Mandakini

It's been a while...

2010-07-11T18:06:00.000-07:00

...since I last wrote! Heavens! Half a year -- I see my last entry was in January. Well, what can I say? It's been crazy, at work, and my life in general. Work's been insane, till I moved to a new team (which I absolutely LOVE), and my Mum and sister were visiting me in the interim, so what with juggling a new job, and showing my family around the city (this time in a car!), I didn't really have a lot of time to devote to other pursuits -- like writing on this blog.

It's been an eventful six months! For one, I've completed two years at Dell, which is quite an achievement. I never thought I'd last two years anywhere unless it's a compulsion (like studies). But I've stuck it out in Dell entirely by choice for two years, and while it hasn't been a smooth ride all the way, it's certainly been a learning experience! And I'm wiser and happier than I was two years ago, which is what matters, right?

I've traveled a bit! I took my Mum and sister around Austin, around Texas and around the country during the two months they were here. We visited the little towns of the Texas Hill Country -- Burnet, Fredericksburg, Johnson City, Wimberley, Dripping Springs, Marble Falls...and enjoyed it immensely. I think there's something just so fascinating about small towns! And since I'm a girl of the hills at heart, I really enjoyed exploring Texas Hill Country! We went in the peak of wildflower season, when the hills were ablaze with flowers of various hues, and the very wind seemed fresh and fragrant. Lovely! We also did a road trip to New Orleans, which is by far the longest I've ever driven -- 12 hours in one day, practically without stopping! But what a trip it was! We saw the gorgeous Louisiana bayou, the beautiful pine forests of East Texas (Loblolly Pines, I believe they're called?) and the gorgeous, gorgeous city of New Orleans. We later went to Disney World, and had the most fantastical, magical, incredible five days there. Ahhhh!! What a couple of months it was!

And now, I am all set to go to Atlanta to visit an aunt. Well, technically, she is my great-aunt, but since she is almost my Mum's age, I call her aunt. I've been looking forward to this trip for a while now, so I'm excited! Plus, it's always exciting to see a new city, though the most exciting thing in Atlanta I'm looking forward to is the historic house of Margaret Mitchell, and see the setting of Gone With The Wind. Plus, it's Georgia! The very name evokes thoughts of gracious southern hospitality, so I'm quite looking forward to the trip.

And, I've been immersed in the wonderful, magical world of Enid Blyton. She was quite my favorite author growing up, and even reading the books now, I've realized that no matter what, she'll always remain my favorite author, of all time! Why, the magic! I've raced through the "Barney" mysteries, as they're called, and the Adventure series. The "Barney" mysteries are the exciting stories of siblings Roger and Diana, their younger cousin Snubby (quite a pest!), his dog Loony, their wandering circus-boy friend Barney, and his monkey, Miranda. From meeting the rather wild Barney in The Rockingdown Mystery, through Barney's search for his father in the hilarious and mysterious The Rilloby Fair Mystery and The Ring 'O Bells Mystery, and the culmination of the search in the heart-rending, haunting, melancholic The Rubadub Mystery, it's been a magical series. I try to ignore The Rat-a-tat Mystery and The Ragamuffin Mystery as they're nowhere near as good as the first four. The Adventure series is the exciting adventures of siblings Philip and Dinah Mannering (and Philip's collection of pets), and their friends siblings Lucy-Ann and Jack Trent, and Jack's adorable talking parrot, Kiki. Exciting, adventurous, and hilarious (especially when Kiki scares off the bad guys with her nonsensical babble), it's been a fun read. Ah, I do so love Enid Blyton's books!

I'm planning on going to London later this year, probably around my birthday (which falls very close to Labor Day weekend). I'd love to see the rest of England, especially the places Enid Blyton wrote about -- the beautiful Dorset beaches and coast, the Devon moors, and the cliffs and beaches of Cornwall. But let's see! At the very least, I'd love to see London (and I hope I can snare something from one of the boutiques on Bond Street while I'm at it!).

Whew! I've blabbered on for quite a bit. That's what happens when you don't write in a while! Things just pour out in a rush. Well, I guess I'll head off to Atlanta, and hopefully have a ton to say when I return! Sayonara!

Revisiting childhood

2010-01-24T09:43:00.000-08:00

It seems to me that in the past few days I've been revisiting my childhood, so to speak. I've discovered a channel called Boomerang that airs cartoons I used to watch when I was about ten years old or so; I found the Marcel Marlier-illustrated books I used to read when I was five; and I just discovered that one of my favorite books as a child -- the 'What Katy Did' series by Susan Coolidge -- has two more books to end the tale. I've been totally immersed in those for the last few days.
I'd known about Boomerang -- that is to say, I knew there was a channel out there, a spin-off from Cartoon Network, that aired all those old Cartoon Network shows that I used to watch after I came home from school. The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Space Ghost, Dino Boy, Josie and the Pussycats, The Centurions, and, my personal all-time favorite, Jonny Quest. I was thrilled to discover that these were the classic episodes of Jonny Quest, the one where he was a tiny 11-year-old boy travelling around the world with his father, fighting bad guys. When I was 10, the episodes used to transport me into another world, an exciting world filled with gadgets (I used to find gadgets fascinating even back then!), bad guys, lots of action, and a bodyguard to take care of it all for you. And science -- lots and lots of science. Science that I thought would seem antiquated to me now, but strangely enough, it doesn't. There's a lot of gadgets shown in the show that we still haven't invented. Is that cool or what?
The only thing that used to irk me about the show was the inaccurate portrayal of India, or more accurately, Calcutta. My grandmother lives in Calcutta, and I've been there several times -- and while I wasn't around in 1964, which is when the show is from, I seriously doubt Calcutta ever looked like that, with dome-topped structures and snake charmers everywhere. It was the former capital of India -- if anything, I'm sure the architecture was more Victorian than Mughal. And even if it was, there was no way it was so in 1964. No way. Calcutta is one of the largest cities in India, and it was most certainly not filled with palaces and mystical Morrocan buildings in '64. But I digress.
Strangely, that little annoyance from my childhood didn't seem to annoy me now. I watched it more with amusement than with the indignation of childhood. I guess I don't take it as seriously any more. But I am so glad I've found the series again. Yes, I do have the DVD, but there's a certain charm in watching it on TV -- being able to watch only one episode at a time, interspersed with commercial breaks. It feels more real.
The funniest thing was, even as I watched the show again, I forgot all about my life -- work, and responsibilities, and even the fact that I had to go to work the next day! -- and totally felt transported to the mystical forests of Ashida, filled with dragons that eat humans. I actually felt horror every time the Quests were foiled. And when the show ended, I was surprised to discover, that even after fifteen years, it still got my heart pounding. I suppose I'm still a child at heart!
Another thing I found over the weekend was the Marcel Marlier-illustrated books I used to read when I was five. I 'found' them on Amazon, actually. To be honest, I was amazed they were available at all. I immediately placed orders for copies of Debbie's Dream, Debbie Learns To Cook, Debbie's Visit To The Countryside, Debbie's Birthday Party, and Mark And Michelle In The Forest. My mother used to read them to me when I was a child. I used to follow the stories with rapt attention, and since I couldn't read when I was a baby, I used to make up my own stories with the illustrations, which were gorgeous. If the story said that Debbie was ill and fell asleep, I made up my own back story, of how she didn't want to sleep, but her friends all came over and tired her out with their tales, and she did go to sleep then. If the story said simply that she dreamt, I put all kinds of details into her dream, anything I could come up with, simply looking at the illustrations. I loved those books. As I grew older and learned to read, I read the words along with looking at the illustrations; but what do you know? The story had lost part of its charm! Even now, I look at the illustrations more closely than the story itself, and hope that someday, if I have a little girl of my own, I will read to her the story, and maybe make up my own 'illustration story', just like my mother did to me!
The last blast from the past this weekend was my beloved 'Katy' series. I don't know how popular the series is here in the States; but it is apparently very popular in England, which was why we had a couple of extracts from it as chapters in our English textbook when I was a kid. I was always fascinated by the large family that Katy had (in fact, the first time I read an extract, I didn't have any siblings; my sister wasn't born till I was almost eight). I finally found the entire book, What Katy Did, on the floating bookstore, MV Doulos. That in itself was quite an adventure. I remember my father coming home, all excited, with the flyer announcing that the MV Doulos had anchored at the Prince's Dock in Bombay. It was a little way out from our suburban home, but we went there anyway. Just the fact of being in a bookstore that would actually be somewhere else entirely in a week, and had been in several places and countries I could only dream about, excited my childish imagination terribly. It seemed like a real-world manifestation of Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree series which I adored. The top of the tree would be in different lands each week, and this 'bookstore' seemed to me to be the same. From between the aisles, I could see out the porthole, and into the vast sea. It was so terribly exciting! That remains one of my favorite adventures ever. I remember picking up What Katy Did and Oliver Twist and The Swiss Family Robinson; there were others, but I don't remember. I was disappointed when we had to leave. For a child whose biggest trip alone seemed to be to the school, this trip seemed to have all the magic and adventure of travelling to a foreign and strange land.
But I digress. It was here, on this ship, that I first started reading my beloved Katy series. The stories, What Katy Did, What Katy Did At School, and What Katy Did Next basically followed the oldest child of the Carr family, Katy. Katy grew up in the Midwest, in a town called Burnet, with her widower papa, her strict aunt Izzie, and her siblings -- Clover, Elsie, Dorry, Joanna "Johnnie", and little Phil. Also part of the children's group was their next-door neighbor, Cecy Hall. The seven children would often go out into the nearby woods, or into the loft, or some other exciting place, and have the most exciting time, imagining themselves to be in some mystical place, with magical powers (like 'Paradise'). It excited my childish imagination tremendously; the fact that Katy was so near my own age made me associate even more with her (though I was the age of the next sister, Clover, when I began reading the series). Katy's wild imagination, tomboyish nature and love for reading made me associate with her in a way I had never associated with anyone else my own age. I had newly moved to Bombay, and didn't have any close friends; and my sister, then two, was too young to be enrolled in my schemes. I used to create my own fantastical world, and, thinking that the underside of the study table was my hidden 'cave', I would fortify myself with candy and water, and pretend that I was marooned on an island and hiding from wild beasts, and read the books sitting in my 'cave'. It was great fun. As I grew older, I collected other stories from the series. Next was What Katy Did At School, an exciting story about Katy and Clover being sent to Hillsover to a boarding school the other girls called the 'Nunnery'; this made me also want to go to a boarding school. The fun of being with so many other girls, having secret societies with meetings, awaiting letters from the family...this seemed very exciting to me back then. Finally came What Katy Did Next, which I acquired in the eighth grade. This was the story where Katy travels all over Europe with the widowed Mrs Ashe and her daughter Amy, and falls in love with Mrs Ashe's younger brother, Ned Worthington. I loved that book, first for the travelling aspect (even at thirteen, I knew I was going to travel a lot one day!) and then as I grew older, the love story part. But as far as I knew, that was the final installment of the series. So imagine my delight when I discovered that there were two more books in the series -- Clover, and In The High Valley. I read Clover with great gusto yesterday, and have just began In The High Valley now. At the beginning of Clover was the wedding of Katy Carr! My Katy, one of my best friends through my childhood, was now married! It was like the conclusion of an epic. And when I read about the sorrow of Elsie and Clovy, and the rest, and Cousin Helen coming home to find all her child-cousins grown up now, and Katy getting married in the same parlour her Aunt Izzie used to look after -- it just felt, I don't know, satisfying. The Katy story has reached closure in my book.
Apt, wasn't it? Katy Carr Worthington almost literally grew up with me. And thus, I had a very nostalgic weekend, revisiting my childhood's most precious moments.

Kindle

2009-11-10T06:26:00.000-08:00

I have received my Kindle! After a year of thinking about whether to get one or not, I finally took the plunge. I knew I didn't want Kindle 1, but Kindle 2 (or K2, as people call it), was gorgeous. One of my friends at Dell had one, and I'd been eyeing it, but decided not to, at the time. But it never did leave my mind entirely, and finally, a week before Halloween, I decided to take the plunge.
The story of the Kindle's arrival is a story in itself. After days of not receiving any tracking news, I realized that Amazon was using FedEx SmartPost to send the package -- something that caused me a LOT of nervous moments, for the stories about SmartPost aren't exactly exemplary, on the internet. Most people complained that the packages would move around the country for days before finally getting to their destination. Some people said parts of their package were missing -- like one guy who lost his entire Wii console. I was terrified. And then the package showed up in Dallas.
I was relieved. How long could it take, right, to come from Dallas to Austin? The cities are just a 3-hour drive apart. But I was wrong. Four days went by, and no sign of the package, and just as I was about to call Amazon to ask where the hell my package went, it showed up -- in Houston!
Those who know the geography of Texas know that Dallas, Austin and Houston lie in a triangle, more or less the same distance apart from each other (though I think Austin's closer to Dallas than Houston is). WHY the package went to Houston was something I completely failed to fathom. It stayed there for a while, and then set out again to Austin. Here we go again, I thought. This time the package should surely show up in Austin by the next day!
I was wrong. It took another 3 days before it came to Austin, and another day before it was delivered to my home. I think I went half-crazy during the wait, and I know I certainly drove my coworkers mad! But the Kindle was here, I was happy.
I'm still happy with it. It looks beautiful, reads great, just like paper, like Amazon claims. Gotta hand it to eInk! The online selection of Kindle-formatted books is not as vast as I would've liked, and a lot of my favorite authors and books are missing. So are the first books of long-running series of authors like Michael Connelly, Robert Crais and Vince Flynn. A LOT of children's books are missing (what I would've given to have had Enid Blyton on Kindle!). And the battery never seems to last anything like the 2 weeks Amazon claimed, though maybe I read a lot more than they imagined anyone would.
But, the pros outweigh the cons. The K2 is light -- no one can deny that. It's a traveler's delight. It weights barely 11 oz, and fits in 1500 titles (according to Amazon). I wish I'd had it when I went to New Zealand last year! Instead of the 10 books and 3 magazines I took, I could've just taken the Kindle. But anyway. I love that you can buy a book and have it delivered within 60 seconds. I love that you can sample books -- that's how I got started on Dennis Lehanne's Shutter Island. I love how you can email yourself documents and have them arrive on your Kindle at 15c an MB, and peruse them at your leisure. I love the user-friendliness of the new Kindle. Of course it's not going to replace my paper books completely -- there is an undeniable charm in opening a brand new book, reading the crisp black lettering against white paper; even the smell of a new book is charming -- things you'll never find in an electronic reading device. But the Kindle is perfect for what I wanted -- carrying half my library on a 15-hour plane ride!
And I will now return to Shutter Island. Adios!

Fall

2009-10-04T16:31:00.001-07:00

Wow. It's fall. It's taken some time to sink in that my favorite season has started. It has crept up on us in Austin...well, that's not quite the truth. It rather forced its way in. September 21st, the last day of summer, was 95 degrees, and September 22nd, the autumnal equinox, was a lovely 69 degrees! I love fall -- the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, as John Keats so aptly wrote. We don't go too much by way of mists here in Austin, but I know exactly what the man meant when he wrote that poem. There is something so...so...mellow and comforting and warm about fall. The rich colors associated with fall help that feel of mellowness. Sadly, we don't get much by way of foliage changes here. At times like these I wish I lived in Colorado, where I could see the aspen brilliantly change their colors. Here, there are a few random trees that do change color -- but very few. But I'm content to imagine the changes, and savor the crisp bite in the cool morning air. It's been getting cooler every passing day, a blessing after the ferocious summer. I love the cold. It's so much easier to cope with cold than heat -- you can always bundle up when it's cold, but you can't strip beyond a certain level of decency when it's too hot!
Fall also means fall fashion! I have to admit, the speed with which I've taken to following fashion trends has taken me by surprise. I can't wait to start dressing in turtlenecks and skirts and tights and boots and scarves...and all the goodness that comes with fall fashion. I was getting sick of wearing shorts. Besides, the colors of fall fashion are much richer, especially this season, with teal, berry, deep orange, rich chocolate brown and black. Lovely.
Fall also means Halloween! I've forever wanted to go dressed as Yuki Cross from Vampire Knights (the manga) for Halloween, for the Cross School's day uniform for girls is absolutely cuteness. But I think, at 25, I'm a little too old to dress up as Yuki Cross. Maybe a good old witch, then. I've never dressed up for Halloween before -- maybe this time will be a first!
I should visit the Bull Creek park sometime. It's been a while since I last went there, and I'm sure it would be beautiful in fall, especially since it's been raining a lot lately. The creek had dried up completely in summer, hopefully it's filled up now. I love that place. I wish I could live on Bull Creek, but I'm sure houses along the creek are extremely expensive!
It's fall! I can now sit in the patio and read books in the cool evening air. In fact, that is precisely what I'm going to do now (I'm reading The Da Vinci Code), so till later!

Quickie

2009-09-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

My God, has it really been five months since I last blogged?? Wow. Things have been busy at work, so I haven't really had a chance to write anything. In fact, even as I write this, I'm keeping an eye on the clock on my iHome -- it's 8:43am, and I really should be leaving for work. Work should be fun today -- we have a Pirates' Day at work, where we get to wear eyepatches and say "Ar!" (unfortunately, my team didn't get any eyepatches). I'm also really, really enjoying the new weather -- till about the 8th of this month, it was hot and muggy and just nasty; and then the weather did a sudden about-turn, and it's been cool and windy and cloudy ever since. I love it! I hope it rains today and tomorrow too. It's weird -- the way the weather suddenly changed. And we haven't even reached the autumnal equinox yet! Well, who's complaining? Everybody in Texas wanted some cooler days. It's just the weather to be eating hot pizza and drinking warm cups of Earl Grey tea, and reading detective novels -- like AA Fair's novels, that I have just discovered. AA Fair is the pseudonym of Erle Stanley Gardner, whose Perry Mason novels I used to gobble daily for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner when I was in my teens. Perry Mason novels focus more on the legal aspect of the cases; AA Fair's Cool and Lam books are just pure hardboiled detective fiction, with delicious phrases like "Dr Devarest was dead as a mackarel", or "I socked him one on the jaw, and he let loose with a haymaker from the hip". Ah, hardboiled detective fiction :) There's nothing quite like it! I'm reading a similar book called Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis, except it was written in 2008, not 1948. It's interesting in its own way -- but here, they talk more about DNA forensics and CSI, instead of lifting fingerprints from lipstick. And another look at the clock tells me it's almost 9, so I should start wrapping this up, and get moving to the car. Till later!

Bull Creek Park

2009-04-20T06:21:00.000-07:00

I went to Bull Creek District Park the other day. It's a little park in Austin, one of the few (the only?) park with an off-leash dog policy. And that means there are a lot of dogs there. And I mean a LOT. The big ones make me uneasy, because I'm barely taller than some of the bigger dogs myself; but they've all been fairly gentle so far. I went there on a rainy Thursday, and found myself thoroughly enchanted by the view.
Bull Creek is an environmentally protected watershed in the hills of Austin. It's about 5 minutes away from my place, and an easy drive. To get there, you have to drive down Loop 360, which, pretty though it is, is after all a major highway. Off of Loop 360, you turn off on Lakewood Drive, and then drive down to the park. It was this little drive that pleased me -- it was a narrow road, with trees crowding both sides of the road. It looked like I was driving through a random forest, not Austin. I would've looked around more except that there were some cars driving down the opposite side, and I didn't want my little Mazda to crash into them.Once I reached the park, I was enchanted. Bull Creek ran down the edge of the park in a sort of arc. Part of the creek actually ran over Lakewood Drive, though I decided the creek must've swollen because of the rain. The creek ran over some rocks, and was very shallow until it reached a rocky ledge and formed a tiny waterfall of sorts, with the water pouring into a little rock pool. This pool was a little deeper, and a few dogs kept jumping in to play and swim. The pool reached back into dark, mysterious recesses, and water lapped gently against the edge of the bluff that the pool was against.I walked on further. The creek deepened slightly as I walked further away from the rock pool, until it came to some sort of trail (which I later read on Google was part of the Bull Creek trail). Here, under the overhang of some trees, I found a ledge-like rock, just begging me to sit on it. I curled up on the rock, and read the manga I'd been gifted earlier that day, and then drew the creek in front of me. It was beautiful there. The forest stretched behind me and to my left. On my right, a couple of dogs played fetch with their owners in the water. In front of me, on the other side of the creek, the hills rose sharply, and all I could see of the million-dollar mansions on top of the hills were their rounded rooftops. Against the red of the rooftops, the clouds glowed with a grey light. It was just beautiful.
I hung out there for a little while, but had to return when it started raining. But I'll be back for sure!

Rain, rain, rain

2009-03-12T06:12:00.000-07:00

Austin is so funny. It's hot and dry one day, raining and cold the next, and hot and dry the next day again! It's raining right now. It's been raining since yesterday, and Austin is now really starting to resemble Dunedin or Bombay more than the capital of Texas. However, I'm not complaining. People think I'm weird when I say this, but I love rains. I love it when it's dark and cloudy and windy, with a hint of rain in the air. I don't mind it so much when it actually starts to rain; but I prefer it in that 'twilight phase', as I call it, just before the rain. I dislike what people consider nice days -- hot and sunny and bright. I think I might've been a bat or something in a former life! I don't particularly love the dark, but I don't like bright sunlight either. Gentle sunlight filtering in through dark clouds is my type of day.
It's still raining. I can hear the pitter-patter of rain drops on the roof, the sound filtering down through the chimney. I almost expect to see water in my fireplace, but that hasn't happened. There's a large tree with red berries right outside my balcony that my coworker, Matt, said was an 'invasive plant'. It's now swaying slightly in the breeze, and perhaps under the weight of water. Large, luminous teardrops of water have formed on its leaves and some of the berries, which look like pearls, they glisten so. I can also see rainwater pattering down onto my blacony wall, from where it is dripping down in a steady rhythm onto the floor of the balcony. My patio chair and table are soaked, and I can see droplets of water gathered at the cross-beams of the table and chair. Outside, the roads are wet, and shimmering as they reflect the streetlights. The sun isn't up yet, or even if it was, I doubt it would be visible through the thick blanket of clouds. Water is running down the window of my study, trickling down and pooling at the base, before dropping off the sill. Outside, through the distorted view produced by refraction of light through the water droplets, I can see the gray skies with some luminosity, as if the sun were struggling to get through but failing. The green grass outside is weighed down with water, as are the fresh spring leaves of the trees outside. It's a scene worthy of a painting.
But I can't sit and admire it for long, as I have to get going for work. It's going to be tricky going to work again, as my tires tend to skid when I'm changing lanes while it's raining; but I'm sure I can make it. So I should get going, and take advantage of the fact that the rain has abated for a bit now, and driving the car should not be that hard. Adios!

Oil Painting

2009-03-11T06:52:00.001-07:00

I finally completed my first oil painting in over three years, last Sunday. I've been painting in oils since I was seventeen, and it isn't particularly hard; in fact, I'd say it's one of the easiest mediums I've ever used. You can correct any of your mistakes, and just add layer after layer of paint, and if the paint is thick enough, even mold it so that it reflects light in a particular way. But there's one thing you need dollops of when you're painting in oils: patience. And I'm afraid the seventeen-year-old me was never particularly strong in that aspect, so my paintings were understandably sub-par. I knew I could produce better paintings; I just never had the patience to let the underpainting dry enough for me to produce a clear glaze or a thick impasto layer over it. I'd start it while the paint was still wet, and mess everything up. And then, I committed the cardinal sin of using turpentine for every layer to thin the paint, just so it would dry faster. All those people who've worked with oils know it takes about a week for the underpainting to dry thoroughly. As a result of using the turpentine, the paint would dry in just a day or two; but there would be only a thin layer of paint on canvas, with the texture of the canvas clearly visible under the painting, and the painting itself looking shabby and underdone. Consequently, I didn't make a lot of oil paintings, and gave up half-heartedly on something I'd started working on. The only painting I ever produced of note was when I was twenty, with college on. I'd made the painting in the middle of classes, and as there never was enough time to spend on the painting, it took a lot of time to paint it -- resulting in well-dried under layers, and one of the best paintings I'd ever made. It was a scene of village cricket: a bunch of men playing cricket on a cool meadow (although there were no clouds in the sky). That had remained my favorite painting (maybe in some ways it still is), but Sunday's effort well overshadowed that.
It was, simply put, a painting of a man and his son on a beach, looking out at the horizon. I took the inspiration from my own book, The Boy From Dunedin, and tried to recollect the clarity of the water in New Zealand as I painted it. Of course it didn't look like anything I'd thought it would look like; but it turned out to be a good piece of art nevertheless. I loved it. And the reason it turned out so well was because, it seems in those seven years since I started oil painting, I've gotten a good measure of paitience that I was lacking earlier. I would let each layer of paint dry before starting the new one. I applied a thick impasto layer of paint for the underpainting, and added thinner glazes on top. The result was magical, with significantly more depth than any of my earlier paintings had. I was proud of it. The yellow ocher of the beach, the turquoise-blue of the sea, the red shirt of the man, the green of the grass -- it all combined to make a striking combination. The only mess I made was the clouds, which look like storm clouds on an otherwise clear day. But I decided to let it ride, and call it "artistic impression", instead of what it really was -- a mistake! Haha. Hopefully my next painting will be far better, but here is my current painting nevertheless.

Mozart's

2009-03-07T16:34:00.000-08:00

Today I went to Mozart's. Everyone who lives in Austin has heard of Mozart's Coffee Roasters -- the coffee shop on Lake Austin, down Lake Austin Blvd. They roast their own coffee, which is delicious enough, but the main attraction is, at least in my opinion, the outer deck of Mozart's, which is right next to the lake. You can take your steaming cup of coffee out in the open, sit under a tree and feel the breeze from the lake wash over you. That's what I did today.
I've been planning to go to Mozart's ever since I bought the car -- did I mention I bought a car? I did, a silver Mazda3, but I digress. Ever since I bought the car, I've been planning to drive to Mozart's, but somehow or the other the plan was always canceled. But today was such a beautiful day -- cool, dark, overcast -- that I knew I'd regret it if I didn't go today. So I fed in the destination to my GPS, and off I went.
I wound through an awful lot of streets to get there. Some of them sloped alarmingly, and the entire journey reminded me of my 'adventure' through Rain Creek Pkwy (that story some other time). I finally wound up at Lake Austin Blvd, and from there, Mozart's was just a short distance away. I parked, and went over to the little complex that contains the little coffee shop.
I had evidently reached there early -- too early or too late, for the outside deck was nearly deserted. I ordered my coffee -- which was served by a cute guy who looked too much like Ian Somerhalder for me to not stare -- and took the cup outside. There was a two-person bench right next to the parapet, so I took my coffee mug there, and settled myself. As I stirred the coffee, the cool breeze from the lake washed over me, and ducks swam around with wild abandon in the water. One of them scuttled across the water, leaving a white trail of spray across the smooth surface. Another dived into the water, and remained with its tailfeathers sticking out in the air, its head under water. Ripples spread out from its tail, and I choked back laughter.
I took out my handy Moleskine notebook, and began to draw. I used the thinner black pen today, for I wanted to get some details, rather than a broad overall sketch. As I drew, a terrific wind kicked up, and leaves lying on the ground swirled up and around. I hurriedly flung my hand over my coffee cup, for I did not want to be drinking coffee with leaves in it. My hair whipped around my face, and the pages of my notebook flapped wildly. Finally, the wind died down, and everyone started drinking their coffee again.
There was a middle-aged couple opposite me. I think they were on a date, and I'm pretty sure they met on one of the online dating sites -- Match.com maybe? -- for the gentleman mentioned, "I don't like the concept of 'winks', I prefer real communication," and the woman nodded sagely. I think their date didn't really work out, for the man said something to that effect. I didn't eavesdrop, though, honest. He was really loud, and sound tends to carry across water.
A while later, a lady came in with a furry little dog. She tied it up to a chair, and the poor little thing didn't protest even a whit. It even bore another gust of wind in silence, while its white fur flapped around. When she left, a young woman came over and sat right behind me. I could feel her stealing gazes at what I was drawing, but she didn't bother me. All people seem to have a strange curiosity for artists at work. I admit it myself -- when I see someone else drawing, my feet seem to magically go over to that person.
A couple of young men came in after a while, and sat down at the bench to my right, right under the big tree in the center of the deck. They looked like Computer Science grad students to me, for some reason. My senses are usually attuned to sniffing out other CS grads, and these two felt like it. One had long hair tied in a ponytail, and the other one was a stout young man with short hair and a beard. They both booted up their laptops and got to work.
Elsewhere, a young lady sat chatting with her friend, with her baby next to her in a baby basket. It was tucked up in a mauve blanket, and waved its fat fists around, its eyes following every motion curiously, its mouth curling up with glee every now and then. It was an adorable baby.
Right in front of me, a branch waved in the wind. The tree was mostly bare, but baby green leaves were starting to sprout on it. I thought it was an oak tree, but I'm not sure -- isn't the oak evergreen? Anyway, the pale green leaves twirled around in the breeze, spinning round and round, but still staying attached to the branch. It was a very charming branch indeed.
Right above my head, a plump squirrel was ferretting about for nuts. It kept jumping from one branch to another, its bushy tail flicking as it looked around. I was half afraid it would jump on my head, but it didn't. The branch it was on swayed alarmingly in another gust of wind, and the little creature was startled and bounded away.
I sat there for a long, long time, admiring the view, the animals, the people, the breeze -- just the vitality of the place. Finally, I packed in my things, and got up to leave. I cast one last glance at the place -- it was still just as beautiful, and a white boat had drawn up next to the boathouse -- and turned around, and walked back up the street to the parking lot, and back home.

(Other sketches from the day)

Meeting sketches

2009-03-07T08:45:00.000-08:00

I tend to get royally bored during meetings at work. Often the conversation goes round and round the same topic, without reaching any conclusion, ever. I used to follow it when I had just started working -- not any more. Now, I just draw. I can be fairly prolific during meetings -- just like our developers' meeting on Tuesday was. I was amazed myself at how quickly I ended up with so many drawings -- and they weren't overly casual sketches either. Here they are, scanned in -- drawn in my Moleskine notebook, with the formerly mentioned black india ink artist pen, and colored in with watercolor pencils (though I haven't washed them yet).

I made the following drawings earlier: one is a drawing of Austin's beautiful Pennybacker Bridge over Loop 360 (usually called the 360 Bridge), drawn from a photograph from a calendar, and the other is something I'd drawn from memory -- a young man surfing the internet (I presume) at the Chipotle restaurant at Parmer and Metric.

Art Blog

2009-02-26T17:41:00.001-08:00

I was rather bored at work today, not having much to do (for once!), so I started googling my favorite subject: art. And I was fascinated to discover this website: Urban Sketchers. It's an art blog -- where artists upload their images, and also sometimes the stories behind them. I absolutely loved the travel sketch feel of the website, and felt inspired enough to do the same on my blog. Besides, I don't seem to have much to say these days, so why not replace words by sketches? I made a prodigious number of sketches today (I was bored, remember?) and in went scribbles and doodles into my trusty little Moleskine. After work I went to Hobby Lobby, and found myself in something resembling paradise. I even found a Sakura marker set, but it was only in black, whereas I expressly wanted colored markers (to make colorful sketches!) so I regretfully bypassed it. But I did find a treasure -- a Faber-Castell black India ink artist pen and a sepia-toned Pentel color brush -- a pen that has a brush-like tip. I of course had to try them out the moment I got home, and did so. The results are below.

Park at the back of the Arboretum. Black Sharpie pen on Moleskine (02.26.09)

Girl brushing her hair in front of a mirror. Black Sharpie pen on Moleskine (02.26.09)

My rather skewed version of Austin's Pennybacker Bridge, drawn from memory while driving down the bridge. Black Sharpie pen on Moleskine (02.26.09)

View from my study window. Black India Ink artist pen and sepia color brush pen. (02.26.09)

Aoraki Mt Cook

2008-12-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

The two days following the Catlins, I went to Aoraki Mount Cook.
To the uninitiated, Mt Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zealand, standing at some 12800 odd ft tall. It may not be among the highest peaks in the world (I do believe the Rockies in Colorado are taller), but it is certainly one of the most treacherous. Climbers routinely lose directions, their way, and even their lives on this mountain. The weather is one of the most unpredictable ones in the world. There might be clouds in the morning, and clear by afternoon. At the time I went there, two climbers had lost their lives there, one Australian and one Japanese, parts of different climbing groups, and their bodies had still not been found. Because the approach to the top greatly resembles the ascent to Mt Everest from base camp, mountaineers attempting to climb the Everest use Mt Cook as their training camp.
It was to this Mt Cook that I went -- or, more accurately, to the Mt Cook Alpine Village, a little village of maybe four or five houses and the Hermitage Hotel, right at the base of Mt Cook. I was to take the Dunedin-Mt Cook bus operated by Citibus Newton, Dunedin's largest bus service from the Octagon. It was here that I waited early Monday morning to be picked up.
The bus came right on time at 7:15am, and I met my fellow passengers -- a dark-haired fellow from somewhere in Europe, a tiny, bent old lady carrying bags and bags of stuff, and an American gentleman called Lee from Missouri. He was delighted to know I was from the States as well, and started telling me his adventures in New Zealand. He'd been to Australia first, then to Auckland, then Wellington and then Christchurch. He had already seen Milford Sound, Queenstown, Doubtful Sound, Fraz Josef -- in other words, all of New Zealand's best attractions. I felt rather envious, but thinking back on the fantastic time I had over the past few days changed my mind. But we chatted all the way to Mt Cook. I, too, was glad to find another American, since understanding the Kiwi accent takes a wee bit of concentration, since I'm not used to it.
The bus driver's name was Mike, and he was a wonderful guide. He provided commentary all the way to Mt Cook. We stopped first at Moeraki Beach, where the famous spherical Moeraki boulders are found (though I couldn't see any of them -- they were further along the coast). The little old lady, who couldn't have been a day under 90, got off and lit up a cigarette. Lee and I stared at her in amazement. She was a great source of amusement to Lee, for she looked so frail but still got off at every stop we made in the 5-hour journey to have a smoke!
Our next stop was the town of Oamaru, which is halfway between Christchurch and Invercargill. It has lovely historical buildings made of sandstone, and beautiful architecture. I explored a little bit of the main street, and had a wonderful cup of cappucino from a local cafe. When we started off again, we were joined by a young man named Scott Preston, who worked in some capacity for the New Zealand Basketball team (though I didn't quite get how). He knew more about American sports than Lee and me combined, and proceeded, for the rest of the journey to discuss sports with Lee. A good portion of this was about cricket, a game that I follow passionately, but the prospect of describing the rules makes me cringe. It is probably one of the most convoluted mainstream sports ever played, not made easy by the fact that there are three main versions of it, but Scott managed it wonderfully. In the meantime, I stared out of the window, enjoying the lovely scenery passing by. One thing that amazes me about New Zealand is how little you have to travel for the landscape to change dramatically. We passed green fields and lakes, and three of the dams in the Waitaki valley, Aevimore, Benmore and Waitaki. After this, we came to a stop in a little town whose name I cannot recall at this point -- Kurow, I believe it was called? Here, Scott got off, and we set off again. Now the landscape changed again. There were still fields, but now, instead of hills, we could see snow-capped mountains in the distance -- the Southern Alps. We passed some of the strange but interesting irrigation devices on the fields, the ones that look like bridges. One of them was over a mile long. The mountains kept getting closer and closer, and we finally stopped at Twizel.
Twizel is a little Alpine town at the base of the Southern Alps. Here, we let off the little old lady, where she waited at the bus stop for her daughter to pick her up. By now, the scenery outside was fabulous. The mountains we were passing were huge, and breathtaking. The driver drove up and stopped at a lookout point above Lake Pukaki.
When we got off, my breath almost stopped. Lake Pukaki is a glacial lake that is a stunning turquoise color, and right behind it is Mt Cook. "This is where most of the commercial photos you see of Mt Cook are shot," explained Mike, the driver. We all took photographs, but honestly, photographs just couldn't capture the sheer beauty of that place. One of my favorite pictures that actually turned out well shows the green water of Lake Pukaki, the pine forest behind it, and the towering Mt Cook behind that.
We got on the bus again and set off again, this time for the alpine village. We passed through the valley, a narrow road winding between enormous mountains. It is so humbling to be at the base of a mountain -- you feel truly insignificant next to such a magnificient spectacle. We finally pulled up at the carpark of the hotel, and here, I bade goodbye to Lee and the other guy -- with not little sorrow, for they had been great traveling companions.
I checked in at the hotel. It was a nice hotel, quite a modern place at the base of the largest mountain in the country! I felt pleasantly surprised. I was given a room on the eighth floor, and accordingly went there. The most heart-stopping moment came when I entered my room. The view from the window was breathtaking. It looked out onto the three peaks of Mt Sefton, Mt Cook and Mt Wakefield, of which Mt Wakefield was the smallest one, and Mt Cook, the furthest. The sun shone hotly onto the snowy slopes of Mt Sefton, whose ice glistened in the sun, as though it were melting. Perhaps it was.
I skipped out again to go for the Glacier Explorers tour, a tour where they'd put you on a MAC boat and go around the glacial lake, scouting around icebergs. We were picked up at the hotel by a young man who looked remarkably like the Australian fast bowler Brett Lee, and went to the Mt Cook National Park. We walked through the park all the way to the lake, which was a good mile away. We got onto the boat, and were off with the other tour guide, a cute Australian called Alan :) We whizzed past the icebergs, the frigid spray from the water hitting me in the face. The wind was chilly, but the sun was blazing overhead, so it overall felt very pleasant.
We found an iceberg which had rolled over recently, because the top of it was white, but the base was turquoise, same color as the mineral found in Lake Pukaki that gives it its characteristic color. This is because, explained Alan, an iceberg imbues the minerals from the lake it is immersed in. When an iceberg is exposed to the sun, the ice crystals in it expand, and lose their crystal-like transparency and become an opaque white, the color of the tops of the icebergs. Some of the icebergs had been out of the water long enough for dirt to collect on them. These formed an interesting combination of black and white.
We zoomed around the lake some more on the boat, and it was a very pleasant sensation to have the cold wind and the freezing spray from the water hit us, only to be warmed immediately by the blazing sun overhead. We went right up to the glacier itself, but not too close, explained Alan, because bits from the glacier keep falling off, and they cause mini-tsunamis on the lake that could capsize the boat. And it would certainly not be pleasant going for a swim in the 2 deg C water of the lake! Not at all, I agreed silently, especially since I'm terrified of water anyway -- swimming in this lake is certainly not going to endear the activity of swimming to me.
When we were on our way back, there was a terrific 'crack!' and we whipped our heads around to see an iceberg break apart. It broke into small bits, some of them miniature icebergs themselves, some of them the kind of crushed ice you'd see in a margarita. The wave that was caused by the iceberg breaking apart almost threw us in the lake. We went closer to the collapsed iceberg, and were hit by bits of ice floating about in the water. It was thrilling!
After some more viewing, it was time to go back. We reluctantly went back ashore, and back through the national park to the bus, which drove us back to the hotel.
When I got back, I felt a little too tired to go walking down the walk to Kea Point, which I'd spotted when we were driving into the hotel, so I decided to go to the Hillary Alpine Center. It has a movie theater and a planetarium -- the southernmost planetarium in the world, they said -- and since I've always had a fondness for astronomy, I decided to enter. The first movie (which I ended up watching twice) was the 3-D feature about Mt Cook -- very breathtaking indeed, and gave me enough vertigo to convince me that mountaineering is just not my thing. The next feature was about space, a planetarium feature, which I enjoyed thoroughly. The one after that, though, was the one I enjoyed the most, a feature about black holes. Since I've always been fascinated by black holes, right from the time I was studying physics in high school, I was thoroughly enchanted by the show. And the planetarium was excellent, so it really enhanced my enjoyment. I loved it. I even met some interesting people, a lady from Oamaru and her friend from Switzerland, and the gentleman operating the theater and planetarium, Lee.
After a thoroughly enjoyable experience, I decided to hit the sack -- I was exhausted! When I went to my room, the sun had all but set, throwing its last light on the imposing peak of Mt Cook.
When I woke the next morning, clouds had covered most of Mt Cook and Mt Sefton. But there was a tiny gap in the clouds, through which the snow brilliantly reflected the sun on Mt Sefton. I was thoroughly charmed. And slowly, as the clouds dissipated, Mt Cook proved once again why it's called Aoraki -- its peak being the only one piercing the clouds and standing out.
I checked out after breakfast, and decided to go for a walk down Kea Point. After wisely checking my baggage in at the baggage counter (for it weighed over 10 lb), I walked down to where I'd seen the entry to Kea Point. It's supposed to be the easiest walk in the region, and it was easy too, for most of it was flat. But It was a long walk! A very long walk indeed, and I was panting by the time I reached anywhere near the end. And my legs were starting to ache, for I'd easily walked 5 miles over rather rough terrain (it certainly was no paved road, and I was wearing Converse sneakers -- not exactly renowned for mountain climbing), and that's where the climb started. The road branched, one path leading to the much more arduous Sealy Tarns walk, the other going to Kea Point. I briefly debated, but the debate was very brief indeed. I would die for sure before I reached the end of Sealy Tarns, so I decided to go to Kea Point. I was a little daunted for this part of it was uphill -- and there were no guardrails. Since I'm terrified of heights (along with water, fire and closed spaces :P), I went up very, very cautiously indeed. So cautiously that a turtle might have overtaken me, not that a turtle would've ever wanted to climb up Mt Cook. But when I reached the end, I was so overcome with a lot of emotions, the primary one being relief, that I almost sank to the ground. But I decided to go to the lookout point -- and my jaw dropped. It looked out onto the glacier (I'm not sure whether that was Mueller Glacier or Tasman Glacier, though), and Mt Cook beyond. On the other side, it looked straight out onto Mt Sefton. And looking at the enormity of the mountains made me feel very humble -- very humble indeed. I almost got a crick in my neck just trying to look to the top of Mt Sefton (since it was closer, it looked a lot larger). After a few dazed photos, I sat on the bench at the lookout point, looking at the stunning (but harsh) beauty of the mountains. A plump baby boy, who belonged to the couple sitting next to me, came over and pawed at my sweater which was lying on the bench next to me. I smiled at him, and he returned a toothless (and adorable) grin.
I sat there for a while, and soon the couple left (with the baby of course). A young girl came up and sat next to me, and I asked her to take a photo of me. "Sure," she acquisced with a smile. Her name was Catherine, it turned out, and she was from Auckland, and she'd come there with her boyfriend Rory. "Quite a thick jersey you have there," Rory said, pointing at the thick sweater I was carrying. No kidding, I thought, wondering WHY on earth had I brought the damn thing, as it only increased the number of things I had to carry. It was so hot up there, a tank top would've sufficed. We chatted a bit more, and then they left. And then there was a loud rumble, and a mini-avalance on Mt Sefton -- I could see small bits of snow roll down. It was really small, and the snow didn't even cross the snowline, but still -- my first avalanche! I was quite impressed, and felt rather important.
After that I walked back, and for some reason, the walk felt much shorter. I almost started singing the song I'd been listening to the most on my iPod, Arigatou from the soundtrack of the anime show Kyou Kara Maou, or alternatively, God! Save Our King. It's a catchy song, and though I don't understand the lyrics except for the word "arigatou" (it means 'thank you' in Japanese), I sang it anyway -- mentally of course, because I didn't want to be ridiculed by the numerous Japanese tourists passing by. I hummed it, though. I hummed it all the way, feeling the cooling breeze brush my hair, which I've decided to leave open, because it's more cooling that way, trust me. I love the feel of breeze through my hair. Keas called out, and there were so many birds! Fat bees hummed, and I exhorted them to sing along with me. I was practically dancing by the time I reached the end of the track, and miraculously I hadn't twisted an ankle or sprained a knee, or had any kind of mishaps happen to me! Whatever people may say, Converse sneakers are pretty okay on the mountainside too.
It was almost time for the bus back, and I made my way to the car park with haste (after collecting my bag, of course). The driver was the gentleman who had driven the bus on the Dunedin First City Tour, and he smiled at me with recognition. His name was Roger, and we picked up another passenger, who turned out to be Roger's son in law from Perth, Australia, named Neville. Neville had been to India many times and Mumbai once, too, so we started discussing the ideosyncracies of the country. And of course, when an Indian and an Australian get together, can the talk of cricket be far behind? He was pleased to know I like Test cricket (that's almost a 'test' of how true a fan you are -- only people who really love the game can like Test cricket). We discussed cricket for some time, and then he gave me tips on what all I could see in Dunedin, that I still hadn't seen. He and Roger were the most delightful fellow passengers I've ever had in New Zealand, and the long 5-hour drive to Dunedin seemed to be very short indeed.
And, in fact, Roger decided to show me the dams in the Waitaki valley. There are three dams, Aevimore, Benmore and Waitaki. He showed us all three in turn, and even stopped so Neville and I could take pictures. He then stopped at Elephant Rocks, which is where Lord of the Rings and Narnia have been filmed, and sure enough, I could recognize what I thought for sure was Cair Paravel from Narnia. It was all so charming!
We arrived in Dunedin at about 7:30pm, which was our arrival time anyway. Roger let me off in front of my hotel, LivingSpace, and I retired to bed with a sigh. It had been a most fantastic, memorable trip to Aoraki Mt Cook!

Otago Peninsula and the Catlins

2008-12-24T12:57:00.000-08:00

Over the last two days, I have had a chance to get up close and personal with some of New Zealand's famous wildlife -- on the Otago Peninsula, just south of Dunedin, as well as in the Catlins, a stretch of land consisting of rainforests and beautiful coastline stretching from south of Dunedin to north of Bluff (the southernmost point of South Island). It mostly stretches along the Catlin River, hence the name. Both areas are rich in wildlife, and I got to see some yellow-eyed penguins (the rarest species of penguins in the world), sea lions and fur seals.
I went to the Otago Peninsula first. It was on the Elm Wildlife Tour, a nationally acclaimed wildlife tour, and very highly regarded. I waited for pick-up at the Dunedin Visitor Center at the Octagon, and the small van with 'Elm Wildlife Tours' printed on the side pulled up. A very cute guy with long hair got out and took our tickets, and allowed us on board. He then introduced himself -- he was Tom and the man driving the van was Shaun. They'd be our guides for the day.
The van pulled out of the city center, and went to the northern bypass connecting the two ends of Dunedin around the harbor. We drove past the harbor, the blue waters glittering, even though it was a terribly overcast day.
We passed Anderson's Bay, and moved onto Highcliff Road. It was, as the name suggested, extremely steep and on a high cliff. The sharp drop to the harbor provided some extremely stunning views. We even actually passed 27 McKerrow St, where I had unwittingly based Brendon McCarthy (the protagonist in my book), without even knowing whether the address actually existed. Eerily enough, the view from the neighborhood of the house was exactly as I'd envisioned it. However, the house was not as I'd created it (that would've been really creepy!).
As we drove along, the rain started pelting down. It looked dark and stormy outside as we passed the last inhabited part of Dunedin, and onto Otago Peninsula. We went past green hills dotted all over with sheep. Tom pointed out various plants and animals and birds to us as the van drove through the landscape. "You might notice a strange woolly animal bouncing along the slopes," he said, with a straight face. "It's called a sheep. There are 40 million of them right now in New Zealand -- 10 sheep to a person. But there were more last month -- 90 million." They were slaughtered for the upcoming Christmas, he explained. He also said that if the sheep had an uprising, they could easily overpower the people. "But no worries there," he said, "They have bred themselves into stupidity. They are extremely dumb animals."
After this little discourse on sheep, we reached the Royal Albatross Center, driving along fantastic coastlines and past Port Chalmers, the deep-water port of Dunedin. We got off, and waited for a long time, shivering in the cold and the rain, waiting for an albatross to appear. But none did -- they can't fly without the assistance of wind, and that day was particularly windless. While we waited, Shaun told us something about albatrosses. They live to an age of approximately 40 years, he explained. They tend to mate for life, and take care of their chicks for a whole year. They then spend years at sea, and then come back to raise more chicks. If one parent dies, the chick tends to die too, for albatrosses have to go to sea at least once in two days, and they do this in turns. However, if one parent is dead, then there is no one to take care of the chick for a day, and it dies too.
When no albatrosses appeared, we returned to our van, and drove to another place on the Peninsula. It was a deserted stretch of land, and Tom explained that it belongs to a farmer who lets the folks at Elm conduct tours there. The cliffs there, said Tom, are a haven for yellow-eyed penguins and fur seals, and sometimes some sea lions appear too.
Our group separated into two, and our halved group followed Shaun down the first hill. It was the most desolate, deserted and beautiful stretch of land I've ever seen. The cliffs sloped down sharply to the ocean, and while on one stretch there was a bit of a beach, the other led down to rocks. It was to this cliff that we made our way.
The climb down was treacherous, made even more so by the slippery grass because of the rain. But we made it down in one piece (I wouldn't say safely because some people slipped and fell). And that was when we saw the fur seals. There were scores of them, lounging in the rocks, playing with their pups, fighting over territory, swimming in the rock pools, bouncing on the waves, or just sleeping. They were adorable, and there were so many of them! We looked at them from a wooden hide, and took photographs while Shaun explained their habits and lifestyle. It was amazing.
Next, he took us back up the cliffside -- a climb that nearly made me collapse from lack of oxygen -- and down the next cliffside. This one had a longer path, and halfway down, we spotted -- yellow-eyed penguins! There was one, basking on a rock. He didn't seem unduly nervous to see us, something that Shaun told us was quite rare. There were two more a littel further down, one of which was a young penguin, and one seemed to be its mother. We watched the two for a while -- the mother was preening her feathers with wax, while the child lay on a rock -- and moved on to the beach at the bottom of the cliff.
The beach was made of clean, pristine white sand with ribbons of kelp draped across occasional rocks. It was hard to see in the howling wind and the pouring rain, but the beauty took my breath away nevertheless.
We saw a sea lion make its way to the sea. It would move a bit, stop, then move a bit again till it reached the water. Shaun explained that this was because it got overheated while moving along, and would stop to cool down. We watched it for a while and then moved on to another
cliff, to go to another wooden hide. From here, we watched the first yellow-eyed penguin come ashore. One minute it wasn't there, the next it was, rising from the waters like Venus. It waddled forward, stopped for a while, then waddled forward again until it reached the bushes on the cliffs. From here on, it hopped forward and upward till it disappeared into the bushes. While this was happening, two more penguins came ashore, but these didn't seem to be in any sort of hurry
to go to their nests.
Shaun took us further ahead to another hide, and here we saw furry brown baby penguins, which hadn't molted even once. They were adorable (although they were almost as big as their parents). When their two parents met, they squawked loudly. That's why they're called 'hoiho',
explained Shaun -- 'hoiho' means 'noise shouter' in Maori. The birds always screech when they meet their partners at the end of a day of fishing. We watched the penguins for a while more, and then turned back. It had been a most magical day.
The sun was still up by the time we were on our way back -- almost 9:45pm -- and I could feel myself start to drift off on the way back. It had been a long day! But one that I would remember forever and ever. It was a magical day.
The next day, I was headed off to the Catlins. The Catlins is a stretch of unspoilt beauty of rainforests and wild bush stretching roughly between the Otago Peninsula and Bluff. For the tour, a small van with 'Catlins Coaster' written on it pulled up next to my hotel, and a man
called Jamie picked me up. There were a total of 9 passengers in the van. We were headed to Invercargill, where most of the passengers would depart for a ferry to Stewart Island, and the rest of us would head off to the Catlins.
Invercargill is the southernmost city in New Zealand. It is a small city, fairly easy to navigate with small buildings and straight roads. We pulled up next to the SOuthland Museum, where I saw that the famous 125-year-old Tuatara, Henry, was on display. I went in immediately to
see him.
He was there, sure enough, basking on a rock inside a large glass tank. He looks like an ugly lizard -- all tuataras do -- but they are actually direct descendants of the dinosaurs. They are not lizards at all. Neither are they reptiles, apparently. I read Henry's history with great interest. Apparently he had been very ferocious when he'd first been brought in, but after he had a cancerous tumor removed in 2002, he has calmed down a lot. There was a mate next to him in the tank, and I read that she has laid eggs, and the museum officials are very hopeful of having Henry's progeny. I stared at Henry. He stared right back, unimpressed. In fact, if I hadn't read that he's alive, I would've thought it was a statue. He was still throughout, not blinking, not even breathing. Only a wobble of his throat gave him away. I also read that tuatara are capable of breathing upto only once an hour! I was fascinated, but had to leave.
We picked up three Swiss girls, and left. There were the girls, me, and a Canadian photographer called Jeff left on the tour. We headed off to Waipapa Point in hopes of seeing some wildlife. Waipapa Point is famous (or rather, infamous) as the place of New Zealand's biggest maritime disaster. There's a large reef there, and it was here that a large ship (I forget the name) crashed onto. 10 men were sent ashore to fetch help, as evacuation was impossible due to the rising storm. One of the men made it to the nearby town of Fortrose, and sent off a telegram asking for help, but it was disregarded, and except for those 10 men, everyone on the ship died.
The beach itself was lovely, with pristine white sands liberally covered in drying and hardened kelp and other seaweed. There was also a lighthouse, a stark reminder of the disaster. When we went down to the beach, we saw a large male sea-lion making its way to the sea. It got there and frolicked about in the water for some time, before finally pulling out to sea. We left, too.
From there, we went to Curio Bay, a beautiful bay famous for dolphin sightings. We dropped off one of the girls there, and headed off for lunch, which consisted of a ham-eggs-tomato-lettuce sandwich, an orange, a blueberry muffin and an energy bar. We ate sitting in the bright sun, with the cool breeze from the ocean washing over us, and seagulls squawking around begging for food. It felt wonderful. I got talking with the two Swiss girls, Rachel and Sandra. They told me about their experiences on Stewart Island, while we all fed the gulls. We even got a huge ice cream from the nearby shop. It was wonderful. We didn't spot any dolphins though.
After lunch, we headed off to the famous Fossilized Forest, a petrified forest on the beach. It was wonderful, for it looked exactly like wood, but Jamie assured us it was volcanic rock, which it actually was. It was fantastic. We also spotted some bladder kelp on the rocks, as well as a young yellow-eyed penguin drying itself on the rocks. When we were about to leave, we also spotted a female sea-lion, which is pretty rare in south New Zealand, as there are only about 15 of them.
We left and headed off to the rainforests. We passed the lovely beach of Papatowai, and passed 'Niagara Falls' -- a tiny 1-inch white water rapid. We all laughed.
We finally got to McLean Falls, a wonderful waterfall in the wild bush. We climbed through a sometimes steep trail through the bush, spotting New Zealand's famous ferns growing prolifically in the wild. Some of them even had baby fronds, the thing that's given rise to the term 'Koru'. When we finally reached the falls, we stopped to catch our breath and stare at the beauty of the falls. It thundered down from a height onto rocks below, past beautiful ferns and bushes and trees, forming a little stream that gurgled away into the distance. Birds twittered in the distance, and I felt serene.
We left the falls, and went to Nugget Point. It's a lighthouse on a high, high cliff. We climbed all the way to the lighthouse, and when I got there, my breath caught in my throat. Down far, far below us the sea crashed violently onto the rocks, forming white foam and spray that flew out for miles. Seagulls and cormorants screamed and flew about. A sea lion frolicked in the sea far below (or was it a fur seal?). There were about seven rocks in the sea below us which looked like nuggets, which is probably how the place got its name. The wind howled around us, and I felt like I might be blown off into the sea. It was absolutely stunning.
After that, we headed off to Roaring Bay, a place so called because the sea made a roaring sound when it crashed onto the rocks. It was a small stretch of beach and rocks between two high cliffs. We waited in a wooden hide for yellow-eyed penguins to come ashore, because that's one of the best places for spotting yellow-eyed penguins. But that was not our lucky day, and after waiting for over 30 minutes, we gave up and returned to the van.
After that, Jamie drove us back to Dunedin via the little river city of Balclutha, and dropped us off at our respective hotels. I was exhausted when I got back to my room. But it had been so worth it! Two days of encounters with the wild.

Finally in Dunedin!

2008-12-19T10:05:00.000-08:00

I'm here. Finally. I'm in Dunedin!! I've plotted and planned of coming here since I was a teenager, and here I am finally! And right from the time the airplane broke the cloud cover and swooped down to land, I knew I had made the right decision in coming over. We flew over lush green mountains and then equally green fields, and I saw innumberable fat white sheep dotted over the landscape. The whole landscape looked idyllic and timeless. When we finally landed, I was charmed. The airport is on a thin strip of land between two towering mountains, both of which were wreathed in clouds. It looked heavenly.
The ride to the city was equally beautiful, winding through meadows and over streams. Immensely fat sheep looked with mild curiosity at the passing vehicle. Plump cows full of milk grazed peacefully. It was so beautiful, it looked like a painting. We passed through the suburb of Mosgiel before arriving in Dunedin. It's a beautiful city. It's kind of U-shaped, built on the slopes of hills, around a beuatiful harbor. The crystal clear, sparkling blue waters of the Otago Harbor drew my eyes, as did the red-roofed buildings all around. We passed Carisbrook, the rugby and formerly cricket stadium of Dunedin on the way to the hotel.
The hotel, LivingSpace, is a neat little place on Castle Street. I parked my bags there (no check-ins till 2pm, and it was only 9:30am) and went on a stroll. I walked down Castle Street, with mountains looming at the other end, toward Frederick St. No matter where I looked, I found green mountains, huge trees, colorful flowers and leaves, and little paths that climbed up into the hills and disappeared mysteriously into the bushes and woods. I was so charmed, I almost crossed the streets without looking.
Ah, the streets. They almost got me killed, because I looked left, then right, whereas New Zealand works the British way -- right then left. I was almost run over by a car. Thereafter, I looked BOTH ways before even starting to cross. Still, whenever I come to a road, my head swings left almost automatically.
I found the University Book Shop almost immediately. My senses are finely attuned to finding bookstores :) and I found this one very quickly. I made my way to it, and loved it. It was built like a book shop, small and cozy, but it had an impressive array of titles. I found plenty of books I'd like to buy, but settled on a children's thriller by a New Zealand author, because that is something I'm sure I'd never find in Barnes and Noble. After that I walked down George Street to see what else I could find.
It is one of the prettiest streets I have ever seen. It slopes, of course, and walking up and down it is quite a task! I got one of the best workouts I've had since this year began. There were wreaths hanging above the street for Christmas. Shops played carols, and it was just all-out lovely. There were loads of interesting stores. Many were just regular apparel or shoe stores, but some were antique stores, some were curio stores, some were souvenir stores -- and some stores, I couldn't even classify. There were loads of Indian restaurants, and general Asian cuisine. I found a Starbucks and stopped to eat a thai green curry chicken roll and a latte. It had to be the most charming Starbucks I've ever eaten at.
I walked all the way to the city center, the Octagon. It's called that way because it is shaped like an octagon. It's lovely, with a church and historic buildings around it, surrounding a park in the center, with a statue of the poet Robert Burns in the middle. Some seagulls flew around, and some were content to roost on the head of Robbie Burns.
I went to the visitor center and booked a whole bunch of trips I could go on with the help of Izumi, the Japanese employee. In her charming accent, she helped me book a trip to the beautiful Catlins (Cato-rins, she pronounced it as), moved my Dec 21st Taieri Gorge trip to the 26th, and booked me a ride on the First City Tour, a tour of Dunedin on a blue double-decker bus. After that was done, I walked around to kill time till 1pm, when the tour would start.
I started walking up a street -- I forget the name -- right next to the Visitor Center building. It sloped crazily, and I could feel my calves pumping as I walked up. My backpack weighed a ton, too, for it was still full of clothes and books and whatnot, from the trip from Austin. After I crossed maybe three blocks, I decided to turn back and go back to the city center. As I turned for the first time, my breath caught in my throat and I stared. I was so high up, I could see over the tops of buildings, and straight into the sparkling turquoise waters of Otago Harbor. Past that, there rose another set of hills, covered with little houses with red rooftops. I stared and stared. I don't think I've ever seen anything so breathtaking, in the middle of a city. The long, tiring walk up to this point was SO worth it! All of a sudden, I wished with sudden longing that I lived in this city!
I walked back to the Visitor Center for the city tour. The large blue double-decker bus pulled up, and we all boarded it (there were quite a few of us). It then wound down the narrow, charming streets of Dunedin, past buildings, cafes and shops. I've noticed, in general, no matter how beautiful a city, some part of it is invariable seedy. But even the seediest part of Dunedin is beautiful. We went to a lookout point, from where we got a stunning view of the city and the harbor. We saw the greenbelt, which was made specifically to distinguish the residential part of the city from the commercial -- and very beautiful it was, too. We passed Otago Boys High School, a lovely, old-worldly school, the first school ever in the southern hemisphere, I belive. It's a place I've always planned on sending my son to, if I ever have one, so I looked at it with great interest. It looks slightly forbidding, but it's beautiful. Past that, we stopped at Olveston House. Three of us got off for a tour of the house, while the driver went off with the other tourists.
The couple that got off with me was a lovely old couple from Auckland, Ken and Beverly. They were delighted to talk to me and we formed an informal group as we went to the Olveston tourism center. Olveston is an old, old house built for a merchant named David Theomin. He and his wife and daughter lived there several years and entertained guests in parties. There was an internal phone system built in, and anyone could ring for the maid from anywhere. There was also a service lift for all four floors of the house (of which we saw only two). It's been beautifully restored after the daughter, Dorothy, passed it on to the city of Dunedin when she died. Her bedroom, sitting room, the living room, the dining room, the game room, the dressing rooms -- everything was beautifully preserved, and oh-so-charming. On the tour, other than us three, was a family from Sydney. The mother, coincidentally enough, had studied in the business school at UT! We bonded, of course. Her older son played the piano beautifully on the grand Steinway piano in the women's entertaining room, and her younger son reminded me very strongly of my little sister, for some reason. There was also a wealth of Japanese art, ceramics and weapons in the house, of which, a few katanas from the Tokugawa era interested me greatly, especially since I've been watching the anime show, Samurai Deeper Kyo, based right after the fight of Sekigahara and during the Tokugawa shogunate's rise to power. The tour guide was a lovely young lady named Harriet, with a charming New Zealand accent. She thought I was a history major when I nodded my head knowledgeably when she mentioned the Tokugawas. I was forced to admit, with a blush coloring my face that I only knew of it because of reading too many mangas.
The tour was beautiful, and ended when Ken, Beverly and I went to the garage to see the old car driven by David Theomin. I don't know much about cars, but this one dated from the 1920's, and was beuatifully preserved, still shining. After the tour was done, we were picked up again by the double-decker bus and driven away.
We saw the steepest street in the world, Baldwin Street, Otago University, the historic Dunedin Railway Station, and were just thorougly charmed by the time the tour ended at 3:30pm. After that, I walked about a bit more, and returned to the hotel to check in. I thought I'd check in, rest a bit and maybe go out for dinner, but when I sank down on the bed of the tiny but cute hotel room, I felt the exhaustion of the last 30+ hours steep into me. I talked to my Mum, but was feeling too exhausted to go out. Then, as if to make my decision for me, it started raining outside. I somehow changed into sleeping clothes, and fell asleep at 6:30pm -- and woke at 5:30am today! I still haven't eaten, though, so maybe I'll head out now to the closest Subway. Till then, sayonara!

On my way!

2008-12-17T14:46:00.000-08:00

I am on my way! On my way to New Zealand, for my well-deserved vacation and a dream come true. Even when I woke up this morning, I found it hard to believe after years of waiting for it, I was finally on my way to New Zealand! It was with some excitement that the thought rose to my mind that when I woke up today, that I'd be going, not to the bus stop to catch the 8:10am bus to Dell, but to Austin Bergstrom International Airport to make my way to New Zealand!
And here I am now, in LAX -- Los Angeles International Airport. I've already checked in, and gotten my boarding passes ready to go all the way to Dunedin, and I'm waiting now at Gate 27 of Terminal 2, where Air New Zealand operates its flights from. I hope it's on time! I don't have a lot of connection time in Auckland, and after Customs and Immigration, I hope there's adequate time left to grab my connecting flight to Dunedin.
One of the things I was nervous about, when I planned this trip, was whether I'd be able to understand the New Zealand accent. I guess it's overexaggerated in movies, but I didn't know for sure. Of course, I've listened to plenty of Kiwi commentators during cricket matches, and never had a problem understanding what they were saying, but still. However, I needn't have worried. If the accents of the Kiwi family of 5 standing in front of me in the line was anything to go by, I'll be having no problems whatsoever. It's just a drawling version of the English accent, so I don't anticipate any major problems.
The family of 5 in front of me consisted of the two parents and their three children (I presume) -- two girls, who looked enough like each other to pass off as twins, and a boy. It was the boy who made me stare, for he bore a startling resemblance to the New Zealand wicketkeeper, Brendon McCullum. He had the same messy blond hair, the same jawline, even the same height (from what I can tell from TV). It was amazing -- I felt compelled to ask him for his autograph! But logic and reason told me that the vice captain of the New Zealand cricket team would not be gallivanting around in Los Angeles when there's an international series in progress against West Indies in New Zealand.
It's been an interesting day so far. I've come from the freezing weather in Austin (how hilarious does that sound?!) to the (relatively) mild weather of Los Angeles. I could actually manage in LA in just 3 layers of clothing, whereas Austin currently requires at least 4 -- one of which is a thick woollen coat. I lucked out in carrying tiny pieces of luggage -- I've been able to carry on my stuff in every flight so far. That saves a TON of time at baggage claim!
Well, I guess I'll end this post here. I'm running out of battery, and I don't really want my laptop to die out on me. I hope my cellphone finishes recharging before my laptop dies. This is it then! I'm off to Dunedin!

Waiting for New Zealand!

2008-12-12T20:47:00.000-08:00

It's almost here! The day when I fulfil one of my childhood dreams, and go to New Zealand -- it's almost here! I'm so excited. I've wanted to go to New Zealand ever since I was a teenager. I'm not exactly sure what excited my imagination so about the little country in the southern hemisphere -- a mix of documentaries on Discovery Channnel, a couple of books about the country, and the cricket team (it's one of my favorite teams in cricket), all conspired to get me interested in the little nation of three islands. I've plotted and planned of my visit there for years -- and now, the day is almost here!
I'm at home right now, typing away at my laptop, lying stretched out across my futon, listening to my iPod plugged into my iHome, and following the scores of New Zealand in the first Test match against West Indies at, coincidentally, Dunedin (the place that I'm set to visit in a few days). Daniel Vettori, the captain, just fell for 30 runs. They've really had it now -- they're at a not-so-great 328-8 against a West Indies team that was lacking quality bowlers. I don't think they're gonna do so well. Then again, this is the third day of the match, and with West Indies to play two more innings, and New Zealand to play one more, maybe the match will be drawn instead of New Zealand having to bear the ignominy of losing it.
I recently made a booking at the Hermitage, a hotel in the remote village of Mount Cook Village at the base of Aoraki/Mount Cook, the tallest peak in New Zealand. I don't know quite what caught my fantasy about that place -- something to do with how lonely and desolate and utterly beautiful the place was, I suppose. I can't wait to go there. Maybe I'll be struck by inspiration to continue my second Brendon McCarthy story which has stalled on Chapter 15 for over a year now. I'm hoping that sitting in the warm hotel lobby, next to a roaring fire, under the watchful gaze of Aoraki (Cloud-Piercer) Mt Cook will get the creative juices flowing again. There really is nothing else to do in the little village. There's a small observatory, I believe; but nothing else of note. It will be interesting for sure!
I can't wait for the trip!

Contrasts in coconut

2008-12-10T13:57:00.000-08:00

Bombay is a city of many contrasts. The rich and the poor, kind and indifferent, and....well, I could go on forever with the cliches. But one example of this that remained on my mind was -- coconut! I know, it's a strange object to be even talking about, but it's one of those things that just stick to your mind.
I love drinking coconut water -- or, to be more specific, fresh tender coconut water. It's available at any roadseller in India (at least in Bombay), a pile of green tender coconut on display. If you ask for one, the seller whittles away at the top of the coconut till he gets to the tender flesh inside, and then breaks through to get to the water, which can range from bland to sweet. But no matter what, it's always refreshing. I love tender coconut.
When I was at Vashi, which is the suburb of Bombay where my family lives, I found such a coconut seller in the little vegetable market at the edge of town. The vegetable market lies under the highway, and is small, close and secluded. I love going there. It's bright and colorful, with lovely contrasts displayed to the passers-by. I don't really like vegetables, but I can't resist being tempted by how good they look. And if you wander to the fruit section, it even smells heavenly. I really love it.
It was in this vegetable market that I found a coconut seller. He had a small mound of green tender coconut on display. I went to him and asked for one.
"Do you want it with or without malai (the flesh)?" he asked.
"Without -- I just want the water," I told him.
He went to work. He took out a little knife, and whittled away at the body of the coconut till he revealed the white husk inside. He poked at it with his knife, and a couple of drops of water on the inside spilled out. He put a straw into the hole and offered the fruit to me. "Here you go," he said.
I sipped it. It was delicious, sweet, cool and refreshing. No matter how hot it is outside, coconut water is always cool. I sipped at it, and was almost amazed to find how quickly I'd finished it off. It felt like I'd just drunk energy water, only better and more pure. I can't even describe how wonderful fresh coconut water tastes like. It was just amazing. I paid the seller -- it was a mere 15 rupees -- and left.
Next, my Mum and sister and I went to the nearby mall. The mall represents all that I've come to resent about the 'new' Vashi -- bright, loud, modern. I'm not saying I'm against development, and I of course admit that the malls have improved the lives of Vashi residents hugely. But I'm an old-fashioned person, and I rather preferred the quiet, sleepy little suburb where I grew up. But I digress.
We went to the mall, and on the third floor (2nd floor by Indian/British standards), is an outlet of an ice cream chain called Naturals. It's a local Bombay chain, and they sell ice cream in rather exotic flavors. I of course ordered my favorite -- tender coconut.
The ice cream was served in a tiny cup, a tiny scoop, about half the size of a cricket ball. I tasted it. It was good, quite good, and is, in fact, my favorite flavor at Naturals. As I sat under the bright lights of the food court of the mall and ate the ice cream, I couldn't help but compare it with the fresh coconut water I'd just had standing in the sun and the dirt. And you know what? I infinitely preferred the water. There was just something good about standing in the heat, sipping that cool water, served by that simple man under the trees.
And the ice cream cost 30 rupees.
Bombay is a city of many contrasts. And the contrast in the coconut proved to me that I like the old-fashioned way far, far more.

Barnes & Noble

2008-09-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

When I first moved to Austin, one of the must-see places on my list was the Barnes & Noble in Arboretum. I've been a sucker for bookstores ever since I learned to read, and such a big one was a major attraction. When I saw it first, I knew immediately what part of Austin I wanted to live in forever and ever. So, two years later, when I graduated from grad school, and it came time for me to select a place to stay in which did not need to be within 1 mile of Taylor Hall, the Computer Sciences building in the University of Texas at Austin campus, I of course decided on Arboretum. Now I'd be close to my beloved bookstore.
I was slightly worried about the novelty wearing off -- that since I lived so close to Barnes & Noble now, I wouldn't want to visit it as much. I needn't have worried. I spend more of my waking hours there than I do in my own home, and the staff there knows me by sight. If anything, I think I go there a little too much. I know every crack in the wall, every spot on the carpet -- and pretty much the location of every genre of books. I think I could write an encyclopedia on the geography of Barnes & Noble Arboretum now. I can navigate the store blindfolded.
It's a wonderful store to go to. It resembles a library more than a bookstore. Tall stacks of books are neatly arranged all around the store, with people silently browsing through them. I know it's okay to talk on the phone, but I feel like a criminal, the library sense prevails so strongly. I don't have a specific favorite section, though I tend to mostly be in the manga section, or the mystery section.
When you enter, to the right is what I call the "oldies" section -- full of reference books, from the commonplace to the arcane, from the ordinary to the esoteric, from art to computer science to cooking and beyond. I love the travel section, and ever since I've booked tickets to visit Dunedin, New Zealand later this year, I've been regularly haunting the travel section. But my favorite section, by far, is the one on the left.
The left side of the store contains the entire fiction section -- my favorite. I don't really care what kind of fiction it is, I love to read it (except romance -- I hate romantic novels). It could be as gentle as Jane Austen, or as adrenaline-pumping as Matt Reilly, I read it all. My favorite genre is probably mystery, though, for I can resist anything but I can't resist a good whodunit. (That's followed closely by spy thrillers -- I love spy thrillers).
The literature section lies to the far left of the store, and is the section where most books are found. A few (like mystery or science fiction) are in their own specified section, which lies to the edge of the store, close to the window. Running at an angle to all these sections, and parallel to the window, is one of my favorite sections in the store -- Japanese manga. I can race through a manga in less an 30 minutes, even if I take time to savor the gorgeous drawings.
Upstairs is another reference section -- it is actually this section that contains the art books. I'd know, because for two years I stared at them with silent longing, but without the money to buy them. There are fantastic books on painting landscapes in watercolors, on developing your own manga characters, on layering shades in oil paintings to give them a "glow", on using various acrylic techniques.
To the right of this section is the DVD section, as I call it -- it contains an impressive array of CDs and DVDs. I haven't been there much, though, for I just watch all my movies online and not from a DVD.
On the lower level, right at the back of the store is the children's section. Bright and colorful, it contains a lot many books that I love to read even now -- every now and then I get tired of reading "adult" novels and revert to all that is magical and fantastical, and just a break from the grimness of "real" novels, and back into the wonderful world of children's fiction. I love children's books (maybe that's why the only book I've ever written was a children's book), and even though I feel faintly embarassed to be going into the children's section at the old age of 24, I do it anyway. Besides, most people seem to think I'm a teenager, so it's not too bad!
There's usually a lot of people at Barnes & Noble, but I like it best when there's no one around. Well -- that's not very common -- but even if the store is relatively empty, I love it. I love having an entire section to myself, feeling the soft soundtrack played in the store melt into my consciousness, and feeling like I'm the only one there. I like to curl up in a corner, picking up a volume of Trinity Blood or Black Cat and lose myself in the plot. Even better, I like it if I can lose myself in a new mystery novel, though there aren't too many left in the store that I haven't read, unfortunately. I'll always remember a day, last year, during the summer when it rained so much. It was raining hard outside, and the skies were dark and grey. There was hardly anybody in the store, and I felt myself losing myself in the feeling that I was the only person left in the world. It felt comforting, as I slipped into a comfortable slouch on the floor, curled up with a Dick Francis novel. I love Dick Francis novels, they combine mystery with British horseracing, and I could just feel myself immerse in the world of rich owners, cruel trainers and hapless jockeys. Meanwhile, it was getting darker and darker outside, and thunder growled in the distance. Suddenly, there was a bright flash of lightning, startling me, followed by a roar of thunder. Water lashed against the glass windows, and visibility outside was obliterated. It really felt like I was the only one in the world. I loved it.
Yes, indeed, no matter how many times I visit Barnes & Noble, it will remain my favorite bookstore. And for some reason, no other bookstore appeals to me quite as much, not even Borders which is at least as extensive -- or even another Barnes & Noble, such as the one I visited in Denver. No, this one has become my second home, and nothing can quite measure up to it. The staff knows me too, but now -- including the funny cashier who calls me "little troublemaker", but is always delighted to see me, his booming laughter echoing through the store. I love Barnes & Noble.

Year of Travel

2008-08-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

2008 was certainly a significant year in my life. I've graduated from grad school, and started working -- this year marked what was possibly my last year as a student (though, with my penchant for studying I wouldn't rule out a return to academia). I also started working at Dell Inc as a software developer, a job that I've enjoyed so much since the day I started, it's sinful. I absolutely adore my teammates, and I love delving into the code and understanding how it works. And I actually get paid to do that -- life's just great!
After the obligatory bill-paying and buying all those things I lusted after when I was a poverty-stricken grad student and didn't have the money to buy them (one of those was, for some strange reason, a flimsy bookshelf at Barnes & Noble), I finally decided that I would indulge in another thing that I wanted to do forever -- travel.
After deciding that, my first destination was fixed -- New Zealand. I've wanted to go there since forever, I even wrote a book based in New Zealand! I had to see it. So I booked tickets to Dunedin, in South Island. I can't wait for that trip!
Next on that list was India, of course. In November is my parents' 25th wedding anniversary, and there's no way I could miss that! So after weeks of stalking travel websites for a decent ticket to India, I finally got the right one -- and I'm going to Bombay from Nov 15th to 29th.
And then, everyone was going away for Labor Day weekend, and I felt like an idiot for having no plans but to lie about the house reading books and surfing useless websites on the internet, so I've booked another getaway, to Denver. I'm going to Denver for the Labor Day weekend, and I'm sure it's gonna be fun! I love getaways too, where you don't know a soul in the other place -- you just roam there by yourself with no one to judge you or anything.
So by the end of this year, I would've been to: Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Denver, Bombay and Dunedin. Not bad!! I aim to increase the length of that list next year, but let's see. I've always wondered what I'd do with so much money -- I'm a pretty frugal person, and I don't go on shopping binges at all, not even in Barnes & Noble, my favorite store. But now, I've found a way to spend that money and indulge in my passion -- traveling!
I bet 2009's gonna be an even more interesting year.....

Nostalgia

2008-07-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know, it's been ages since I last wrote (blogged?). It's been a trifle hectic, what with my long-awaited graduation from grad school, and my parents and my sister paying me a visit here in Austin, and sheer laziness following that, I somehow never sat down to write. But a few days ago I discovered that the writing juices in me were intact, and so here I am.
Yes, I've graduated from the hallowed halls of the University of Texas at Austin. And it's still taking time to sink in. I haven't left UT cold turkey -- I enrolled for French classes over the summer, so I could keep myself busy, and also get smaller doses of UT, like a smoker winds down from a million cigarettes a day to maybe ten. The classes are only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for 90 minutes, but I thought, hey! As long as I get to see UT, it'll be all right. Right?
Wrong. I hate UT the way it is now. It wasn't just UT that made it so precious to me -- it was my friends inhabiting it alongside me that made it what it was. I used to love sitting in TAY 5.142, technically Ruchica's office, but pretty much well-claimed by me. I think toward the end I spent more time there than she did. I used to love walking into the GRACS lounge, and checking my mail in the mailbox, and watching boys play foosball at the table, and people taking printouts, people checking mail, and people sleeping even through the din. I used to love sitting my myself in the reading room in TAY 5.110.
No more. I come now to GRACS lounge, and it looks like a ghost town. It's silent and deserted. the computer terminals are cool, the printers are in the sleep mode. The foosball table is still, with one ball lying forlornly on the table. I can almost see ghosts from the past -- people laughing, joking, playing, talking....and then the image is gone, and I'm all alone in the large room. I went to Ruchica's office today, and it seemed to be just a shell. I could almost see her and me, sitting opposite each other, watching videos on YouTube, or playing around on Facebook, and telling each other what we were doing. I could almost see the tension in the last few days as we both scrambled to complete our pending assignments, and get done with the Network Security project which we worked on together along with Vaibhav. And then I looked again, and there was nothing in the room, except for tables and chairs, and some loose papers lying around, and the chalkboard filled with Japanese, where I had practiced it after each class.
I don't like returning to these rooms when they are so empty. It feels desolate. I know it's just an illusion, and they'll be filled with life once the Fall semester starts again in August; but right now, it just feels like a ghost town, and I'm more than eager to leave. Right now, I'm sitting in the reading room, and only it feels the same, because I would often sit here alone. I've left this institution. I guess it's still taking time to sink in. And soon, there will be no trace of me having ever been here. For some reason, that disturbs me. I mean, what could I expect to do, right? But still, it hurts me that the next batch won't even have an idea that I was here. The last remaining sign of my presence is the Japanese written on the whiteboard in the reading room, and soon, at the start of the new term, that will be gone as well.
Maybe I should just say goodbye.

Tim Southee

2008-03-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

I'm all excited about the newly-introduced New Zealand cricketer.
I've always been a fan of New Zealand Cricket. It probably started off with my fascination with the country, and escalated because my favorite cricketer, Shane Bond, was a Black Cap. So it's always been with keen interest that I've followed the fortunes of the New Zealand cricket team, or the Black Caps, as they're called. And it interested me when, in the third Test match between New Zealand and England, the name of Tim Southee was being thrown about.
Timothy Grant Southee is a player who's been in the pipeline for quite some time. I've been reading about him, first as an excellent schoolboy cricketer, and then as a very, very good player in the U-19 team of New Zealand. He played a massive part in NZ U-19's win against Ireland in the ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup in 2006 -- when he was just seventeen. He played again in the 2008 U-19 World Cup, and this time, was the Player of the Tournament, with an amazing 11 wickets, in spite of playing one match lesser than his closest contender for the title. I was all eager to see the young boy play.
When he was selected for the third Test, I doubt anyone thought initially he would be actually used -- with Kyle Mills present, there was very little chance of a 19-year-old rookie being offered the new ball. But Mills pulled out of the match, Southee was given the new ball, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Southee was excellent. I couldn't see every ball he bowled, but I managed to see a few overs in between -- and he bowls impeccably. He's not Shane Bond -- I doubt there will ever be another -- but Richard Hadlee? Yes, perhaps. He bowled with control, and swung the ball beautifully. His first wicket was a beauty -- four balls dished out to English captain Michael Vaughan, all outswingers. When Vaughan was expecting a fifth, Southee bowled a straight one, and trapped Vaughan leg before. Beautiful. His second over in Test cricket, and Southee had a wicket -- that of Michael Vaughan!
He went on to capture four more, two of them being Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pieterson, two of the most dangerous men in the English batting line-up. Wonderful, wonderful bowling. Kid, I thought to myself, consider me impressed. His final figures? 23.1-8.55-5.
He was out for 5 batting, and didn't get a wicket in the second innings, though he bowled quite well, in my opinion (not that I got to see a large part of the innings). But he was scintillating in the final innings of the match! He smashed 77 runs off 40 balls, which was studded with 9 sixes -- the most by any number 10 batsman. He hit his fifty off just 29 balls, the fastest ever by a New Zealander, and the sixth fastest ever. He was a revelation, in every sense of the word.
Tim Southee seems to be here to stay.

Harris Park Horror

2008-03-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

To those who live near the North Campus area of UT, Harris Park needs no introduction. It's that green stretch of land between San Jacinto and Red River streets, that looks refreshing in the daylight and terrifying at night. Many a tale I've heard of murderers lurking in the undergrowth, waiting to slice through the throats of hapless passers-by. The leaves rustle at night, sounding downright creepy, more so than ever when you're returning home at 3am after a session of heavy-duty coding. Yes, Harris Park's an interesting place.
In the daylight, it's pretty innocuous. There are some swings and picnic tables there, and I've seen families there, having fun. It's usually inhabited in the mornings by joggers and people taking their dogs for walks. All-in-all, it looks like a very nice place in the morning. I've spent time with friends on those swings. Another reason I like the place is because it's a short-cut from my apartment to my department (hey, that rhymed!). Going down Dean Keeton takes a good ten minutes more than it would take to cut through Harris Park.
With this in mind, my friend Archana and I decided to take Harris Park when we were returning from a satisfying dinner at Thai Kitchen on 30th St. We looked at the park before entering it. It looked sinister, with large dark patches. There were a couple of lights shining bleakly, giving pale blobs of yellow light. Most of the park was shrouded in darkness. There was not a single soul there. A light wind blew through the trees, rustling the leaves. Archana and I looked at each other.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Archana.
"Sure," I said, exuding bravado, though I was quaking inside. It looked creepy, and it didn't help matters any that we'd been discussing ghost stories on the way, with Archana telling me how she thought her apartment was haunted, and how she and her roommate heard random sounds at night that had given them the creeps. All this raced through my mind as we entered the park.
We walked through the lighted patch, my breath quickening. I gave a nervous laugh. "You wouldn't want to have a go on the swings, would you?" I asked Archana.
"NO!" Archana returned firmly. She probably thought I was eccentric enough to do that!
"No, of course not," I said, and we moved on ahead, till we reached the end of the lighted area. Then we stopped.
The part ahead was darker than black (borrowing the phrase from a favorite anime series of mine!), and looked like something out of a horror movie. Large trees barred our way, and made funny noises (wind whistling through the branches, but my overactive imagination thought otherwise). Strange shadows flitted across the area. It agonized me that the apartment was just across the "twilight zone" as I dubbed it, but it was too much for my limited stock of courage to try to make my way across the area.
"Er....." I asked. "Are we making our way across that?"
"No," said Archana, firmly. "I don't think so."
"It's a short cut," I told her. Just then, something seemed to move in the shadows, and it seemed to move at superhuman speed. I jumped, and grabbed Archana's arm in a vice-like grip, probably making her jump as well.
"What was that all about?" she asked.
"S-something moved," I told her fearfully. We took another step into the darkness, with me literally quaking. My breath was coming fast now -- I was close to hyperventilating.
"That's it," said Archana. "We're not going through there." She led me back to the lighted area.
As soon as we came out into the light, I let out a huge breath, my heart fluttering. For some reason, that had shook me up a lot more than usual! We started walking back toward the entrance to the park, when a shadowy figure ran by us. I jumped violently again, and the state of our minds wasn't eased by the fact that it was a large-ish black dog that had passed us.
"Meh," I said, not sure what to do or say any more.
"Let's get out of there," said Archana.
"I agree," I said, and we practically ran out of there.
"That black dog reminds me of something," I told her.
"Yeah, me too," she said.
"Shall I tell you what it reminds me of?"
"No!" said Archana sharply. "Not here. Let's get out first."
We were practically running when we reached the entrance. It was then that I noticed the leash around the dog's neck. I almost stopped.
"Hey, it's someone's pet," I said, almost stopping.
Archana pulled me along. "Sure, whatever," she said, and with a few more steps, we were out on the road. We stopped to catch our breaths. It was then that we looked inside, and saw a man walk over to the dog and pick up the leash. We stared.
"So it was a pet!" I said, vindicated.
Archana laughed. "We were so terrified!" she said.
I laughed too, feeling much braver now out on the road. "Wanna do that again?" I asked, with a devilish gleam in my eye.
"No, thanks!" said Archana. "Let's walk back along Dean Keeton."
"Okay," I said. "By the way, what did that dog remind you of?"
"The black dog from Omen," said Archana. "What did it remind you of?"
"The hound of Baskervilles," I said. "The black dog of death."
We looked at each other for a minute, and then shivered. "Let's just get out of here," said Archana.
So we did just that, and walked back home. All the way we discussed the incident, almost laughing at our cowardice. But it sure was spooky when we walked through that park!

GRACS Game Night

2008-02-29T20:31:00.000-08:00

Did I ever mention that I've been elected an officer of GRACS this semester? No, I don't believe I did. Well, I have -- and it's a fact I'm inordinately proud of. I've been going about the place broadcasting the fact that I'm a GRACS officer (a fact that makes me extremely proud, and makes it hard to avoid strutting). I take my duties very seriously -- representing the grad student population of the University of Texas at Austin Department of Computer Sciences, to give it its full name. GRACS stands for the Graduate Representative Association of Computer Sciences, and I'm a member.
GRACS is the body that represents us poor graduate students, and makes sure that people remember that we're alive, we're human, and we exist for purposes other than researching for professors. GRACS currently consists of six members -- Sudipta Chatterjee, Thomas Finsterbusch, Joel Hestness, Christian Miller, Donald Nguyen -- and me of course. Awesome people, all of them. But more about them later. This post is to describe the game night.
I believe the game night was Christian's idea. He basically put together a huge array of gaming machines and consoles, and a mind-boggling array of games, and told grad students to go out and have fun. My part of it was to arrange for the pizzas to feed the hungry army that I was sure would invade the food. Who would turn up to actually play was the real question. We were unsure about whether the event would interest grad students -- a special species characterized by their non-existent social life. So it was with some trepidation that we waited for 6:30pm on Wednesday, 27 February 2008.
At first, we were pleasantly surprised to find quite an impressive number of people accumulated in the room -- but that was rapidly abolished on learning the fact that almost 75% of them were there for the food. When the food arrived, there was a stampede. When the dust cleared, only about 15 or 20 people were left, and all that was left of the food was a pile of empty pizza boxes from Pizza Hut, and some crumbs lying on the floor. Poor Christian didn't even get any pizza.
I tried to clear up the boxes, but after pushing aside the pile of boxes listlessly to one side of the grad lounge, I felt too bored to do any more, and besides, I was curious about how game night was progressing. So I made my way to ACES 2.402, where the event was happening.
When I walked in, the room was in darkness, the only illumination coming from the large projection screens on the walls. Games were in progress, and there were people playing them. Loud rock music blared out, from Guitar Hero. There were random battle cries flying in the air from the various games in progress. I made my way to the back of the room, and perched myself on the top of the table (it's useful at times being tiny -- I can pretty much fit myself anywhere I want!) -- and watched the Wii being set up. At that, my eyes lit up. I hate to admit this, but I'm not a gaming freak. In fact, I don't even know the difference between a Gameboy, a PS2/3 and an Xbox, physically. I don't know what games people play on them either, except for Super Mario or some such derivative. I know pitifully little about the world of games, which always manages to stun people, because I'm an artist and they automatically assume that I'd be good at gaming as well (If you haven't gotten the association between the two, welcome to the club). It doesn't help matters that I'd taken the graduate level Graphics course last semester -- from the way some people announce the fact, you'd think I was the numero uno student in the class! Not so. I suffered badly in the course -- something that's been chronicled with plenty of heartbreak on this blog. But I digress. I was saying that I don't know much about games. Security, yes. Web development, yes. Networking, yes. But gaming -- no. Which was why I wasn't sure what I'd do in the room -- until the Wii came up.
Wii is something I can play -- and pretty decently too, at that. I'd been coached by my teammates while I was an intern at Dell, and considered myself pretty decent at Wii Sports (though I've only played tennis, bowling and boxing). The Wii is intuitive (man, gotta give it to the Japanese!) and I love playing. I looked on as Donald and Thomas played on it. When the game ended, Donald offered me his controller. With enormous eyes, I jumped into the game.
I put all my energy into the game. I must admit, I'm a very violent Wii player. I don't content myself with only moving my hand -- if I don't throw my entire body into the game, I feel as though I'd lose. I swung my controller like a pro tennis player, and threw myself wholeheartedly into the game. I think I banged my wildly flailing arm onto Thomas a couple of times. By the time the game ended -- and I lost, by the way -- my arm was already sore.
But that was just the beginning! I watched as my friends also threw themselves into the game. Some of my friends were there -- Ruchica Behl, Harshdeep Singh, Aditya Saurabh and Hari Jayaraman. Hari played the Wii the entire time were there -- I was surprised he had the stamina! Then again, except for me, no one exerts themselves as though they were playing pro tennis. After some rounds of the Wii, Ruchica, Harsh and I decided to try Mario Kart. We spent a hilarious 15 minutes trying to figure out how it worked, and then finally got it going. After I got annoyed banging into walls, I turned my console over to Aditya -- who was ragged to death by Harsh about his lack of knowledge about the game. It didn't help that Aditya kept making critical comments about the game.
"I discovered a bug," he announced, and proceeded to demonstrate it. "Look, when the car hits the wall, it goes through it instead of crashing against it!" and he banged his car repeatedly against the wall until it did go through.
"Saale, tu yahaan testing karne aaya hai ki game khelne? (Are you here for testing or for playing the game?)" demanded Harsh, his eyes glued to the projector screen.
I laughed and laughed. They kept jibing each other good-naturedly throughout the game, and I laughed till I almost lost my balance off my precarious perch. Ruchica, all this while, kept her cool, and managed to win the games simply by coasting through the maze.
In between listening to the two bicker, I looked around the room as well. People were playing all kinds of games. Christian was busy with some anime-looking game, and Donald and another Graphics student, Peter Djeu, were playing another anime-looking game. I think I'd die of humiliation if those guys ever found out I called the games "that anime-looking game"; but I really don't know one of them from the other. On another end of the room, Thomas and Joel were also playing some game. Guitar Hero was still in full flow, and at some point, I heard someone switch to a Muse song. The mood in the room was very exciting, very upbeat.
We played all the way till 10pm. We had thought that we might need to pack up by 8:30, if no one showed up -- but game night was an official success! I don't think the people wanted to leave at 10. I was exhausted, for it had been a long day, and my right arm was sore from playing Wii Tennis as though my life depended on it. Finally, at 10pm, we all ended game night, and returned back to our dreary lives.
I returned to my "office" -- it's actually Ruchica's office, but I've claimed it as my own :) and plonked myself on the chair I've claimed as well (I've claimed an unusually large number of things in that room), and felt my life force seeping out of me. Well, not really -- but I was seriously exhausted. When I returned home that night, I couldn't lift my right arm to wash my face, and the next day, I seriously thought about getting a sling, my right arm was so stiff with pain. But it was worth every moment of Game Night!! Game Night was an official success, and I sure hope we have more of them!

A German Adventure - Part III

2008-02-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

(continued from last time)

The next morning, I woke to see the sun filtering in gently through the filmy curtains. I yawned, stretched, wondered vaguely why I had filmy curtains on my window -- and sat up with a jerk when I remembered the adventures of last night. I looked around the room. Yep, the whole thing hadn't been a dream -- I was still very much in Frankfurt. However, something had cooled my temper and anxiety -- probably the fact that I had, for the first time in three months, slept for more than 5 hours at a stretch. I felt relaxed, and ready to face whatever the world threw at me. With this resolve in mind, I freshened up, and went downstairs for breakfast.
I went with Anita, the girl from San Jose I'd met the previous day. She was accompanied by a hell-like woman who insisted on making her order for everything, claiming she didn't know English (Bull. How would she have made it to the United States otherwise?) The three of us went downstairs to the French restaurant. It was adorable, and I felt like spending the rest of the day there. We were seated next to a glass wall, where we could see out onto the cobble-stoned street outside. People dressed warmly walked past, breath misting in the cold air. There was a sprig of beautiful wild pink flowers just outside the restaurant window, and lent a touch of color to the gray scene outside. In the distance were some tall buildings, which reminded me of Bombay. I loved it. The scene looked very much like my imagery of "Europe".
After the meal was over, we wondered what to do. I went over to the reception, and asked for a pin converter. I had discovered, the previous night, that there was a 110V outlet in my room, but unfortunately, it needed a pin converter. I got that, and went upstairs to my room to leave my laptop to charge up, and went downstairs again.
There were a bunch of people accumulated there, all from Air India, all hollering at each other, rumors floating in the air. Some people said that the flight would leave later that night. Some said we were stuck there till December 26th. Some said we'd be sent back to Chicago. It was crazy, and I made a face and tried exploring the hotel. It was pretty, no doubt about that. The reception was tastefully decorated, and there was Christmas decoration all over the place. I loved the two Christmas trees, and the gingerbread house, complete with a gingerbread crow on the chimney!
Before I knew it, it was time for lunch. A bunch of us decided to eat lunch together, and searched for a place to eat. We finally decided on the quaint Italian bistro in the hotel, and accordingly, went there. I looked over the menu, and finally decided on a turkey wrap and a cup of mandarin oranges with yogurt. The German waitress asked me anxiously, "Iss goot?" I smiled at her. "It's good," I assured her, and she went away, pleased. I felt myself laze, and even managed to forget the fact that I was stuck in a foreign country, where English was not the main language, for God knew how long, and in a way that was cutting into my vacation time at home. I felt at peace after the meal. I even managed to order a huge chunk of blackforest cake and an enormous cup of latte, and a bottle of water to finish it all off, while the other passengers looked at me, astonished. One of them even asked me, "How do you eat all that and still remain so tiny?" But my hurt look made him hurriedly change the topic!
Outside, the street was busy. There was a tram station right outside on the street, and green trams arrived every five minutes, so so it seemed to me. People thronged the street, Hamburger Allee. Cars drove past -- cars! Sleek, elegant German cars that made me drool. Every fourth car seemed to be an Audi. The light changed over the scene as the sun made its way across the horizon. I watched the scene, entranced, until the waitress came over the clear our table. Some of the people suggested a quick tour of the town, but I had to turn down the proposition, as I didn't want to catch pneumonia traveling in the cold Frankfurt night with nothing warmer than a hooded sweatshirt. I, instead, decided to go back to my room.
I exited the bistro, and saw a huge crowd at the reception -- all passengers from Air India. I went over and joined the crowd, and at the center of it all, discovered one of the Air India crew, trying to be heard over the noise. Finally, I got the gist of what he was saying: Air India had been unable to fix the busted engines of the airplane we had arrived in, so a relief aircraft was being flown in from Calcutta. It would arrive in Frankfurt early tomorrow morning, and we would set off sometime around 8:30am. In the meantime, to keep us busy, we had 10 minutes to talk to anyone anywhere in the world over the phone, and two hours of free internet access. The second option was what uplifted me.
I went to the elevator, and pressed the button for the 38th floor. Also inside the elevator was a pilot in uniform, a tall, rangy blond man. He kept looking at me, and after we'd gone up some ten floors, he pointed at me, and said: "Longhorn?"
My jaw dropped, and I gave him a grin of pure delight, while making the hook-em sign with my hand. He grinned at me, made the same sign, and got off at the 35th floor, while I continued on to the 38th. I retired to my room, and with something resembling a yell of joy, went to my favorite website -- Google. The internet! I realized for the first time how much I relied on it. I checked everything I could, trying to make sure I spent every minute of the two hours wisely. I checked my mail in every mail server I have an account on -- Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, even the UT server. I checked my Facebook page and wrote back to some people who had scribbled on my wall. I looked up my grades on UT Direct, and emailed a professor about them. I checked my bank account, and was delighted to discover that the call to India the day before had cost me only $10, and I had moreover just received my paycheck for December, so I had nothing to worry about, financially. I felt relaxed after the bout of internet-surfing, and called my parents to let them know of the updates about the flight situation. After all that, I packed up my backpack, and went down for dinner.
Dinner was again at the Champions Bar. This time, I actually felt a little sad that I would never see the place again. I'd grown fond of Frankfurt, for in spite of the incompetence of Air India, I had spent a good two days here. I had a hearty dinner, finished it off with apple strudel, and went up to my room. Grad school has given me the ability to doze of anywhere, anytime, for any number of hours, and wake up not feeling like a zombie, so I woke after three hours, feeling reasonably refreshed. I went downstairs, and saw all the other passengers accumulated in the lobby. I checked out, had a last cup of coffee, returned the pin converter, bid the cheerful receptionist goodbye, and went out to the bus for the trip to the airport. When it was full, the bus glided through the dark, empty streets, with a gaslight-like glow from the street lamps, giving it a surreal look. I bade a mental goodbye to Germany, and we left the city of Frankfurt, and landed back at Frankfurt Flughafen.
Again, there was Air India incompetence at work. Although they'd summoned us at 6am, there was no one manning the counters, but we had grown so used to it, we didn't even complain. We stood in an enormously serpentine queue, waiting for it to dissipate. Finally, the check-in counters opened, and people started checking in. I went through check-in and security, losing my bottle of water in the process. An old security guard at the security check remarked on the number of books in my backpack, "You like to read!" I gave him a grin, and went through.
Finally, feeling as though it were all a dream, I was on the plane. It was a smaller one than the one we'd come on -- it was a 777 -- and much nicer than the 747 we'd arrived in. As I watched, it started snowing outside, and the world grew white. Finally, unable to keep my eyes open, I dozed off. I woke up at 10:30, to the announcement that we were about to take off, so please fasten your seatbelts. Mine was already fastened, so I sat back, and felt the engine purr outside. The plane started moving. It moved faster and faster, till it was gliding over the runway, and then suddenly, with a little bump, it was in the air. A great whoop of joy went up from all the passengers, and the atmosphere in the plane lightened considerably. I gave a grin that stretched my mouth from ear to ear, and opened up my manga -- I could read it now!
The two movies running were the irritating Bratz, and an obscure The Last Legion, so I closed my eyes, and dreamed of home. I guess I must've fallen fast asleep, for when I woke up, it was 4:00pm German time -- we'd be landing in under two hours! I cleared the cobwebs from my brain, shook off my sleep, and resumed reading my manga, the iPod in my ears, the battery dangerously low by now. The stewardess came over with food, which I gobbled down somehow, suddenly caring for nothing more than to meet my parents and my sister. The plane droned on through the night, with faint patches of light far below the only indications that we were passing over civilization.
Finally -- finally! -- the pilot announced that we were about to land in Mumbai -- at which a cheer went up from the crowd again. The crew started bringing over customs forms, which I filled with alacrity. My breath actually shortened when the plane started losing altitude, and I strained to look out of the window. And there it was! The bright yellow and white lighting of Bombay! Well, of any other city, but I knew it was Bombay. We flew over the ocean, and then swooped back over the mainland, the ground approaching us at breakneck speed. The ground came closer and closer, there was a little thump -- and we were on ground! The engines strained to slow us down, and the plane coasted over to the airbridge -- and we had landed! The doors opened, and I was one of the first ones out, flying out of the aircraft as though it were on fire. I practically ran through the airport, noting immediately, the warmth, humidity, and the smell -- I knew I was back home! I had to wait for ages at Customs, and then again at the baggage check, but finally, with baggage in hand, I made my way out, and saw my parents and my sister! My joy was unbounded, and I fear I scared quite a few people waiting there -- they probably thought I was some species of a wild animal. But I was delighted -- after the long -- loooong! -- trip from Austin to Chicago to Frankfurt to Mumbai, I had finally made it back home!! And, it might have delayed me a lot, but thanks to Air India's incompetence, I got to see a beautiful new city!

A German Adventure - Part II

2008-02-17T16:32:00.000-08:00

(continued from last time)

We were all happy to be let out of Frankfurt Flughafen. I was heartily sick of reading the Fraport signs all over the airport. I had stopped listening to my iPod because who knew how long we'd be stuck in Frankfurt? And I didn't want the battery to get exhausted -- Apple claims that the battery of an iPod nano lasts for 24 hours, but I didn't want to test that out. 8 hours of those 24 hours had already been exhausted, and I could see the faintest sliver of gray next to the green in the battery icon. I was reading my book at snail's pace, because I didn't want to finish the book -- what would I do once I'd finished it? I would only have the mangas to read after that, and it really doesn't take long to finish a manga. The longest I've taken is two hours, and that's only because I stopped for an hour in between to do something. So there I was, tired, exhausted, sleep-deprived, tetchy, irritated, and wanting, more than anything, to go back home.
And then one of the passengers from Air India called out to tell us that the German government was granting us temporary visas!
The line to the visa post formed faster than guests lining up for food at a wedding. One minute the hallway was deserted, the next, full. And, what annoyed me to no end, people kept cutting into the line. I forced myself to relax and not snap at people. My favorite couple, the old ones from Hyderabad cut into the line someplace ahead of me, and were looking around. Thankfully, they didn't spot me, though my hiding behind the fat gentleman in front may have had something to do with the fact.
We inched forward. We had to go through security check, where my bottle of orange juice got thrown away. I forgot to remove my iPod from my pocket the first time I went through, and set off the alarms, and trudged back wearily to the line to put it into the crate. When we were finally cleared, we formed a massive group at a window that said Bundespolizei, with Federal Police written underneath it. Some of the Bundespolizei came forward to shepherd us into a line, strong blond men in blue uniforms. It seemed to me everybody in Germany was blond!
We stood while our names were called. Finally, mine was, and I glowered at the camera. The German official photographing me gave me an encouraging smile -- I wondered whether I looked like I was about to burst into tears? Finally, the formalities out of the way, there was nothing to do but wait. And wait we did. I reunited with the two Shrutis and Anita, and we laughed together a bit. Actually, that was where I found out that one of the Shrutis had been a classmate of a friend of mine at UT. We waited for the better part of an hour, swapping stories about our lives back in the US. Anita worked at a firm in San Jose, she had just moved there from Delloitte Consulting. One of the Shrutis had just graduated with a Masters in Biotechnology from someplace in Boston, I think, while the other one was at USC, studying Computer Science, like me. A fellow computer scientist! I was briefly interested, but was too exhausted to discuss courses, which is the normal thing you discuss with a fellow CS student. Of course, when you're a full-fledged computer scientist, I guess you discuss deeper matters, like the efficiency of randomized algorithms over regular ones. I wasn't in the mood to discuss either. I slumped against a wall, listening to the other older girls chat amongst themselves -- I was the youngest in the group.
Finally, we were announced free to go. I got back my passport, adorned with a blue stamp declaring me as a transit passenger allowed into Germany for two days. I sighed, collected my passport from the (blond) policeman, and stood again in line to file out of the airport. Lines! I was starting to hate lines. We stood out for a while till the bus arrived to take us to the airport. It was -5 degrees Celsius, and all I had on was a black hoodie with Texas written across the front in the signature burnt orange. And regular clothes, of course! I didn't have any other warm clothing with me, all of that being relegated to my check-in baggage in Austin. I shivered, but told myself that I'd endured colder days in Austin, I could stand it! The freezing wind crept into the neck of my sweatshirt and into my T-shirt, chilling me to the bone. Finally the bus arrived! I sat in it, and waited while the other passengers made their way to their seats, little arguments erupting even on the bus as to who would sit where. For God's sake, I thought wearily, are they adults or aren't they? I thought briefly of my apartment in Austin, which was probably sitting alone and forlorn right now. I thought of my parents waiting for me in Bombay, and felt another wave of weariness roll through me. I just wanted to go home! Frankfurt was nice, but it wasn't home!
After the arguments between the passengers threatened to erupt into a full-blown knock-down-drag-out fight, the bus driver hurriedly declared the bus full and rolled away from the airport. The bus glided out of the airport, and onto the streets of Frankfurt. And while the roads outside the airport were broad and large, the ones inside the city were what European streets are rumored to be -- narrow, and surrounded by buildings. It was beautiful, though -- very beautiful indeed. The streets were dark at this time of night, with street lamps providing golden illumination and making the streets glow. There were too many Deutsche Bank boards on the way to count, and lots of things written in German which I didn't comprehend. Finally we pulled up at a sort of city square, and were told to go to the Marriott across the street. Hamburger Allee, we later learnt, was the name of the street. On the square was a large board advertising various events happening in Frankfurt over the winter, and the first one made my eyes go huge -- a Linkin Park concert! I looked at the date, and my eyes popped even more -- 20th! It was the 20th there, albeit almost over. Then I looked at the month -- and sighed. 20/1/08 was the date. A month from then. Just my luck! I'd been pondering if I could go to the concert and put it on the Air India tab (I felt vicious enough to do just that), but it obviously wasn't possible now.
We crossed the street, and finally entered the lobby of the Marriott. It was tastefully decorated, as all Marriotts are, and a cheerful man named....hmm, I've forgotten, something like Heinrich or something, greeted us at the counter.
Our registrations were processed quickly, thank goodness. I was starting to feel like I couldn't stand on my feet much longer. I grabbed the room key from Heinrich -- I was assigned room 3807 -- and waited for Anita and the Shrutis to get done, so we could all go up together. Anita and I were assigned rooms across the hallway, so we told each other to let the other one know if something came up. And I retired to my room.
It was a pleasant one, with, what pleased me, a 110V electric socket, so I could use my laptop! Unfortunately, it had a European 3-pin socket, and I definitely couldn't fit the plug of my charger into that. So I let it go, and let my backpack slide off my shoulders, and fell into the bed. It was thick and springy, and I could feel the tiredness creep out of my bones. After sometime of lying there like a corpse, I finally mustered enough courage to explore around the room. I freshened up in the bathroom, and went and peeped outside the window for a view of the outside world. It was dark outside, but the lights on the streets were visible as a bright golden snake far, far below. I turned away, and went out and knocked on Anita's door.
"Heard anything?" I asked.
"Not about the flight," she said, "But there's a dinner for us."
I went down with her, pleased. I've always wanted to try German cuisine. I went to the restaurant indicated, looked at the menu, and felt my jaw drop. It was American! Burgers and fries and Caesar salads and chicken tenders, all out of an American bar. I half expected to see chicken enchiladas on the menu. Stunned, I closed the menu card to look at the name of the restaurant. Champions' Bar, it said, adorned with the picture of a baseball player. I closed my eyes.
"What are the odds," I said, turning to Anita, "That we would get stuck in Germany, and then walk into a restaurant, and find the same dinner we eat every night?"
She laughed. "Low, indeed," she said.
Another man sitting with us informed us that this was the largest Champions' Bar in Europe. I looked around. It didn't look all that massive to me, but then, maybe things are smaller in Europe. The waiter came up to us, and asked us if we wanted any drinks. Everyone ordered their stuff. I had a hard time explaining mine.
"A Bailey's Irish Cream," I told him.
He was confused. "Bailey's?" he said.
"Irish Cream?"
"Bailey's Irish Cream?"
"Yeah, that's right!" I beamed.
"Do you mean Bailey's Irish coffee?"
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, thinking if that's what I wanted, why would I ask for an Irish Cream, moron?
"Irish Cream," I emphasized the latter part.
"We don't have that," he said, still confused. He called out to his friend behind the bar. "Hey, Michael, do we have Bailey's Irish Cream?"
"I don't think so," his pal replied. "Do you mean Irish coffee?"
"No!" I called back. "Irish cream!"
"No, we don't have that," said Michael, shaking his head. He brightened up. "But we can give you Irish coffee if you want it!"
"No thanks," I said, making a face. Coffee? At what was then 1:30am? Give me a break!
Then the waiter interjected, "But if you just want a Bailey's, we can give you that," he said.
"Yeah, that would be good," I said, and the moment he was gone, leaned against the table, my energy sapped. When the drink came, I was so exhausted, I almost gulped it down in one go -- and felt my head swim. I slowed down after that, but I couldn't deny, it was really good. I ordered something after that, I don't remember what -- pesto pasta, I think -- and retired to my room for the night. The first night in Frankfurt! And I remember hoping it would be the last as I sank into the depths of sleep, the last thing on my mental retina being the pale lights filtering in through the filmy curtains on the window...
(to be continued....)

A German Adventure - Part I

2008-02-10T10:14:00.000-08:00

There aren't too many places I have visited in my (relatively) short life. I've been to a few cities in India, and Austin and San Antonio here in Texas. That's about it. For a person who's great ambition in life is to visit at least a 100 different countries before dying, I have visited remarkable few. Two was the number till December 2007 -- but I could add Germany to the list, thanks to Air India and their incompetency.
Air India is the international carrier for India, and, as any seasoned passenger would know, the worst airline ever. It's hard to remember the last time someone traveled Air India without hassles. Delays, accidents, rude flight attendants, no food -- Air India has it all. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when the new incident came up. That didn't stop me from being furious, however.
The date was 19 December 2007, and I was returning home to Mumbai after almost a year and a half. I was dying to see my parents and my kid sister, and meet friends. And, to top it all, I was tired and stressed, and severely sleep-deficient, thanks to a crazy hectic semester at UT. On 19 December, I took the American Airlines flight from Austin to Chicago, and waited at Chicago for almost 4 hours, till the next flight -- Chicago to Mumbai via Frankfurt. When the boarding for Air India started on time, I was actually stunned. Still -- why should I complain, right? I boarded the plane.
The take-off time was 7:05pm. That time came and went, and still the low drone of the engines hadn't changed to the high-pitched whine I was expecting. Sitting next to me was an old couple, who asked me whether I was from Hyderabad. On hearing my negation, they seemed utterly disappointed. The old man started talking in broken English and Hindi, telling me about his doctor son in Chicago, and another daughter working someplace else. I nodded my head, telling myself to calm down. The one thing I absolutely hate on long flights are chatty passengers -- and these two looked like they might keep talking all of the 17 hours and 30 minutes it would take to reach Mumbai. I calmed my breathing, and looked out of the window (I always take window seats, mostly to escape from precisely such passengers), and cursed my luck. I had hoped to get a cute boy next to me, and instead got straddled with a talkative old couple, who were anything but cute. I called up my Mum, and told her that the plane was ready to leave, and added that I might not be able to call from Germany, since I didn't have any euros, and didn't want to go hunting around the airport for a calling card.
The phone interested the old couple. They gave me a number, and told me to dial it. I didn't have a lot of minutes on my cellphone, so was a little peeved (which, in hindsight, was extremely mean of me, but I was losing my patience). I dialled it, and the two of them gabbed on forever in a language I assumed was Telugu, and every passing minute made me yell out, "Enough! I don't have enough minutes!" But something told me they would ask me to explain that statement, and besides, I had to spend 17 hours with these two, and getting off on the wrong foot probably wouldn't be the smartest thing, so I kept my mouth shut and my temper in check.
Finally, the whine of the plane's engines changed pitch, and the craft left the gate, and taxied out onto the runway. As the whine increased in pitch, I saw white smoke billowing out of the left engine (the wings were right outside the window). I looked at it horrified, and the whine went down again. A few people milled around the wing, and I thought, there goes the take-off! But, after some 20 minutes of fiddling around, the plane's engines sounded up again, and the plane began taxiing. We're taking off? I thought in disbelief, and looked at the white wisps trailing around the engine, but the pilot seemed confident, and who was I to know better, right? So the plane took off the ground, passing over one of the Great Lakes -- Lake Michigan, perhaps? Before flying out over Montreal. And the journey had begun.
The stewardesses served food, which was awful, as usual, but I was hungry so I ate it without too many complaints -- the last thing I'd had was a bottle of Starbucks Frappucino at 7 in the morning -- I hadn't had anything to eat in over 14 hours! After the food, the crew told us to go off to sleep like good children -- something that annoyed me, because I was reading Jonathan Kellerman's Time Bomb, and wanted to read on further. I decided to switch on the overhead light, but in true Air India fashion, the entire panel to switch on the light, call the stewardess, and other such delightful things, didn't work. Not even one button. I almost wept, and put aside my book, and closed my eyes. I can't usually sleep on airplanes, but the long and tiring semester had worn me out enough to lull me to sleep even on a rickety, jolting Air India plane. The last thought in my mind, just before I drifted off, was Please God, let me get to Mumbai in one piece!
The next thing I knew, the airplane lights were on, and the stewardesses were serving fruit juice. The pilot was announcing that we would be landing in Frankfurt shortly. I woke up with a horrible crick in my neck, and couldn't straighten my neck for some time. When the pain eased, I looked up to see the stewardess glaring at me. "What juice do you want?" she barked at me.
I was at the limits of my patience by now. "Apple juice," I told her curtly. She sighed, and looked at her cart. "I don't have it," she said, making a face.
This annoyed me. I know they have plenty of stock of everything in their little pantries, or whatever they are. "I don't care," I told her coldly. "I want apple juice, and nothing else." And, as a dismissing motion, I returned to my book.
I don't know what effect it had on her, but after some time, she came back, wielding a carton of apple juice, and unceremoniously thrust a glass at me. I accepted it without thanks. I think that was the worst behaved day I've ever had! But she was so asking for it.
We finally started swooping lower and lower, and the old couple next to me looked at me in alarm. I was a little alarmed myself, mind you -- I've traveled plenty of times in airplanes, and they never make jumps like this one was doing. My mind flew back again to the smoke billowing out of the engines, and I chased the thought out of my mind. I looked outside the window, and saw the beautiful forests on the outskirts of Frankfurt, all covered in snow. It looked beautiful. Then the plane gave another jump, and was soon flying over cute little houses, and then, over the runway. Something told me to back away from the window, while the plane was landing -- and was I glad I did! It landed with a terrible thump on the runway, and tilted over wildly onto the side I was sitting on, till the wing nearly touched the ground. Ok, this is it, my last day on earth, I thought to myself, but the plane miraculously righted itself, and taxied to a stop to gate B-43, I believe the number was.
We filed out of the plane, exhausted, and in my case, unnerved. Air India told us to amuse ourselves for 40 minutes, while the plane readied for take-off again, so I started exploring. Frankfurt's airport -- Flughafen, I believe it's called in German -- is a pretty place, and looked even prettier because it was all decked up for Christmas. I looked around the various duty-free stores, the most intriguing ones being the electronics store (though I turned my nose up at it later because it had an iPod shuffle for 99 euros -- ridiculous! It only costs $79 in the US), and a Chanel store. I picked up a bottle of Chanel No 5 reverently, and delicately sniffed the top of the bottle. It smelt heavenly. I didn't even dare ask the price, so I moved on.
After about 40 minutes, all the passengers had assembled at the gate, only to hear from the pilots that the plane had been delayed for an hour. We all groaned, and looked out at the runway, visible from the gate. The plane stood like a lumbering giant, while people milled around it, mostly Lufthansa technicians in yellow jackets. Something deep inside my gut told me we'd be there for more than the one hour Air India promised, but still, I forced myself to relax, and not hyperventilate. I'm usually calmer in a crisis, but my mental stability was already shot to bits by the harrowing semester I'd just escaped miraculously unscathed, so it didn't take much to work me up. I looked nervously at the pink T-Mobile pay phone in the gate area, but there was a huge line in front of it, mostly large Indian men toting golden credit cards, so I steered clear, and instead tried to lose myself again in the book I was reading. I was actually getting involved in the story, and had just reached the part where the hero, Dr. Alex Delaware gets a blinding insight into the mystery, when there was another announcement from Air India -- the flight would now be delayed by 3 hours. By now the passengers were, in PG Wodehouse's words, "not quite disgruntled, but far from being gruntled". They were annoyed. They cast poisonous glances at the Air India staff. They muttered. They cursed. And they started bonding. I luckily found younger people to bond with, and managed to (temporarily) ditch the old hounds who'd been following me since Chicago. I met two girls, both a year older than me, and both called Shruti (one of whom, coincidentally, turned out to be an ex-classmate of a friend of mine from UT), and a girl called Anita, a little bit older than me, working in San Jose. As it turned out, I was the youngest person there traveling alone. It made me feel like a bit of a martyr.
After about two hours, Air India made another announcement -- the plane would now be taking off at 11:30pm German time. It had landed at 11:30am German time. This time there were actual howls of protests, but of course the staff turned a deaf ear to us. They managed to pass out coupons for food, and then vanished. I wanted to tear up the coupons. I wanted to go home! I didn't want free food! (I had enough of that as a grad student anyway :P ) I joined the line leading to the T-Mobile phone, and looked at my cellphone wistfully. I have a T-Mobile cellphone, but didn't enable roaming on it, so wouldn't be able to use it there. When I finally got my turn, I managed to call up my parents, spoke to my Mum for 3 minutes, and gave her a concise summary of what'd been happening -- and told her not to expect me for another day at least! When I finally put the receiver down, I overheard someone say that the calls cost $24 a minute. I actually blanched, for I had just $96 on my Checking account before setting off for home. As I exited the line, I was beckoned over by my two favorite passengers -- the old couple.
"How did you call, beta?" the man asked.
"Uh -- I called from that pay phone over there, and used my credit card," I told him truthfully.
"Isn't your cellphone working?"
"No," I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. If it did, why would I spend so much on a pay phone?
"I need to call my son," he told me.
"Mm-hmm," I said, fighting to keep my face expressionless. I knew what was in the works.
"I only have rupees," he informed me further.
"Oh, really."
"Yes! Can I use it to call my son?"
"I doubt it," I told him. "You need euros, or a credit or calling card."
"I don't have euros," he told me.
I refused to take the bait. "You can get it exchanged over there," I said, pointing helpfully. "There, the counter over there."
"But I don't know how."
"Just give them the rupees, and they will give you an equivalent amount in euros."
"What if I don't have enough rupees?"
"Then you can ask Air India," I said, my temper running short.
"And how did you call, again?"
"I used my credit card."
"I don't have a credit card."
"Too bad," I said, and picked up my book.
He must've felt me escaping from his grasp, for the next question took my breath away. "Can I take you credit card?"
My jaw dropped open. I knew he was desperate, but such audacity! "Hell, no!" I said. Well, I actually just said "No," but my inner-me cried out "Hell no!" in anguish. "It's extremely expensive, and I don't have much money left."
He gave me a betrayed look, and went off to the exchange counter. I felt slightly guilty, but was too strung out by now to care. I picked up my backpack -- my only carry-on baggage -- and went exploring the airport again. The bag cut into my shoulders, for I had packed it with books -- two Jonathan Kellerman novels, two Alex Rider novels, six Ghost Hunt mangas, and two Fruits Basket mangas. Also in the bag was my laptop, my charger, my camera, and other random interesting things that probably made my bag weigh more than 6 kilos. I was puffing by the time I reached the next level, where I found a McDonald's. Since that looked like the only place that served chicken, I entered. The menu was the standard American menu, except they served apple strudel as well, and the prices were in euros. I grabbed chicken nuggets, coke, apple pie and fries, and found myself a seat next to the window, where I could see the planes arrive and depart. Even as I watched, a Royal Jordanian glided silently into its designated place. It was pitch dark outside, with only the airport lights providing any sort of illumination at all. The Air India plane was missing -- it had been taken back to the hangar.
I savored the meal, wondering whether it would be the last in a long time. The airport looked beautiful, with Christmas lights glowing, and everyone in a cheery mood. There were constant announcements, of which the only words I understood were "Achtung!" and "Flug". But Flug AI 126 was never announced. I looked at the arrivals/departures board. Flights were displayed to every country, but India -- there were flights to Canada, Dubai, Malaysia, Australia, France, England, Ireland, Italy....but India was missing. I returned to my faithful book. It was all that gave me solace in the strange new world. I think had it been an English-speaking country, my anguish would've been reduced at least slightly; but everyone was speaking in German, even the two little blond boys traveling with their mother. One of them eyed my iPod, but when I smiled at him, he turned away, as if I'd somehow offended him. I sighed, and looked at my watch for what must've been the billionth time that day. It was still just 6pm.
After another 50 or so pages (much to my woe, I read fast) I heard someone conversing in Gujarati. I looked up to see a family which had been on board the aircraft with me. They were two young boys, maybe in high school, traveling with their mother. One of the boys, a plump kid with round glasses, was earnestly telling the other one that computer security was the way to go. At this, I couldn't resist butting in. "Did you say computer security?" I said.
The plump one looked at me suspiciously. "Yes," he said.
I couldn't resist showing off. "I'm doing my Masters in computer security," I told him with an air of superiority.
That got his attention. "Wow, seriously?" he said, and started off, telling me how cool hacking was. I in return told him how, once, as part of my course project, we had to "hack" into a website the professor had created, to demonstrate cross-site scripting. The boy's eyes were huge. I was smirking, when he remarked, "Wow, this is so cool, I've never met a female geek before!" That wiped the smirk off my face. "There are plenty of us," I told him, slightly offended. He hurried to assure he he didn't mean any offense. It turned out he and his friend had just graduated from high school, and were new freshmen at some college I don't recollect in Chicago.
We were chatting along, when another Air India passenger came over excitedly. "Didn't you hear?" he said. "They're giving us visas!"
We sprang up. This had been another touchy point with us. All those passengers with American or German passports, and later, those with green cards, had been allowed to go to a nearby hotel, while we unfortunate ones had to stay put in the airport. Now it looked like we might finally be allowed out! A cheer rose from the crowd, and we all crowded to the exit that Air India indicated. It looked like we would finally be out of the airport-jail!
(To be continued....)

Mumbai's local trains

2008-02-04T07:18:00.000-08:00

Traveling in Mumbai's local trains is an experience one must have during one's lifetime. Seriously. Where else would you find 100 people squeezed into space meant for two, and still managing to play card games, shell peas, sell jewelry and even sing religious songs? If you live in Mumbai -- or Bombay, as I still prefer to call it -- you have to have traveled at least once in a local train. Or you're not a Mumbaikar.
I recently went back home to Bombay for a month (well, slightly lesser than that, but who's counting?), and managed to travel in the trains. My parents were dead set against it, mind. They firmly believed that after traveling in the CapMetro buses of Austin, I would find it hard to travel in the chaotic locals of Bombay. (It's actually the other way round, but I didn't want to sit and explain all that -- I had a train to catch!). So off I went to Victoria Terminus (VT), now renamed to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) during the renaming heydays of the Maharashtra government.
There's a train from the place where I live, Vashi, to VT, every 5 minutes. However, I was planning to go at 9am, and at that time, even getting a meter within the train's radius requires superhuman powers. Determined office-goers, chirpy college kids, bratty school kids -- all of them push, shove, kick and elbow their way to the train, so that the mere mortals traveling merely for the heck of it get thrown all the way to the back of the line. There are three start points for trains traveling to VT on the Harbor Line -- from Panvel, Belapur and Vashi. It's insanity trying to even look into the trains leaving from Panvel or Belapur, so I contented myself waiting for a Vashi train.
It came soon enough. The local train system is super-efficient, I'll give you that! I got in, feeling like a bit of a stranger since I hadn't ridden in one for over a year, and grabbed a seat. Now that's another task requiring some show of strength and cunning and speed and agility. You basically hurl yourself into the still-moving train, and, if you happen to spy an empty seat, you use all your wiles to get to it before another person can. In this case, since I was in the women's compartment, I competed with the women to grab the seat I saw. I managed to beat a plump lady wearing enough jewelry to open up a store, and a sharp-faced skinny woman who gave me the evil eye to the seat, and sank down, and immediately shoved the earbuds of my iPod into my ears and turned up the volume loud enough to hurt so I could block out the curses aimed my way.
The train started moving. I actually felt moved when I saw for the first time in over a year the view from the train window. Right outside Vashi station is the Thane creek. It's a thin body of water stretching from Thane all the way to Nhava Sheva, the port. The train bridge built over it was the first to connect the island of Bombay to Thane district, I do believe. I love the creek, and used to hang out of the train to get a glimpse of it when I was a college student. For some reason, I associate the creek with cricket. A crazy thought, isn't it? I think it's because I used to watch cricket matches live from New Zealand just before I left for college at 7:30am (since the country is 7 and a half hours ahead of India, the matches used to start really early). I used to watch usually till the tea break, and then leave for college, and all the way, I'd be contemplating on the various outcomes of the match, even more so if my favorite cricketer Shane Bond would be playing. I think that's why I associate the creek with cricket.
Anyway. Once the creek is past, there really isn't much to look forward to on the train journey -- except for the antics of my fellow passengers. That day, there happened to be a college girl, a loud woman and her sister-in-law and baby, a tired-looking bai (maid), and the ubiquitous macchiwaali (fisherwoman). These macchiwaalis are quite a race. They are the loudest, most voluble of passengers traveling in the train. They carry with them a straw basket, in which they ostensibly carry the fish, though I've seen the fish only once. These baskets are usually dripping with some kind of gray-ish water, so people tend to give them a wide berth. They dress in that style so typical to the macchiwaalis , with the saris drawn between their legs, dhoti-style. The one opposite me had a paan in her mouth, the juice oozing out of one corner of her mouth, making her look like the victim of assault and battery. She had an enormous red tikka on her forehead, her hair drawn up tightly in a knot. She kept talking throughout, though I'm pretty sure no one was paying her any attention (including me -- I had my iPod going). The college girl next to her shot her dirty looks which went unnoticed. What did not go unnoticed was my iPod -- an iPod is still a rarity in India, at least in the women's compartment of the local trains, and feeling numerous hungry eyes upon it, I clutched my precious possession close to me and guarded it like a dragon.
There are 14 stations between Vashi and VT: Mankhurd, Govandi, Chembur, Tilak Nagar, Kurla, Chuna Bhatti, Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar, Vadala Road, Sewri, Cotton Green, Reay Road, Dockyard Road, Sandhurst Road, and Masjid. The last one is VT. At each station there is a seething mass of humanity struggling to enter the train. It's actually fun watching -- unless you're one of the hapless ones caught near the door, in which case you get enough abuse to turn your hair white, and numerous threats of bodily harm, most often, to throw you off the train while it is gathering speed. It's all just bark, though. No one, to the best of my knowledge, has ever actually acted out on these threats.
Another interesting fixture in the trains, at least in the women's compartment, is the various sellers who enter it. They are usually young-ish women, maybe in their late twenties or early thirties, carrying their wares. The most popular ones are the jewelry and vegetable sellers; but other vendors can do good business too, if they're enterprising enough. Once, one of them actually got me to buy a glue stick from China. I was struggling to file my papers (this was back when I was in college), and a few of them kept sneaking out. The sharp-eyed vendor, a girl not much older than me, immediately came over, and tried to impress upon me the importance in my life of a pale blue glue stick with Chinese letters on it. I tried to convince her that I didn't need it, and she tried to convince me that I did. Finally, just to get rid of her, I bought one for 5 rupees. I threw it in my backpack, sure that I'd never need a questionable glue stick (what if my papers dissolved in it?). Strangely enough, that very week, I needed to glue something together, and the stick actually came in handy. And no, the papers didn't dissolve.
I couldn't listen to any of the conversations, unfortunately, for I had Matt Costa going full volume in my ears with These Arms. But it was fun looking at the animated expressions of the women commuters! They tend to have three types of expressions -- the happy, I don't care for anything type; the indifferent, exhausted type; and the belligerent type. These are the ones you steer clear of, incidentally. If you go and try to make conversation with one of the belligerent ones, you're just asking for trouble.
All this I observed with a half-smile on my face (I was hoping that people would think it was because of the song, not because of them), until the train went past Masjid. Masjid looks like the most ancient station along the Harbor Line, possibly because it hasn't been renovated ever since it was built. After Masjid, the train runs along between some buildings, which gives way to flowery patches on both sides of the track, which gives way, suddenly, to an enormous area consisting solely of train tracks -- that's when you know you've arrived! Then everyone on the train gets in a queue, pushing and shoving, though everyone knows that no one else can get off when the train's halted, and everyone is going to get off at that point, anyway. Pushing is the just part of the fun. It's not serious pushing, mind you -- just some good-natured jostling that's part of the daily Mumbaikar routine.
And when the train halts at VT station, everyone gets off in a rush. This is what happened that day as well -- the entire crowd just melted out of the train, and before I knew, VT was deserted -- in a manner of speaking. I plopped my earbuds out of my ears, and went to find a place to stand where I could wait for my friend. I was chased away by all kinds of people -- the ticket checkers, the food vendors, the passengers, the shoeshine boy -- even a beggar! Finally I found myself an inoffensive spot to wait, and did so, until my friend arrived, watching till then the ebb and flow of humanity with the arrival and departure of the various trains pouring in from all parts of Bombay.
And that's what a ride in the local trains of Bombay feels like!

Back to school.....for the last time!

2008-01-26T08:59:00.000-08:00

It's almost strange to know that this is the last time I'll be writing the words "back to school." Of course, if I do follow up on a whim on a PhD or an MBA (one of my two career choices), or if I do what my heart wants deep inside, and get a BFA/MFA in Drawing and Painting, then this ain't the last time I'm writing those words. But that remains to be seen, and for the foreseeable future, it's back to school for the last time.
I thought Spring 2008 was shaping up to be the most hectic semester for me, for I'd taken a CS grad course on a credit/no-credit basis, and that's a big no-no in grad school. It won't count toward the Program of Work I'll need to produce in May this year to graduate. But through a lucky string of incidents, this semester has suddenly become the lightest ever, with me having to take only two courses! Well, there's a third one -- CS 398T, Supervised Teaching -- but, as everyone knows, it's a register-and-you-get-the-credits course. For, ladies and gentlemen, meet the latest TA at UT -- moi!
Yes, I've been appointed as a Teaching Assistant this Spring. I'll be TAing the course CS 349, Contemporary Issues in Computer Science -- one of the coolest courses offered by the CS department this Spring, one that, had I not been TAing for it (and had it not been an undergrad course), I might have well registered for it. It deals with the legal issues, ethics and moralities related to computer science today. Enticing! I've always been very interested in all that. I sat for two of the classes, and they were both interesting enough to keep me captivated, in spite of being the last class at the end of a very long day! I even know some of the students -- some of them are members of the UT chapter of ACM, and hang out in Taylor basement most of the time. They're a brilliant bunch, these kids.
I'm also registered for CS 388L Intro to Math Logic (boring!) and CS 386S Network Protocol Security (security! Yay!) I love security, and don't even need to strain to understand what's being taught in class. IML, on the other hand, is one of those courses I'll probably end up straining through. Sigh! Thank goodness I have only two courses to concentrate on.
And, that's the round-up for the first week of school. Let's see how the rest of the semester progresses! With IML studies to keep up with, and assignments for the undergrads to be graded, it definitely ain't gonna be a walk in the clouds. It's going to be an interesting last semester all right!

An all-nighter

2007-12-08T20:50:00.000-08:00

An all-nighter is something every grad student goes through. It's an essential part of the grad school experience. I firmly believe that you haven't really graduated from grad school unless you've pulled an all-nighter. And that's what I'm doing right now.
So what is an all-nighter? As the name suggests, it's spending the entire night in school, working in some way. You might be coding (which is what I do during my all-nighters); you could be studying; you could be working for your professor if you're an RA or a TA. You could be doing a bunch of things, but essentially, you need to spend an entire night doing that. And some of the things essential for a night-out include:
(a) A friend. It's absolutely unbearable doing a night-out alone. In fact, you probably can't. Attempting to do one is exactly what the name suggest: an attempt. It's highly unlikely it will be done.
(b) Food. When your stomach growls at 3 in the morning, and you realize that Wendy's closed by now, and the only option is Kerbey Lane Café well over 15 minutes away, you get a newfound appreciation for food. At this point, even Doritos seem appetizing.
(c) Coffee....lots and lots of coffee. When I do a night-out, I need about a gallon of coffee to survive. Unless I need to turn in the code the next day, and I've got maybe 5 lines of code written on the screen and nothing working, in which case the fear of getting an F is enough of a caffeine shot to keep me awake till the deadline (I do not recommend this though, because the next day in class you look like a zombie, and the professor and the TA both catch you napping in class).
(d) Music. I find music does wonders to stop you from tearing your hair or hurling your hapless laptop to the ground. I need to have my trusty iPod by my side to feel even half-complete. Then again, there are bad moments. When your code suddenly fails after all the blood and sweat you've spent on it, and you hear Muse howling "This is the end...." in your ears, it doesn't really do wonders to your morale.
(e) Your blog. Yes. Your blog -- writing into a blog can do wonders to help maintain your sanity. If you don't have a blog, then hope to have some friends online in some remote corner of the globe with whom you can chat to stay in touch with the outside world.
(f) YouTube. After you've coded for ages, and your code is stubbornly refusing to compile, you can relax a lot by watching ridiculous videos on YouTube, like this one. God bless YouTube.
And those are my pointers to spending a successful night out in Taylor (though, of course, this can be applied anywhere else). I have to start playing around with some Graphics code, which needs to be shown on Monday to the TA and the professor. I just saw another of my Graphics classmates, a boy called Stephen, coding away furiously in one corner of Taylor lab.
I'm not actually in Taylor lab right now. I'm in Sandhya's office, Sandhya being my roommate and one of my best friends. Ruchica, another of my friends, is talking to me right now (and probably getting annoyed because I'm responding to her answers with grunts, concentrating instead of getting this entry out tonight). We just returned from dinner at Kerbey Lane, and I think the waitress gave a small sigh when she saw us. We really must be infamous among the late-night restaurants here in Austin!
Anyway, I shall return to my code, and hope to get something more than a white blob of cloth render on the screen. Till then, adios!

A terrible exam

2007-12-06T21:52:00.000-08:00

You know how there are these exams that just make you wonder why you're even alive? Well, I had one of those recently. It was the Graphics final exam, and those who've been following my blog would know that I'm not exactly getting straight-A's in the course. Let's quit kidding.....I'll be lucky if I even pass the course!! I've really had issues with it. And if all that wasn't bad enough, a few days earlier, we had to take the dreaded final exam in that.
The first page actually didn't give an inkling as to the terror the rest of the exam would be. I felt quite happy on seeing 5 true-false questions, and sat about solving them with a pleased smile. It was after I turned to the next question that the real fun began. And please note, I'm being heavily sarcastic here.
As I read through the next question, I had that vague feeling of dissociativity, and a slight buzzing in my ears. You know, the type you get when you switch on your computer one morning only to find an insidious virus deleted the entire operating system? That kind. I stared at the paper. I squinted. I tilted it against the light. I may even have smelt it, I was so flabbergasted at the question. I stole a glance around the class. I shouldn't have. Most of the students looked quite pleased, and were busy writing into their papers. I looked at the TA, perched on the table at the front of the class. He looked quite pleased with himself, whether for setting us a horrendous paper, or for some other reason, I'll never know. I groaned silently, and turned back to the paper.
I squinted again at it, hoping that something might spring out at me. I think I even silently considered heating the paper to see if any invisible ink stood out, something that would make a little more sense that what the question was currently making. But apart from the fact that there was no heater in the room, I had to finish the paper in 75 minutes, so I didn't spend any more time planning my obituary, and instead, tried to tackle the paper.
Note the use of the word "tried". I think I finally managed to put some kind of strange symbols on the paper, hoping they'd be correct. I then flipped to the next question. It made a little more sense, so I started off. But even as I scribbled the answers, I knew I had nowhere near enough time to complete the paper, so I started sweating again. Please, God, at least let me complete a third of the exam! I thought desperately. I somehow managed to write something before the TA called out time, and collected back all the papers.
I was actually mollified to hear later that everyone had a torrid time on the exam. All the same, it's an experience I'd rather never repeat again!

The cutest boy

2007-12-06T21:40:00.000-08:00

I have a crush on the cutest boy in UTCS.
His name is....well, never mind. I haven't let him know yet that I have a crush on him, and I don't want him to find out through my blog! But he's tall, and blond, and athletic, and just all-out gorgeous. I hadn't noticed him until recently, and when I did -- whew! It was like one of those anime reactions, where your jaw drops lower and lower, and your heart goes, as in the mangas, 'doki doki'. (I believe that's Japanese for a pounding heart). Since then I've been absolutely stalking the poor chap!
Well, not really. I haven't been hounding him at his apartment, or standing outside his classes (I don't even know what classes he's registered for). But whenever I get a chance to steal a glance at him, I do so. He's a graduate student like me, and I've taken to inhabiting the graduate student lounge a little more than I like, just so I can run into him. I can't believe myself -- I've never really been this serious about a boy before. But this one is something all right!
I saw him today, just before my class. Graphics is a class I'm not 100% keen on, since I don't really have an aptitude for it (security is more my thing!). I was groaning and leaving Taylor, when he passed me. I did a double take, and then did my usual stare act. He didn't notice me staring, thankfully. He smiled vaguely, and my heart gave another leap, and I spent the next 75 minutes in class replaying the smile in my mind and sighing in the most lovestruck manner imaginable!
And before I give away any more clues as to who he is, I think I should end here, and hope that I can actually summon up the courage to talk to him sometime instead of just stealing glances, sighing, rabidly drooling over him, and just going crazy!

Waiting for home!

2007-11-12T16:18:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year, when every grad student is gearing up for the craziest time in the semester...and freedom! It's just a few weeks now till the end of the Fall semester, and a crazy one it's been, too! I can't deny I'm one of the said grad students, eagerly waiting to be released from this madness. The pressure's all building up. It will head to a peak during Thanksgiving weekend, then might abate slightly as Thanksgiving begins. It will build up again quickly once school starts again, and hit boiling point, until we're all crying out for release, at which point it will suddenly relent with the end of the semester, and we all can go home.
If, however, last year's any indication, this is how Thanksgiving will go: on Wednesday evening, I will relax, thinking that there's 4 whole days to work. On Thursday morning, I will relax, thinking there's 3 more days to work. On Friday, I'll probably head off for Black Friday sales, and when I get back, I'll be too tired to do anything. On Saturday, I'll feel guilty, but groan the moment I open up a textbook, or an SSH session to the CS account. On Sunday, I'll feel incredibly guilty that I didn't do anything constructive over the entire weekend, but still slacken off, saying that how many times will I get to enjoy Thanksgiving, anyway? And thus will end my Thanksgiving weekend, with nothing done except sleep, relax, and enjoy life to the max. Shame on me.
After that, school's there for only 3 weeks or so. After that, I'll be off for home! I'm looking forward to that so eagerly, it's painful. Sigh!! So therefore, to distract myself, I shall plunge back into the (rather distasteful) world of Bezier curves and tensor patches, and hope to complete my Graphics homework by tonight!

Studying at the PCL

2007-10-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

Here I am, sitting tucked away in a tiny corner of the Perry Castaneda Library (PCL). It's the massive library of the University of Texas at Austin, and one of my favorite haunts. It's located on 21st and Speedway, right across the street from Jester (the residence hall) one one side, the McCombs School of Business on another, the University Teaching Center on a third, and the Blanton Museum of Art at the back. I love PCL. I used to come here earlier just for the books, but it also provides a very quiet, peaceful study area. I'm sitting right now on one of the couches at the southern end of the sixth floor. My legs are pushed up against another couch, my laptop balanced on my knees. I can see the reflection of a pair of denim-clad legs and white-and-blue Reeboks in the mirrored window opposite me. Outside the window is a stunning view of downtown. It's quite dark now -- it's 7:15pm -- and the only thing I can see outside is the lights of the city, and shadowy shapes of the buildings opposite. There is a huge tree right outside, although I cannot see it in the dark right now. Underneath its shade, I can often see people sitting, studying, or just lazing around. I'd like to do that, but (a) it's too dark now, and (b) it's too cold, and I only have a thin jacket with me tonight. Opposite, I can see the shadowy outline of Blanton (where I'd been for a Fine Arts Web Team meeting earlier in the day -- it's beautiful), and some vague lights behind it. Nightlights, maybe? I know the Blanton is closed on Mondays. Behind that are large, tall buildings. One of those is Brackenridge Hospital, though I can't see it right now. Beyond that, the buildings are too far away to make out even the shapes -- all I can see are bright oblongs of light pouring out of the windows. Far, far away, I can see some cars on the distant roads -- it's a beautiful sight. And lastly, I can see the large dome of the Capitol -- it looks beautiful! I can make out the shape of the dome, and the white pillars supporting it. The rest of it is obscured by a building -- probably one of the numerous parking garages dotting downtown. It's a beautiful sight, and I feel blessed that I live so close to the beautiful downtown.....

Fickle Texan weather

2007-10-22T18:56:00.000-07:00

Man! Talk about fickle! Texan weather beats 'em all hands down. I have given up trying to predict what it will be like tomorrow. Yesterday, it was a hot, humid day. The sun beat down on everyone, and it was muggy in the night. Tomorrow morning when I woke up, it was freezing! Well, not really freezing...more like bracing cold. But brrrrr! I had read something about today being a cold day on the internet, and had thankfully dressed for the day in jeans and two layers of clothing. Many of my friends weren't so fortunate. They were caught in the cold wearing short-sleeved shirts and T-shirts, and, even worse, shorts. The wind howled about all day, and the windchill was probably in the lower 40s. It was a very cold day today. I had cleverly worn a turtleneck, but the wind crept in even through that, making me shiver all the way to my workplace in the Fine Arts library. Now, normally the library is one of the coldest places on campus -- it may be steaming hot outside, but it's cold enough to give me goosepimples inside the library. Not so today. I actually breathed a sigh of relief on entering it, it was a respite from the cold!
After work, I shivered all the way from the FA library to Taylor Hall, which is where the Computer Sciences department is based. The cold crept up my nose, hurting my sinuses (I've had a sinus problem for ages). Even the squirrels seemed subdued today -- one little chap sadly gnawed on his acorn with apathy, and even the sight of me passing by didn't motivate him enough to spring away unlike his compatriots on normal days. I guess they are preparing for hibernation, and the unusually cold day caught them by surprise.
Taylor lab is a dark, gloomy basement with stacks of Linux and Sun machines lining the walls. It's usually freezing cold in there, and I need to often bring along a jacket even on the hottest days if I know that I'll be spending any amount of time in the lab. Not so today. I actually felt warm in the lab! I was stunned.
Yeah, it was a cold day all right! The tip of my nose froze on the way back home. I think it's going to be 88 degrees again tomorrow....that's Texan weather for you!

A crazy month

2007-10-18T17:42:00.001-07:00

It's been a very crazy month. In fact, ever since the semester started, it's been crazy. The sheer amount of studying I've had to do has been mind-numbingly immense, and I cam close to a nervous breakdown a few days back -- all thanks to Graphics (as I write this, I'm casting a baleful look at the textbook, 3-D Graphics by Alan Watt, lying next to me). No course has ever caused me as many problems as this one has. And, what frustrates me, we study only math, physics, and other abstruse concepts in the course, and nothing of creativity whatsoever. I've come close to yanking my hair out this past month.
We've had projects, and my word, were they awful! Well, the first one wasn't...but the second one most certainly was, and though I haven't had a look at the code yet, the third one also seems to uphold the tradition. I finally took the monumental decision today of converting the grading of the course to a credit / non-credit. I might have to take four courses next semester, but that sure beats getting a nervous breakdown, and only a C or worse to show for it.
But I didn't want to crib. I'm actually feeling pretty good right now. I've been working part-time at the Fine Arts Department at the University of Texas at Austin, as the assistant webmaster. For some time, I just had to make HTML or basic Coldfusion updates, which weren't bad at all -- I love visuals, and was more than happy to work on it, and arrange elements of the pages as I wished. But now, I'm doing my dream job -- security!
My boss, Jeremy, has asked me to help out with the security concerns of the Fine Arts website -- and has given me full permission to poke around, and try as many exploits as I can to try to hack into the FA system! How cool is that??! Right now I'm trying to implement a CAPTCHA for the Art and Art History website. CAPTCHAs are the strange twisted words that show up when you try to send potentially spamming material. They cannot be deciphered by machines, but can be read easily by humans, so they prove very helpful deterring spambots.
What I'm actually using is the reCAPTCHA -- which is a nifty little concept. It has two words, like the CAPTCHA, with a line running through them, like a strikeout (it prevents bots from using edge-detection mechanisms to deduce the word), and, the cutest concept of it all, the words come from scanned historical texts, so everytime someone uses a reCAPTCHA, they are helping translate a word that wasn't scanned in well and not recognized by the OCR readers at wherever they do the scanning. I had read about the idea sometime back in an issue of Wired magazine, and actually got to implement it! It's wonderful.
Well, that's enough rant for now. I'm dying of sleep (haven't slept more than 10 hours in the past 4 days), and still have a paper review to complete. So I shall get going, and return again some other day. Adios!

Long time, no see

2007-10-02T21:39:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's certainly been a long time since I last updated the blog! I don't think I've even seen the Blogger home page since 4th September -- which was the last time I did an update. Life's certainly been hectic! I have, for some reason, decided to pursue one of the heaviest courses at UT CS this semester, and am suffering as a consequence. But that's not what I was going to talk about.
There have been so many things happening, it's difficult to know where to start. Should I start with the swimming lessons I took? Or maybe with the hours of sleep I get each night? Or about the length of each program we students have to write for the Graphics course? Or the career fair that took place some time back? Or the trip to Mozart's I made with my friends a couple of days back? Hmm...how about a bit of everything?
It's been an interesting month since I last wrote, with quite a lot happening. Probably the most drastic things happening were the sleepless nights in Taylor lab, and the fulltime offer from Dell :) But there were other things happening too. I joined a swimming class for one! Now I'm one of those people who hyperventilate the moment the water level rises above their stomach. I did so during the first swimming class, and the instructor had to spend almost 25 minutes getting me to calm down. When I finally did, I gripped her arm so hard, I'm sure I left welts across it. But by the end of six lessons (five actually -- I missed one because I had too much work), I could swim across the pool using a kickboard. Not bad! Of course, I haven't returned to the pool in ages, so I might find myself thrashing about again if I'm lowered in the water.
But probably the starkest memory of the past month was the nights in Taylor lab. I decided to shoot myself not only in the foot, but in the head as well, by taking the hardest course offered by the CS department, Computer Graphics. Now, I have nothing whatsoever against the course or the professor. The professor is awesome, and the course is excellently designed. It's me that can't cope, I suppose. There's just too much math and too much hard-core programming for my liking. The student population is almost exclusively male, except for my roommate, Sandy, and me. All the boys are the studious, geeky types. There are a few Turing Scholars (undergrads) in the class. I'm sure the grad students are ex-Turing Scholars -- they seem the type. They're the ones who eagerly respond to any question posed, and come up with brilliant algorithms to solve the toughest problems, while I just gape at them, and wonder if there was ever the slightest chance of me getting any kind of solution, ever. Even the undergrads know more than I could ever hope to, and as for the grads, well, I have lost all hope of ever catching up with them. They're a fervent bunch -- people who probably go home and open up a visualization algorithm and worship it, or explain the intricacies of the Phong shading model and distributed ray tracing on dates. They scare me. We recently had a class by a guest lecturer, Dr Fussell (another Graphics guy), who looks like Robert DeNiro with a ponytail (and spouting vector algebra). He was talking about distributed ray tracing. I had slept only three hours the previous night, so it was a task of monumental proportions to just keep my eyes open. What heartened me, though, was two of the undergrads making faces at each other. At least I wasn't the only one completely lost! Dr Mark's classes are much better, and at one point, I used to positively look forward to them. Not any more. All we talk about is perturbation of the surface, and texture mapping, and the like. I could just cry.
The assignments for the Graphics class are another story worth telling. The first one entailed modifying a program that would make photographs look like impressionist paintings, to make them look even more impressionistic. I didn't sleep at all the night it was due, spending the entire night coding furiously. And, of course, two of the features didn't even work, earning me a C. Now the next project is due on Thursday, and I still find myself clutching my hair in despair, and wondering what on earth possessed me to take this course. I'm in Taylor lab right now, half-slumped over the computer, scowling at the screen and at the virtually undecipherable code in front of me. My only saviors are my three best friends sitting next to me (also coding miserably) and my trusty iPod.
In fact, I think I should probably return to the code, instead of typing away into a blog. Maybe the extra 5 minutes of coding might earn me a B next time.......

My 23rd birthday

2007-09-04T09:45:00.001-07:00

It was my 23rd birthday yesterday, 3rd September 2007. It was a nice, memorable one, in stark contrast to my 22nd, as miserable a birthday as you can imagine. But this post isn't about that....it's about my 23rd birthday.
I had an awesome time. It was a "surprise" party, planned by my friends. The actual party was on the 2nd at midnight. A large group of friends showed up, it was a super "surprise". (It's not like I didn't have an inkling of what was happening!) But I was still delighted by it. A couple of people invited couldn't make it (one of them had fallen asleep!) but everyone remembered my birthday. I was touched.
The party went on for an hour. There was laughter, jokes all around. I was amazed at how well-coordinated it all was. We thought about taking it out to the pool, but there was already another drunken party happening at the pool, with people throwing each other into the pool and laughing like crazy (the next day we discovered a shopping cart from HEB in the pool). Everyone started leaving at about 1. It was a wonderful party.
After bidding goodbye to everyone, I got a call from an unnamed number. "Hello?" I said, knowing it was probably from India. "Hey!" came the voice from the other side. "Happy birthday! I hope I calculated the time right! Please tell me it's midnight there?"
I laughed. It was my best friend from college, Sonal, from back home in Mumbai. "You're close," I said. "It's one." We had a good laugh, and a nice, long, leisurely chat. It capped off a nice night.
The next day, I went to the Apple store at Barton Creek mall to get my iPod fixed -- it had, for some reason, stopped working. My friends, Archana and Vaibhav, and I went to Serranos on Red River for lunch. The food wasn't anything to write home about, but the ambience was terrific. We were there till nearly four, and then left for the mall. On the way, it started raining. The rain escalated into a full-fledged downpour, the water just lashing down, which delighted me -- it has rained on my birthday, every year for the last 23 years, and this just continued the tradition!
The bus wound through the wet streets of Rollingwood, and halted at the mall. I marched into the Apple store (where the iPod, as is often the case, worked perfectly fine), and then back to downtown. Archana left then, and Vaibhav and I were joined by my roommate, Sandy. The three of us went in for a quick coffee at Starbucks, and then were back out, and decided to roam around Congress. We did so, taking in the brightly-lit stores, the beautiful tree-lined views, and, of course, Town Lake in the distance. We did walk upto Town Lake, and walked down to the old Congress bridge. It was lovely. By then it was getting dark, and I looked up expectantly to see bats, but didn't see any. We walked along the bridge for a while, enjoying the sights of the setting sun and the lights of South Austin reflected in the darkening water.
We then walked back to Congress, and walked back to Sixth Street. We walked along sixth for a while, watched a couple of live bands performing in the Irish Pub and Friends Cafe. Sixth was still lively, even on a weekday. We then caught the bus back to 32nd and Red River, and then walked to Star Seeds Cafe on the I-35 for dinner. I was too full to really appreciate dinner, but I did appreciate the time spent with my friends.
And so ended my birthday. We all walked back to our house (Sandy's and mine), talked for a while, and then parted ways. It was a lovely, memorable birthday -- and probably my last birthday as a student! I really enjoyed myself.

The Domain

2007-09-02T11:21:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, my friends and I headed to The Domain near Braker and Burnet, on the Mopac frontage, to do some shopping.
I'd heard about the Domain at Dell. It's a ritzy, exclusive shopping complex, with some good electronics stores -- I knew there were Apple and Sony stores there. There's also a Borders store there, which is what actually attracted me. It's my birthday tomorrow, and I wanted to do some birthday shopping there. So off headed me and two of my friends -- Sandhya (Sandy), my roommate, and Vaibhav, another friend (the guy in the photo alongside).
We caught the 3 to go up Burnet, and halt at Braker and Burnet. It was a pleasant day, so the trip felt rather nice. Even Burnet looked good for once -- I usually abhor the road, it looks horribly dry and dusty most of the time. As the bus hit US 183, pleasant memories of traveling to Dell every morning rushed back. I grew even more excited as we headed toward Braker. The bus turns at Braker, and goes along it. We got off opposite the UT TACC.
From there, it's a long walk to the Domain -- almost a mile, I'd say. It's a narrow, winding road, and gives hell to the pedestrians. Luckily, we were too enthused and in good spirits to count the close shaves we had narrowly avoiding being run down by passing cars. Prickly bushes scratched my bare ankles, and I fought the urge to let out growls of frustration.
Finally, we hit The Domain. The first store I saw was Borders, and I headed in as if pulled by a magnet. It was a large, two-story store, and I looked around in awe. In hindsight, it was probably smaller than the Barnes and Noble at Arboretum, but it certainly seemed huge!! I rushed over to the manga section, and grabbed Cantarella vol 5 and 6. It's one of my favorite mangas, and I'd searched everywhere for volumes after 3, and this was the first place I found it -- save Amazon, of course.
Sandy, Vaibhav and I went upstairs to the Seattle's Best cafe upstairs, and had a leisurely coffee milkshake. It was a nice place to hang about, even if we found a seat only after 15 minutes of glaring at people who occupied tables. We were in Borders for almost two hours, and left at about 6:30, deciding to see the rest of the Domain.
It's a pretty place. There is a long, tree-lined avenue, and flanking both sides of the road are stores. They are individual stores, not a huge mall -- I love stores like that. I hate malls. There were lost of stores -- Neiman Marcus, Apple, Sony, Puma, Macy's......the pricey types, the type of places you go to after you've started earning, not while you're a penniless grad student without any assistantships. I finally entered the Macy's store to get "something nice" for my birthday. I guess my usual dressing style isn't very "nice". I did get a very pretty blue shirt, gifted to me by my two friends. I'll wear that to the party tonight.
There was live music being performed in front of the little waterfall in the park sort of thing in front of the Sony store. It was a jazz band, and the three of us listened to the music for a while. It was beautiful, and we appreciated it.
We were in the Domain till almost 11. We left at 10:45 pm, caught a 11:04 bus back, and then went to Austin's Pizza on Guadalupe at almost midnight. We got back home at almost midnight.
It was a fantastic day, though....enjoyable all the more because I was with friends. And now I've struck another name off my list of things to see in Austin!

Back to school!

2007-08-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

Back to school! It seemed so far away and unlikely while I was doing my internship; but now that it's begun, it's very real. Oh, yes.....very real indeed!! A bit too much....it was rather overwhelming attending school for the first time in over three months yesterday. I hopped onto a UT shuttle, the bus itself making me feel that I was back in academia for the first time in a long time. The shuttle went through the streets of campus -- streets that had been deserted as little as two weeks ago, and now teeming with students. It finally halted at 23rd near the Littlefield fountain, and I got off.
I walked over to Taylor Hall, which is the administrative building for the Computer Sciences building, and into the graduate lounge. It was like coming home. The three terminals at the table opposite the door, the rows and rows of mailboxes, the couches and lounging chairs strewn about the room, the chipped and cracked foosball table, even the microwave and coffee maker in the corner -- all old and familiar. The internship was already starting to look like a distant (and pleasant) dream.
I walked out some time later for my first class, Artificial Intelligence. I'm not registered for it, but we can take classes -- "audit" -- at least till the 12th class day to make up our minds as to what courses to take finally. The outside world was a profusion of white teeth, shining hair and tanned limbs -- the undergrads were back. I was almost taken aback at the sheer volume of people on the streets -- though I was expecting it. They all laughed (hence the white teeth), talked, argued, or walked along silently, some even glowering, the tell-tale white wires of the iPod earphones trailing from their ears. The squirrels ferreted about for nuts, and scrambled nervously past the numerous thundering feet. School in all its full glory!
The first course was AI in Welch Hall, which is across the street of Speedway from Taylor. I walked in, dodging a bunch of giggling undergrad girls, and boisterous young men trying their hardest to land punches on each other -- interesting greeting ritual. The classroom was across the great hall of Welch, in a rather small room. I entered, and found a bunch of first-years looking around nervously -- first-year grads, that is. I love how important I feel around them! The class in itself wasn't bad. The professor cracked a lot of jokes, most of which were too sad to be laughed at, but I laughed hard, all the same, if nothing, then at the sheer absurdity of them.
The next thing on the agenda was the "tea party" in Taylor's Faculty Lounge. This tradition, which began I don't know when, is highly cherished by us grad students. We get free coffee, donuts and samosas, which are a great favorite. Often, it is the Americans who polish off the samosas, while we're left looking! It's fun seeing the sight when the box of samosas is delivered. The moment the box is lifted, there is a sudden explosion of hands around the box, and in under five seconds, the box is completely empty. I once almost broke a nail grabbing a samosa. I've pioneered the term "strategic positioning" -- sitting at the table where the samosa box is kept, so you can block the others while you grab as many as you want, even thought the rule says you can take only one. It's great fun.
The next class was undergrad Programming Languages. It was, for some obscure reason, in the Pharmacy building, in a tiny, dingy classroom with no windows and narrow doors -- and too many students. It's a popular course -- there are 30 students on the waitlist for it, the professor offering the course informed us -- but I didn't enjoy it much. For one thing, it is way below my level -- the only reason I had to take it up was because UT didn't accept the programming languages courses taught at the University of Mumbai, my undergrad institution. I was almost gasping for air by the time the class came to an end.
And, that was how the first day back at school ended. It's nice to be back at school, and I'm enjoying the atmosphere; but there is tension simmering in the atmosphere, and I know in a few days I'll be gasping for breath, wondering why on earth I ever took such-and-such course!! But, while it lasts, I'm gonna enjoy it to the fullest!

Lost

2007-08-17T17:42:00.001-07:00

I had to go to a Microsoft Silverlight presentation today. I had registered for it while I was still an intern at Dell, and didn't want to give up on it -- I genuinely wanted to learn more about Silverlight, besides which -- my main reason for going -- I'd get to meet my old team from Dell :) The presentation was at 3001 Bee Cave Road, and I accordingly took the 30 to Barton Creek Square Mall to get there. I got off at Walsh Tarlton and Bee Caves, and began walking.
I'd investigated it exhaustively the previous day on Google Maps, looking at the street map, the satellite map, as well as the hybrid map, making little notes to myself as to where the road curved, where the streets went, what direction I'd have to walk toward to get there....every little detail I could think of. And yet I managed to get completely lost.
I crossed Walsh Tarlton and then Bee Caves after a long bout of dodging the vehicles whooshing past at high speeds. I forced myself not to get distracted by the beautiful views at the place -- all mountains, exactly the way I like them -- and began walking along Bee Caves Road. Or thought I did.
The road seemed to get progressively narrower as I walked. I looked at the massive mansions with some foreboding -- the maps I'd seen the previous day had not indicated such a profusion of wealth. It had looked like a normal commercial complex on Google Maps. Still I walked on.
The number on a mailbox was what gave me an inkling that I might not be on the right path. It read 5110, and I looked at it uncertainly. Surely I didn't have to walk all the way to 3001 on this road? Cap Metro's trip planner had announced a walk of 0.5 miles. This looked like it might be 5 miles. I shook my head, and walked further. It was a very pleasant morning, all cloudy and cool. Ideal for getting lost.
Further ahead, two perky dogs that looked like Dobermans looked at me suspiciously through a gate, their pointed noses pointed toward me accusingly. I scuttled ahead nervously. A showdown with man-eating dogs was the last thing I wanted. I walked and walked, and walked some more, and then finally found a signpost, which read: Rollingwood Drive. I looked at it with dismay. Where was Bee Caves Road?? I looked back the way I'd come uncertainly. Maybe Rollingwood Drive was another name for Bee Caves? Just like Capital of Texas Highway is another name for Loop 360. I wavered between turning back and marching ahead, and finally, after a lot of humming and hawing, decided on the latter. Though I didn't really march. There was a lot more hesitation in my footsteps than there was before.
I walked further and further ahead, crossing even 4901, before I finally forced myself to admit that I just might be lost. I tried to remember the part of the road that the bus had passed through -- it passes through a part of Bee Caves Road. The road that I saw ahead of me didn't resemble it from any angle. I was in despair. The three other Rollingwood Drive signs I'd passed on the way couldn't be wrong. I was lost.
But how? I asked myself in anguish. I'd walked straight -- just as Google Maps had suggested. Finally, vociferously cursing the search company, I started walked back toward Walsh Tarlton. At least that was a known point, a place I could get a bus from. I looked at my cell phone, and looked tantalizingly at the phone number of one of my ex-teammates, ready to call him up and howl into the phone, "I'm loooooost!!!!!" But I didn't, and thought I might as well see out the end of the adventure. Besides, I remembered seeing a McDonald's on the way, and thought I might ask them where 3001 Bee Caves Road was.
The walk back to Walsh Tarlton wasn't as pleasant as the walk down it had been. For one thing, I was worried about never seeing home again (I tend to get rather melodramatic at such times). For another thing, it was all uphill, so my calves were beginning to ache slightly, as I walked back. As I reached the end of Rollingwood Drive, I saw a busy, major road that looked suspiciously like Bee Caves. I reached the road and looked at the sign there, and felt my jaw hit my feet with a thud. It was Bee Caves. Somehow, I'd managed to take a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Kicking myself mentally all the way, I began walking in the direction I'd seen on Google Maps. It was a terrible road to walk on, no sidewalk of course, and, in fact, not even any grassy shoulder where I could not get run over by a passing car, of which there seemed to be plenty.
As I crossed 3010, I saw what looked like a commercial complex on the other side. If that's 3001, I'll scream, I thought to myself.
Of course it was.
I couldn't really scream without being locked up somewhere for disturbing the peace, so I had to be content doing it in my head, and tried to cross the road, looking, for all in the world, like a scared rabbit. I finally managed it, and walked up the complex, which again sloped upward alarmingly. I was sure I was late -- the welcome time was 8:30 am, and it was getting on for 9 now. I walked up the road cautiously -- and saw one of my ex-teammates there. I almost flung myself on him with a cry of joy.
I was later mollified my knowing that all my teammates had got lost on their way to the place. So I wasn't the only one! All the same, it was a new experience -- and an interesting one.

Trudy's

2007-08-15T08:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, me and a friend of mine went to the popular Trudy's on 30th and Guadalupe. We went for dinner there, and thought that we'd have a nice, quiet dinner, especially since it was the middle of the week. Boy, were we wrong.
The path to Trudy's didn't prepare us for it. We walked along 32nd till Duval, and from there, switched to 30th till we hit Guadalupe. It was utterly quiet along the way, and we could even hear some distant crickets chirping in the background. A few fireflies flew about, little flecks of gold among the velvety dark night sky. The thin, reedy Waller creek made a few gurgles, but it was very, very quiet. Even the firefighters' place along the way was quiet -- no emergency on a Tuesday night.
As we approached Trudy's, though, we could hear a faint buzzing in the distance, like bees in a flowerbed. The buzzing turned out to be people's chatter. When we entered the restaurant, the cacophony hit hit us like a physical blast. I almost staggered back under the assault of the sound.
People were talking, laughing, yelling, chattering away, even crying. It was a scene worthy of a painting (maybe I will paint it!). As we waited for a table, four young people came in -- two boys, two girls. They looked drunk, their faces flushed, probably with drink. Their ha-ha-ha's echoed through the whole of Trudy's. Finally, after waiting for about ten minutes (and getting more and more uncomfortable with the quartet alongside us), the ruddy-cheeked, curly-haired guy who told us to wait came around and led us to our seats.
Inside, it was slightly quieter. Notice the stress on the word slightly. The din existed here, too....but to a slightly lesser degree. A gaggle of girls, probably younger than us, sat in a large group, laughing like hyenas gone wild. The drinks kept flowing at their table, our waiter rushing with multiple glasses of martini -- probably Trudy's famous Mexican Martini -- to their table. Every now and then there would be relative silence as one of them would tell something, and then the whole table would explode as everyone around found it hysterically funny. My friend and I rolled our eyes, and got on with our meal.
Behind us, there was a group of three boys. Every now and then, one of them would break out into a loud swear, and punch the other two on their arms. A minute later, they would all laugh together. It was rather unnerving, for they looked aggressive enough (and drunk enough) to really break out into an all-out fight. Luckily we left before things could get too physical.
The waiters rushed around trying to quell the increasingly demanding crowd. Our waiter, a plump man in a pin-striped shirt and khaki shorts, looked harried to death, but still maintained a cheerful smile on his face. A young lady, another waitress, swept her ponytail behind her, wiped her forehead once, and then went on with her task of serving to a huge party of nearly twelve people. I doubt anyone noticed her tired expression. There was another man with a belt around his waist, the type you use when you've pulled a muscle or something. He didn't let that deter him, as he cleaned the tables with remarkable dexterity. It was an interesting scene -- the people, all in high spirits, laughing and joking, and the tired waiters trying to keep it that way for them.
Hmm. Maybe I should try Mozart's next.....

Moving Part III

2007-08-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

The moving drama continued yesterday, with Phase Two now complete. For all those who don't remember, I had moved in with friends temporarily for 10 days, while my new apartment became available for moving in. It did, yesterday, and I moved in.
I was helped by my friends, who (I have to shamefully admit) carried more stuff than I did to the new apartment, Chaparosa. One of them had a car, luckily, so multiple trips under the sun weren't realized. They all helped me carry almost everything I owned into the new apartment, and now I'm all settled in. In a manner of speaking.
I still have everything to unpack. I was too lazy to do it yesterday, and am planning to go shopping for groceries now, so I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. I have to unpack my clothes (which shouldn't take long, since there aren't too many of them) and books (now that's the one I'm scared about -- there's waaaaay too many of them).
I like my apartment though. I like the stairs the best. Ever since I was little, I've always wanted a house with stairs in it. I spent half the day yesterday skipping upstairs and downstairs, and reveling in it, though my legs were starting to ache slightly toward the end of the day! I spent part of the day curled up in a little corner underneath the staircase, listening to Bob Marley, and just drifting away, almost imagining I was in Jamaica....until I looked outside the window, and saw a Capital Metro UT Shuttle ramble past!
It's been nice moving in. I guess I should get back to unpacking now.......

Home sweet office!

2007-08-08T14:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote!! I've been at training. Out team is undergoing training for WCF -- Windows Communication Foundation -- and I've been tagging along with them. It's not that the instructor is bad -- even I can see that he's excellent -- but most of the stuff has been going over my head. Initially I tried to pay attention (telling myself severely that I needed to do that anyway in a little over three weeks), but eventually my eyes started to glaze over. I was reminded of my incredibly boring Communication Networks classes at UT, where I was infamous for disturbing the class through some antic or the other -- usually crinkling candy wrappers loudly, or asking for cricket scores loud enough to be heard even by the professor. I am amazed at the patience of the professor, that he didn't haul me out on my ear! I probably deserved it.
But anyway, as I was saying, the training started to remind me of that. In the classes, it wasn't that I didn't understand the material being taught -- I did, if I paid close enough attention -- but the professor was plain boring. In the training, it was the other way round. The instructor was really good, and when I strained my head hard enough, I could actually follow him, but it mostly went way over my head. I looked helplessly at everyone furiously typing into their computers during the lab session, while I searched through Google to make sense of what was being taught, and tried to look halfway intelligent.
Today's session was much better. The instructor taught security, which is my chosen research area, so I could follow everything he taught, besides which it was fun because he implemented a sort of chat window, so that all the students (!) could send each other chat messages. That was fun! Unfortunately, I had to leave after that, and get back to the office.
When I got back to the office, it was like walking into a comfortable, familiar place. I felt a sense of peace. It's a shame that I'll have to leave in a few days -- just two, as a matter of fact. It's really become a second home for me now! I had an incredible, incredible time working here at Dell, with the most fantastic people ever. I'll cherish this time forever.
On a different note, today's Wednesday -- I hope I can get the keys to my new apartment today. I've had fun living with the friends I've been living with -- but I guess I can't harass them forever, besides which, I need to set up the new place! Especially the books! Even during the 10 days I've not been in my own house, I've bought a bunch of new books -- the manga, Cantarella Vol 3, by You Higuri; the August issue of Wired magazine; and Dick Francis' latest offering, Under Orders.
Cantarella is a compelling manga. I had started it some time ago, but gave up halfway through the first volume, finding the story too dark and depressing. But I took it up again, and while I'd never call the story light-hearted and cheery (Higuri's manga tend to be a bit on the heavier side, actually), it's really interesting. It's the mangaka's take on the infamous Borgias of Renaissance-age Italy, circa 1500, and the hero of the piece (also the villian?) is Cesare Borgia. Very interesting indeed, since it is at least partially based on true events. I wonder how many more volumes there are?
Dick Francis is an author I've liked for quite some time. His books can get a little depressing at time, with the hero wallowing in sorrow and misery for days on end; but they always seem to have an underlying sense of humor that takes away some of the darkness from the story. Besides which, he can come up with a fantastic, compelling tale. I really like Dick Francis novels -- if I can talk even halfway sensibly about horses, it is all thanks to Mr Francis.
Ah, I think I'm rambling now. I think I should get back to that documentation I was making for my intern project -- and iron out the creepy JavaScript errors that pop up suddenly like unwanted zombies, and give me a heart attack, like it did during the presentation yesterday. The expression on my face was surely a study in horror. Luckily, I don't think anyone noticed it. Yes, I should do that instead of telling the world that I should do it, and procrastinate even more. Till later...adios!

Billy and the kid

2007-08-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

Billy is the name of a fellow bus passenger. He usually gets up and off at the North Lamar Transit Center. He's in his fifties, and has wispy gray hair that's on its last legs. He wears enormous glasses reminiscent of the '50s, and rides a small bright red mountain bike that he said he spent his week's pay on. The last time I met him, he was alone, and insisted on talking endlessly to me. He popped up today as well.
I actually didn't notice him at first. I was listening to songs on my iPod as usual, humming along to the tune of Numb by Linkin Park, when I noticed a couple of young boys, one riding a bicycle, and one carrying along a scooter, the type that small kids ride. They were around my age, maybe a couple of years younger. I stopped humming, and just listened to the song, when I heard someone call out, "Mandy!"
I turned. It was Billy. I tried hard to keep the annoyance from showing on my face -- I was listening to the songs, dammit -- and smiled at him, yanking the headphones out of my ears. "Billy," I said, politely. "How's it going?"
"Doin' good!" he seemed to be in high spirits. He pointed to one of the young men. "This here is my son, Michael." I took another look at the boy. He was about my height, wearing a white T-shirt and loose, baggy shorts, a cap worn backward over his head. He had stringy blond hair, green eyes, and a face covered liberally with pimples. He gave me a big grin, showing startlingly awkward teeth. My smile froze on my face at the sight of his teeth, but I forced myself not to let the smile slip. I tried to remember what Billy had told me about him from our last conversation. 21 years old, he'd said. The boy looked younger than someone just a year younger than me; but then, some people do mistake me for a high schooler, so I guess I can't complain.
"She works at Dell," Billy explained to his son, and Michael nodded sagely.
Billy then pointed to the other boy. "This is my other son," he said, and I couldn't resist staring this time. The other boy was black, whereas Billy was very much white. I wasn't sure how to react. "Uhhh....."
"From another wife," said Billy, and cackled with laughter. I have no idea whether that was a joke or not. I gave an uncertain smile, and began looking anxiously at the horizon for the bus to arrive.
It finally did, and in there was the cute guy I've noticed since I began interning. I think he's a student, maybe at ACC, maybe at UT, I don't know. He's around my age, tall and skinny, with dark wavy hair and large hazel eyes. I usually steal glances at him, too shy to attempt any kind of conversation. I think he's pretty shy too, for once our eyes met, and we both turned away, blushing. The fact that he blushed too amused me, and made me less self-conscious about him. But except for a brief smile of recognition when I board the bus, we've never exchanged any communication.
The bus driver is a funky guy. He wears sunglasses -- even today, when it was dark and overcast. He greets everyone enthusiastically. "Well, hello there!" he joyously said when I entered the bus. At first his enthusiasm had startled me, but I'm used to it now. "Hello," I said, smiling. "You came just in time," pointing at the water droplets splattering against the windshield. "I know!" he said, with a large grin. I grinned back, the grin freezing as I saw the cute guy.
The rest of the bus ride was spent looking out of the bus, reading a few pages of Anthony Horowitz's Evil Star, and generally thinking about how to solve the JavaScript problem I'd encountered during the day. By the bus got to Hampton and 26th, I wished the driver goodbye, and walked back home.
Interesting ride, with interesting companions!!!

My favorite drawing

2007-08-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

I was recently looking through a bunch of my drawings (when I was cleaning up), and I was left thinking about which was my favorite. I don't usually have favorites, especially in my own work! But there's one drawing which is my favorite: this one.....

I made it in 2004, just shortly before my twentieth birthday. I'd been working on a book, a book about a New Zealand schoolboy (I've forever wanted to go to New Zealand, so I decided to base my story there), and this was a scene from the book.
The book is about 12-year-old Brendon McCarthy, and his adventures in boarding school (how imaginative! :P), and his love for cricket (he's my creation -- he has to like what I like!!). In this scene, he and his best friend are sitting at home, bored, with nothing to do because it's raining, so they decide to go out and play soccer.
When I made the drawing, it really was pouring outside. This drawing was made circa August 2004, when it's peak monsoon season in Mumbai. I looked at the rain pattering against the window, and the wind howling through the (I was going to say trees, but that'd be a lie. Okay, the tall buildings) tall buildings. I could almost imagine two boys playing out in the rain, getting soaked and covered in mud playing soccer. I think because it was raining the drawing turned out even more realistic than I'd hoped for -- Brendon's hair looks like it's plastered to his skull in the drawing, a feat I'd never been able to achieve before.
Hmm, so maybe that's the lesson for drawing well....try to experience what you're drawing, and it will turn out realistic, rather than trying to imagine it all! Hmmm.....does that mean, to make this drawing even more realistic....I need to visit New Zealand??!!! Whoohoo! :)

Moving part II

2007-08-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

The moving drama continued yesterday. It was crazy, hectic, chaotic. To quote a coworker of mine, I was "running around like a headless chicken". Only one of my roommates was left, and she and me cleaned up the whole house, dragged out the furniture and other baggage. It was crazy! Finally, at almost 10 pm, I took one last look at the place (to ensure nothing had been left behind, rather than out of any dubious emotional attachments), and locked the door for the final time, and turned the keys over to the management. Whew!! Phase One complete.
Of course, there's still a Phase Two to contend with: like I said, where I'm staying now is just temporary. I won't get to move into my new apartment till the 10th. Then comes a whole new set of headaches....moving all the furniture, not only across the apartment complex, but across the block; setting up house at the new place; settling in. Man! I'm not even going to think about it, for it is getting me all worked up.....10 days away from the day I actually need to move!
I found a lot of interesting things, though, while I was clearing up. There was an ancient stack of newspapers -- The Daily Texan -- from a year back. There was one of my paintbrushes under the desk, where it had rolled sometime during the year, and I'd been too preoccupied to notice it (or maybe it's a sign that I own more brushes than I need? I know I don't usually use more than 1 or 2 per session). There was an old bus pass, a day pass for Sept 4, 2006, crushed but still recognizable. There was an old recipe for making spicy broccoli that I'd lifted off the internet sometime, and had (of course) failed to ever try it out. Seeing that it was behind the gas stove, I can see why! There was the instruction booklet for the iPod (why would anyone need an instruction booklet for the iPod?? Four buttons, that's all there is to it!) There was a crumpled drawing (or rather, a cruel caricature) of one of my professors, when I'd been in a not-too-charitable mood toward him. There was a printout of my transcript from the Fall semester, which I threw away hurriedly. I didn't need reminding for the grades! There was also a printed schedule of the 2007 Cricket World Cup, with neat notes in the corner (by me), about which team won which match, by what margin, and their points after each match, and even some kind of complicated formula to find out who needed to win which match by how many runs/wickets to ensure a place in the semi-finals! (If only I'd put in that kind of hard work and dedication into my studies! :P )
Yeah, there were lots of interesting things to pick out of the junk that was left behind after I cleaned out the apartment. Most of it was thrown away, but I kept some of the treasures with me. Maybe I need to clean my house more often.....!!

Moving part I

2007-07-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

Whew! This past weekend has been crazy....I'm moving out of my current apartment, and will be staying temporarily at a friend's place until my new apartment is ready to move into, which isn't till the 10th. So this past weekend, I've been going mad packing up all the junk accumulated over the course of the past year.
Sunday was tiring, I will admit that. I spent the whole day cleaning up, packing up, and then transferring almost everything I had to my friend's house. At the end of it, I felt like I'd been run through the wringer -- I was dropping with exhaustion. The house, though, was empty, which is a good thing -- I didn't want to come back from work on Tuesday and then move everything.
Yesterday was exhausting, too. I cleaned the house, and it took all my willpower not to simply hurl the paper towels at the floor and walk away. The underneath of the sink was -- shudder! -- Let's just say I never want to see anything like that ever again. It looked like something had died in there (didn't smell like it, though, so I'm hoping nothing did). My hand still smells like Clorox.
Cleaning the house was actually all I did yesterday. That, and flop down on my comforter (the bed's at the friend's place), and plonk headalong into a dreamless sleep. There's another round due today. Shudder! I don't even want to think about it.
On the other hand, though, I did discover my long-lost copy of the manga Ghost Hunt Vol. 1, so I guess there's something to cheer.....
More updates later.

People on the bus

2007-07-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

The people on the bus are such a motley bunch, that I had to write about them. They get up on the various stops along the way, but the majority of them board the bus at the North Lamar Transit Center when I'm going to office. They seem to be from all walks of life, all types of people. Young, old, happy, angry, or simply indifferent -- they make for interesting viewing. I usually go through The Daily Texan on the bus, but I put it aside and watch the people sidealong.
There's a guy called Billy who boards at the NLTC. He's probably in his fifties; maybe even sixties. Gnarled and with a weather-beaten face and wispy white hair through which his scalp pokes through, he is the chattiest one on the bus, the one who typically sidles along to the driver (today it was a guy called Bart), knows them all by name, and talks endlessly (I don't know what he says, though.....the iPod is going full-strength in my ears when I'm on the bus). I once met him while returning from the office, and since we were the only ones at the stop, we struck up a conversation, and that's how I came to know his name, and the fact that he has a 21-year-old son, and how he pooled his entire pay for the week to buy a $100 mountain bike from Wal-Mart of which he's inordinately proud.
Then there's this hippie-type guy who boards at US 183 and Burnet. He has long dark hair, which streams out open behind him. A cap is usually worn backward, and he usually wears dark t-shirts with the word 'Texas' written on it, with ferocious-looking flames surrounding it. Interesting chap.
Then there's this big, big guy who boards at NLTC. He glowers at everyone as he gets in, forehead seemingly forever puckered in a frown. His bald head shines in the overhead lights in the bus, and his loose Spurs jersey flutters slightly in the wind. His every footstep seems to make the bus shake from side to side. He usually goes right to the back of the bus, thankfully. I don't think I could stand that piercing glare for ten minutes, especially coming from a real-life Grawp (those who've read Harry Potter know what I mean).
Then, there's a little old lady who gets up somewhere near Metric and Braker (this is on the 392). She's tiny, with short dark hair going gray. She peers over her glasses at the driver as she swipes her Cap Metro card through the reader. She usually gets off on Shropshire Blvd, and an almost identical lady boards the bus at the next stop!
There's a good-looking guy who boards at the NLTC. He looks a little like Eric Bana, the actor, and always has some kind of book or the other clutched in his hand. He usually buries his nose in the book the moment he gets a seat.
There are so many people on the bus! It's almost impossible to describe them all.....but these are some of the regulars!

Art store

2007-07-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

You know the old saying about kids in a candy store? (Though if I were a kid, I'd be more thrilled about going to the Wii section in a Gamestop store....) That's exactly how I get when I go to an art store. And this became evident to my poor roommate who tagged along with me today, when I went to the Co-op art store.
The Co-op art store is on The Drag, which is local UT lingo for Guadalupe. It's right next to the actual Co-op, and is my dream store. Impressive arrays of paints, brushes, canvases and other art equipment line the walls. Today, for instance, I was left staring open-mouthed at the very impressive line-up of Winsor & Newton's watercolors on the North wall of the store.
Okay, before this confuses anyone, no, I'm not a professional artist. I'm a computer scientist. But art is what I casually call my hobby. In reality, though, it's more than a hobby -- it's a passion, the very essence of my life, one reason why I think I'm still alive. When I'm stressed, I draw. When I'm sad, I draw. When I'm happy, I draw. When I'm....oh, you get the idea. I love art. I love drawing, though painting comes a close second. I've been drawing ever since I can remember. I learnt to draw before I learnt to write. So what I'm trying to tell is, that there's a reason why I behave like a caveman in an art store -- and not a distinguished caveman like the Geico one, but a real, uncouth caveman.
That's what happened today. My roommate, Annie, and I went to Chipotle grill on The Drag for lunch. While returning, I couldn't resist peeking inside the newly opened store. "Er......do you mind if we go in?" I asked Annie. She willingly agreed, not knowing, the poor thing, that it would take wild horses to drag me away from there. We went in, and I fell silent. Or rather, not -- I kept making gasping noises, as though I were choking. "No...no.....no...." I whispered incoherently. "Just look at this stuff, man!"
It's not like Annie wasn't impressed -- she was. But I suppose I tend to go overboard in such places. I ran over to a display of Winsor & Newton paintbrushes. I've only ever wanted W&N equipment since I was fourteen. I reverently lifted a fan brush -- used for washes in watercolors -- and ran in lightly back and forth in a sweeping motion across the stand where it was kept. Its bristles reacted to my slightest touch, and I almost wept.
I then went across to the paint section, on the North wall of the store. There was one of the most impressive array of watercolors I've ever seen -- W&N watercolors, Cotman and Artist varieties. The Artist one was a little too expensive for me, so I went for the Cotman ones. All the shades I'd ever dreamed about -- Phtalo Green, Cerulean Blue, Cadmium Red, Raw Sienna, Ultramarine.....they were all there. I was torn as to which ones to buy. I debated and debated and then debated some more, and finally settled on the Cerulean, Cadmium Red, Hooker's Green and Raw Sienna. I was on cloud nine, and nothing could bring me down -- except the bill, which did a marvelous job of it. All-in-all, though, four dream shades for less than $10 is a bargain in my eyes.
I came out of the store, pleased as a spoilt child that has just been indulged. In a way, I suppose I am, and I am the one spoiling myself. I can't help it, though. Shopping for art equipment is almost as therapeutic for me as drawing is.
Hmmm, maybe I can make another quick trip there soon.....

Packing

2007-07-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

Wow! I never thought it'd be this much trouble packing! But since I'm close to being done, I won't complain too much. My room is now almost stripped bare, and only the closet remains. And then I'll be done.
It was an interesting experience, packing up. I last did it a year ago, when I packed up to leave Mumbai and move to Austin. Since it was done gradually then, and with full help from all family members, it had seemed less painful then. Besides, I was much too upset to be leaving my family to really take care of what was going onto the luggage. But, man, now I know!
It seems incredible that a single person could own so much stuff. I went nearly crazy just packing the books. There are just too many! I'm glad now I hadn't thrown away the brown boxes that Amazon.com delivers its packages in -- they came handy now, packing up stuff. First thing in was the Algorithms textbook -- I guess I wanted it out of my sight. Operating Systems was next. Security was the last thing to go in, with me giving the book a fond glance before packing it in. Next, I tackled the novels.
There were so many!! I honestly was stunned that I had so many books. PG Wodehouse, Ngaio Marsh, Alistair MacLean, Anthony Horowitz, Ian Fleming, Ken Follett, a bunch of manga (mostly comprising of the Ghost Hunt series).....all went into the boxes one after the other. There was a copy of Artemis Fowl, that I'd gifted myself last Christmas (for emerging alive from the rigorous Fall semester); the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack's 141st edition; a James Bond comic I had ordered on a whim from Amazon; a Robin Cook novel I'd bought ages ago, and forgotten I had it; multiple issues of Reader's Digest, Wired, PC World and American Artist; even a couple of Hardy Boys books I'd bought for my 15-year-old sister, who's a Hardy Boys fiend .
There was other stuff as well. A receipt for my iPod; a catalog from Dell that I'd gotten right after I'd ordered my laptop. I threw it away with a whimsical grin -- now that I actually work there, I don't really need it any more. There was a massive stack of ACM and IEEE research papers, assigned at some point or the other by various professors, or ones that had simply interested me (one of these was a most instructive article on cross-site scripting, a way of exploiting vulnerabilities in websites); a bunch of hurriedly made drawings, stuff that I'd made as I was studying, and was a way to let off stress and steam; an ancient box of Pringles chips, which I threw away hurriedly, without waiting to check the inside. No doubt the inside of the box would have interested a biologist of some sort. There was a printed notification of UT's football match against Ohio State University (which we lost) in Fall 2006; scribbled notes on assignments, trying to solve some problem before actually typing it out on Microsoft Word; and a piece of paper where I seemed to be asking myself what course to take -- it had the names of all the interesting courses in Spring 2007, and the professors' names next to them, and little question marks and exclamation marks around them.
It was interesting seeing all this. It brought back the hectic life I used to lead as a grad student (one that I'll resume in a month, sadly). Just seeing the little scraps of paper, and little mementos from the Fall semester, it had just seemed to capture instances of my life. I could literally relive every moment from Fall.
Maybe it wasn't so bad packing up, after all.....

Unpredictable Texan weather

2007-07-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

Man! Talk about unpredictable! Texan weather is harder to predict than the outcome of, say, roulette or something. It was pouring on Thursday; rain interspersed with shine yesterday; and hot and sunny today. I give up! I can never, ever predict what tomorrow's going to be like. In fact, forget tomorrow! I can't predict what it'll be like an hour from now. In fact, even as I speak, the sun is dimming, and the it's getting cool and overcast (just the way I like it!). And, as I complete this sentence, the sun is coming out again. Hmph!
Today is Saturday -- the day that I have, for the past three months, gone out to catch the latest movie released on Friday, and then roamed about the malls for ages. But there's no movie of interest this week -- I'm waiting for August 3rd for The Bourne Ultimatum to release. Instead, I think I'll start packing. I'll be moving out of my apartment on the 1st, so I guess I should start clearing up the mess created over the course of one year. Sigh! I really don't feel like getting started. I try to motivate myself, but one look at the massive pile of research papers from ACM and IEEE sends me back into my corner, hunched over my laptop, furiously typing into my blog, telling the whole world what a mess my room is.
It's the books that scare me the most. I've got a HUGE pile of books to be packed. I'm a regular bookworm, and, in spite of nearly dying of penury over the past year, I've still managed to collect well over 30 books, not counting the 25 or so I brought over with me from Mumbai. AND, to top it all, there's a massive bunch of textbooks collected -- textbooks, that I might add, I've never had to open even once in the semester, because the professors' notes and research papers we got assigned were good enough. Probably the only textbooks I cracked open in the entire year were Database Systems by Garcia-Molina, Ullman and Widom, and Network Security by Kaufman, Perlman and Speciner. The only ones!! And when I look at the massive tomes on my bookshelf, notably the books on Operating Systems and Algorithms, I groan. My intention right from the time I joined UT was to study Networks and Network Security. Why on earth did I lug those blasted books with me? I knew I never intended to take an OS course, ever. I now sit on the chair, looking balefully at the books with ill-concealed hostility.
Well, the more time I spend here, the less I'll have to clear up the scary mess, so I guess I'd better get started now!

Back to school

2007-07-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I thought about school. I've been totally immersed in work for the past three months, in the world of AJAX, C# and meetings. It had almost slipped my mind that I have yet another year of schooling to complete before I can step out into the world. But that was brought back to my mind today, as I walked back home from my bus stop at Guadalupe Street down Dean Keeton.
Firstly it was the sight of a few students carrying books tucked under their arms, hovering around the Engineering building. It's been a while since I've seen a sight like that, and it reminded me sharply of my plight in a few weeks. Then it was the sight of the ACES building, which is under the Computer Sciences department. I gulped, memories crashing back of late nights spent trying to complete some inane assignment, which made no sense to me, but had to be completed nevertheless.
And finally, it was JP's Java. To all those who have attended UT, JP's should be a familiar destination. At least, it is to us CS grad students. It's a bustling coffee shop on Duval, San Jacinto and Elmwood Place -- the triangular place where all three streets intersect. It's close to the CS department, so we like it a lot. AND they have free wireless, so that helps. But above all, it's their latte, which they claim is the best in Austin. I don't know about that, not having been to all coffee shops in Austin, but they certainly do dish up a mean latte. Whenever I go there, that's what I have.
I can remember quite a few evenings spent there, in some dark corner of the cafe, cursing the insensitive professors who refuse to accept that their students take courses other than theirs; feverishly completing assignments the day before they're due; researching on whatever we need to research; and sometimes, just surfing. All these memories came back to me today, and I almost shuddered. Just a little over a month to go, and I'll be plunged back into the crazy world!!!
But I won't condemn in entirely. I do like studying, especially Computer Science, else I'd never have pursued a Master's degree. I may curse it, but I do love being a grad student. I love saying I'm a part of UT -- I've been here only a year, and I'm already a proud Longhorn. And, at times, the sheer pressure of studies spurs me on, and exhilarates me, rather than depressing me. I won't say I don't feel stressed, because I do. But in some strange way, I do enjoy it, especially at the end when all the hard work comes to fruition.
But I digress. I was talking about cafes and studying. There's another one that comes to mind -- Lava Java at Dean Keeton and Medical Arts. It's right opposite my apartment, and close to the places of two of my best friends, so it was a favorite haunt of ours, especially since we were grouped together on a project for our Business Process Outsourcing class. We would meet there at three or four in the afternoon, and continue discussing till late into the evening, sometimes even till 9, when the cafe had to finally evict us. It's quiet, and it's in a corner -- and they have large comfy sofas, which is why the three of us liked it so much. We would sink into the sofa, cups of steaming latte/cappucino and cookies on the table in front of us, and discuss earnestly about the project, but not entirely neglecting having fun -- especially at the expense of one of us!! Man, those were the days! I think the guy at the cash counter knows us personally now -- I went back a few days earlier to buy a raisin cookie, and he gave me a smile of recognition. I smiled back wryly.
Those days are going to be back!! Lava Java and JP's Java will be seeing more of us now, when classes begin in a month. Till then -- it's back to work!

Austin and Mumbai

2007-07-27T07:00:00.001-07:00

When I first came to Austin, my first thought was -- it's nothing like Mumbai. I came in August, peak of the Mumbai monsoons, and had in fact left my city when it was in the throes of a full-fledged downpour, which was threatening to flood the city. And when I walked out into sunny, hot Austin, my one thought was -- I'll never see a downpour again. I was, of course, affected by my firm belief that Texas is a desert, and sees maybe an inch of rainfall in five years. How mistaken I was!
This entire summer it has rained, and rained, and rained some more. In fact, I think it has rained more in Austin than it has in Mumbai! Well...maybe not. But close to it! It's as if the city is determined to make my summer another Mumbai monsoon. I don't mind! I love the rains (something that has, not on few occasions, got me weird glances from others), and would never complain about the fact that it doesn't seem to have stopped raining in Austin since winter. And when it rains, it rains with fury -- wind howls around, and the force of the water hitting you is painful.
Like yesterday, for instance. It rained and rained, and I was soaked to the skin by the time I got home. As I wrung the water out of my sodden ponytail, my one thought was -- it's Mumbai, all over again. There were muddy puddles all over the place, and I groaned when I walked into one. The chilly water soaked into my socks, and wearing wet socks is the most awful sensation ever. Cars whizzed by the road, spraying a fine mist of water into the air. It would've looked pretty, had not a part of it fallen all over me.
There were a couple of miserable people waiting at the bus stop. One of them was a tiny, tiny woman, maybe four feet tall? She was all bundled up in a shapeless overcoat, and hugged the collar closer to her face to avoid getting the rain on her face, I suppose. She gave everyone baleful glances, but I suppose it's hard to blame her -- I feel pretty short-tempered myself when I'm soaked and cold. There was also a sleepy-looking man, who didn't seem to be bothered much by the rain. He wore a tattered old jacket, and steady rivulets of water ran down him. His wispy white hair was matted to his skull. I guess the three of us made quite a sight! I buried myself in the songs on my iPod to avoid paying attention to the cold water than was running down my spine. Not a very nice sensation!
I remember a similar situation in Mumbai. There were five of us at the bus-stop. There was me, two college girls, an old lady, and a young man who looked like a ruffian. The five of us stood under out respective umbrellas or shelters, vainly trying to shelter from the fury of the rain. I was more worried about my assignment in my backpack, which, I was sure, was getting soggy in the water. The two girls next to me were cursing the rain, and looking vainly up the road to see if the bus was nearby. They would now and then burst into laughter as they discussed something, but would fall silent again, and search for the bus on the horizon. The old lady was bent over with age, and clutched an umbrella in her thin, claw-like hand. Wispy white hair hung down her head, and the pallu of her sari (the part that hangs down the shoulder) was dripping with water. The young ruffian didn't even have an umbrella. He had a sheet of some kind held over his head, and didn't seem to mind the cold water that dripped all around (and all over) him. He squatted on the ground, getting up at intervals to check for the imminent arrival of the bus. He seemed to be in good humor, though -- occasionally he would crack a grin (though I never found out why), showing tobacco-stained teeth. Then he would resume his vigil of checking whether the bus was coming. The five of us stood silently, never speaking to the other one, yet, perhaps, silently commiserating with the others.
It was a similar situation I encountered yesterday. At times like these, I don't feel homesick at all! Austin's become my home away from home.

Altercation on the bus

2007-07-26T17:59:00.000-07:00

And I thought all the excitement in the day was over.
This happened when I was returning from work. I was traveling in the 392, rather tired out from having to rise at 5:30 every morning for the past week (!). The bus went down Braker, driven by a tiny woman, shorter than even me, I should think. At Braker and Lamar, a scruffy man got onto the bus. I looked at him curiously, and then wrinkled my nose -- I bet he hadn't seen the inside of a bath, or something like it, in at least ten years. He stank!! I looked out of the window indifferently. I think he said something, but I had Linkin Park going on full steam in my ears, and didn't notice.
I first noticed how loud he was getting a couple of stops down the line. He seemed to be rather upset with the driver, and even I had to acknowledge that something was up. Anyone who can penetrate LP's music has serious lung power. Stinker was getting all worked up about something, and seemed to be letting it out on the driver. She seemed to be getting rather annoyed, and said something, which set Stinker off. "I asked a damn question!" he yelled, loud enough for me to hear. I couldn't ignore it any more, and looked cautiously at the pair. Stinker was sitting nearby, and I contemplated moving away, when he suddenly lost it. "I f***ing asked you a question!" he told the driver. Bad move, Stinker. Swearing on a Capital Metro bus is an offense, and a driver has full right to throw you out of the bus if you do so. That's precisely what the little woman did. The bus screeched to a halt (with no stop in sight), almost throwing me and the other guy on the bus to the floor. Stinker seemed well prepared for it, though.
"Get off," said the driver, rather evenly, I thought. My voice would have been quavering in such a situation, either through fright or rage.
"What?" said Stinker, obviously bewildered.
"Get off this bus, now," commanded the driver. I don't care how little she was, she was scary.
Stinker rose to his full height -- which was a rather intimidating 6 feet and some inches -- and refused to do so. "I asked you a damn question!" he repeated, like a broken record.
The driver reached for something -- a radio panel, I suppose, to ask for help, and Stinker finally for the idea. He got off the bus, muttering to himself (this I couldn't hear -- Chester's vocals drowned it out) and suddenly went ballistic. He hammered on the closing door, yelling, "F*** you!! I just asked a f***ing question!!" Now that, I must admit, scared me a bit. He looked mad enough to produce a knife or gun out of his (filthy) pocket, and start waving it around. Luckily, the bus moved off. I sat stiffly for the next ten minutes, relaxing only when Braker and Burnet came by.
Never a lack of entertainment on the buses of Austin!

Riding the bus to work

2007-07-26T07:03:00.000-07:00

This is one I've been meaning to write about for quite some time...the unique experience of riding the bus to work. To begin with, I think I'm the only Dell employee that takes the bus to work, at least to the South Parmer campus (which is where I work). I live all the way in downtown Austin, so the journey is more of a voyage! It all starts with waiting for the bus at the little bus stop at the UT Law Library, the stop closest to my house. The Wait is an experience in itself. I can see all manner of interesting things while I'm waiting for the bus -- students rushing for classes (the ones who take summer classes, that is); cars whizzing by at top speed down the street; people scurrying to work; the occasional EMS truck howling down the quiet street; and, my personal favorite, little squirrels playing hide-and-seek with each other on the trees.
Today, for instance, I saw a family of squirrels, squabbling with each other for a piece of something that didn't even look edible to me! They are funny animals. After some time, they gradually started disappearing, and I wondered why. Finally, when the song on my iPod stopped, I realized the reason -- it had started raining! Chester Bennington screaming in your ear to Shut up when I'm talking to you! tends to drown out the pitter-patter of rain. By the time the last bushy tail disappeared into the undergrowth, the 174 came trundling around the corner, and I waved about an arm to flag it down.
Flagging the bus is quite an experience. You have to hop onto the road, wave your arms around like you're part of a dance troupe, all the while nimbly keeping out of the way of other vehicles. When you see the bus' brake lights flash, you hop back equally nimbly to the pavement before the gigantic vehicle can run you over. Quite a bit of activity! (Note to fitness freaks: catching the bus is good workout activity)
Finally, I got into the bus, nodded my usual good morning to the driver. I have no idea whether he said anything.....Chester Bennington was back to his usual activity -- screaming in my ears, this time to tell me that he wouldn't be ignored. Fine, Chester. With you screaming like that, there's no way I can really ignore you -- unless I'm coding or drawing. All the same, I like Linkin Park a lot. At least Chester screams tunefully.
Then began the ride through the I-35. Normally I like it a lot, because the bus moves without any hindrances; but today, the driver decided to take all the feeder roads instead of taking the highway, so we stopped and started more times than I can count. I had given up all hopes of reaching my stop on time, but the driver maneuvered beautifully through the traffic, getting the bus to the North Lamar Transit Center at 7:00 am -- right on time. Anyone who can handle the beast that the bus is so well has my respect.
NLTC is where the seething mass of humanity enters the bus. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. Not seething, maybe. But mass of humanity, certainly. The near-empty bus goes to near-full in a matter of minutes. Today was no different, but my interest was piqued by the Seeing-Eye dog that settled down near me. He was pushed under the seat, and lay there, looking out at me, and whoever else passed in the vicinity with soulful eyes. The bus, meanwhile, continued on the US 183, finally hitting Burnet. It continued down Burnet, all the way to Braker, which is where I get off. Braker and Burnet. Sounds almost like a law firm or something, but for me, it's time to change buses.
I got off with alacrity, for the next bus, the 392 that takes me to East Parmer, was just 6 minutes away. I walked up to the crossroads, and waited for the pedestrian signal to turn green. Next to me, a boy came to a screeching halt on his bicycle, dressed all in black like a goth follower, and smoking a cigarette. This intrigued me -- he managed to keep his balance on the rickety old bike, while smoking, and looking cool (or trying to), all at the same time.
The bus stop for the 392 is a little distance away -- a half-mile, perhaps? Not a lot, but a goodish walk. I kept glancing over my shoulder to ensure that the bus wasn't on the way. When I finally reached the stop, the bus still hadn't arrived, so I was glad -- I got some time to take a breather.
The 392 arrives at Braker and Burnet at 7:18 am, and today was no different. It was right on time, and the driver, a man I've come to know quite well by now, smiled a good morning, dreadlocks swinging. He knows by now it's no use actually talking to me -- I just yank the headphones out of my ear, and go "huh?" like a dimwit. I took my usual place, and watched the streets go by.
The 392 takes a long, circuitous route to East Parmer. It goes all the way down Braker, crossing the streets of Kramer, Lamar, Parkfield, Metric, and then the I-35. It finally turns down Dessau Road (I've often found myself wondering about the origins of the quaint names), then Shropshire Blvd, then Thompkins Drive, then Yager Lane, and finally down Tech Ridge Blvd, where I finally get off.
I did so today. The ride, in itself, was rather boring today. It is often livened up by strange people entering the bus, but today's passengers were all the same, including the freaky guy with hair longer than mine, dressed all in black with black nail polish on his stubby nails, and John Lennon glasses. It didn't even rain on the way, and I reached office safe and sound -- and dry! And that summed up a typical day's ride in the bus to the office.

The first blog

2007-07-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

Whew! I never thought it would be this much trouble coming up with a blog name! My brain is starting to feel distinctly saturated....almost all possible combinations ran through my head as a possible name. Not that the one I came up with was all that unique! Mandy....very imaginative :P I'm sitting here in office, writing my blog. Hmph. Maybe I should get back to that piece of code that was bothering me since morning.....
Writing a blog is fun. I've wanted to start one for the last...hmm, let me see, three years? Four? Anyway, quite some time. I love writing, too....there's no real reason why I didn't start one until now, except for sheer laziness, I suppose! Well, now that I've started, there's just so much to write about! I'm interning at Dell right now, and will be completing in a few days. There's going to be the next crazy year at grad school to write about!! (And with the sort of courses I've registered for, I'm sure I'll be letting out my frustration more than once a day!). There's lots to write about......blogging, here I come!