4th anniversary in US

So, today is the day when I landed in Boston, United States of America four years ago. I can never forget this historical day.. the emotions that ran through my mind while making this epic journey from India to the US. The feeling of being away from your family for a long time, and living in a foreign country, with no one to trust but your small group of friends and seniors from the university. I distinctly remember this day when I landed in Boston. We were a group of 19-20 students travelling in two flights - Lufthansa and Al-Italia, reaching Boston at almost the same time. Our temporary accomodation was at a typical old Boston red-brick building on 313 huntington ave, right across the university (that was infested with rats all around, which we later came to know that was common case in Boston's old buildings and houses). Climbing the steps upto the fourth floor (as there was no lift) was one of the many things that I had to get used to in my initial days in the US. We were around 15 people in a 1-bed split apartment, staying together for 15-days for our temporary accomodation. The early days in Boston were the days where we had to wake up early (to get some time for restroom), stay at the university almost the entire day to complete some formalities, hunt for on-campus jobs, etc.. and come back to our temp. place early, to get place in the room to sleep. Others included walking long distances, traffic rules, open culture, rats, people eating non-veg food in front of you, cooking food, doing laundry, and, the list was never ending. Those were the days when I felt the true importance of my family and friends back home. But all said and done, it was indeed exciting, meeting different people and making new friends. Each day was like a stepping stone and a learning curve as an individual for me, teaching me new lessons in life, making me more mature and independent. Of course, now when I think of all these emotions, I can also say to my kids some day that those were the hardships that I once faced to get a better tomorrow...more laters :)

A weekend trip to Atlantic City

Catching up with friends is so much fun...Last friday, I had a product release and was stuck up at work till 9pm. I had planned to go to NY to meet a very dear friend 'R' who was visiting the city for the first time. I caught the bus from Boston to NY at 10pm. This was like the 5th or 6th time I was going to NY, but still that enthusiasm wasn't less..to chill-out with friends, visit some old, some new places, and the city has tones of places where you can pass your time really well. In the entire bus journey, I was thinking of what we'll be doing and which places could we visit. 'R' was staying at her friend's place in Long-Island and I had to take the train after reaching NY city again... It was for sure tiring, but still I was very excited to meet after a long-time.

Finally reached Penn station at 2.30am, caught the train to New Hyde Park. 'S' came to pick me up. Reached home and met 'R' and 'P' .. and 'A' (well..he was fast asleep). Everyone was waiting for us. We had a chat for a while and went to sleep. Next morning, we had booked a car at 11 to go to Atlantic city. We started off from Long Island to NJ. Of course, if you are at NJ, you have to get to Journal square - the 'khaau' gali of US, where you can get anything and everything from great south indian food to exquisite north indian buffets. We had a lunch buffet at a restaurant called 'Rasoi'. Finally, we started off for the long-drive to Atlantic City. The drive was simply amazing - from Startbucks stop-overs to loud karaoke's in the car...had great fun.

We reached Atlantic city at around 7pm, but still it wasn't too dark. We first headed to the beach-side. It was windy and cold, but the feel was amazing. After spending some time, the wind got chillier, so we decided to head back to the casino called 'Taj Trump'. Everyone started exploring different tables. I spoke to a friend who had been to Atlantic city and he said to try Bally's Casino. We started the long walk along the beach-side from Taj Trump to Bally's, exploring the shops around, which included chinese massage parlors, pizza take-outs to dancing waiters selling hamburgers. We reached Ballys and saw lots of fancy slot machines all around. Some old people sitting for the entire day, drinking and pulling the slot-machine lever. There were some big tables too, playing roulet, blackjack and poker. As for me, I was sure about not playing much but just a little to get a feel of the place. We roamed around the place and found a 'Wheel of Fortune' where 'A' lucky on the first try ( 1 X 10). Everyone started growing confident and began playing more - losing sometime and winning the other. After playing for sometime, we headed back to the Taj casino, clicking pics on the way and having dinner at one of the pizza places along the Board-walk. As we reached Taj, we found there was a group called 'Angels' performing live at a disc inside Taj. They played old 70's songs and some top billboard 20 numbers too and we were having best time of our lives..we danced a lot, so the night which had almost everyone losing money on the fortune-wheel turned out to be 'paisa-wasool'. It was 3am and we decided to head back to S's place in Long Island. S decided to drive and everyone almost in the sleeping mode, but still managing to keep the eyes open, we reached at around 6.30am..slept for a while and woke up early again to return the car that we'd rented. I shall look forward to more trips in future and hope to keep posting my xperiences :) take care all !!

To Let Go !

To let go does not mean to stop caring,
it means I can't do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off,
it's the realization I can't control another.
To let go is not to enable,
but allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means
the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
it's to make the most of myself.
To let go is not to care for,
but to care about.
To let go is not to fix,
but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their destinies.
To let go is not to be protective,
it's to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny,
but to accept.
To let go is not to nag, scold or argue,
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To let go is not to criticize or regulate anybody,
but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.

To let go is to fear less and love more
and
To let go and to let God, is to find peace !

--Anonymous.

Frustration at work !

I know many people face this while working on things that are repetitive in nature. I think when you are working with software programming, there comes a point where you have to repeat what you did before, either it is correcting your code with a new bug that's just evolved or its testing a new bug that's just been fixed. You always need to do sanity and regression testing which becomes seriously monotonous at times. The frustration level rises when you have other things playing inside your head and you can't even concentrate at work, with an even more frustrating boss who keeps poking you time and again with new testing tasks. Testing and Documentation sucks BIG-TIME ! But as they all say, its the most important part of making a software, but someone has to do the dirty-work and last entire week, it was me :( !

I started a lot of posts about this topic but couldn't finish any. My mind's playing all wild..memories flashing up from past and i keep wondering and analyzing my life again and again and again...

The topic is something called 'love' ! You must be thinking how this topic came up in my life...well, it comes in every one's life at some point of time, but you have other priorities in life at times and so, you keep deviating yourself from this one. Trying to run away, you kinda see almost everyone around you getting committed and living happy lives with their loved ones. You suddenly start feeling awkward...the feeling of an emptiness creeps in, and you start asking questions to yourself, are you a bad person - not charming and good looking may-be like others or may-be unlucky in finding the right-person in life...whatever the reason, you start loosing confidence and self-belief in yourself, but you don't realize the fact that you yourself put so many filters to your ideal life-partner that you never gave a try to any other person in your life !

People often say, if you like someone just ask her out...but such thinkers don't think of the consequences. Either they are too mature to snap out of bad relationships and act as if nothing went bad in their lives Or they turn out to be the weepers (sensitive fellows like me) that keep regretting and thinking about the past and loose all hope that they once had in love. But if you always keep on thinking of consequences, you'll never be able to give yourself a chance to experience something called love. Like i said, its so complicated ! More thoughts laters ...

Remembering Old times...

When do we remember our old friends ?

- When new friends are not as good as the old ones.
- When new friends can't share your emotions and feelings like the old friends used to.
- When some incidence happens that takes you back to old memories.
- When we are lonely, and need to share our thoughts with someone.
- Looking at old pictures and videos and remembering the good-fun times.
- Movies and songs depicting great friendships relating your life and friends.
- Mistakes you make in life that now make sense if you once had listened to your friend(s).

What makes you vulnerable to the outside world?
Is it really you who has changed through time or is it the world around you that is changing and you aren't? What is right and what is wrong? Do you follow your brain and change with the changing world around you or follow your heart and be yourself?

You hope life could rewind-back to those great moments you once had in your life, without complications and without hardships. But life isn't that simple and you need to change with the changing world around you. But in the meanwhile, you shouldn't lose your individual identity. That is really tough !

Start of a new semester

Fall '08 arrives and brings some new life to the totally lethargic last week. The campus is full of life with several new faces that are on the verge of starting a new career ahead. The new students are full of hope and confidence with great responsibilities on their little shoulders to make their families proud. Seeing the new spirit on the young faces, it seems like a rewind of two years when I first stepped into the US of A: going away from your family for a time-period you aren't certain of, with no family member around you to guide you through your difficult times and just with the one hope of making something BIG in life. I distinctly remember my granny always repeating the same phrases, and trying to remind me to focus and study hard, not to forget my responsibilities and motive of coming to the States. This journey in life truly becomes the test of being independent and self-motivated.

Well, it was my birthday on 12th Sept and I was so not looking forward to celebrating it. Everyone were curious to know the reason as to who can be so stupid not to celebrate a day thats just for you and comes once a year. Well, I couldn't find a definite answer to the question but I think I miss my family, or maybe I don't see any point celebrating a day that makes me realize that I have one less year to live. Maybe I am too pessimistic b'coz some people would celebrate this day thinking that they loved the years past in their lives and hope to live more to celebrate this day again. Its been the third birthday without the family for me on the day when you need them the most. I received so many calls from relatives and friends back in India and I felt really happy for the fact that atleast I got to talk to them bcoz of this day. There are still those questions that keep on lingering into your mind: Have you done enough with the time you spent away from your family and friends, sacrificing all the social life and running away from various responsibilities? Was is worth to spend 2.5 years of student life pursuing MS with 1 year work-experience in between or was it better to finish your studies early and start full-time straight-up after your graduation? Well, I don't know the answers of any of these questions yet, but I hope to know them pretty soon. Destiny surely has something for everyone and I beleive whatever happens, happens for good ! Laters...