First Impression: Silicon Valley

So i am here finally in the Silicon Valley in CA, precisely in San Jose. First two days here have been quite unsettled with the usual moving blues to a new place. Nothing unusual. But this place is very different from the midwest particularly my University town Madison. Madison is much smaller, organized, clean and beautiful from the area I am in right now (San Jose and surrounding areas). But heard that some of the places a little far like SFO, Mountainview etc are pretty good. Well, will discover that soon. However life in CA seems to be much more stressful and fast compared to the pleasant and calm life in Madison.

The Day has almost arrived: Leaving Madison

Time does fly. 2 years in this beautiful city of lakes, "Madison", as a student passed with the blink of an eye. Now just one day before i board the flight to Silicon Valley as a professional and not a student anymore. Tough to accept and even tougher to leave this place. Hundreds of memories run across my mind now, particular smells in the campus buildings remind me of past days and events. Today i spent an hour in the evening at the memorial terrace and probably had my last Babcock icecream. The lake looked more beautiful today and i felt like taking pictures of every corner in the Union. The sight of the lake brought me the memories of my previous semesters. Canoeing and coming and sitting , watching the waves hit the bank, ducks swimming and eating the buraka peanut stew besides the lake with the tally shop Pina Colada juice. Those were the days! Colorful days! And then i left for a friend's place in bus number 80 , the free campus service. Along the observatory drive i was trying to guess the names of all the buildings i saw. My favorite still remains the Bascom Hall and the Agriculture building which almost looks like a palace. I remembered the days and the nights spent in CAE working on my favorite course 552 project taught by Prof. Lipasti and eating the Toppers pizza at midnight. Waiting for the safecab and sometimes even walking back at 3 in the night.
Well, anything and everything i look around today, whether the street, Library or the stairs in the house rings just one thing in my mind. That I am feeling and seeing these things probably for the last time. It feels I am being parted from my heaven, the place which transformed me everyday towards a more matured individual and made me grow everyday by making me fall and stand up on my own. I wish I could have been in this place forever!

Absolutely Beautiful- "Kuch Is Tarah"

I was in search of good new music recently . Since i am not in touch with the new stuff coming in Hindi music anymore so i was just listening to the good old AR Rehman and RD Burman. But this song , i dont know how new it is, but i came across it now...Absolutely beautiful rendition with extremely meaningful, simple and deep touching lyrics.."Kuch Is tarah teri Palkein" by Atif, Enjoy the song from the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1vvjU55v1U

Finished the last Dan Brown

Last 3 days for me were filled with adventure through the Arctic circle, sea floor of the Arctic Ocean, a huge meteorite buried in an ice shelf, scary sharks which can smell a drop of blood upto a mile away, radio signals, SOS, NASA, NRO, a US army submarine and a guest stay in the White House. Does that sound fun? This was the experience vividly felt by me while reading the 550 page novel 'Deception Point' by Dan Brown. This was his only novel that I had not read.He has written 4 novels so far. The start was with an intriguing murder as in his other 3 books. The story become more and more captivating towards the middle of the book. I was reading the book while eating, while in the bus etc etc...I didnt switch on my laptop for 8 long hours today( which is sheer disbelief from me as there is no force in this world which can keep me away from my laptop for so long :-) ) , as I was completely captivated by the book. Verdict: Extreme High Tech Thriller, you cant sleep peacefully till you finish the book. The addiction is atleast 10 times stronger than any hollywood thriller. I dont read much but I must agree that all 4 of Dan Brown's novels have given me 3-4 days (in which you will read his 500 page thriller at the most) of extreme thrill that no movie for a long time has matched. All his 4 books show that he is a brilliant author with lot of research behind his plot, characters, information..Thumbs up for Dan Brown! Waiting for his sequel book on Da vinci Code..

Birthday gift shopping for me

Well, birthdays come once in a year and you are one more year old. However despite that discouraging fact, birthdays make you feel special on that day and for me its a celebration of completing the eventful past one year which definitely has if not many, some good memories to look back. I always gift myself a present on my birthday which is coming soon next week. Afterall we must treat ourselves well. Next week i will be busy with my exam and coursework so i decided to go to west town mall yesterday. I bought a black leather handpurse for myself. Apart from that i tried formal clothes in 4 different stores- The limited, Express, Banana Republic and Gap. I was among the people in the stores who were trying clothes very seriously one after the other as if they had to shop the entire store. The extensive trials were to see where i get the best sizes( which is always a problem for me) and get an idea of prices. Next time when i go to the mall it will be for actually buying :) , as i was too tired yesterday after the store to store adventure to actually buy.

Live Free Or Die Hard

What a mighty mighty action! The 1.5 hrs of ultimate thrill with helicopter and plane crashes , freeways cracking and computer hacking. Bruce Willis still looks awesome in his one man army. Reminds me of Sunny Deol. Actually that would be a dishonor to Bruce Willis :)...The movie was too good and so was Bruce Willis. But the theatre was a big mess. Me, Waj and his parents went to Orpheum theatres on State Street for the first time. It was not even a theatre, just a screen, an old building , a pathetic audio and only 10 audience. Those were also interested in getting the money back after seeing the theatre. Well I am planning to see the movie again at a better theatre with cracking audio..The movie was mindblowing!

Multitasking in human brain- Are we better than computers?

Yesterday I was travelling in bus number 6 returning home from Walmart. As ususal my ipod was glued to my ears. I saw a kid probably around 10 years sitting on the opposite seat. He too had his ipod plugged and was simultaneosuly writing some stuff in English in his notebook. He was writing, erasing, writing again turning back and forth the pages and ofcourse listening to music simultaneously. That made me think that the Multitasking Era has been set into place at quite a young age now. We listen to music, even watch TV while working, do sms in between studying, i talk on the phone almost continuously as long as I cook. And sometimes i burn the food doing that! To make things easy for me I have installed my blue tooth so that I can work more "Efficiently" while I talk over the phone. So technology is really taking care of the new Maultasking brain. So the question is , is multitasking good for us? One thing ofcourse is that we dont burn Watts of power as the processors even if we do extensive multitasking. Our operating system (the brain) is more efficient than Windows to set the priorities among the different tasks we do simultaneosuly assigning them the needed resources. Yes this does happen, the brain assigns different resources like thinking, logic etc to different tasks as discovered by a UCLA group through MRI images. The neurologists also say that multitasking is less efficient than doing one job at a time, so if a kid reading a history chapter does text messaging in between thats not too good for his learning. And so for us too like browsing the net while working to check the bank account or pay the bills, messaging etc etc etc ..list goes on..Well i have a couple of times felt the heat of multitasking when i felt really exhausted after trying to complete too many things in the least possible time. Sometimes it makes me really wonder that the flexible 1.5 Kg brain we have packed inside our head so compactly is really good in assigning the priorities to tasks and executing them in the multitasking mode..Dont know what algorithm it runs though! The irony is that the society is being shaped in a way which demands humans to do multitasking, primarily the reason being the technology. So next time you multitask, dont forget to enjoy the job which you could have done one at a time and maybe also better!