejoice when I met my dear friend after so many days. I shall just continue forward. I have this urge to do the whole thing daywise so here it goes:
That day was spent mostly sleeping, and eating great food that Rumi prepared. After eating your cooking for 4 months, you can imagine how relieved my palette was to taste actually edible food. Not that her food wasn't great, my craving for good Indian food just made that food all the more awesome.
What do you do when you have a three week vacation, in which you have to loads and loads of work to do, lot of programs to code up, lots of papers to read...I guess you get the idea. So what do you do in such a situation. Well if you are anything like me, you should go for an exact THREE WEEK VACATION TO LOS ANGELES. Mind you, when I prepared for the trip, I had full intention of working this whole vacation. I had taken all the required papers, and my laptop was all set to work. But probably I should have given heed to the words of my much more experienced sister. When I told her I was planning to work during my trip to LA, her reaction was "Well ok, we'll see how much you work...".
I thought of starting from the beginning (;)), but I don't think anybody would be interested in knowing that I started packing at around 2 a.m in the morning when I was supposed to leave at around 7 a.m., and I was too tired to pull an all-nighter. But the bottomline remains that I reached the airport well in time thanks to 'lalaji' who dropped me off at the airport, and within the hour, I was off the ground flying to LA.
After that I just went though the motions of flying 5 hours, getting my luggage, changing 2 buses and a rail to reach the street where my girl friend lived. Well I won't bore you people with the story of my rejoice when I met my dear friend after so many days. I shall just continue forward. I have this urge to do the whole thing daywise so here it goes:
Day 1
Day 2
Sometimes I am like a creature from the Antarctic, who can sleep for six months. Because the following few days showed me I could go to the limits, the limits of sleeping. The sunday was also spent sleeping and eating. The reason that we weren't going out anywhere was because Rumi had her end-terms, and she had to study. I can be actually thought of as an inconsiderate boyfriend who does not care about his girlfriend's schedule, but I must clear the air by saying that this scheduling confusion was Rumi's fault and not mine :). One thing other than the primal tasks of eating and sleeping was an internship interview that I had that night. And I am damn sure I pissed off the interviewer real bad by eating his head about a randomized algorithm to find primes although it had no relation to the problem that he had posed. In the end he seemed really frustrated and I am pretty sure he felt like strangling me. I sincerely apologize to you if you are reading my blog.
Day 3
First exam of Rumi. That's the first day I went out for the first time. I walked the streets of LA. Entered the posh "University of Southern California". It was reputed to have really super hot girl, but I think it have really rotten luck because I didn't get to see a single one - much to the disappointment of not just me but also Rumi. Now while she was giving her examination, I was sitting outside with my laptop. Because of my brilliance, I had forgotten to ask her about the passkey to her university WAN. So the first half an hour was spent looking for an unsecured network. My luck being as good as it is (touch wood!!), I did end up finding one. The rest of the time was spent was watching a series called Dexter which is about a heroic serial killer.
Next episode : meeting the "gang", enter 1282, bath in the freezing Pacific and lots more....don't bite your finger off in anticipation, it isn't worth it
Now that her exam was over, we went over to her university village (a place with lot of shops and outlets for stuff required for the survival of students) where we have a Korean dish from a Chinese shop prepared by a Hispanic lady. Then we went over to her library (it is called by a code name called libi library whose meaning I couldn't figure out in my 21 days stay among students of USC. I just nod my head whenever I hear the word because I feel it would be super foolish to ask what it actually means). There Rumi was working hard on finishing off her course work, whereas I was working hard at finishing off all the episodes of Dexter, no lesser task I must add. For dinner we went to an Asian place called the "Panda Express" whose name I hadn't heard till that day (although later on I found out from my sister that it is a pretty famous joint). Then we came back home where we continued with our respective tasks until we fell asleep.
Day 4
Epitome of laziness. Open my eyes for the first time that morning, I hear Rumi telling me "Wake up lazy ass, and have some breakfast" and then leaving for her exam. Next time I open my eyes, I hear Rumi say "Oh my god, you are still sleeping. How can anybody sleep so much? Wake up this moment, brush your teeth and go eat something". The rest of the day was spent in getting rid of the inertia of rest I had gotten myself into, which ended in me giving up and going back to sleep in the night.
Day 5
Hibernation continued. Well I guess I will hibernate now too. So I shall continue with this in the next blog. So wait till the next episode :D
Next episode : meeting the "gang", enter 1282, bath in the freezing Pacific and lots more....don't bite your finger off in anticipation, it isn't worth it
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Walk on
"You never conquer a mountain; the most you can ever hope to do is to try and conquer yourself"
- Sir Edmund Hillary
Beautifully put by a man of great character. And I didn't know he was so much more than the guy who ended up being the first to get to the peak of Mt. Everest (with all due respect to Tenzing Norway). I did not know he spend most of his life after everest to the betterment of the lives of the sherpa community in northern bengal. And another fact which I didn't know was that after climbing the Mt. Everest, he spent his years in search for the mythical Yeti - the abominable snowman. But returning to what he said, I think to myself, what his summary of his own life actually means. And as always, I am tempted to diverge to give my own expert comments on this. But I am just to young and naive to do so. I know too little. And that makes me look inside myself and see if there is any part of me that yearns for knowledge. Ever since I read Tennyson's "Ulysses", I wished to be a seeker of knowledge. I wanted to "follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought". I tried to read different things, learn as much as I could about things around me. But then I lost my way. I got caught up with life. But the ironic thing is that I didn't give on my dream because I got too busy, but because I got too lazy. Even as I write this piece, I still can't find that thirst in me. I want to have that desire, the craving to learn, I so wish I have it, but there is a void there. It is weird how even when I know right from wrong, I can't motivate myself to do the right thing. What does that make me? But as I blame myself for not being that committed to gaining knowledge, I am faced with another question. When you learn about something for the first time and you find it interesting, you dive into the details and try to find as much as you can. But as you dig deeper and deeper, you sometimes start to lose interest. The thing seems to have lost its charm. And at that moment, anything new and remotely interesting attracts your interest and you yearn to learn about it. Here it may seem that it is the lack of strength in our character that makes us jump from one topic to another. But I ask why is wrong to do so? I am still gaining knowledge, maybe not in depth, but in breadth nonetheless. And knowledge in any form is a gain. So why is it wrong?
Why is this form of quest for knowledge not as noble? I know it is wrong, but why is it so? I can't find the logic in it. Please help me out here. And somehow this can be extended to more parts of life. You try new things out when they seem interesting and novel. But as the attraction fades and the you have just run out of beginner's luck, you start to see the real work you need to put in. You start feeling bored and frustrated and yearn for a change. I guess that is where your strength of character is being tested. Are you strong enough to strive on and move forward, to follow beyond the utmost bound, or are you just a weak backboned creature, one who changes shape whenever it is a bit hard to fit in. Do you back out when the going gets tough or do you walk on? Well I believe I just answered my own question, by while doing that, I realized a lot about myself. I have realized how many times I have just given up only because it meant a little more hard work. How many times I took the easy way out. Looking back now, I realize how I am missing so many great things just because I was too lazy, too coward.
But hanging on the past never did good to me. Pondering over them just made me lose precious moments in the present, moments when I could do something really significant. What I am trying to say that I have just so long to live, and if I waste my life crying over how I made wrong decisions in my past, things will only get worse. So I shall move forward, pick pieces of the past, and move forward. I guess failure is not as bad as chickening out. So here and now, I make the decision to actually strive on, to try real hard to learn. Learn anything I can, but not give when things start to squeeze too hard.
And to think I was just trying to comprehend what Sir Hillary had said. I guess I did learn something about myself. Now time can only tell if I put that knowledge to any good use. Maybe whenever it starts getting hard, I can get back to this blog, and maybe understand why it is important to not give up.
Beautifully put by a man of great character. And I didn't know he was so much more than the guy who ended up being the first to get to the peak of Mt. Everest (with all due respect to Tenzing Norway). I did not know he spend most of his life after everest to the betterment of the lives of the sherpa community in northern bengal. And another fact which I didn't know was that after climbing the Mt. Everest, he spent his years in search for the mythical Yeti - the abominable snowman. But returning to what he said, I think to myself, what his summary of his own life actually means. And as always, I am tempted to diverge to give my own expert comments on this. But I am just to young and naive to do so. I know too little. And that makes me look inside myself and see if there is any part of me that yearns for knowledge. Ever since I read Tennyson's "Ulysses", I wished to be a seeker of knowledge. I wanted to "follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought". I tried to read different things, learn as much as I could about things around me. But then I lost my way. I got caught up with life. But the ironic thing is that I didn't give on my dream because I got too busy, but because I got too lazy. Even as I write this piece, I still can't find that thirst in me. I want to have that desire, the craving to learn, I so wish I have it, but there is a void there. It is weird how even when I know right from wrong, I can't motivate myself to do the right thing. What does that make me? But as I blame myself for not being that committed to gaining knowledge, I am faced with another question. When you learn about something for the first time and you find it interesting, you dive into the details and try to find as much as you can. But as you dig deeper and deeper, you sometimes start to lose interest. The thing seems to have lost its charm. And at that moment, anything new and remotely interesting attracts your interest and you yearn to learn about it. Here it may seem that it is the lack of strength in our character that makes us jump from one topic to another. But I ask why is wrong to do so? I am still gaining knowledge, maybe not in depth, but in breadth nonetheless. And knowledge in any form is a gain. So why is it wrong?
Why is this form of quest for knowledge not as noble? I know it is wrong, but why is it so? I can't find the logic in it. Please help me out here. And somehow this can be extended to more parts of life. You try new things out when they seem interesting and novel. But as the attraction fades and the you have just run out of beginner's luck, you start to see the real work you need to put in. You start feeling bored and frustrated and yearn for a change. I guess that is where your strength of character is being tested. Are you strong enough to strive on and move forward, to follow beyond the utmost bound, or are you just a weak backboned creature, one who changes shape whenever it is a bit hard to fit in. Do you back out when the going gets tough or do you walk on? Well I believe I just answered my own question, by while doing that, I realized a lot about myself. I have realized how many times I have just given up only because it meant a little more hard work. How many times I took the easy way out. Looking back now, I realize how I am missing so many great things just because I was too lazy, too coward.
But hanging on the past never did good to me. Pondering over them just made me lose precious moments in the present, moments when I could do something really significant. What I am trying to say that I have just so long to live, and if I waste my life crying over how I made wrong decisions in my past, things will only get worse. So I shall move forward, pick pieces of the past, and move forward. I guess failure is not as bad as chickening out. So here and now, I make the decision to actually strive on, to try real hard to learn. Learn anything I can, but not give when things start to squeeze too hard.
And to think I was just trying to comprehend what Sir Hillary had said. I guess I did learn something about myself. Now time can only tell if I put that knowledge to any good use. Maybe whenever it starts getting hard, I can get back to this blog, and maybe understand why it is important to not give up.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Long Time Due!!
Sometimes you wonder why you always want stuff you never have. Is it because you actually need those things and thats why you miss them because you don't have them or is it just because somebody else has it and you don't, that is, is it always plain jealousy ?
After putting much thought in it and thinking about it for a month, I came to the conclusion that I had gone totally mad when I wrote the previous line, or maybe it was because I was totally jobless and in the mood of giving people the "funda" about life. But now that I am brought to my senses, I realize that I have no idea about the answer to that question.
Enough about that. Now moving on with my life. Since my previous post, I have been doing nothing much of consequence. Some may say I was trying to do some research, but in the past 3 - 4 months, my learning curve has kind of gotten stuck on a plateau. So my research is, well, still in progress.
Nothing much happened up until the end of the semester, when I ended up partying and sleeping (as a consequence of the partying) most of my exam week. The fact that I made it to the exams itself felt as an achievement at that point of time. But as always, my lady luck saved my not-so-precious behind.
I forgot to mention about the partying itself. Well there were a couple of parties, but the one worth mentioning was the one I had at my advisor's. Well for those who don't know, I was lucky to have a really cool adviser who excepts me work as hard as I can party, but at the same time expects me to party at times too. So back to the party. We were having a quiet evening at his place, drinking beer and talking about music and stuff. Then we were all planning to leave when some people showed up to crash the party. Well these people were basically department senior graduate students. And the first thing they did was taking out the vodka bottle from the fridge and starting off with vodka shots. I must say that thanks to my training in Kharagpur, I managed to fair well in the vodka shots. But alas the vodka didn't last long, and we moved to a bar close to my advisor's place. And there I don't remember how much I drank or what all I did in front of my adviser, but I do remember him laughing a lot at me and he christened me "dimples". That was very embarrassing and I had to face that the whole evening. That evening, over a lot of alcohol, I made some new friends, who became pretty good ones.
Well I guess alcohol removes all our inhibitions, and it becomes easier for us to open up in front of another person and the more we open up, the more they feel comfortable in front of us and let their guards down. Sorry! Couldn't resist giving a little piece of "funda of life".
Now I don't remember exactly when I came back, but I remember the party starting at 4 pm and me waking up at 2pm next day when one of my friends called to check on me. By the way I never did thank that person for waking me up, if she hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to finish my take-home exam and submit it in time.
To clear things, this party was on monday, my take-home exam was due tuesday, and I had another exam on wednesday. And thanks to parties on friday and saturday nights, my weekend was spent in sleeping or being at a party.
Well that was the end of my first semester with a bang! (Sorry for the cliche, couldn't come up with a better expression). After that, come winter vacations, I was off to Los Angeles, primarily to meet my dear dear girl friend. And as planned I reached LA for a 3 week vacation.
Now what happened in LA is a whole story in itself and deserves a blog of its own, and maybe one day soon I can get myself to do that. For now I think I should conclude here saying that this whole blog reminds me a very common thing in maths. We make starts at random points and hope to converge to one global optimum. If you are lucky, it does converge, otherwise, it ends up looking as bad as this blog!
After putting much thought in it and thinking about it for a month, I came to the conclusion that I had gone totally mad when I wrote the previous line, or maybe it was because I was totally jobless and in the mood of giving people the "funda" about life. But now that I am brought to my senses, I realize that I have no idea about the answer to that question.
Enough about that. Now moving on with my life. Since my previous post, I have been doing nothing much of consequence. Some may say I was trying to do some research, but in the past 3 - 4 months, my learning curve has kind of gotten stuck on a plateau. So my research is, well, still in progress.
Nothing much happened up until the end of the semester, when I ended up partying and sleeping (as a consequence of the partying) most of my exam week. The fact that I made it to the exams itself felt as an achievement at that point of time. But as always, my lady luck saved my not-so-precious behind.
I forgot to mention about the partying itself. Well there were a couple of parties, but the one worth mentioning was the one I had at my advisor's. Well for those who don't know, I was lucky to have a really cool adviser who excepts me work as hard as I can party, but at the same time expects me to party at times too. So back to the party. We were having a quiet evening at his place, drinking beer and talking about music and stuff. Then we were all planning to leave when some people showed up to crash the party. Well these people were basically department senior graduate students. And the first thing they did was taking out the vodka bottle from the fridge and starting off with vodka shots. I must say that thanks to my training in Kharagpur, I managed to fair well in the vodka shots. But alas the vodka didn't last long, and we moved to a bar close to my advisor's place. And there I don't remember how much I drank or what all I did in front of my adviser, but I do remember him laughing a lot at me and he christened me "dimples". That was very embarrassing and I had to face that the whole evening. That evening, over a lot of alcohol, I made some new friends, who became pretty good ones.
Well I guess alcohol removes all our inhibitions, and it becomes easier for us to open up in front of another person and the more we open up, the more they feel comfortable in front of us and let their guards down. Sorry! Couldn't resist giving a little piece of "funda of life".
Now I don't remember exactly when I came back, but I remember the party starting at 4 pm and me waking up at 2pm next day when one of my friends called to check on me. By the way I never did thank that person for waking me up, if she hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to finish my take-home exam and submit it in time.
To clear things, this party was on monday, my take-home exam was due tuesday, and I had another exam on wednesday. And thanks to parties on friday and saturday nights, my weekend was spent in sleeping or being at a party.
Well that was the end of my first semester with a bang! (Sorry for the cliche, couldn't come up with a better expression). After that, come winter vacations, I was off to Los Angeles, primarily to meet my dear dear girl friend. And as planned I reached LA for a 3 week vacation.
Now what happened in LA is a whole story in itself and deserves a blog of its own, and maybe one day soon I can get myself to do that. For now I think I should conclude here saying that this whole blog reminds me a very common thing in maths. We make starts at random points and hope to converge to one global optimum. If you are lucky, it does converge, otherwise, it ends up looking as bad as this blog!
Monday, November 19, 2007
Why do I have so much time?
It seems I come back to my blog whenever I have a lot of work to do. I spend the time I should be spending on reading a textbook on writing this useless blog which is of no consequence. I am pretty sure that this post won't even make it to the blog. If it does it would be a big achievement :D.
What crap man..... I have no idea what the hell I am writing.....I feel like I am going to give up...can't go on...aaaa aaaaaaaa....aaaaaaaaa......uggghhhhhhhh!!!
What the heck...lets just post it
What crap man..... I have no idea what the hell I am writing.....I feel like I am going to give up...can't go on...aaaa aaaaaaaa....aaaaaaaaa......uggghhhhhhhh!!!
What the heck...lets just post it
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