Masters: In Retrospect

After I started off with my masters, I couldn't find much time to pour in my thoughts and the happenings around, but the last one and half years have been replete with so many happenings and I would like to etch it here before it gets disappeared in the sands of time. I made so many friends here and I am sure most of them are a bond for the whole of the lifetime.

Fall'09: Who am I? Where am I?

• The Bangalore gang's midnight walk to the HSC and back to Chapin soon after we came to SUNY-SB.
• The first trip to New York City and calculated spending on each and everything. Trip to Richmond.
• The trip in the college bus to buy groceries @ Pathmark & Walmart, followed by the visit to Smith Haven Mall to do window shopping. The trips to Desi store which provides the pick-up and drop service.
• The daily cooking with Rajesh in the evenings.
• The consecutive and consistent night-outs for OS projects has inculcated the insomniacal practice and now its really tough to sleep anytime before 3:00AM. Listening to Prof.Erez Zadok's Operating System lectures. Probably after my schooling this is the first time I listened carefully to all the classes with ultimate concentration.
• The part-time web-designing job and with that I opened some kind of an money inflow in Dollars here in US.
• The Pot-Luck Lunch & birthday parties filled with josh, dance and gameplaying.
• The IGSA get-together/parties on festival days (esp the Ganpathi festival)
• The Gyan sessions @ J2146 with the tamil-gumbal
• The tightly packed days with no free time even on weekends really made one to think how much time we had wasted earlier in life.
• Watched the snowfall for the first time and played in it. Also watched the mercury dip 18 degrees below zero
• And so the semester ends with the back to back OS & Algos final exams on the same day and the horrible preparation I did in that regard.
• Understood it is prudent to take courses which one can handle than stuff oneself with complex courses and try to learn something out of it. Also learnt that the best place to study is the HSC library after the end of the finals!!

Spring'10: The New Hope!!

• Waded through the severe winter winds to the lab during the winter holidays and got appointed as the Research Assistant in Seclab.
• Trip to Montauk Point & Washington DC.
• Courses weren't tough this semester but internship hunting was!! Got calls every now and then and had tension filled phone interviews. Relieved by Ides of March, when I got the internship offer from Akamai, CA

Summer'10: Unforgettable California

• Landed in California for the internship and had the best time with the roommates. Preparing different cuisines everyday. Yummy vangibath by Shayan, crispy hummus sandwiches by Sandeep Cholae by Harit and saumitra
• Ate outside almost all the weekends and covered almost all North/South Indian restaurants in Bay Area. routine weekend visit to Castro street in Mountain view for eatery. We finished the sunday night with a footlong at the subway, in san antonio shopping mall!!
• Visited Google Multiplex, Shoreline Blvd Lake, Marin headlands, Lake Tahoe, Stanford University, Napa & Sonoma valley, Half Moon bay to name a few.
• Extensive trip to SFO and covered the important must-see places like Golden Gate, Baker's beach, 4 KM coastal walk along the beach and cliff, Fisherman's wharf, Pier 39, Crooked street Westfield Mall et all
• Meetups with Stony Brook gang in the Bay Area
• Started back to Stony Brook with cherished memories to remember for a lifetime

Fall'10: All Well that Ends Well

• The inflow of Fall'10 new faces into the department
• Trip to Niagara Falls!!
• Everyday chitchats at Rajesh/Sharath's & Aaliya's place
• The gruelling days with the search for full-time job and added to that the Network Programming projects and Comp bio assignments and project. Trips to places across US for job interviews, and secured the job with LSI.
• The last kick-ass birthday party with everyone getting their Ass-kicked is something which everyone would remember
• Hurray!! Completed the last exam of the Master's program.
• Trip to Atlantic City and lost money in Casino!!
• New Year's eve with SBU group in New York City. Dinner at Hotel Saravana Bhavan. Jan 1st 00:00 2011 at Brooklyn Bridge!!
• Visit to the infamous American Museum of Natural History, NY and Rockefeller Center.
• Trip to New Jersey with Subbu and meetup with Kumaran. Stunning views of NY skyline from Newport.
• Successfully completed the work at Seclab and bid adieu to SB and NY.

It might be just a timespan of just one and half years but lot has happened within that time. With my head held high, I would say proudly that I am an Alumni of State University of New York, Stony Brook.