Dusting off the rust..

Been a while since I got here. A lot has happened since good ol' Chowkidaari days and the jobless present - a lot of water has passed on the Ohio River under the Purple People bridge, so to speak, and we've even had our share of snowflakes. Life's gone a full circle - joblessness to being a desk clerk to being a biomechanics lab helper to jobless again. Here's a quick update. For those of you who've got enough nerves to survive this will find details later ahead.

Somewhere near end-October, one of my numerous resume handouts (I thrust them into the hands of prospective yet presently disinterested employers says it better) got an answer and after a brief interview and admission of my love for crazy curves (mathematical plots, before you let your imagination run wild), I was in. It was only after I got on the job that by 'crazy', they really meant it. Biomechanics tests had a way of ensuring that, and my job was to look for the order within the chaos. A second lab got me to parallely work on creating databases of results from similar tests, and things were fun. This incidentally was one of my first chances of interactions with Americans beyond the college and professors. I was blessed with nice bosses - not too many people are greeted on the job with a pizza on day one. Even went on a send-off lunch to a Thai restaurant once (had some tough time figuring out the veggie stuff, but the occasion was for a pleasant change the focus). The workplace was a nice family-ish environment, very informal and easy-going. They put up with my occasional goof-ups, and in the end, they even began to buy the idea I was not as lazy as I am generally believed to be. Extremely friendly and fun-loving people, and I had no issues fitting in. Was a fun time indeed. Couldn't have asked for more.

Meanwhile academics went on in full swing. Acoustics and Fourier Transforms were fun if you are that kind of a person, and am hoping to step on them and get a little ahead. Slept through Multibody dynamics and paid for it dearly. The GPA took a beating, and (a quick peek into the present tells me) chances of improving it seem bleak enough! Pulled up a couple of marathon night outs (back-to-back 24-hour and 42-hour fights with Somnus that fortunately made up for being lazy through the rest of the quarter). Was beginning to think Indian survival skills might still be applicable here - the JIT (just in time) and SHIT (somehow in time) strategies. As the Winter quarter's been treating me, I learnt life has a way of getting you to learn certain lessons plain old-fashioned way! Was a decentish beginning to the first academic session here in the US,and the second one so far has been pretty interesting too, the tons of weekly homeworks, aimed directly between us and slumber, notwithstanding.

Back to the part-time job, worked day in and day out on the job through the break, amidst a peek-a-boo game with my Prof. Between us, we had a law of mutually-exclusive existence going on.. He never showed up when I waited for him, and turned up at times I simply couldn't have been there. Met him finally after the break, and frankly, was worth the wait - a great teacher and person, as I later found out. Meanwhile, day one on the job on the new year, I got my bonanza. The research grant ceased to flow in, and that meant yours truly had to start winding up and look for jobs elsewhere. The hunt continues, and am back to thrusting out resumes in every hand that might be of a potential employer. Like I said, life's come a full circle indeed.