First week of classes

My grad classes have been started and I completed my first week. Just by looking at this past week, I can gurantee you that I will be super busy with my weekends :( and won't really get any time for myself. I am taking two courses this semester, Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence (AI), both of which are harder than my last class, Database Systems.

AI's professor seems good and the activities are very interactive so the problems make more sense and students learn better. We have homeworks due every week :( and I just spent my entire weekend trying to finish the homework that's due tomorrow :(:(. I still haven't completed it as I have some doubts in one of my solutions but I will figure it out before I go to bed (hopefully?).

Algorithm's professor on the other hand is really nice too, very smart, and funny. Before she starts the class, she asks if anyone got a good joke to tell, if not, she just throws some joke in which either is funny or sarcastic or something which ends up being funny. This class is going to be tough too since there is a lot to cover. I have 10 pages of notes just in 2 lectures so imagine how much material she could cover in one lecture. Her notes makes sense but somehow it seems she teaches fast in class. I guess I will get used it once couple of weeks passes and before the semester ends :P.

That's it for now. Ohh...the rain kinda cooled down colorado which was nice :). It was nice to have that change. Let's hope it doesn't continue raining because that brings the cloudy weather which is dark and depressing.

2008 Olympics

As all of you may know, 2008 olympics have started since Friday (8/8/08). I'm not really an olympics fan or have never been excited to watch it. But somehow I've been watching it everyday this year since it started on Friday with the opening ceremony. It's been like an addiction. As soon as I get home from work, the first thing I tune in is the olympics channel...no matter what sport is competing. BTW, I got to tell you that the opening ceremony in Beijing was pretty amazing. I was really impressed with the whole olympic enviornment whether it was the performances delivered by 15,000 performers, the stadium look, or the audience and the backdrop of chinese culture was fantastic.

So far I've watched the following sports where US is competing against another country:
Swimming:
I saw live competition of Michale Phelps 400 m individual medley where he won the gold medal. It was pretty amazing. As soon as he got in the water, he was ahead of everyone and his timing made it to second world record. As of today (8/11/08), he won 3 gold medals!!! Also I saw the female 400 m backstroke which was cool and US won gold and bronze medal in that one too.

OMG! Michale Phelps is on FIRE!!
After Yesterday's (8/12/08) swims, 200m butterfly and 4x200m relay, add two more gold medals to Phelps' achievements!! So far 5 gold medals won and 3 more to go. He's on his way to break the world record to get 8 gold medals in one olympics :). Luckily NBC is showing the live telecast of swimming competition from two days at night so it's so much fun. Don't forget to tune in on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for his other 3 swims!! Go Michale Phelps!!!!!

After Thursday's (8/14/08) 200m individual medly, Phelps won his 6th gold medal making world records in all of his races.

Friday's (8/15/08) 100m butterfly race was quite interesting to see. If you didn't see it, the race was very tight in the last 15 m where phelps beat the participant from Australia (I think?) by 1/100th of a second and won his 7th gold medal. With this gold medal, he has tied with another 1972 olympian who also won 7 gold medals in one olympic.
Here are my thoughts on the 100m race. I could see that phelps swam really fast in the last 5-10 m to get ahead of Milorad Cavic but I am having hard time believing that Milorad didn't touch the wall before Michael Phelps. I didn't believe when they showed on TV that phelps touched the wall first and I certainly thought that they cheated somehow to get Phelps his 7th gold medal. BUT, when they showed the underwater video of both swimmers touching the wall, you can somewhat see that even though Milorad had his hands near the wall, phelps' hands came super fast from the sides and touched the wall. I have to see the video couple more times to actually get it into my system that phelps won!! I'm a Michael Phelps fan after watching all his races in 2008 olympics but still the fact is hard to believe :P.

AND Michael Phelps has won his 8th gold medal in his last swim!!!!! In history of 112 olympics, he's the first olympian to win 8 gold medals in one olympics!!!! Go Michael Phelps!! Now that he won't be swimming any more I don't know what's left to see in the olympics game :P.

And for my earlier statement regarding his 7th gold medal which he won by 1/100th of a second, I'm not going to think anymore about it on who touched the wall first because since the difference is 1/100th of a second, it's nearly impossible for a human eye to catch which swimmer touched the finish wall first. So I think anything is possible in that 1/100th of a second. I'm just really happy that Phelps won 8th medal and made his dream a reality on this olympics :).

Women's Beach Volleyball:
This one I've been watching since saturday when they first started playing. In Yesterday's match, Misty May and Karen walsh won against Cuba. This is a really cool game to watch because it kinda keeps you on your toes. You never know who'll snatch the game point when and how. This game has so much interaction which makes it more exciting.

Men's and Women's Gymnastics:
This one I've been watching on and off, so don't really know where US stands in this sport.

Men's Synchronized diving:
This was alright for some countries while other countries like China or Russia were 99% synchronized in their diving. One advantage of watching this sport from home is that once they dive, the recap is shown from like 4 different angles and in slow motion as well where you can clearly see the different timings of actions taken by both team members.

So if you haven't tuned in to the olympics channel yet, do that and I'm sure you'll find a sport that won't let you move away from your seat.

PS: I'll update this post on regular basis if I can on olympics for the games I watch. So come back to read more if you're interested in Olympics news :P. I'm telling you I'm addicted to this thing. I was really sleepy yesterday (8/12) but didn't want to go to bed until NBC showed the Michale Phelps 4x200m relay LIVE!

Obsession of Art

There are two reasons for naming the title the way it is: one is because this post has to do something with art (drawing) and second is my obsession of it. It's 12:20 am as I'm writing this post and usually I go to bed around 10 - 10:30. The reason I am still up is because I wanted to finish a drawing that I started around 6 pm yesterday (since it's already past 12 now).

I was chatting with one of the friends yesterday and she mentioned me this place called "Golconda Ruins" which is in Andra. I have never heard of the place so I got curious and googled it up. I went to the wikipedia site which showed some really cool pics of this place. Surfing down my way to the bottom of the page, I found row of pictures for this place. I've always loved to draw and my interest became my hobby since I was in 9th grade when I did my first big art project. Then life got busier and never really got a chance to sit down and draw something properly. I might have drawn something once a year maybe if I was bored. Once I saw the second picture on the wiki site of the Golconda ruins, it suddenly hit me that I should draw this. Don't know from where and how it came to my mind but somehow it got in my head that I have to draw this when I get home. I couldn't wait to get home from work and guess what? As soon as I got home, I changed, ate something, took paper, pencil, and started sketching down the picture. I felt silly but then I was so focused on it once I started it. I couldn't sit still and finish it in one time since I was interupted many times, and may be that's the reason it took me so long to finish it. I finished it and I feel great about it. I feel I have accomplished something today and it kind of brought back some of the high school memories.

Below is the original picture along with my drawing in two different shades. It's definitely not perfect and not same as the original but I tried my best and to me, it looks good :). Tell me what you think. Do you think it turned out ok? Do you think it's so bad that I shouldn't have wasted my time in it. I would love to hear from you.

PS : Thanks to my friend for letting me realize my interest and love for drawing :).

Damaged Baggage Situation..

Alright, so if you have read my earlier post "Back to US Journey", you might remember that I said that almost all of our bags were damaged (well 5 out 6) when we got back to US. Just to refresh your memory, we came back in United Airlines. The bags didn't come with us in our flight so we had to wait for 1.5 hours for the next flight since our bags were coming in next flight. Once the bags arrived, almost all of them were damaged badly such that we were sure that those bags can't be used again. We filed the complaint for the bags. The lady who took our complaints said that they can't guarantee that any of the bags will be repaired or if they will take responsibility for any damages (since the lady thought that some were manufacturing defects :P). This statement made us mad but it was 1 am and we didn't have the energy to argue with that lady. I told my dad that let's at least file the complaint and then we'll see what can be repaired and what not. We couldn't leave our bags there since they were all full but we came back in 2 weeks and dropped off the bags. The damage luggage agent was very nice. She talked with me on the phone very nicely insuring me that she'll do her best to get the bags repaired and if they can't repair them, they'll negotiate something with us. I was relieved after hearing that :).

It had been two weeks and I still didn't hear from her regarding the status of the bags or anything so got little concerned and called her up. Couldn't get hold of the agent so left a message. She called me back and said that 4 new bags have been bought to replace the 4 damaged big bags and one of the bags will be repaired...so they'll probably ship them out to us once they get them all in (Wooohoooooo!). I was really happy and satisfied to hear that they got us 4 new bags to replace the old ones. I'm very glad that things worked out and now we don't need to worry about our bags.

Advice: If there is any kind of damage, definitely file a complaint. File the complain and see what can be repaired. It is the airline's responsibility to reimburse us, or repair the damage they did to our bags. Worse comes worse, they might say "no" to have anything to do with your bags, but it's worth a try. You might get lucky or unlucky depending on what kind of person you deal with.

Tata for now!!

Jaane tu ya jaane na

I recently watched "Jaane tu ya jaane na" and it was pretty good. It's got all new faces in it including Imran Khan (Amir Khan's nephew). The movie was funny at times and silly at other times..Imran acted well and so did Genelia. It's a complete youth movie and some scenes in the movie are hillarious.
For example,
The scene where Jai (Imran) wants to drop off his girlfriend to her house, Aditi (Genelia) says "Aur kitna drop karega tu, saamne hi to hai uska ghar".

The scene where jai comes to aditi's house thinking he has come to give job interview and his parents on the other hand think that jai has come to ask for permission to marry their daughter (hahaha!! hillarious). The first thing aditi's parents (btw, aditi is from rich family) ask is "Are you sure you are ready for this?" and jai answers "Yes, of course. Afterall I have to do it for money!" Shocked parents ask..."You are doing this JUST for money??" Quickly Jai responds and says "Yea of course..oh and also for status, and image in the society and also because I love you guys!!". I can't describe the whole scene but you have to watch it to enjoy it!!

Also the fights between aditi and her brother are quite funny! And who can forget the climax scene..(don't read further if you don't want to know what happens at the end!!!!)
The police caches jai in the middle of the airport for getting in the airport without authorization and he's screaming "Meow! Meow!" and start singing a song "Jaane tu ya jaane na" to stop aditi from leaving mumbai.

I am not too excited about the music of this film except one or two songs. I am a big fan of A.R.Rehmaan but it didn't feel like the usual A.R.Rehman music. The song "Kabhi kabhi aditi zindagi" is a light hearted and foot tapping number. Another song "Nazrein milana nazrein churana" is also a soft-paced song. The harmonica tune at the very beginning of this song sounds very much like the tune in "Bum bum bole, masti me dole" song from "Taare zameen par" if you listen to it carefully. About "Pappu can't dance" song, I didn't like it when I heard it at first and I still don't like the middle parts but I like the opening of this where it starts with "tirkit dana tirkit dana tiri nana westerns....hai muscular, hai popular".

Well, that's my review on the movie and thoughts on the music! ENJOY!

July 4th Weekend FUN + YJA!!

So after coming back from India, I had to work the next day and then leave for chicago trip the day after...crazy, huh? But I was looking forward to my chicago trip because I was going for the YJA (Young Jains of America) convention and I knew it was going to be a lot of fun. The convention actually was from July 3rd - July 6th but my brother and I went 4 days early to stay at my aunt's place. We got good rest there since we were really tired from our India trip.

My uncle dropped us off at the Lincolnshire Marriot Resort for the convention on July 3rd. This was my first time at the convention, so didn't really know what to expect but I guess that's what made it more exciting. The convention was divided for 3 age groups: highschool, college and after-college. I was in the after-college (called JNF) group, so I didn't know anyone even though there were 5 of us from Colorado. We had an opening ceremony and dinner around 6 o'clock and then right after dinner, we had to get ready for Raas/Garba night. In the meantime, my roomie arrived at the room. She came late since she had terrible delays with the airlines....We got ready and straight to the garba floor! It went on until past midnight. Well for the JNF group they had meet-n-greet program planned which was also fun. They had a deck of cards and cut each card in half and distributed among everyone. We basically had to find the other half of the card we received. It was nice activity to get to know other people. I had nice chat with everyone and then headed to my room around 2 am and went to bed.

Next day, July 4th:
I had schedule packed with sessions from 9 am to 5 pm. My first session was Jainism skits. Basically everyone was divided into groups of 5-6 people and given a fairytale story. Now the challenge was to act out the story you're given in any other language than English! Well this wasn't hard for me as I spoke gujarati fluently but other members of the group spoke broken gujarati which was very cute! My group got the fairytale story of Goldilocks and three bears. I became the narrator since there was more to narrate and other members acted out the scene. This was a lot of fun. Also to see that other people were giving their best to try to speak in gujarati/hindi was very cute. It would come out very different like a small kid had just learned to speak the language. Anyways...after that we had a relationship panel where they brought in 3 couples from different backgrounds telling their stories on how they met, what challenges there are in a marriage and what are the ingredients to make marriage a successful one. This was one of the best sessions I had. Then there were couple other sessions but I don't remember them :P! Towards the evening, for JNF, there was a speed dating program for 1.5 hours. I thought to myself that what are we going to do for one and half hours?? But boy was I wrong..once the speed dating started, I had a lot of fun talking with all the boys. What was funny is that every other boy I talked to was a Pharmacist! And I didn't come across any engineers at all! Some were shy and some were talkative. Overall I had a great experience! For the evening, there was dance fusion competition where 11 teams were competiting. Full of fun and entertainment. I hope they continue doing this. After the competition, there was "MELA". Actually for JNF, it was 80's night so everyone was supposed to dress up in 80's outfit. Unfortunately I didn't have 80's clothes, neither my roomie did, so we both decided to wear indian clothes (salwaar-kameez) which was weird because we were the only ones in indian clothes and everyone else was in their 80's outfit...BUMMER!! Well at least we were there to enjoy it! That night I went to bed early.

Next Day, July 5th:
Again today was pretty packed with sessions but these sessions were more focused around jainism than yesterday's fun sessions :). For some reason I got a headache, so I skipped a session and took a nap. We had a 2-hour recreation break which was very nice since we got to go out and breathe some fresh air!!! Aaaaaaahhhh! Since today was the last day of the YJA convention, we had a formal dinner and then dance!! My friends and I dressed up, took some pics and then headed to the dinner. Dinner wasn't that good but we had good time at our table. After dinner, we had the dance and boy once I hit the dance floor, I danced till 3-3:15 am....and I wasn't really tired (can you believe it?). Then my roomie and I went to the room, changed into pajamas and then went back out to hang out with friends. We were up till 5 am chatting with other friends. Right then my eyes started to close, started yawns and I felt really sleepy. I said goodbyes and came to the room to get some sleep. Unfortunately I couldn't sleep because I had to pack my bags to be ready to go next morning around 9 o'clock. I hardly got 2 hour sleep that day. I woke up around 8, got ready and we left the place at 9 am on sunday morning to head back home.

Overall, it was a great weekend at the convention. Met some really nice people, made great friends and got a really good experience out of it. I would love to come back again for this convention!!!

Teri Ore from Singh is King

I recently heard a song "Teri Ore" from an upcoming movie "Singh is King" (starring akshay kumar and katrina kaif) and it's a beautiful song. It's soft soothing and melodious. I can't stop humming it since the time I heard it. Rahat fateh ali khan's rendition makes the song complete with Shreya ghoshal's honey sweet voice. If you haven't heard it...don't wait any longer to hear it!
I'm sure you'll love it :).

Dil kho gaya, ho gaya, kisi ka
Ab rasta mil gaya, khushi ka
Aankhon me hai khwab sa, kisi ka
Ab rasta mil gaya, khushi ka
Rishta naya rabba, dil chu raha hai
Kheeche mujhe koi dor, teri ore
Teri ore, teri ore, teri ore, haay rabba,
Teri ore, teri ore, teri ore....