Being left with only a final lab assignment to turn in, I took it kinda easy on Saturday. Vidya wanted to give her car to Firestone for a timing belt replacement and after the complete story that she unleashed on me about how the 1995 Toyota Corolla has a peculiar timing-belt-coupled-with-water-pump assembly, I agreed to accompany her to the service center and bring her back while her car waited to be serviced. Not quite content with the morning gone, I proceeded to have a nice and sumptuous lunch after which it was time to go to the Gandhi Center (on Manchester) in the evening for the Spring Fest 2003 being organized by the India Assoc of St. Louis. Ordinarily, I have no interest in being at such gatherings because they can be of surprisingly low standard (and nearly bring you to tears with their complete lack of professionalism) but since Vidya and others (Jai, Anand etc) were going to be presenting a classical music piece, I decided it would be worthwhile being there. And sure enough, two amazingly incompetent comperes and a couple of programs later, we were done. Of course, that is when all the adulation began. Every now and then a lady or man would stop by, talk to Vidya and tell her how well she sang – why, one person even wanted her to take classes !
Anyway, so on Sunday I did finally manage to get down to working on our CS 562 final lab project. I joined Pavan and Arumugam in school sometime in the afternoon and what followed was a marathon debugging session – probably the longest I have undertaken in a long time – 36 hours at a stretch ! In the end, by Monday evening we did manage to come up with a really good implementation after tracking down all kinds of weird issues. I have to say that I really appreciated Pavan’s systematic approach to debugging especially when all our heads were mostly spinning from lack of sleep. I don’t think I would have quite gone about debugging everything so quickly 
Now that my semester is over, I have finally run out of all excuses to put everything off. Ever since I decided to play the busy executive and tell people that the only way they can possibly hope to have some of my time was to call me up or write to me and take an appointment on my Evolution calendar [no, I don't have a sexy secretary yet 
], there have been a number of demands on my time all accumulating since last week so I decided that I might as well get it over and done with.
Ms. nOnda has been in quite a state of excitement of late. Although I am not quite at liberty to disclose all the details (which in itself should give you a clue about quite a bit), I suppose I can reveal that she is going to be reunited with her parents after 2 long years ! They arrive in Tuesday and the action has begun. Anyway, she wanted me to take her shopping to a dozen places before they arrive and so we have been making expeditions to various parts of St. Louis to keep her happy. On Thursday evening, Booze, Anand, nOnda and I went to Walmart. Booze had to shop for his upcoming India trip, Anand for his trip back to India and nOnda for her parents’ visit from India. This was later followed by an excellent masala dosa at Priyaa’s – a treat from Anand
My cousin from Sidney (OH) was in town yesterday so I spent most of the day with her family and of course, that meant I enjoyed my time with Sahiti and Ritwik, her adorable kids aged 5 and 3. The day began with severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings and heavy downpour, although it was rather intermittent. But soon enough, the sun was out in all its form and it was so hot when we were in the St. Louis Zoo ! My job was to be the navigator all through and as luck would have it, I managed to consistently miss the exit we were supposed to take or the street we were supposed to turn into ! In the evening, Harini and I made it to the Carnatic music flute recital that Asha for Education and Umang had organized. Harini so much wanted to meet my friends here in St. Louis and she did too – Vidya, nOnda, Booze etc. The day ended with a somewhat palatable dinner at House of India and I said goodbye to them all, promising to meet up with them sometime later this summer.
Anyway, it seems that slowly my functioning in ordinary life as a normal person is becoming increasingly dependent on my Evolution calendar and task list. Vidya is absolutely unforgiving of my inability to remember anything not put down on my calendar. And since this usually affects things I am supposed to remember about her, I get quite a hearing each time I screw up ! But then she also believes that my life musn’t revolve so much around my computer (or Evolution for that matter). So it is the classic Catch 22 situation. If I don’t put it down, I will forget and she is the one who gets affected. If I do, she clicks her tongue in disapproval but she knows that at least that way I won’t forget. Oh well, we men are not as perfect as women – doesn’t she get that ?
