Two, and counting..

The blog's second anniversary's here, and me gets into the retrospective mode yett egain. While it's been an eventful second year in the US, thank your stars not much of it has been/will be chronicled. This, as I have come to promise once too often now without ever living up to it, will be a short one. A few quick updates, then, between the then and the now.

I finally managed an A-grade. That the class average was an A-grade too is a trivial fact I pray you would be kind enough not to point out to me. The grade has been the high point of my academic life at Cincy this far, and I hope you would let me revel in my short-lived moment of glory.

'I am working on my thesis' pretty much answers all you need to know about all that I have been doing for most of last year, and by the looks of it, what I would be 'doing' for another few months in the least. Any deeper probes into my researchwork and date/month/year of completion would be met with severe verbal backlash and depending on your physique, with uppercuts, lowercuts and all darned cuts in between. Smile, throw a wazza!, be gone and make us both happy.

I've, over the last year, managed to take my name off the hitlists of atleast 4 people in Cincinnati - the ones who'd either threatened to squash me to pulp when sighted or 'd take long detours to avoid the remotest possibilities of running into me. Am working on the others.

My fear of the female species has come down, albeit by the tiniest of margins. The guy who'd break into a sweat in the presence of a skimpily clad female blonde next seat on the bus now manages to coolly throw a smile back at members of the aforementioned species. That, very often, is also where the stories end. One step at a time, they tell me. Fear of cats and dogs, on the same a different note, continues to remain high up on the list, with little change expected in the forseeable future.

The rest of yours truly remains unchanged for most part. Since I am at it, and since you look like you do have some time, I might as well run you through that list too.

I continue to remain a non-smoking unstoned teeto veggie*, and my respect for those who aren't, remains independent of the aforementioned attributes.

My cooking skills have improved by a decent margin. considering that I now cook for 4 other souls under the same roof, and that they have so far managed to wake up each morning without upset bellies or sore intestines. Sree even managed to down some of my concoctions with a certain degree of relish. Phew.

Lousiness with numbers, among other things, remains as spectacularly lousy as ever - academically, with grocery bill computations, and otherwise. My ability to pull works off the very last minute continues to amaze me, and continues to annoy people who happen to have a stake in some of those works. This is expected to continue till I get killed or till people entrust me with works no more, whichever is earlier. Am kind of hoping it's the latter.

My stay in the US as I have known this far is expected to change soon. Jobs, committments, money - things change, times change, people 'move on'. C'est la vie, they tell me again. Until then, may the luxuries of student life prevail - long cups of coffee spent over the harmless trivialities of life, icecream parlor visits post-midnight, long solitary walks across the campus at ungodly hours, the luxury of being permitted to work/sleep whenever The Force hits you - in pursuit of knowledge, pursuit of happiness, and pursuit of all that's good and healthy. Cheers to good times and great Pizza memories.

My lessons in life continue.