Home away from home...:-)

It was great time today...when I was invited by a tamil family in the Bay Area for a dinner on the occasion of thanks giving. It is customary that the volunteers of the Hospitality program at the International Center in Stanford invite students to their home every year during thanks giving for a dinner or lunch. THis year I was lucky to be invited by Mr. Narayanan and Mrs.Veena a wonderful couple who have been in the Bay area for the last 13 years. It was very kind of them to pick us up from Stanford and drop us back after dinner. I was very happy that they had prepared the authentic Indian food, Uthappam, peanut chutney and dahi chutney. It was awesome..I had till my stomach was full... Also the couple were very lively and they shared a lot of their experiences over the last few years..They had a baby girl recently and it was so cute.. Although it was a very short visit..I was really happy to have met such wonderful people in the Bay area....Thanks to the Stanford Hospitality program...

Thanksgiving dinner with Masala Dosa !!

It  was really cool to celebrate the American thanksgiving with traditional south indian dishes.. I invited three of my friends from Stanford for the thanksgiving dinner at my apartment. I thought it would be a real fun to have people around on this wonderful day, sharing their thoughts and hanging around. So I planned out several dishes for this occasion. Masala Dosa with Sambar, Vegetable Biryani, Semiya Payasam, Thayir Pachidi and wonderful sweets and savouries from Rangoli Sweets. It took me about 4-5 hours to get all this things done. I have never tried this stuff before, but took it as a challenge and with my mother's support over skype I was able to do all this stuff. I also managed to setup a thanksgiving table within my small apartment. Used a bit of my imagination to put up some candles and greeting cards..

JJ Just before the party, I looked around my apartment and I can't really believe that it was my apartment. It was so neat and organized. I took a video of my own apartment because I never know when I will see it back in this form :-). Anyways so I had my friends come in and it was a wonderful time with them.. Esp everyone loved the Masala Dosa.. definitely it tasted awesome..After about 2 hours of dinner and chatting I took a sigh of relief and sat back and thanked for such a wonderful time and lovely friends. I wish there were many more wonderful moments like this in my life...

The Ethiopian Frankincense

There are a few days in your life that are memorable..and that lingers in your mind..for ever..Today was one such day...Me, Nola and Kassa (My friends from IVGRAD) set on an adventurous mission to attend an Ethiopian Church service on this sunday morning.. The service is at 7:30 and it takes about 40 minutes to get there by car.. So for the first time after coming to stanford I woke up at 5:45 AM (midnight!!)  and we all started by 6:45AM. We had lot of fun on the way.. Coming from a hot and humid climate back in India..I always get fascinated about foggy and misty weather..Our drive thru US 101 towards San Jose was mostly foggy and I just said to my friends that It (the fog and stuff) was so beautiful... That's it..Nola (an American) was surprised and started making fun at me...for her the fog isn't very special and ofcourse she was driving and isn't very admirable for her :-) ..anyways it was all fun and we reached the church. The people there wore a white robe around them (both men and women) before entering the church and you are supposed to leave your footwear outside, unlike the other American churches. Kasssa was an ethiopian and I with my complexion (? :-) ) fitted the place very well but Nola looked different among others..anyways Kassa gave a few instructions to her about the service and we departed and can't see each other for the next 4 hrs (!?)..Because the men and women have to sit in separate groups . The service started and it was very similar to the orthodox churches in India.. But i have never attended a full orthodox service in India.. This is my first time.. The priests wore ornamental robes and a golden hat.. Most of the text was sung rather than being read (which is the case in many Lutheran and other Protestant churches). And every now and then the priest had a incense bowl using which he came around all the people in the church and spread the frankincense.. Wow i just looked at the ceiling to see if there is any smoke alarm..Thank God there weren't any..Definitely they would have got special permission from California state government.. It's been more than hour and we were still standing..Kassa was standing next to me..and probably he would have noticed me pulling out my legs and feeling tired, asked me to sit and told me that he will let me know when to stand.. And for about an other hour there was continuous recital of verses.. Then the priest came and gave the sermon..which I couldn't understand( of course  I can't -  But later after the sermon I was surprised to see Nola - could guess the theme of the sermon - she is a linguist !!). Also I felt bad that I couldn't control my sleep..After all that, finally came the church choir and they sang a few wonderful songs..Although I couldn't understand it I joined with them in clapping the hands..It was really wonderful..with huge drums and music.. Finally after getting the blessings from the priest we came out and had some bread and tea.. During that time Nola was sharing the funny experiences she had... It was a truly amazing time.. I was really fascinated to see the different ways with which people worship God..It was really amazing..So after all the frankincense Nola offered us a thanks giving treat in a nearby Ethiopian restaurant.. I was taken by surprise when i found that the food..esp the spices tasted pretty much like that of the south indian food...(It could be possible because the south india and Ethiopia are in the same latitude May be ?) It was an awesome lunch and during the lunch we just had a game where in I wanted them to spell the word 'thamizh' in my mother tongue.. They couldn't get the 'la' part of it..It was total fun.. and Nola in turn gave me some word from Texas english accent..something like 'shudder down' and i didn't get the '..eeeerrrr' part of it correctly.. It was all fun on the way back to Stanford...In return I invited them for a dinner on Wednesday (26th Nov) at my apartment...There will be three people and American, African and an Asian (Korea)... It's gonna be real fun...anyways it was a wonderful day .....

I can't believe this...!?

I can't believe that Apple can be so unreliable...I expected it to work perfectly atleast for the first few years. Although I like the general ergonomics of the Hardware and the elegance of the Mac OS X, I'm very annoyed with the strange sound that the system makes when the processor gets very busy and this happens like once in a week or so....Although this is a bearable..but I never expected this from Mac...I'm not sure if others are experiencing the same problems or is it that I'm the unlucky  one to fall out of the 6 sigma quality range? Anyways having said that today something strange happened....Everything was going fine with the laptop and i wasn't running anything crazy..and suddenly the My MAC seemed it has fallen in love with Windows..I meant that I came up with a scree..saying Press the Shutdown button to restart... the only difference being it was a black screen and not Alt+Ctrl+Del....I had to restart my machine.... I don't know what's wrong with MAc..anyways I hope this doesn't continue with my cutie...

My Latest Favorites

For the past few weeks I have been addicted to a couple of songs that I came across through Rhapsody.. Both the artists are young and really talented..You really got to hear them....

1. Rivers Flow in You by Yiruma from the Album First Love - God I can't believe how beautiful and mesmerizing the music is...Watch in Youtube

2. Crush from the latest youth sensation David Archuleta - He is just seventeen and his voice is just awesome. In fact this is debut album after his stunning performance in the American Idol and he has already become one of the chartbusters.. Watch  it in Youtube

At last...

Ya it's true...Stanford isn't a joke... especially if you are in the first quarter of your Electrical Engineering Graduate degree...Days just pass by within a blink of the eye.... Anyways I'll try to keep this page updated as and when i find time..currently i'm trying to get into a rhythm with my classes, assignments, Quals and my research. Although it looks much harder now... i guess things might get better (hopefully :-)) in the coming months....cya later...