A New Life!

Living a new life in an old body - kind of seems strange .. but then there are always stranger things in life :)

Let me take you back to the last couple of months in India.
I had a wonderful time. I think I was able to meet most of my friends who I would not be meeting till the next time I went to India. Vacations merging, Spicejet offering cheap fares, Mck holding a timely ISB session, Lufthansa night flight, a timely Kgp trip, Singapore dollars - I was lucky!

The little cooking and driving I picked up haven't been tested yet, but I think I have learnt well :)

And then came the hard part :(
Saying goodbye .. I saw the tears roll out and on one of the rarest occasions, there was nothing I could do about it .. I wished I could cry too ..


3 flights later .. and there was a nice stop in Singapore .. I was in SFO and then in Berkeley!

The last couple of weeks have been a completely different experience. When I was settling into Kharagpur four years back, I never had this sense of independence. Nor was Kharagpur so different from the living standards and environment I have grown up in.

Berkeley, on the other hand, is vastly different. As I said before, 'A new life'.
The settling into process has been a lot different this time. Its always easier to shift into greater luxury - so its been commodity-wise convenient. But knowing that the people who mattered the most to you are physically half a globe away does change the whole dynamics of this process. There have been moments of helplessness (not homesickness yet) ..
And then there is a new-found sense of independence. But the tricky part will be the added responsibility which comes as a free add-on.

So classes start tomorrow :(
Fox Soccer Channel to bring EPL, HBO for movies, Free DVDs from NetFlix (I know that's an overdose), a home-entertainment system (thanks to Shantanu), a HOME (how can I forget that?!?!), great apartment-mates, wonderful food, awesome cereals (they needed special mention!), a Lenovo T61, just one notebook and possibly no pen - I am all set!

Thanks to the wonderful system here, I can just take 2 courses and concentrate on research without any administrative problem :). That should leave me with a decent amount of time to explore the entertainment possibilities both in-house and outside in the next few months :D


The long hibernation from blogging is now over!
For good?
Well .. its still the old, lazy body .. but its a new, invigorating life!

Looking back at 2006

Its been one of the most happening years of my life.
A month-wise meltdown (my blog actually helped out on listing this).

January : A memorable Spring-Fest. Arijit coming over from Canada. Internship blues started.

February : Internship blues intensified, though now had options. Mission Mars bombed. MSR came calling !! :) Chandipur trip.

March : Visa problems. Mostly uneventful.

April : Got my visa :). My second perfect 10 semester. One of my personal favourite posts (this)

May : Travelled outside India for the first time. Loved being in the US and Redmond. First office experience. First paycheck!! Great work and great people to work with.

June : Began enjoying myself. Became good friends with Francisco, Nikita, Tulika and Himanshu. Microsoft's pampering was incredible and it started showing on my waistline ;)

July : Went to Mt. Rainier. Walked on snow for the first time (it was amazing!!). Wrapped up my work. Back to India having gained significant dollars and 'pounds' ;)

August : "How I met your mother" happened. GRE happened. I was stupid enough not to properly see my score. Luckily, 1560 happened !! :)

September : Midsems. Uneventful. Left for Delhi for my TOEFL.

October : Nice Delhi trip. Nice TOEFL. Really loved the metro there. This trip has made Delhi/Gurgaon/Noida my preferred region for working if and when I work in India.
First Pujas away from home and my parents. First of many :(
Last Illumination. The wonderful dept treat !! (thanks to MSR)

November : Typhoid. Gearing up for apps. For jobs (not really). Ran to Kolkata for a day to give CAT. Horrible endsems :( - worst semester performance since my first sem. My work at MSR was published in a tech report :)

December : McKinsey's offer on day 1 of Placements made it a truly memorable birthday. Katoch and Kothari making it on day 1 too was great :)
My MSR work's paper was accepted in TACAS 2007 :), although I did not write a single word of the paper.
Wrapped up my apping work. Messed up my transcript sending dates :(

An eventful year, a wonderful year, a bitter-sweet year, a year leading to 2007 - which will be a pivotal year because I now have to choose what to do ... and the choice is getting more difficult as the day is drawing near.

2007 has begun well though. Pandey getting through TI (and he so deserved it!!). Talking to my favourite cousin after a long time. And a shock CAT percentile (99.99) - reminded me of the day when JEE results came out.
Just hoping that my luck doesn't run out when the crucial application decisions start to come in from mid February. Loads to do before that though, as the trip to the hallowed land now seems possible :)

When the stars shine !!

Two wonderful birthday cakes (and one of them in my favourite 'pink' ;) ) .. and both of them pretty & 'pretty' delicious :)

Thanks to everybody who remembered and/or called and/or scrapped and/or wished in person. To everyone who forgot, there's always next year :)
The interview was from 11 in the morning .. so decided to watch a movie and chill .. 'STEP UP' till 3:30 .. and then some much-needed sleep.

Next morning, looked at a couple of case studies (after all, that was going to be the deal maker or breaker) and some HR questions. As usual, got late, cut myself while shaving and went to the interview with a blood-spattered collar in an otherwise impeccable formal attire.

So, the interviews began. Surprisingly, there were only HR questions which were fine, but I was a little baffled 'coz I had no case study in my first two interviews. I also mentioned that I was applying to universities for a PhD and that if I got into Stanford, that would be my topmost priority. When asked what my friends thought of me, I mentioned their fetish for highlighting my affinity for anything 'pink' :). And then after lunch, one of the partners of the firm took me out for coffee, and told me that they were likely to make me an offer.

After that, I had one more interview where I was given a case (finally). I think I made a few mistakes but help and hints were always at hand, and soon the interviewer again took me out for a walk and started chatting about the company policies and other things :). All in all, a very enjoyable day!

McKinsey and Company also sent me a cake and my gracious wingies left it untouched till 11 pm in the night, when I finally came back and did the honours (cutting my 3rd b'day cake) !!!


It was a memorable b'day ... my last one with my friends here ... my first one with a job offer (though quite undeservingly) ... and hopefully, one of many to come when the stars shine on me so perfectly well that everything goes my way :)

For the one star that did not shine, I guess its going to be a longer wait :(

The cake was nice by the way :)
"Very nice, esp. the chocolate part" as Kundu says.

Maybe pink would have been nicer :D
After all, success looks best when coloured in pink, right ? ;)

Not just another day

Since the last time I blogged, lots have happened.

The best diwali and an eventful illumination
A typhoid
Not being English enough to bell the CAT
Some ordinary endsems (the chance of becoming 'GOD' gone forever!!)
Filling up univ application forms
Running around for recos
Filling up HR answers for myself, but more for my friends ;)
A dismal project eval despite having worked hard (such a rarity, both!)

And now tomorrow:
My first opportunity ever to bag a job. Of course, I am excited!! Initially, there were some doubts about whether to wait for Google, but now those doubts are gone. Looking forward to tomorrow with anxiety, anticipation, expectation and a lot more!!!
McKinsey and Lehman Brothers - cracking either will require some good work, maybe a lot of good work. The efforts will start from 11:30 and might continue beyond 12 hours.

Hope at the end of it all, there will be more than one reason to smile :)
'Coz I turn 22 amidst all this kerfuffle

Now you know my secret weapon for those innocuous HR questions ;)
All the best to everyone (kgp readers) for tomorrow and the rest of the placement season!!

Yo CSE!!

A 2-hr bus ride to a little eatery on the highway : Rs. ****
A sumptuous feast and a little dance : Rs. *****

A whole CSE batch having a fun night together : Priceless!

There are some things money cant buy,
For everything else, there's MSR ;-)

Thank you everyone for making the night so memorable, and here's wishing we have a few more of these next semester!!

Crossroads

It was very simple at the beginning. There was always only one good path and you had to follow it. At least, that's how I saw life. Right through my school days and into college, I was never in doubt as to what I wanted in life. Today, however, the doubt has crept in. The good path has branched out.

MS/PhD, IIMs, Job -- I guess some part of me wants to pursue each of these. At this crossroad of life, it is so very difficult to make the right call with "zero lookahead". Yet, we have to. So, the best way to handle such situations is procrastination ;) Keep all avenues open and decide at the very end.

The little irony is that while I speak of all these options, I actually don't have a single offer. But I am only speaking about the dilemma of all those who will be lucky enough to have some option, and wishing that I will be one of them :)

If only life were as simple as it was before. Just the one good path and no crossroads. Sooner or later, the dream of the simple life had to go away. This probably is the first realization of reality. Thankfully, it isn't the shocker it could have been!

Find Yourself

"This time in-between exams, is a strangely relaxing time :)

You don't have assignments (so you don't have to worry about who to take it from ;) ), the project work is stalled, no classes .... and of course, the studies can be procratinated till the last hour (ok ... last day :) ).

So, Friday night and Saturday morning in an exam weekend is the best time in our schedule."

Valid argument ???? :P

Still reeling from two exams that were supposed to go well (after all, I had studied sufficiently :( ), but both bombed and spectacularly at that :(( ...... hence, the 'Symbolic Logic' hangover.

But this is indeed a wonderful time to catch up on some movies or tv series or some reading (non-academic stuff of course) or to catch up on some lost tunes.

So, I picked up this song that I really loved when I heard it in 'CARS' earlier this summer. The tune is mellifluous, and the lyrics are truly meaningful. Do listen to it once :)

".........................

When you meet the one
That you've been waitin' for
And she's everything that you want and more
You look at her and you finally start to live for some one else
And then you find yourself
That’s when you find yourself ...
.........................."

Find Yourself - Brad Paisley