Have you ever set out on an adventure and then had a feeling towards the end of it that you should have documented it better? Thats exactly the feeling I have now. Which is why this blog post is a documentation of my long adventure towards becoming a Master of Science in Computer Engineering.
It all started 3 years ago with V persuading me to drop joining Infy and do my Masters. So began a long cramming session for GRE that I spoke about here and some more practice sessions for TOEFL. Then I went through the pipeline (excuse my comp. arch terminology) with the SOP-Recos-Applications stage and the Visa stage again blogged about here.
As an MS student I blogged a lot about my initial experience here and here. Somewhere in the second and third sems I got more engrossed in enjoying the experience rather than documenting it. Nevertheless I still managed to squeeze in a post on a unique exam experience here. But I didn't write a word about the hunt that occupied the largest part of my MS time - JOB SEARCH! I intend to blog about it soon but not in this post :)
If you are wondering whether this post is over yet, I'll say it isn't. Like I mentioned before, I wished I'd documented my MS experiences better. Fortunately I had this realization at the beginning of my last sem here. So the purpose of this post is to give you a link to my experiences in my last sem at UFL.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
...and make it long again
So Fall 09 began with DSNEP. You need to refer to its definition and inauguration here. But I soon discovered that I was good at keeping up with the plan but bad at regularly blogging about it. So my solution to this? Make a folder on your laptop and keep dumping stuff in it to record DSNEP experiences. Then blog about it (like I'm doing now) all at once!
Here is then a list of things inspired by DSNEP that I did in Fall 09.
Baby Gator
I like babies. I mean everyone does but I reallyy think they are "cho chweet!" So when I found out about Baby Gator last summer while hunting for an oncampus job I put it down in my to-do list. No better time than this Fall to volunteer for it.
After a background check letter from the Gainesville Sheriff's office, 3 recos - from Vamsi, Girish and Nikhil (well they wanted from some ppl who could vouch for my baby-sitting skills) and a bunch of paperwork later, I started as a volunteer for kids less than a year of age codenamed the Pompanos :) It was fun playing with the kids, feeding them and doing some playschool activities with them.
I won't go into the details but one particular incident I remember well. The toddlers were doing a project where they had to stick cotton balls on a drawing to make sheep. One of the kids got some glue on his hand and a cotton ball stuck to it. He tried shaking his hand to get it off - no luck. Then tried wiping it down the front of his t-shirt - still no luck. Then tried pulling it off with his other hand (which also had glue) - uh oh now the cotton is on both hands. Then he got scared of the fluffy white thing on his hands and out come the tears! I helped him get it off with a wet cloth but it was fun to watch his efforts first :P
Pottery
Another thing on my to-do list inspired by Swati was the pottery leisure course. UF offers Leisure Courses for completely vellah, semi vellah and busy ppl. Me falling in the second category this sem opted for the pottery course.
It was fun to make pots of various shapes from wet clay and paint them. Most looked like they were remains from an archeological excavation but there were some good ones too!
Google Ambassador
After an internship in Google and becoming a fulltime Googler, I wanted to do something to bring Google at UF. Google's Campus Ambassador Program was a great way to do that! So teaming up with Laura and Jocelyn, I set out to promote Google to fellow Gators!
We had an event to introduce ppl to Wave and gave out Wave invites to the attendees.
We had a Wave Hackathon as well where participants got to design their own Wave Robots. Check out the cool entries we received here and here if you have a Wave account. If you don't - well post a comment here asking for one and I'll send you an invite :)
And then there was the big Docs survey and give-away! (Its still live if you wanna win a bottle :) ) Some lucky souls who filled out our survey got Docs bottles. Publicizing it by mailing tons of mailing lists was fun! And oh yes... while we are at the publicity part - don't forget to join out Facebook Group (Google Gators) and our Google Group if you are a Gator and want free Google stuff!
Some Trips
Then I had 2 long trips this sem. One that I took to NY filled with Diwali celebrations, shopping, lots of delicious Indian food and studies!
And another that V took to Gainesville filled with a visit to KSC, a Gator Nite to remember and an awesome day at Lake Wauburg! And oh yes a great Halloween night with a costume that scare my roomie into locking herself in the bathroom :P
An Enjoyable Course
I also took a fun course this sem - Computer Graphics. Totally unexpected and not what I had planned to study, the best part of this course was that it was interesting to non-CS people as well. You don't have to be a geek to enjoy playing around with my homeworks. Here are some videos I took of my homeworks in action! Each was an interactive graphics application.
Video1 Video 2 and Video 3
And some more activities...
If all of the above didn't convince you that I had a great sem, then here is some more. There was the Noogler treat I gave for getting a fulltime at Google. And then there was the Thanksgiving potluck we had with lots of delicious food and many friends! And lastly an idle lazy rainy day with no work to do and lots of movies to watch.
This space reserved for Graduation!
Like they say "its not over until you say so!" The sem isn't over yet and there is one last event left to celebrate before I conclude my adventures in Gainesville. Will fill the details in here after Dec. 18! Till then preparing for yet another series of adventures......
Here is then a list of things inspired by DSNEP that I did in Fall 09.
Baby Gator
I like babies. I mean everyone does but I reallyy think they are "cho chweet!" So when I found out about Baby Gator last summer while hunting for an oncampus job I put it down in my to-do list. No better time than this Fall to volunteer for it.
After a background check letter from the Gainesville Sheriff's office, 3 recos - from Vamsi, Girish and Nikhil (well they wanted from some ppl who could vouch for my baby-sitting skills) and a bunch of paperwork later, I started as a volunteer for kids less than a year of age codenamed the Pompanos :) It was fun playing with the kids, feeding them and doing some playschool activities with them.
I won't go into the details but one particular incident I remember well. The toddlers were doing a project where they had to stick cotton balls on a drawing to make sheep. One of the kids got some glue on his hand and a cotton ball stuck to it. He tried shaking his hand to get it off - no luck. Then tried wiping it down the front of his t-shirt - still no luck. Then tried pulling it off with his other hand (which also had glue) - uh oh now the cotton is on both hands. Then he got scared of the fluffy white thing on his hands and out come the tears! I helped him get it off with a wet cloth but it was fun to watch his efforts first :P
Pottery
Another thing on my to-do list inspired by Swati was the pottery leisure course. UF offers Leisure Courses for completely vellah, semi vellah and busy ppl. Me falling in the second category this sem opted for the pottery course.It was fun to make pots of various shapes from wet clay and paint them. Most looked like they were remains from an archeological excavation but there were some good ones too!
Google Ambassador
After an internship in Google and becoming a fulltime Googler, I wanted to do something to bring Google at UF. Google's Campus Ambassador Program was a great way to do that! So teaming up with Laura and Jocelyn, I set out to promote Google to fellow Gators!
We had an event to introduce ppl to Wave and gave out Wave invites to the attendees.
We had a Wave Hackathon as well where participants got to design their own Wave Robots. Check out the cool entries we received here and here if you have a Wave account. If you don't - well post a comment here asking for one and I'll send you an invite :)
And then there was the big Docs survey and give-away! (Its still live if you wanna win a bottle :) ) Some lucky souls who filled out our survey got Docs bottles. Publicizing it by mailing tons of mailing lists was fun! And oh yes... while we are at the publicity part - don't forget to join out Facebook Group (Google Gators) and our Google Group if you are a Gator and want free Google stuff!
Some Trips
Then I had 2 long trips this sem. One that I took to NY filled with Diwali celebrations, shopping, lots of delicious Indian food and studies!
And another that V took to Gainesville filled with a visit to KSC, a Gator Nite to remember and an awesome day at Lake Wauburg! And oh yes a great Halloween night with a costume that scare my roomie into locking herself in the bathroom :P
An Enjoyable Course
I also took a fun course this sem - Computer Graphics. Totally unexpected and not what I had planned to study, the best part of this course was that it was interesting to non-CS people as well. You don't have to be a geek to enjoy playing around with my homeworks. Here are some videos I took of my homeworks in action! Each was an interactive graphics application.
Video1 Video 2 and Video 3
And some more activities...
This space reserved for Graduation!
Like they say "its not over until you say so!" The sem isn't over yet and there is one last event left to celebrate before I conclude my adventures in Gainesville. Will fill the details in here after Dec. 18! Till then preparing for yet another series of adventures......
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Embedding a Wave
This blog is merely to test if embedded waves work!
Update : Turns out you must be logged into wave to read it. Also, if you have visited this page, the wave will show up in your account. Just don't freak out when you see the wave in your inbox.
Update : Turns out you must be logged into wave to read it. Also, if you have visited this page, the wave will show up in your account. Just don't freak out when you see the wave in your inbox.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The Do-Something-New-Everyday Project
So I'm back in Gainesville and settled in the new apartment. As decided earlier I wanted to start a time bound project for 4 months to enjoy the Fall sem to the fullest. After a lot of brainstorming and soul searching (well not really) I came up with the Do-Something-New-Everyday project - the DSNEP
So I'm gonna start with yesterday's activity since DSNEP started yesterday (not a very good start for the project to blog late about it but always look ahead :D )
Yesterday I assembled a chair by myself!
What is so great about this you ask? Well firstly for a Mumbai gal like me, furniture shopping means going to the store and picking out what I need, paying for it then coming home to wait for the shop people to deliver it home either all assembled and ready-to-use or assembled by them when it is delivered.
The Workshop course in engineering was pretty much a joke because by the end of it I learnt 3 things -
So taking all of the above in consideration I didn't know how to put together anything except perhaps jigsaw puzzles and source code.
My chair however came from Walmart in a million pieces... well ok I won't exaggerate but about 10-12 pieces. It was fun screwing together the various parts and slowly building the whole chair. I built the seat portion and backrest portion separately so when the seat was done I was thrilled to sit on it and spin around! Ofcourse I tested it first by putting all my soft toys on the seat before I myself sat on it :)
Even more exciting was sitting on the chair when the whole thing was ready. The smell of a new chair and the thrill of having assembled it myself was a new and nice experience!
I have to give out a few credits here though.
First a large credit to Nikhil for helping me get my study table and chair home. Then again to Nikhil for helping me build the study table on Sunday. He did about 80% of the work on it and I learnt about assembling stuff by watching him. The table literally was in a million parts with so many screws and bolts but Nikhil pieced it together very fast! Hooray for mech. engineers!
Also credit to Divya for helping out with the table. She started the initial struggle with me before Nikhil came and took over the assembly job.
But credit for assembling the chair I can claim all for myself! Lesson learnt from this: Scissors can replace a screwdriver if one isn't available!
Another DSNEP for tomorrow coming up soon...
So I'm gonna start with yesterday's activity since DSNEP started yesterday (not a very good start for the project to blog late about it but always look ahead :D )
Yesterday I assembled a chair by myself!
What is so great about this you ask? Well firstly for a Mumbai gal like me, furniture shopping means going to the store and picking out what I need, paying for it then coming home to wait for the shop people to deliver it home either all assembled and ready-to-use or assembled by them when it is delivered.
The Workshop course in engineering was pretty much a joke because by the end of it I learnt 3 things -
- Crying sometimes helps you get your way - I got out of having to do a lot of metalwork that way.
- Rats like living in wood shavings - I remember screaming a lot in this class for this particular reason.
- Pretty journals earn lots of marks - We wrote a huge file for workshop with lots of hand-drawn pictures of tools we never saw and the neat and pretty files got high marks in workshop (not the neat and pretty workshop artifacts!).
So taking all of the above in consideration I didn't know how to put together anything except perhaps jigsaw puzzles and source code.
My chair however came from Walmart in a million pieces... well ok I won't exaggerate but about 10-12 pieces. It was fun screwing together the various parts and slowly building the whole chair. I built the seat portion and backrest portion separately so when the seat was done I was thrilled to sit on it and spin around! Ofcourse I tested it first by putting all my soft toys on the seat before I myself sat on it :)
Even more exciting was sitting on the chair when the whole thing was ready. The smell of a new chair and the thrill of having assembled it myself was a new and nice experience!
I have to give out a few credits here though.
First a large credit to Nikhil for helping me get my study table and chair home. Then again to Nikhil for helping me build the study table on Sunday. He did about 80% of the work on it and I learnt about assembling stuff by watching him. The table literally was in a million parts with so many screws and bolts but Nikhil pieced it together very fast! Hooray for mech. engineers!
Also credit to Divya for helping out with the table. She started the initial struggle with me before Nikhil came and took over the assembly job.
But credit for assembling the chair I can claim all for myself! Lesson learnt from this: Scissors can replace a screwdriver if one isn't available!
Another DSNEP for tomorrow coming up soon...
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Chaitali/??? Project
So its "haven't blogged in a long time" time again. This time I won't bother explaining why but I will certainly mention 2 internships in 2 biggies (Intel, Google), shifting from coast to coast then state to state, a trip to India and several power vacations to great places!
Sadly Twitter and FB didn't work very well. I guess I ain't the micro-blogging kind of person. But I'm back! And hopefully will be around for longer this time.
So this post is an inspiration from Julia and Julie (or was it Julie and Julia?) - a movie I saw recently. The Julie/Julia project got me thinking that perhaps I should also start a time-bound project for something apart my normal work. It'd give me a higher purpose in life (now wasn't that a good dialog?) and probably lead me to fame like it did for Julie Powell. Ofcourse I have a shortened timeline of 4 months or 120 days in the Fall sem and this is after counting in the vacations or exam days!
But what am I good at?
Cooking? I like Indian food but not enough to work my way through Sanjeev Kapoor's book and blog about it. Besides the thought of trips to Gainesville's Indian store everyday and lugging back groceries in the bus is dizzying. Maybe we could have the Megha / Chaitali Project since I know Megs' recipes better!
Then ambigrams? There isn't really a countdown here when making ambigrams. Perhaps using Facebook as a base might help. 196 ambigrams 120 days to go! Boy am I glad I got off Orkut. 400 friends 120 days to go... I might as well become a fulltime ambigrammar!
Coding? That is my main occupation but I enjoy it so maybe it qualifies for this project! Julie picked up one of the most popular books as aid for her project. What would I pick here? Cormen? 120 days, god-knows-how-many exercises to go! Well it'd be a very popular blog for sure since it'd show up in every Google search for "Cormen solutions". I'm sure that is searched very often! (considering I've done that search myself so many times :| )
There is actually another thing I've gotten good at recently. Moving! I've been shifting houses every sem since coming to US a year and half ago. Regency Oaks, Tuscan Bend, Elan Village, Bowe Avenue, Pacific Inn and Tuscan Bend again!
I've become extremely fast at packing and unpacking. I know all the best deals and tricks to shipping stuff. I know all about U-Haul services. I can make an exact list of initial groceries and household things to setup a new place. Basically I can get a house up and running in just about 2 days of shifting into it!
Unfortunately it isn't something I can countdown to for this project. So I suppose I'm out of ideas for now. Any ideas for the Chaitali / ??? Project? Hopefully I'll come up with something soon!
Sadly Twitter and FB didn't work very well. I guess I ain't the micro-blogging kind of person. But I'm back! And hopefully will be around for longer this time.
So this post is an inspiration from Julia and Julie (or was it Julie and Julia?) - a movie I saw recently. The Julie/Julia project got me thinking that perhaps I should also start a time-bound project for something apart my normal work. It'd give me a higher purpose in life (now wasn't that a good dialog?) and probably lead me to fame like it did for Julie Powell. Ofcourse I have a shortened timeline of 4 months or 120 days in the Fall sem and this is after counting in the vacations or exam days!
But what am I good at?
Cooking? I like Indian food but not enough to work my way through Sanjeev Kapoor's book and blog about it. Besides the thought of trips to Gainesville's Indian store everyday and lugging back groceries in the bus is dizzying. Maybe we could have the Megha / Chaitali Project since I know Megs' recipes better!
Then ambigrams? There isn't really a countdown here when making ambigrams. Perhaps using Facebook as a base might help. 196 ambigrams 120 days to go! Boy am I glad I got off Orkut. 400 friends 120 days to go... I might as well become a fulltime ambigrammar!
Coding? That is my main occupation but I enjoy it so maybe it qualifies for this project! Julie picked up one of the most popular books as aid for her project. What would I pick here? Cormen? 120 days, god-knows-how-many exercises to go! Well it'd be a very popular blog for sure since it'd show up in every Google search for "Cormen solutions". I'm sure that is searched very often! (considering I've done that search myself so many times :| )
There is actually another thing I've gotten good at recently. Moving! I've been shifting houses every sem since coming to US a year and half ago. Regency Oaks, Tuscan Bend, Elan Village, Bowe Avenue, Pacific Inn and Tuscan Bend again!
I've become extremely fast at packing and unpacking. I know all the best deals and tricks to shipping stuff. I know all about U-Haul services. I can make an exact list of initial groceries and household things to setup a new place. Basically I can get a house up and running in just about 2 days of shifting into it!
Unfortunately it isn't something I can countdown to for this project. So I suppose I'm out of ideas for now. Any ideas for the Chaitali /
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Tomatochi Bhaji
I haven't blogged in a long long time now. But then I haven't been cooking much too these days. What do the two have in common you ask? The answer is Megha Kokane.
For the curious full of who? what? why? and where? I met Megs (or rather Googled her out) about a year and half back when I was searching for someone to ask about the DBI course at UF. Then the first time I met her face-to-face was at Krishna Lunch. Coming here fresh from India then, I found KL bland and tasteless. But I had never seen anyone enjoy that lunch and all other KL as much as Megs!
Now before you start thinking Megs is someone who likes eating let me correct you! Megs doesn't like eating, she likes food! To give you a comparison, shes Anton Ego and Remy and Sanjeev Kapoor all rolled in one. Her one favourite hobby is trying different cuisines and by different I mean DIFFERENT! As far as I know she's tried Indian, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan and probably some more I don't know of alongwith the different variations in each! Trust Megs to be the RestaurantRank for the best eatouts in town.
But this blog isn't about Megs being a connoisseur of food. Its about me missing her cooking. To know why lets flashback 6 months to a time when last summer just ended and it was almost a year since I had had any food with fresh vegetables in it. But life in Tuscan Bend K2 was like staying in the gingerbread house. Always full of spicy aromas, always well stocked with fresh vegetables. We had frozen coconut! And fresh garlic! And curry leaves! And mango pulp!! To give you an estimate, between me, Megs and Av we consumed 2 dozen tomatoes a week :)
With Megs I learnt to cook onions till they are just translucent enough. To cut garlic into really tiny pieces. To NEVER eat frozen food. To use a wooden spatula on non-stick vessels. To plan meals and think over what you want to eat next. And to just enjoy your meal or snack.
For someone who never stepped in the kitchen back in India, I came a long way in the last 1 year. All of the recipes I know to make and like now, most are Megs originals including Masala Dahi, Papadachi Bhaji, Watanyachi Usal, Pithla and Tomatochi Bhaji!
And this blog although it looks like is dedicated to Megs, its actually to everyone here who has taught me to cook and like food. Adding to that list of recipes above are Swati's chicken pulav, fish cutlets and aloo matar, Av's kolombo (I hope I got that right), Nikhil's Ragda and Tilache Laddu, Mandar's sabudana khichadi (which I never tasted) and Vamsi's Sambar, Upma and Poha.
Hopefully this delicious blog is a good first blog of 2009. Meanwhile I'll just go and enjoy my freshly cooked Tomatochi Bhaji :D
EDIT: Addition on request from Sumeet (Maru) that Tomatochi Bhaji and some other recipes here were originally his. I know only Megs versions of these but acknowledge here that Maru falls in good cooks category too! (He cooked while 3 gals watched on when he visited GNV last fall!)
For the curious full of who? what? why? and where? I met Megs (or rather Googled her out) about a year and half back when I was searching for someone to ask about the DBI course at UF. Then the first time I met her face-to-face was at Krishna Lunch. Coming here fresh from India then, I found KL bland and tasteless. But I had never seen anyone enjoy that lunch and all other KL as much as Megs!
Now before you start thinking Megs is someone who likes eating let me correct you! Megs doesn't like eating, she likes food! To give you a comparison, shes Anton Ego and Remy and Sanjeev Kapoor all rolled in one. Her one favourite hobby is trying different cuisines and by different I mean DIFFERENT! As far as I know she's tried Indian, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan and probably some more I don't know of alongwith the different variations in each! Trust Megs to be the RestaurantRank for the best eatouts in town.
But this blog isn't about Megs being a connoisseur of food. Its about me missing her cooking. To know why lets flashback 6 months to a time when last summer just ended and it was almost a year since I had had any food with fresh vegetables in it. But life in Tuscan Bend K2 was like staying in the gingerbread house. Always full of spicy aromas, always well stocked with fresh vegetables. We had frozen coconut! And fresh garlic! And curry leaves! And mango pulp!! To give you an estimate, between me, Megs and Av we consumed 2 dozen tomatoes a week :)
With Megs I learnt to cook onions till they are just translucent enough. To cut garlic into really tiny pieces. To NEVER eat frozen food. To use a wooden spatula on non-stick vessels. To plan meals and think over what you want to eat next. And to just enjoy your meal or snack.
For someone who never stepped in the kitchen back in India, I came a long way in the last 1 year. All of the recipes I know to make and like now, most are Megs originals including Masala Dahi, Papadachi Bhaji, Watanyachi Usal, Pithla and Tomatochi Bhaji!
And this blog although it looks like is dedicated to Megs, its actually to everyone here who has taught me to cook and like food. Adding to that list of recipes above are Swati's chicken pulav, fish cutlets and aloo matar, Av's kolombo (I hope I got that right), Nikhil's Ragda and Tilache Laddu, Mandar's sabudana khichadi (which I never tasted) and Vamsi's Sambar, Upma and Poha.
Hopefully this delicious blog is a good first blog of 2009. Meanwhile I'll just go and enjoy my freshly cooked Tomatochi Bhaji :D
EDIT: Addition on request from Sumeet (Maru) that Tomatochi Bhaji and some other recipes here were originally his. I know only Megs versions of these but acknowledge here that Maru falls in good cooks category too! (He cooked while 3 gals watched on when he visited GNV last fall!)
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