Diwali Time :)

Diwali Time again! It feels good to not lose the festive mood even in this distant land. I open my mailbox to find n number of emails from various people wishing me Happy Diwali. And majority of my friends' status messages in my IM client are "Happy Diwali". I open my Orkut and FaceBook accounts to see notifications in the status messages of many of my friends' accounts to 'Happy Diwali'. 

Adding to this, we have Diwali celebrations in our U by the Minnesota International Students Association on Saturday, Nov 1st. Hope it will be a colorful day (its truly gonna be, with all the desi girls dec'ing up in traditional dresses :P atleast hoping so). And yeah, we are celebrating Diwali in our own way with a Puja followed by Potluck. What more should I expect!  (Crackers ? Not sure about that though! When I say Crackers, its fireworks - not the crackers these people have with their soups - working in the dining services makes me very conscious of the words I choose).

Lo, Happy Diwali! And wish me the same :) Time to call my parents back in India and wish them. Have a safe Diwali people.

Pursuit of Happiness

What makes you happy? 

(a) A great mug of coffee (b) an ice cream (c) fried maggi at 2.00 AM (d) All the above

Science says 50% of a person's happiness depends on his/her genes (?!), 10 - 15% on status (health, social, marital, material etc etc) and the remaining miscellanious. Now I don't get this gene-connection, 50% dependency is huge!!! Is it something like this - if my parents are not happy then I end up being low? Aila!

Everyone of us will, atleast at some point of time, retrospect on what we are doing in life now! Am I doing what I want, am I happy? Am I really? Well, I'm not really sure. I really was never! If you haven't asked this question to yourself, then do that now! You might be happy, but are you happy with what you are doing in Life is my question here! Right now I'm in this distant land, away from my family and friends, not really sure about what I'm doing and how happy I'm with what I'm doing. Am I sounding confused? May be I'm, may be I'm not - wish I cud get some help from Heisenberg to resolve my uncertainity on all these things. Wish there is a way to calculate my Happiness Index (just the way we have it for countries - Denmark the happiest and India ranking 125th happiest in the world) on a daily basis, and in this way keep track of myself. Wish I do things that makes me much more happier in future. 

Tip: If all your approaches to be the happiest go in vain, follow the Eight-fold path and attain Nirvana as Buddhism says!

PS1: Denmark has also got highest suicide rates. May be this is in a way helping them to be the Happiest nation with all the sad people killing themselves leaving behind just the set of happy people to participate in the survey... lol

PS2: Dada struck the chord by scoring a century in the 2nd test and balanced the stuph for his infamous remarks. Happy for him! Way to go Dada.

Scribblings in a diary...

Felt very good after going for a short run in the evening, its a great stress buster. And I'm not bad either, could run 2 miles after 4.5 months long break. Watched Forgetting Sarah Marshalltoday, total fun movie. Struggled understanding things about low-duty-cycle sensor networks and challenges in broadcasting on these networks today in the group meeting. Looking for something more interesting. Tried the Veggie Reuben Sandwich with the Thousand Island dressing today. Its good, doesn't beat the chicken wild rice soup though. Mid terms coming up, need to study! But very low on motivation to study. Friday night, party time to the people here. Blokes out there in the fraternities are having fun with music, dance and what not. 

India is doing bad in the test match against Aussies. After all the hot comments against selectors and fellow team mates in the media, it will be fun to watch Dada scoring a century and setting things right for the Men in Blue (oops! its a test match, everyone will be in White). Gotta catch some sleep, am going to bed with this unanswered question in my mind since a few days - "What should I do if I lose my memory of past few months after I wake up in the morning ? The case as in I dont remember where I am, why I am here and I dont remember anyone here." Obviously my room mates will call up 911 if this is the case, and I know what follows next!

Edit1 (12Oct): The whole place is looking absolutely beautiful here with colors. I'm loving it!

All these need special mention

1. My Dell lappy, it runs almost the whole day. Poor thingy
   
2. CMU - Coffman Memorial Unit, happening place in UMN - TC campus. Had been to bowling alley inside CMU recently, and its really phun. (Thanks to GAPSA for pizzas and pop as well)
   
3. Stone-arch bridge and Lake Calhoun
   
4. Burittos from Chipotle are really yummmy
   
5. Bombay Bistro - yo place for unlimited desi food! (Thanks to Vishnu for the treat there)
   
6. Loring Pasta Bar - its a cool place. Should go there sometime with friends (Thanks to GAPSA again)
   
7. Homeworks and Assignments - which pretty much fills the life of a grad student
   
8. Dryer in our building. Troubled a lot by crashing down for almost a month
   
9. Nolte, place where I work! I go there every day during the week. Know what I do there - I make sandwiches, salads, paninis and stuff. This time its poor me! But its phun, I get to know food habits of American people - various dressings, cheeses etc.
   
10. Cubfoods, the place where we shop our groceries. Trip to this place is hell. Need to carry all the groceries back to home
    
11. Papajohns pizzas! its been quite some time since I had a pizza from that place. Should have it soon
    
12. I was away from home for the past 8 years (but was in India) and I used to call home atmost once a week. Now I video chat with all my family members atleast once a week.
    
13. Erie Street - Thats where I lived for around 3 weeks when I just landed in US. And thats where majority of my friends live

Is it good to end the post with 13 points? Whoa, I dont suffer from Triskaidekaphobia; I can go ahead!!