I would like to:

   Eat a good meal, sit back, relax, meet some non-CS people, return some of the missed calls, sleep like there is no tomorrow

I will

o   Not cook & when absolutely starved, struggle to find some place open and drive-able and get a take away some thing.

o   Get worked up about the no. of things that need to be completed.

o   Sit before my monitor for hours and get up only to visit the restroom or get some water when the bottle is empty only to realize how my back hurts, my legs hurt, my posture isn’t right, eyes feel heavy as I forgot to blink and come back and continue.

o   Go to sleep when I have made the same obvious mistake over 3 times and feel completely brain dead

o   Wake up to an alarm that I want to toss away in the morning

On the bright side, next week is spring break and I hope to spend at least a few days *not working*. The remaining time, I hope to catch up with things, esp. the compiler.

We had a snow storm last week and my classes got cancelled for 2 days. The weather was bad, there was no question of driving. After a few days, the snow began turning into ice. Here are some pictures taken in the last 2 days. You can click them for better clarity.

And today there was lots of water, thanks to the sunshine after what feels like a looong time. (temp: 6C)

I upgraded to the new dasblog which is the reason that comments could not be added to the new entries. The upgrader tool did not work on the content folder items and so adding a comment to the old entry meant losing all old comments. I manually patched some of the old xml files to include the two new tags in the comment section. (pains of upgrading!) Seems to work for now.

I haven’t been able to post new entries. Finally, Rosh fixed the new entry and comment problem.  Apparently the asp.net anonymous user exceeded its disk quota. Now you know why Roshan and Pandu (and myself) haven’t been blogging.

The first week of the semester has been quite good. I will continue working as a research assistant with Dr. Fox and will continue blogging about the status on blogspot. For the courses this semester, I have taken Compilers and Dynamic Logic in my department. I have also enrolled for swimming lessons with the sports school. I am quite excited about learning something new outside of CS after, who knows, how many years.

The winter here has been very mild so far, which is quite great. Its mid-jan and we have not had a proper snow fall yet. Great! I look forward to an exciting semester, I am also telling myself to make best of the time I have left in Bloomington & at Indiana University. This would mean watch some of the auditions, performances, oprahs etc in the music school here which is one of the best in the country; see all the museums and whatever little there is to see in the city.

Its going to be an eventful year in many senses.

[This entry was written on Friday, I couldn’t post it as dasblog failed to add new entries. So, some things like "no snow" etc are meaningless now]

I got back to Bloomington 2 days ago. No points for guessing that both my bags didnt make it. One was delivered yesterday to my house, the other hasn't been spoken of yet. Its funny how on the way to India, I enjoyed the flight food and ate everything that was served and on the way back how everything tasted bad and I got back to my old habit of selecting 1 out of 5 things to eat & wasting the rest.

I ate the best french food at Le Petit cafe in Bloomington, today was my 2nd brunch there. Great food and great service. Thanks to Kyle  for introducing the place to me.

Tomorrow I shall start the final semester of my course. I have the liberty of choosing anywhere between 1 and 4 course(s) this semester. I have enrolled for 2 courses, I can't find a 3rd interesting course. I am wondering if I should look outside of computer science. I have one week to finalize the list.

I miss India already but its great being back in Bloomington. Sort of enjoy the streets and campus with no students (most are yet to come back from the break). Strangely my car seems to start without any trouble. What a pleasant surprise!

I am back in Cochin after 1.5 years. I left Cochin in 2002 to work but would end up visiting cochin for some major holidays atleast twice a year. Even then I’d notice changes, but now after 1.5 years it interesting to see how things are changing. More places to eat, not sure more is right, I do not see some of the old places I’d go to. Now you’ll see signs of the popular brands like café coffee day, barista, nilgiris etc. Bigger malls and a better selection of clothes, but the same old stares by men & women. Yeah! For those of you from Kerala, you know exactly what I mean. Others, well, forget subtlety & glancing, this is a straight outright stare. And you look back and it has no effect on them. It’s annoying sometimes & sometimes funny.

The traffic is just amazing. The whole scenario seems so chaotic with a 2 laner being used as a 1-5 laner and I’d feel really scared in a car when a bus was next to us ignoring the squeamish little car and headed straight on its way as though we ceased to exist. And I’d be terrified when we were sandwiched between two buses. But then once I saw a guy on a bicycle in the middle of the heavy traffic riding happily and the whole traffic appeared to adjust to his meandering around. It was just great! And then I noticed this amazing pattern in what had seemed like chaotic traffic. People didn’t really yield, they raced but just when they needed to they’d move away and get through or brake just in time to avoid  a clash. You have to be really skilled to maneuver you way through, and probably ie what the biker was up to. It’s what I call aggressive (yet safe) driving & survival of the fittest. Imagine buses, auto rickshaws, cars, motor cycle, scooters, bicycles & pedestrians – all with their urgenicies, communicating with each other using the horns in different frequencies & pitches. It’s like the whole traffic is dynamically adjusting to you and you to them. My sister isn’t aggressive enough as a driver and so gets easily left behind until somebody notices that it’s a lady driving and shows his chivalry by staying behind and honking continuously so she takes off. It works. With my dad, drives are fun. Not for him perhaps, but I am not talking about the driver’s sentiments. I wouldn’t know.

So the latest addition to my Things-to-do list is drive in cochin without fear. Some day I will.

Another thing I realized is how advantageous it is sometimes to be a woman. The lines are so much smaller when buying movie tickets for example. It’s almost unfair to the guys. But I ain’t complaining. I had forgotten how it used to be, until the help I got with my luggage on the flight to Cochin. Aw, I didn’t have to ask for help, men just helped out. My backpack was so heavy I could never lift it up by myself and would usually end up asking the gentleman/lady in the vicinity to lend a hand. And I got help. But here help came before I asked. Same at the airport. Same with my mother when she’s bought groceries at the supermarket. Same with my sisters when they are driving or parking. Oh, in the last case it’s probably more like “oh it’s a lady driving, no wonder” attitude. That’s there in US as well. So it must be one of those gender things I don’t understand.

People are very friendly & generally helpful, again something I had forgotten I guess. I’d not be worried about my car getting stuck here while driving, in US on the other hand it’s a major fear. No wonder things like AAA are such a hit there and so unpopular here. I am also amused by the curiosity of people here, I absolutely love it.

The best feature though is not any of this. It’s how practical it is here to eat great food outside. You don’t have to be a vulgarly rich person to eat every meal outside (Unless you are in Bangalore downtown, which is like mini-US anyways). And not a taco-bell, burger-king, mc-donalds, pizza, burger kinda food. I just feel better having said that.

The third semester has come to an end for me today (though officially it ends the end of this week), it has been a rewarding semester, bits of sweat, some long nights and occasionally some interesting problems to solve. The annoying part was that my office this semester was in a different building from where I have my classes. Biking uphill in the cold was no fun, so I would end up TS-ing from home most of the days. This would mean sometimes spending days within the walls of my apartment and finding a short-lived blissful state when I stepped outside. Unlike India, sitting in my apartment here gives me absolutely no idea as to what it is like outside. Probably due to things like lack of ventilation and constant temperature inside.

I look forward to a break back in the midst of palm trees, family, *real* food, old friends, sea, the traffic noises, the vegetable market and speaking in hindi and malayalam. And for the unfortunate souls who decided to stay behind, I promise to come back with stories, many!

PS. Kochi has internet, and I can blog. So don't even think about LOTA!