Atlast my Spring break is over..Considering the movies I saw it was not bad :)
For the first time after coming to US I did not go to any trip for a vacation, that too for a break as long as the Spring break.

Anyways no regrets, it was not that bad after all spending the break in Manhattan, Kansas. I always mention Kansas when I say Manhattan becoz I dont want anyone to mistaken it for the New York Manhattan, becoz both are just the opposite :)
Manhattan, NY is a bustling place filled with activity where everyone seem to be running. The subway is crowded even at 2.00 am in the morning. Manhattan, KS is a small university town laid back and quiet and u know just the opposite. U see theres a big difference between the BIG Apple and the Little Apple.

Ok now coming back from the diversion, I watched some really fun movies like Murari, Anand, The Italian Job, My Cousin Vinny and then ok sort of movies like Missamma, first part of Aitraaz [it was not interesting enuf to hold me back to see the rest of it] and then the first part of Chalte Chalte [ not bad but this time, the internet connection was gone for the rest of it]..will watch it sometime this weekend.

Then I read the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. An interesting book, really nice in the beginning when the plot unfolds and the hidden meaning in Da Vinci's paintings are descibed. It was just amazing, but then the latter part of the book fails to maintain the same tempo. It just lets you down. But worth a read..not bad.

and then I went to Topeka, [ so many more shops and restaurants than in Manhattan] did some shopping and went to Olive Garden restaurant. The ambience was great in the restaurant, food was good and the service excellent..what more can you ask ?
One of the best restaurants I had been to. Also I went to a disco in Lawrence. The disco was ok, but then we went to Perkins. Even this one was good, the food was tempting even at 2.00 Am in the morning, though I must say it had lots of butter. I had a raspberry tea that was really good. It was a nice friday night.

Now coming to the downside, I cudnt do many things I planned like doing my taxes, then my insurance and so on..I have to wrap them all this week.

Also last but not the least I cud finish all the required things for my Masters project. There have been few more additions today though, as expected. But it was not bad. It was a part of agenda on my To-Do list for my Spring break.

So there ends my break and my Semester resumes with full force bringing in its very own quizzes, projects, assignments and deadlines :) phew..
Got to go back to work..
ciao

This might be a record of sorts, Writing another blog within a gap of 3 days !!
Maybe its becoz its Spring break and I am not going anywhere :(
But anyways, its a nice time to give a fresh lease of life for my creative writing :)
all these days it has been suffocated by Java classes and software specifications.

Yesterday I saw "Black", a bollywood movie by Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
The movie was different and well taken. But one thing I realized was why it is so difficult for a deaf and blind person to speak even if he/she is not dumb. How can they speak if they cant hear how a sound should be pronounced ??
This might be quite basic, but till then I had never given a thought to it. Really a nice movie and good performances.

What else? I had some 100 things listed to do for this week, but I am not quite sure if I can get atleast 10% of it done. Thats Life :)

Sometime life can get boring though you have some 100 things to do [ just like my situation] because u want to do something which u cant do now. For example, I want to go out and visit some places right now, but not possible, so even if there are some interesting options before me, I dont enjoy them.
Maybe he who enjoys what is laid before him, is the one who has attained the ultimate happiness or nirvana..
phew ! I am so far from it..I cant get to concentrate on single thing even for a minute..how restless the mind is?? Someone said, Our mind is like a monkey, u need to get hold of it to attain concentration. Looks like my mind has become a too difficult to get hold of "monkey".
ok I dont think any of this sounds creative, but thats what I am feeling now. I wanted to write about rain..but I think I will write in another blog..Writing in this one just doesnt agree with the sequence..u see mind is a monkey :)

Ok, I wanted to write this from long long time, but kept postponing..
This incident has happened in the first semester of my Masters.
We had a project in Parallel Programming and it was a 2-member team project.
I teamed up with my roomie and my very good friend Sasya.
The project was in a three phase and we completed the first one without any major problems, though it didnt come out so well :)
Then we had the second phase, now I dont remeber what we had at the same time, I guess another assignment of the same course and some other submissions u know in the same week, as it happens in every semester of an average Masters student [ How much time was given to solve the assignment doesnt hold much importance here :) ]..only the deadlines matter and how they are spaced..the interval between deadlines.

That week was a particularly hard one, with a deadline every other day and given our inexperience in programming at that time, it was a tight rope walk.
As expected, we started the second phase of this project just the day before submission, infact the evening before the submission day, around 6.00 Pm. Though it started with some pace, we got stuck at some point. Now how much we tried to solve it, we couldn't. Time was tikcing away and we had to attend a class at 9.00 am the next day [ very early given my sleeping habits]...soon it was 2.00 am and still we were no where near enlightenment [ the solution :)]
so we decided we will do a night out in the lab, [of all the places]
we kept trying various combinations, changed our entire program some 5 or 6 time, still no light.
and soon it was 6.00 am and I was literally falling on the key-board. sasya had to lift me up several times. I dont know how she managed to stay awake. I gave up, I said I wanted to sleep becoz if I dont I will lose my senses..never did I hate Java threads as much as I did at that moment. We decided it was not possible to go home and come back for the class in time. so decided to sleep in the lab itself. can u believe it? A computer lab has become our place of living.
And so I slept soundly in the lab..it was 8.00 am in the morning and sasya was struggling to wake me up, people have started coming to start their day and I was sleeping soundly. I woke up atlast thanks to Sasya's constant nudging. Later she told me that she took almost an hour to wake me up.
When I woke up, it was as if the computer lab was the only place in the world to live.
We attended the class at 9.00 am and I am sure I did not listen to the professor even for a minute. all my friends were asking what happened to both of us. Both of us had red eyes and we didnt have anything in the morning. Imagine we had stayed awake for the whole night after a really tiring day and had barely 2 hours of sleep. poor thing Sasya didnt even get a wink of sleep I think. Then we poured out our sad story and condolences came, many offered help to look at our program. I nodded as if in a trance.

We decided not to give up. We started working on the program again. But what new ideas will a brain get that has been refused a proper night's sleep and decent food. I began to hate Java itself. And soon I was so weak and tired there was no energy left for any feelings, even for Java.And the project submission deadline was 5.00 pm. It was 5.00 Pm and we were still where we were the night before at 9.00 Pm. Another friend looked at our program and pointed out some major flaws and then we changed the program and some things began to work. But there were many other things to do , but no energy left to even type a single character on the key board.
We called it a day [ or maybe u should say a Day that lasted 36 hours] and finally went home.

When I took bath, I felt as If I had not taken one from some days together. What a long day it was! Then we ate something and slept. Next day we got up at 5.00 am. My other roomies thought that both of us have gone out of our minds..I dont blame them, spending the whole night in the lab and then getting up at 5.00 am.
But this time I was feeling very fresh and we started getting ready. Sasya said that she was feeling as if we are going on some trip/expedition, getting up early in the morning and having a too early breakfast. I will never forget that remark of sasya. It was as if we were on a mission as if to climb Mt.Everest or something....anyways, we reached our first home [ the lab where else?] and started working on the project...This time everything was working just fine...no need of any recompilations and runs..everything works in the first go itself...I could not believe my eyes. I purposely put some errors to see if the Java compiler was working alright. Ok it was working fine..Thats it , everything was over by 8.00 am. We finished our project atlast though late by 14 hrs. How relieved I felt at that moment. Suddenly Java did not look so intimidating, infact I sort of liked it when I understood my mistakes. We completed the documentation and submitted the project. We scored 100% minus the marks for late submission. In fact we scored better than our first phase project.
What an experience it was!..After reading this, you might have come to the conclusion that I would never ever start a project/assignment just before the deadline. But no I will prove u wrong with my next blog :)