Gold and Beautiful

Last weekend we invited Jam and Christine to our place for some nice Marathi dinner. I made भरली वांगी and he made कोशिंबीर, fruit salad and पोहे..... The only thing missing was भाकरी!!! We managed with चपाती... The dinner was great and so was the wine that they brought. Made me realize how much I miss mom's cooking. I am so making a list of all the stuff I want to eat when I go home this time, starting with आलुची भाजी and कटाची आमटी!!!!

Times tweeted this article: Dying Art of Sari ... That's really sad. Especially the last comment made by a political science student really hurt. Apparently in India a woman in western formals is considered more empowered!!!! Seriously?? How so?? I don't understand, but I can actually. I am more of an Indian now than when I was there :-) And I remember my friends, the way we dressed, we spoke, the movies we saw, the places that we used to hang out at..... None of these things screamed traditional Indian. Why blame others?

Read this somewhere: "Life is unfair"... hmmm.. really?? Life is cruel.... sometimes, not always... but it is!!

I am sitting in my hybrid workshop and people are talking about mid-life crises. SS says "Men have..." and NN says "Affairs"..... Eventually everyone agreed that men have mid-life crises and that buying a fancy car is an innocuous way of dealing with mid life crisis rather than having an affair and of course we all agreed that women are too busy balancing too many things in life and don't have time for mid life crises. What an interesting session!! That's what I need in the classroom... A lighter side!!

Got this information from Shreyas.... rather his boss... Anyways, it's interesting information. The word “posh” stands for “ P ort O ut, S tarboard H ome”. On the way to India (way back when people traveled to and from England on a ship), the hot afternoon sun is on the right – or starboard – side of the ship as you sail down the west coast of Africa. On the way back, it’s on the port side, and a traveler desiring to avoid that hot sun wanted to be on the shady side of the vessel. So the rooms on these sides of the ship would be more expensive than other rooms (travelling in these directions) and hence called "posh" rooms.

Last night was bowling night with Indian Friends Meetup group... Although I am not great at the game (I suck at most sports/games), I went to have some fun... I have kind of given up on some things, sports being one of them... I have made peace with the fact that I am not great at playing any kind of games and that allows me to enjoy every thing. I actually did not suck last night. Although I did not manage a single strike (I did manage a 1 and 9) I was consistently doing 8 or 9... So I was content.. Still bummed about missing rock climbing though!!!!

So last weekend (Sat) we were supposed to meet a friend for dinner. Fortunately or unfortunately (I haven't made that decision yet!!) he had to drop off his aunt at the airport and canceled at the last minute. So we ended up going to this amazing adventure golfing place (I agree it's mini golf, but don't look at me.. that's what they call themselves!!).. It was a fun evening, with me trying my best to putt and not push the ball into the holes.... Also managed to lose a ball in water (folks behind us in line were really nice and gave us their extra ball)... But darn it!!! I forgot to take pics :-( Anyways, the only reason I can't decide if this was fortunate or unfortunate is because we met our friend for lunch the next day and hogged so much that had to miss our meetup group's indoor rock climbing :-( Golfing was fun though and if we ever catch up with our rock climbing, I will be sure to not forget my camera!!!

Some very motivated faculty members at GGC organized a summer tech camp for middle school students.. I would have loved to help if I was not teaching this summer. But since I am, I decided to0 do a couple of really small activities to feel like I contributed to something good. These ladies did a LOT of work.. I mean really LOT... Tons of co-ordination. This week is girls camp and next week is boys camp. Yesterday I did some really nice activities for children to understand binary numbers and today we are doing error detection and correction. I got the idea for these activities from a Broadening Participation in Computing workshop that i attended last semester. A web site called CS unplugged has a collection of such fun activities and magic tricks to introduce fundamental CS concepts to kids. Really good activities with all the support available. I just hope I can do this well today!!!!

I was thinking about my previous post regarding truth or dare and realized that: Choosing truth is a dare in itself !

.... What would you pick???

A friend recently forwarded me a message "25 Reasons I Owe My Mom". I am not a big fan of forwards and many times delete such msgs without reading. But I read this one and it was funny. I will not go through the 24 reasons here, but do want to mention the last point in that email, because it is just perfect. Loved it. 25. And my favorite: My mother taught me about JUSTICE. 'One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you.'

Sometimes we lose sight of who really cares about us, sometimes we cannot distinguish between the keepers and the kickers (losers, really).... Why am I thinking about this??? I just found out that family back home is discussing how to preserve mangoes for me so that I can enjoy them when I get there in July....... Well, lucky me!! Can't wait to go home!!

Long time back I published my short wishlist for summer vacations... Re-posting it here: Rent a condo in a high rise in Buckhead, Atlanta and enjoy city life (hate to live further away from school when working !!!) South and Central America tour Europe tour Rent a lovely beach house in Savannah, GA Visit India to eat lots of haapoos mango Never really thought I was going to actually get any of these.. u know.. that's what a wishlist is... didn't really expect anything to happen!.... but starting with # 5 this summer.... I have a strong feeling this list is going to be accomplished and more items may get added.... :-) Keeping my fingers crossed!!!

It's been really long since I blogged...... Not that nothing's happening. A lot is happening actually, one of the reasons why I haven't had time to reflect and type. Spring semester ended, I thought I was going to take a nice 3 week break, but exciting things keep happening at work (a great advtg of working at a start-up school!!!). So basically, I didn't even realize when summer began (thank God for Anu n Amol... we owe a nice long weekend to them!!) and this semester is just flying... 3 more weeks and I will be done with the summer semester... Condo search has been great... Saw a beautiful 1913 historical bldg in downtown, but I think living in downtown Atlanta might be a bit of a stretch... no matter how high. Hopefully, during the rest of the summer I should be able to get some internships for us and be able to prepare for another new course for Fall and present two papers at my Las Vegas conference.... And if I did not mention India trip in Summer.... add that to t