World Beyond Imagination

Hey people, I am blogging now after a long time! Now, as everyone knows, I am at Chicago to purse my long time planned goal – Masters in Computers. After some 3 years of corporate life, I am taking a break. Now back to life with books and classrooms!!! Lots of good things have been happening in my life for the last 4 months and I didn’t express my feelings over them to the world.

So this post is going to be a quick recap of what is happening in my life recently!!

First thing, my long awaiting process of getting my graduate college admission and my student visa to US. Probably, many don’t know that I was planning to get into Canadian Graduate School. I, somehow, felt Canada would be right for me and was doing lot of research over it. But again, I had open mind over the country as the education gained and the future is the most important factors for any student. From January of this year, I started getting admission offers from both American and Canadian graduate schools. Later, when it came to finalizing the school, I opted for Illinois Institute of Technology at Chicago with my future and education in mind. Funny part would be shuffling of the cards played by God among my very close friend Karthick and myself. I made my decision over American School where in I was planning for Canadian and vice versa to my friend Karthick … That’s destiny, my friend!

After finalizing the destination of next two years of my life, the most important thing for me, rather I would say for any international student, is Visa. Doing your homework on finalizing the school is not everything. Even, you have to put lot of effort on Visa too. Again, you have lot of online resources which could help you through all the steps right from required documents, booking visa date till how to present yourself in the visa interview. My mom and dad came down to Chennai from Patna to spend last few days with me before I travel to US for a long term. My parents pretty well knew that I won’t return home till I complete my education. So my mom and grandma cooked all the yummy foods for me! Folks!!! Seriously, really yummy foods. These are the best days. You can demand a lot and every required mouth watering dishes would be presented right in front of you

Once I got my visa, I had to resign my job. I miss my friends at my work place. They were too good with me. Love you folks!!!

I was on a Tamil Nadu tour to visit all my loved ones. I covered all of my relatives’ places in Chennai on my road trip with my mom. Later, I traveled with my mom and my twin bro to other places in Tamil Nadu. Again, I took advantage of awesome welcome by my aunties and uncles.

Most awaiting day has come! My dad, mom, bro and other closed ones came to airport with me on my travel day to Chicago. Interesting thing was that my friend Srinivasan from my office … ok, I got to say my ex office… was on his on-site trip to Boston. So I made him to travel to paris with me and from Paris we would be catching our respective flights. Aaaah! Guess everyone had a good sleep during the long flying hours. Paris climate was really good and it reminded my UK trip though. At Paris airport, few of my body spray and shoe spray were been disposed. My bad! I didn’t know that I am not supposed to be carrying a liquid of more than certain quantity in hand bag. After another long journey, I was at Chicago airport. Good for me, I landed safely. My dad’s friend’s son, Arun came to receive me at O’hare – Chicago Airport and from there, I caught a taxi to my on-campus apartment. I reached US! To be frank, I wasn’t that excited. Donna why! But I wasn’t. Yup, it was strange feeling though. Probably, my UK trip would have been one of the reasons. I am sure, US has stocked a lot of interesting things for me!

My graduate student life at an American University has begun. Orientation, new friends from various countries, highly qualified professors, good neighborhood, Michigan Lake, Chicago downtown… everything were interesting. Got to accept, there has been lot of activities going on in the campus. Best thing I did after I came here was that I got into Facebook, an online social network. All the activities in the Campus would be posted at my university network in the Facebook.

Regular activities for me for the first semester would be attending classes, exams, assignments, projects, lab meeting, cooking food on Mondays, making friends, online movies and lately got habituated to animes!!! That too, I will watch only in Japanese. Definitely, I would create another post on my anime world later.

Another interesting thing is that I have to do cooking for every Monday – Veg & NonVeg [depends]. I never cooked meat before and so, I started doing my experiments. I have been testing my results over my roomies! Surprisingly, they have been giving positive feedbacks.

When you talk about the weather in Chicago, first two words – wind and snow! If it is a windy day, we could see few thin people floating in the sky. If it is snow, you can’t see anything except white. Two headlines in the news channel – “Snow Storm today!” and “because of heavy snow, there are n number of road accidents!”

But seriously, one has to admire the first snow fall!!! It was really an awesome feeling. It was exactly on Thanks Giving day when I saw first flurries of my life. Wooow!!! They were really gorgeous. After few days, the most awaiting guest made its pleasant visit!! It snowed in the Chicago. When I got up in the morning, all I could see was white, white and white. Everything was turned into white. Everything is pure and divine. I was able to see few of the students came out with joy and started their snow fights! I heard that it would snow till February. So it is going to be simply great winter for me.

Yet another new experience for me would be witnessing hailstorm. It happened well before the flurries on the thanks giving day. Again, as usual, it happened when I was at my room. Suddenly, I realized that it was hailstorm. I was too excited and opened the window. I felt the ice dashing over my hand. It was bit painful but worth to feel the fresh ices straight from the sky. It was simply gorgeous. Right after the two minutes of hungama, two beautiful rainbows gave its presence. Astonishing!!!

Hmmm I had two guests here in Chicago. One was my ex-colleague, Sindha and other was my uncle Ganesh. I met Sindha at O’hare and had a good office talk. Well Ganesh uncle came to my university with his friends. We were on the lake shore drive and had peep over Chicago from the Sear’s tower – 97th floor.

After coming here to this university only, I came to know that there are almost 10 - 12 people during their masters from my undergrad college. One of them is Pandian and he was my batch mates in my undergrad. Oh ya, I forgot to mention about my childhood friend. Even my very good old child friend, Ankita, is doing her masters in this university only.

Parties!! … I was on a Mid Night cruise at navy’s pier organized by my university. Good one. Gambling, dance floor, food and it was one full masti!

I spent last weekend with my undergrad friends Pandian, Arun and Bhuvana. Arun was here from South Carolina on his few days trip to Chicago. Saturday, we have been to Ice Skating, Millennium Park and dinner at an Indian restaurant Hema’s kitchen. Sunday, we were at Museum of Science and Industry and National Treasure II. Then on Monday, we had a trip to Aquarium. Ice Skating was the best of the weekend. Indeed an awesome experience!!! I have done roller skating before but Ice Skating bet it.

Hmmmm … what else??? I believe I covered almost all. Now, I am trying my level best to spend my winter break wisely. Trying to do some learning work done before my next semester starts which would be January 22nd 2008. Love you mom, dad and bro and miss you a lot!!!!! Hugs to all of my friends at India!