Gold and Beautiful

Last night was the beginning of the end of the semester. Yesterday was the last day of classes, so to celebrate, a bunch of us went to a coffee shop to listen to our colleague from the Music discipline perform with his band... They were really great!! As DA, DB and I were talking the conversation turned towards which professors are popular and most respected... DB's hubby told us his observation. He was a tutor for 5 different History professors when he was in high school and he said: "The older you are the more respect you get, the taller you are the more respect you get and if you are a male you get more respect in the classroom". Then he looked at me and summed it up: "If you are a short young female you will have to wait :-)". And I was thinking to myself, you didn't add brown to the equation... That's going to be longer!!! For the most part I have had very good experiences with students so far (and obviously wonderful experience with colleagues) and

Hapa is the Hawaiian word for "half" and was once a derogatory term. It has since transformed into a word used to describe a person of mixed Asian or Pacific Islander racial heritage. On our visit to Chicago's Natural History Field museum we saw this beautiful exhibit of Kip Fulbeck's "The Hapa Project". The theme of this project was "What are you". 1200 people were photographed. They answered this question in their own words and many answers were very touching. More details about the project, book and exhibitions can be found here . I just wanted to share this innocent little boy's answer to the question. He says "I am part Chinese and part Danish.I don't usually tell people that I am Danish though, because they think I am a pastry" :-). This exhibition made me feel really warm and nice. It made me feel as if the whole world is gelling together, you can't really differentiate among people anymore based on their looks... maybe

Spent the last weekend in Washington D.C. The city was just okay. It didn't leave a huge impression on me. I would definitely prefer Chicago any day. I have to admit that we didn't really get to go to any of the hot spots, so maybe that will change my opinion later. Also, maybe going during the Cherry Blossoms festival or the kite flying festival might be a better experience. The one thing that I liked about D.C. was the very well connected Metro. Loved it!! So of course we saw the Washington monument, Lincoln memorial, U.S. Capitol and White House. Surprisingly though, we didn't go to any of the museums..... Considering the fact that we are museum buffs and the museums in Washington are good and free this was an anomaly. We did attend the Rally to Restore Sanity. I had never been to a political rally before and I don't think I ever will in future. So this was a good opportunity to try it out :-). Obviously, it was extremely crowded, the trains were packed, roads were b

I am attending the IEEE Frontiers in Education conference and am just mortified by all these people sitting around me at lunch. Today is the first day and the conference organizing committee made a huge blunder by scheduling 2 keynote speakers at the lunch. OK IEEE.... 40 years organizing this conference and how do you do this? You invite these wonderful speakers, give them awards and ask them to speak when everybody is busy eating and talking. I don't know if the guy could even hear himself speak, because all that I could hear was murmur and knives and forks clashing!!! It was embarrassing. I was hoping the speaker (who was very well known and was saying some really good things about active learning and project-based learning) would not look up, because no one was paying attention. Everyone's head was down in their plates or they were busy conversing with others at the table. The lady at my table was talking for 5 minutes about how it was so noisy in there. I wanted to scream

I was a huge fan of Anderson Cooper for a very long time for all the wrong reasons.... until I saw AC360. Since then I have been a huge fan for the right reason :-) Good journalism, must watch show.

Attended Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing last week...... Great conference, actually not an ideal match for educators, but I found value in attending it. Lots of great participants, inspiring keynotes and useful plenary sessions... not to mention interesting research presentations. As I go from semester to semester trying to do all the things that I want to do and more, it is times like this when I can step back and look at what I am doing from a different perspective. The CS Ed conferences are great, but this was definitely a different perspective. I have to confess that I have never been surrounded by so many technical women ever.... In most of the MS and PhD classes I took, I was definitely a minority, usually the only female in PhD classes. Being surrounded by some 2200 odd technical women was kind of nice. I was also thoroughly impressed by the attention India is receiving. They had a female I BM executive from India in a plenary session, a complete track on Women

I am currently reading V.S. Naipaul's "India: A Million Mutinies Now". When I first started reading, I thought I knew a lot about what he was describing in the book. And it was true to a large extent. I think I already had a good understanding of what he was describing. But the way he was describing it, was so beautiful. If I had to talk to someone about India, I don't think I would be able to describe it like this.... even though I can talk about all the things that he talks about. My most favorite part so far is his theory about Calcutta. We all know about the plight of Calcutta.... He explains the state of Calcutta as the death of a city and says "This is what happens when cities die. They don't die with a bang. A city dies when everyone suffers everyday". He goes on to describe this in more detail, but I think you get the gist. Although I agree with this description and wanted to say exactly what he did, I don't think I would have ever described

Rural India, Indian poverty, political satire and no unnecessary singing and dancing..... Elements of an Oscar nomination???? It felt like the movie was made with Oscars in mind. The movie also reminded me of "No Man's Land", Best Foreign Film in 2002.

We were thinking of changing our home theater system for quite some time. It was great for my apartment in Lawrenceville, but somehow took up too much space in this condo. Finally we replaced it with a more compact sound bar. With this new system we finally got Internet on TV and have been watching Netflix online almost all weekend. This weekend for me was time to watch my favorites once again, starting with "The Last King of Scotland". It's definitely a great movie, but when I saw the movie the first time what stayed with me was James McAvoy..... Whooooo!!! I need some air :-). When I saw the movie for the second time, what stayed with me was the young Dr. Garrigan's idealism.... and his naivety to some extend. A young doctor living a comfortable life, but giving it up..... wanting to make a difference. Idealist!!! You have to love him. Such stories always make me feel more positive and although I know that maybe I should be a little more realist, I still believe in

Caramel popcorn reminds me of engineering college, Smita, Sterling theater, Addicted to Love and Jerry Maguire!!! Always brings a smile to my face :-)

The mosque "near" ground zero debate has been heating up for quite some time now. Every morning when driving to work, I get an update from NPR. Every evening at the gym I get an update from CNN. And obviously S loves to play devil's advocate on every issue... including this!!! So yes I agree to the constitutional right, I agree that this is not a religious war and tolerance is important. I have seen and heard a lot of people of various colors and religions speak in favor of building this community center. I would like to hear one Muslim say that maybe we should be sensitive towards the victims of 9/11 and step back and think about this a little. That's all I want. Maybe it's the media coverage that's deceptive. I am sure there are people who think this way, but I haven't heard it and it's hard for me to pick that side. I don't want to support the other side either. I just want someone to show some sensitivity for me to feel good about supporting th

It all started with orkut then and it all started with orkut even now. My first Web 2.0 participation began with creating an orkut account. It's been a really long time since then. "A lot of water has flowed under the bridge" as they say!! FB, blogger, shelfari, twitter, etc. all followed, stumbleupon being the latest of them. But enough is enough!!! I have seen it all, used it all and I am done. Ready to move on to something better. So the deactivation began..... with orkut....again!!!And continued with Buzz and Twitter... I am also thinking of deleting this blog.. Or maybe I will just make it private, who knows..

Am I the only one who thinks that these women with tucked eyebrows look weird??? Ladies!!! Seriously!!! It looks like you are always astonished.... Don't spend your money on that surgery. I can tell that they are not natural and you always look surprised!!!

The place had everything; beautiful beaches, lovely scenic views of bays, mountains and valleys, beautiful waterfalls and rainforests, natural tide pools and most of all flowing lava. Taking the boat tour was the best decision we made. We were very lucky that the lava had recently started flowing again and even though we took a night tour, the water was calm, making the boat ride slightly less scary. We spent more than 35 minutes extremely close to the lava... The sight was worth every penny we paid!! All the pics that I had seen in my Geography textbook in school came live in front of my eyes here. Definitely an experience!!! Last year it was the Glistening Waters lagoon in Jamaica..... Totally worth it!!! Mahalo Pele!!!

This has to be the mother of all bad excuses.... or the mother of all "I was sick" excuses. Check out this article about a Pennsylvania teacher who was nominated three times for Teacher of the Year award and faked about having a brain tumor to "skip school" :-). Apparently she's been doing this for 16 years and people started getting suspicious because she was not showing any signs of chemo, which she claimed she was going through. I am sure her students have learned some lesson..... don't stick to one disease for too long :-)

At what age is it inappropriate to ogle at new actors (hot and younger)???

I am currently reading Sudha Murty's Wise and Otherwise. In one of the stories she talks about educated Indian girls who are harassed by their husbands and in-laws and wonders why these girls are so submissive? Why doesn't their education empower them? She does talk about building confidence among girls and I totally agree with her. From my perspective, in a poor nation like ours, education is a ticket to a better life. We slog to get the highest rank, so that we can get a good job and live a better life, which basically translates to making more money. And with a huge population like ours, even a 90% score seems insufficient to get us anywhere. Obviously in this whole struggle of survival no one has the time to talk about the basic code of life. Moreover, even though many of us might be earning more and sending our daughters to schools, in how many households are the daughters still expected to help in the kitchen, while the sons are not? (There's nothing wrong with girls

Today's headline news... Finally after 87 days the oil spill has finally stopped. Makes me wonder.... How can a company like BP that has been doing this for decades not have a plan??? I mean how do you start drilling thousands of feet without thinking about the worst case scenario and how to handle it? Shouldn't they be required to have some kind of contingency plan that has been verified at least to some extent??? I have a backup jacket and backup shoes in my office that I haven't used in 3 years and tons of other things in my hand bag!!! Drives me crazy.... how can they start digging the well when they get thirsty?

One of my students has this awesome email signature that I absolutely love..... It says " Make it a great day!!! "

This is the same student who when asked "Do you follow me?" gave me a seriously puzzled look and said "following???".... do you mean "getting it???"... I smiled and said "Yes.. Are you getting whatever we are discussing in class?" to which the student's reply was: "Oh yes!!! I am getting it"!!! :-)

A student came to my office this morning and at the end of our meeting said to me "Thank you. You are the bomb"!! Huh???? Can you imagine me walking into Pabrekar Sir or Thomas teacher's office and saying "You are the bomb"???? It's a whole new way of communication!!!! :-)

I teach in a computer classroom and have to deal with distracted Freshmen who are addicted to Facebook. I do believe that banning FB in class is not an option. Like they say, when there was no FB there were notes being passed and you always have students who just skip into their own worlds... So you can force them to not use FB but you cannot force them to pay attention. For that you just have to be innovative with your classroom delivery. I totally agree with this thought and have tried to make this technology a part of my class. But obviously, there is only so much integration you can do with FB and Twitter. Can't do it for the entire semester. Obviously I also try to have as many activities in class as possible, so that we are actually using the computers for something productive. This semester though I decided to go one step further and include something in my syllabus: An "Acceptable Use Policy". There are 3 points in this policy, the other two will not be discussed

Carnegie Mellon University had a last lecture series for professors: "If you had to give one last lecture before you died, what would it be?". Randy Pausch was a professor of computer science and human computer interaction and design at CMU. His last lecture was truly a last lecture, he was dying of pancreatic cancer. His lecture was titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". This is a very inspirational speech and every person (techie or not) should see this video . Randy Pausch passed away in 2008. He was a big name in virtual reality and created a 3D programming environment called Alice geared towards attracting girls to computer science. I had heard about this video, but never saw it until Fall 2009, when I invited NN to be a guest speaker in my class and she brought this up. I have seen this video a number of times since then and I love it. Obviously I love the lessons: Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things. They

This song by Chris DeBurgh has an amazing storyline. I am certainly not much into English music, but when I first heard this song, I really liked the song for the story it told.... It is about a Spanish train that carries souls of the dead and one day when the God is late, the Devil stakes his claim to those souls. God agrees to play a game of poker to win the souls back, but the Devil keeps cheating and winning.... Awesome lyrics and very well sung too!!! A glimpse of the lyrics: And I said Lord, oh Lord, you let him win The sun is down and the night is riding in That train is dead on time, many souls are on the line Oh Lord, don't let him win... Enjoy the song on Lala !!!

A touchy subject, an important topic and very relevant these days! Recently I have known a few people who decided to move back and quite a few who are considering moving back to India. Opportunities are limitless... is what I hear. I also happened to read this interesting blog post . In this specific post he talks about money, but if you scroll down and read the comments you'll see tons of other issues discussed; everything from privacy (or lack of it) from nosy relatives to unreliable help and traffic and corruption and what not. In all these comments, I did not see anyone discuss work culture!!! I believe in "To each his own".... I am definitely not saying that any of the reasons discussed in those comments are less important, but as I read, I realized that people complained about traffic problems and long commutes and long work hours. So, if you are going to spend majority of your time at work (which makes the domestic help issue VERY relevant), then how can you not co

I created a discussion activity for my students based on Google's recent exit from China. Each team was supposed to play a different role: Google, Microsoft and Chinese Govt and discuss various issues. Surprisingly, not a single student in a class of 20 thought that what Google did was ethically the right thing to do.... Who cares about censorship of information? They all unanimously agreed that losing money was a bad choice!!!

Do you know someone who always lifts your spirits, no matter what??? Suma aunty is one such person that I happen to know... Always cheerful. Also, reminds me so much of my mom!!! Persistent and hard working, "never say no" kind of personality and overall an individual who has lots to offer and lots to teach. I have never seen her tired or stressed, although I know how much she works (I stayed with them for a bit!!!)... She is full of energy and enthusiasm! Some people bring out the best in you, by just being around you....

We were watching Up In The Air last night and the sister's wedding scene got me thinking... Why do men get cold feet at their wedding?? What does that say about the guy?? Some possible answers include: the guy cannot handle responsibility and wants to avoid it the guy is indecisive and flaky the guy proposed for the wrong reasons in the first place the guy is a coward??? (seems a little too strong, but possible!!! maybe scared is more appropriate... just so that we don't insult someone :-)) Any of these reasons just by themselves should be enough to give the brides some jitters.... I mean seriously, if you are marrying a guy who decides to bail out (or thinks about bailing out) on you at the last minute, how can you hand over your life to him??? Shouldn't it be the women who get cold feet???

Friday is my grading day. At the end of the week, when I cannot do anything more productive, I grade. And it takes forever.... The amount of work I give my students is not insignificant. The worst part is if I want them to pay attention to anything, I have to give them points for that... and I hate it!!! Whatever happened to "knowledge for knowledge's sake"??? I mean, yes I wasn't an ideal student ever (maybe sometimes :-)) but there was at least something that interested me about everything. And I remember that in my school, we did assignments, wrote essays in class and did so much of in class work that did not count towards our final grade. Even then scoring highest points on each and every assignment was a must. I don't ever remember thinking "this is not necessary, it doesn't matter", etc... We would compete over whose essay/letter/story would be chosen to be read in front of the class. Even though that meant nothing for what your rank in class w

For the past few days I have been thinking of Tracy. Tracy and I used to walk to campus together during our first year at GGC. He created a trail for us!!! Then he moved further away and the walks stopped. And then he left GGC and the country (I hope he is having fun!!!). Talking with Tracy was usually fun. Somehow he always managed to listen to some weird Indian stories on BBC. I couldn't believe that BBC wasted time on such stories :-) I also learned from him that only 11% of Indians had a Bachelor's education. I never verified it, but I trust Tracy. Just because I grew up in an overly competitive environment and there never seemed to be enough seats every year for professional degrees, doesn't mean every Indian is highly educated :-). Anyways, the first time I met Tracy was at our new faculty orientation at GGC (15 days of it... can you believe? as an international student nobody bothered to spend 15 days of their time on orienting me to their campus!!! Gotta luv GGC!!!

J, Ev and I were driving from Memphis to Searcy in Arkansas when Ev told me that her 80 year old father had checked our school website and the faculty page and he thought I was beautiful......... OK!!! So 3 years back I would have been thrilled if someone said that (and I would be lying if I said I wasn't pleased now!!!!). But I would have been happier if she told me that he liked my professional profile!!!! How time changes you..... I need to update my bio and add my presentations and papers to my page. Maybe add my iPhone project... Will that impress Ev's father? :-)

I had loved Rang De Basanti when I saw it a couple of years back... I am reminded of the movie again today because I saw Shashi Tharoor's tweet on twitter.com in response to someone else's tweet. This is what it said " ShashiTharoor RT @ bapoorow : Rang De Basanti was a bold honest attempt at inspiring us. (ST:terrible movie,Aamir's only bad1.Foolishly glorified violence) "... I was actually a little shocked and angry (being a perpetual Aamir Khan fan and what not). It also reminded me of someone else who had a similar opinion when I saw the movie. And my argument is the same as it was then. If you watch the movie carefully you will notice that the main characters in the movie aren't really shown as very mature individuals.... For example, Aamir Khan's character has graduated 5 years back and still doesn't seem to have grown much. He lives in that safe environment where everyone knows him and doe

Found this interesting article on Time . Ethics, ethics, ethics!!! Should you do the right thing or not, especially when not really asked for?? As they say "The right solution is usually the hardest"!!! To censor or not to censor is the question. Let's try role playing: Google's standpoint is probably freedom of expression... rather Internet freedom of expression, no censorship. China's govt: You want to do business in our country, you gotta follow our rules. Microsoft's standpoint: Google doesn't want to do it?? Great!!! We'll do it :-) If you won't do it, we certainly will!!! Who doesn't want some more money?? I am sure Google was not really hoping their competitors to support their stand and not take advantage of the situation. Whatever the analysts and the investors might say I think Google should be proud!!!! I mean, yes we all love money, but you gotta have some principles, some strong opinion about something... If it's not privacy, I

This morning I woke up thinking of BB, my advisor.... I dreamt last night (or maybe this morning) that we were both still working together at Tulane!!!!! Probably a good dream for him, would be good for me if I was at least his post-doc if not an Asst Proff... but definitely not good if I was his (still) his grad student... Well, I will never know!! But I woke up this morning with a very good feeling and a smile on my face.

We saw the movie right before we went to New Orleans.... An amazing movie, a must see.... I was watching the movie thinking, "Oh!! how typical", "how wrong", etc... I could relate to so many things in that movie!!!! A middle class family of 3, a smart daughter, encouraging parents who want her to go to Oxford and are spending money to see her dream come true and the moment she meets a seemingly well settled guy, (almost) everyone is fine with the girl giving up on her dreams...especially the parents!!! And I have seen this happen so many times (directly and indirectly).... It almost seems like the point of getting an education is to find a good husband or to support yourself if you don't find one!!! And this is totally different from women who give up their careers for their husband's jobs or for taking care of kids... Identifying your priorities and adjusting your goals based on current needs is understandable, especially when it's a well thought and an

Courtesy Louis Armstrong: Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans I miss it both night and day I know that it's wrong... this feeling's gettin' stronger The longer, I stay away Miss them moss covered vines...the tall sugar pines Where mockin' birds used to sing And I'd like to see that lazy Mississippi...hurryin' into spring The moonlight on the bayou.......a Creole tune.... that fills the air I dream... of oleanders in June...and soon I'm wishin'that you were there Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans And that's where I left my heart And there's something more...I miss the one I care for More than I miss New Orleans The city sure has a hold on you...... I visited again after 2 years. It felt as if I had never left!! Everything was still so familiar, welcoming and friendly. Of course this time I visited some places that I had never been to before. First of all we decided to skip our favorite Marriott and stay at a Bed

Can't believe that I have become this person!!! Someone who doesn't want classes to be canceled because of bad weather and someone who plans work for the next week (which is Spring break) before the break begins..... Obviously I used to love canceled classes because of heavy rains back home when I was in school and college. I remember the first Spring break at Tulane.... I was at Universal Studios in LA (thanks to Karthik)..... The second year I went to India for Anu's wedding. During the third year I was sitting in my lab, scratching my head over some pointers that had decided not to cooperate at all and finally I called a friend to ask for help..... Vipin says to me on the phone, "You are coding???? I am at a parade" ..That's when it dawned on me that it was Mardi Gras time!!!!! And that was the beginning of it I think!!! And then every year there was something or the other. Every time they say bad weather in Lawrenceville, I am thinking how am I going to re

Recently, I asked my students if they had heard of linkedin.com. These students are freshmen and they all use Facebook, but they don't really use the web to their advantage. Anyways, when I asked the questions a student answered, "It is a website on which you have a profile that I found when I googled you".... I burst into laughter and so did everyone else. But later when I googled myself to see what showed up, I found that there were a couple of websites posting my information even though I hadn't created an account on them. These are the people finder kind of websites. With technologies like service oriented architecture, AJAX and what not, it's become easy to gather data from a number of websites and put it on yours.... But wait what about my privacy and legal rights??? Don't they say that data gathered for one purpose cannot be used for any other and data should not be accessible to people who don't work with it. So what has changed? How is this workin

I have learned tons of things from many people in my life... But today I am remembering Amol. From him I learned, "Be happy, but not content". I think I need someone to push me a little more now :-). I am kinda getting comfortable with where I am, need to push myself out of my comfort zone...

It is not really supposed to snow here in Atlanta. But ever since I have been here it has snowed once a year.... And this year twice!!! This weekend we decided to get out of the house anyways and catch the Leonardo DaVinci moving exhibit at High Museum. The exhibit has been at the museum since November and will be gone next weekend. So we had to see it this weekend.... So we bundled up and tread carefully over the snow/ice on sidewalks to get to the museum. The exhibit was nice but small, I would have liked to see more. The streets were almost empty, trees, rooftops and cars were covered in snow and everything just looked beautiful. Maybe, because it's only once / twice a year!!

Amol shared this interview of Uddhav Thackeray that was taken by ibnlive's Rajdeep Sardesai: http://www.facebook. com/video/video.php? v=286535984673&ref=m f Here's my problem with this interview.... I totally agree with Sardesai's views.. Obviously!!!! But, dude... you are interviewing a politician. Do you really think you are going to get him to admit to anything on your nationally televised show???? And honestly who was interviewing whom?? Why would you get so emotional that you let your opponent control you... As Shreyas pointed out, Thackeray was of course avoiding answering any questions and was talking in tangents... and after some time Sardesai was doing the same too... When he couldn't get Thackeray to answer a question or admit to something, he was bringing up other issues... This is what I noticed from Larry King and others on CNN.... You give everyone a limited amount of footage and raise issues and make them uncomfortable (especially when you know they

For some weird reason, last night I had this really strong urge to watch Tezaab.... I know, really weird!!!! maybe it was those shots of Anil Kapoor for "24"(as if I didn't hate 24 enough!!!). That just brought back so many memories.... ek, do, teen and sarvajanik ganeshotsav and school gatherings, N Chandra, his bachcha company and manali camp (that was the best camping trip ever!!! Unfortunately for the kids N Chandra had just directed Bekaabu with Sanjay Kapoor). It was the first filmi audio cassette that I got to buy, which played endlessly on our tape recorder (yeah...can't even call it an old music system!!!)..... The 80's and the school days... best time ever!!!!

Just saw the video... Everyone is posting it on orkut and facebook, so I had to see what was so special about it.... OMG!!! Made me really angry and I was about to post my comments on youtube (which I would never ever do otherwise), scrolled down and realized, well many ppl share my sentiments and there are already so many comments that I didn't feel the need to add to it. To summarize my views (if I can ever do that)..."Bollywood does not represent India". I used to be a huge fan and am still to some extent and if I ever go back to India will return to my old ways in no time, but still....seriously why do we always think of Bollywood to represent us? I was surprised to not see any cricket (or did I miss it??)... Not that cricket alone would have made me happy... Anyways, I guess we all agree that at least a few real life heroes would have made it a good video. On the other hand what I would like to know from whoever created this video (I haven't done my homework, I d

Today's Calvin and Hobbes ...Hilarious! Work hard, have to work harder :-) On a more serious note why do we think it's normal to work 10-12 hours a day?? Or maybe even more?? When I was a student, I thought "Soon I will graduate"... and I did, but it didn't end the endless working hours..... Yes, contrary to what you may think about the teaching profession, we do put in as many hours as others. As our President puts it "we are not highly overpaid individuals who work 2 hours a day teaching 1 class". My colleague today apologetically told me that she did not do anything over the weekend. Ridiculous, right? Working on the weekends is an expectation? But I have seen people working in many different fields say the same. Here's some statistics that I got from our president's address... 70% of the people who apply for tenure do not get it. Isn't that crazy??? Are 70% of individuals who have a terminal degree in their field not good enough? What I a

Loved it, loved it loved it!!! OK, I agree it was quite filmy.... I mean the delivery scene... really??? But it's a Rajkumar Hirani movie, what else should you expect??? Lots of clean entertainment and some nice touchy moments!!! I am sure we can ignore some filmy "coincidences" and filmy melodrama... The theme was very close to my heart. Quite some time back I had posted something similar on my blog.... "Find out what you are passionate about and then find a way to make money out of it"!!! The only thing I wish people would stress that this is not easy. It is not that easy to get great opportunities when you chose a "not so chosen path"... I think this needs as much emphasis as "following your heart"!!!! I totally support "follow your heart", but I would also add "be prepared". Good luck!!!

A student in my senior class made my day yesterday by saying this..... Seriously, after quite some time I have a student who said "we should do this in our project. It will help us!!!" The best thing I have heard on campus in a long time!!!

The best year end so far.... ever!!! Our admin assistant emailed me before I left in December and wished me a wedding of my dreams... "May it be everything you wished for" were her exact words, which made me realize that I had not wished it to be anything!!! That's how I am about most things, usually the most important things. I always take them one step at a time... When I took GRE, I didn't think about what schools I wanted to apply to until I got my scores, when I left India I hadn't really planned exactly what I was going to do after landing in US... Similarly, I hadn't really thought about the wedding as such at all.... Maybe that made it so much fun... Since there were no expectations, there was no pressure and there was no disappointment. I perfectly enjoyed the time I spent with Anu (that was after a long time!!!! I was hardly there for her wedding!!!) and of course also with Swati and Sheetal Tai. I do hate to see my parents so stressed out, but I hav