Well, well, if it hasn’t been two weeks already! It was brought to my attention by Pavan (who works with me in the DOC group) that the fact that I hadn’t posted in quite some time now would seem almost normal but for the fact that the venerable Mr. Booze had actually posted more recently than I had – a distinction not something I was eager to have in the world of blogging, he pointed out 
It’s a dull Monday evening and with Goo Goo Dolls playing in the background, I figured that now was a good time to catch up.
Today happens to be Labour (or Labor, if you prefer) Day in the US and like most holidays out here, the holiday is conveniently defined as “the first Monday of September.” Now I really like that – it always ensures that you get a long weekend and given the abysmally low number of days in a year we let ourselves actually take a break from our breakneck lifestyles, it is almost a must!
I decided to spend all day at home. I caught up with some reading for one of the two courses I am doing this (my last) semester – Ron’s Advanced Compiler Techniques course. The other course I am doing is Distributed System Design, which the instructor, Dr. Roman, tells us is not about designing distributed systems at all! Now if it really is more about modelling, why can’t it be called Modelling of Distributed Systems or some such thing ? Beats me.
The last week has been pretty productive as far as my research goes. FACET got itself a major facelift in the 2.2 release that I put out. Since Ron was back after being out quite a bit, I had a chance to discuss some of the new problems we were tackling.
Vidya visited NY City last weekend to catch up with her sister, Priya, and brother-in-law, Rohit. She happened to take my camera along and ended up taking some really nice pictures too – something I didn’t think was possible with my Canon Powershot A10! Perhaps I can postpone buying myself that G5, after all.
Out here in Wash U, it is the time of the year when all the new students descend like a flock of birds and this year is no exception. Even the new Indian grad students around seem to form a substantial part of the landscape! Anyway, so, we at Umang decided that we needed to host some kind of a welcome party and that is going to happen this Friday, Sept. 5th, 5:30 pm at The Gargoyle. So if you want some good Indian snacks and want to listen to what our plans for the new few months are, do show up.
Music seems to be back in my life with a vengeance. Thanks to my roommate, Chakra, I have had a chance to listen to some excellent alternative/rock music – Coldplay, Third Eye Blind, Matchbox Twenty, Goo Goo Dolls and many more in his 1200+ song collection. Browing through his iTunes library was nothing short of exhilaration and I wished Rahul was there with me to share my joy at listening to some pure, unadulterated Rock music. Speaking of whom, I think I just found the perfect gift for him when he arrives in the US for grad school
The last few weeks have also seen me and Vidya discuss a lot of the theoretical aspects of music – both Carnatic and Western Classical. In this connection, I meant to speak to Ron one evening at Happy Hour but I never quite managed to get him. Meanwhile, though, Vidya, Booze and I spent a good one hour one afternoon at lunch talking with Jai, our local music guru, about the similarities and differences between the two forms of music. Some of his insights into all of it was really quite enlightening (and entertaining, as always).
Booze moved into our apartment this weekend bringing to an end the saga that raged for 2 long years at Apt 22. One thing’s for sure. Chris won’t have to hear my subwoofer thumping on his head ever again
So that pretty much wraps it up for this time. There seem to be some interesting times ahead of me – campus career fair, thesis writing and what not so I promise to write about it all as they happen.
