Options Unlimited !

"Would you like an Egg,Blueberry,Muffin,Plain or Vegetable", goes the guy at the counter."OK, give me the Egg one"- I say (not bothering to listen to the numerous options posed at me). "Would you like Cream Cheese with it". "OK". (Lets get done with the order??)."What kind of Cream Cheese would you prefer". At that moment, I just cancelled my order and left !
What you just read was a typical conversation I have to indulge myself almost every single day in my attempts to purchase a decent meal.There are options for everything right from the bread you choose, the dressing , the kind of toppings, the kind of fillings, the sauce and even the cream cheese !! Buying a meal here needs even much more patience than watching a Test Match for 5 days withering into a draw ! And as if that was not enough, I found myself in another excruciating situation (lets assume that excruciating fits this sentence perfectly - this ain't a GRE test!) at the hair-cutting salon.Here is an excerpt from it. The lady (the only good part about a haircut is that you have ladies/girls and unfortunately aunties cutting your hair!) asked me , "So which number should we use". I was taken aback. Number?What kind of number? Back home, I just tell the guy "Peeche se chota karna....Aage thoda jyada" (which means get it short behind and keep it little more in the front). Finding myself in a helpless situation, I asked her what are the options (wishing I had a lifeline such as Phone-A-Friend to choose from in answering the question). "We have 5, 4 , 3, 2 and 1"."Lets go with 3 I said" (working out that 3 is the in between number so the effects of it on my hair would be average. But the end result was so bad that I could almost hear my scalp telling me "Either you expose me completely or you cover me" ! Since then I haven't got my hair cut to save me the disgrace.
Its one thing you have to accept when you are here in the US - You need to know your options otherwise you are going to make a mockery of yourself. Be it at Subway or Quiznos or at a restaurant - make sure you are well read and know which dressings would go good with which kind of salads. Its actually moments like these which make you miss home much more. Getting a cup of tea is as simple as saying "Ek cutting dena" and the chai walla will dutifully prepare for you the cup of tea you would savour the most ! Imagine him asking you "Which kind of tea powder - Assam, Red Label , Brooke Bond" The day he asks this question he will be only left with his tea powder and no customers !
To cut the long story short, I now expect options thrown at me for everything I ask. I'm trying to think I'm playing KBC everytime without any lifelines. More often than not I get the correct answer, but when I am confused, I just leave the game !

Sachin needs rest again ?

I just happened to look at the recent ODI team chosen for the Ind- NZ series and once again Sachin Tendulkar is being "rested". This is the nth time he is being rested from a one-day series and I dont seem to fathom the reasoning behind this ! Is he injured? No he is not - he still runs like a hare between wickets and as of yesterday he even saved boundaries (quite an achievement given the standards our athletes set on the field with balls going right through our dives!). Test Match cricket is well spaced out and you are not overworking yourself day in and day out -so there is no reason for him to feel fatigued !
This whole "rest" concept is killing the enthusiasm me as a cricket lover would have before the start of a ODI series. Also, with the amount of cricket that is being played,its also starting to show on the players. Dhoni would be saying "Oh No ! yet another ODI series to play" whenever he would look at the ODI calendar.Once the players start losing interest in playing for the country, how would viewers be able to keep their interest captivated? Interestingly, none of the Sachins, Dhonis ever seemed to be fatigued or tired while showing up for the IPL which involved much more intensity and was heavily demanding on the body. For the records, Sachin was the leading run scorer in the last IPL - a certificate of his fitness and his purple patch in cricket. Some would say that he just wants to maintain his ODI average after a 200*, others would say he is just not motivated enough to play ODIs other than the world cup.
For me, I dont mind him resting if he is doing it for a bigger reason- that is to play the World Cup. And the final icing on the cake would be if Sachin would see India home in the finals next year to lift the World Cup ! Till then let him rest!

Poster Done !

So finally we are done with the Poster presentation and officially we are now done with the MSE program albeit there are few more curses...I mean courses to finish ! Overall I think the poster session was pretty relaxed compared to the more grilling and nerve wracking sessions we have had in the past with the EOSP.(Not to forget the welcome change in the breakfast from the mundane Bagels and cream cheese !)
I liked the Snakes and Ladders section of our poster and it showed that we were creative and innovative in our thinking and from the interactions with our mentors, I think they liked it too ! Ofcourse,"it ain't over till the fat lady sings" - so got to wait and see what the grades are like !
Overall, this milestone also marks an end to the 16 month Studio program (or ordeal if you could call it so). Its going to take a while to digest the fact that its all over ! But for now, time for a short nap before I get back to my Machine Learning Mid term !

Darkest Night !

Often during life you come across one of those nights where you just want to be plunged in darkness. I had one of those nights yesterday when things just seemed not to be working out. Reason - I had just received my latest reject call from Deloitte - a company that I had pinned my hopes on simply because it probably suits my style of working and is one of the best matches to my skill set. However, I think I did mess up my case interview a little (why could not I come up with some data to show a 20% ROI) and to be fair, there might have been better candidates who deserved it much more.
Whats this all telling me? There are no free lunches - as a popular saying goes. I dont think I am going to get a job without really working hard at it. Yes ! There is the obvious challenge of balancing my workload in my curriculum with the job hunt - but who said life was easy. Another thing I also realized is that no matter how much someone consoles you or tries to motivate you, you have to develop that willingness and courage to fight it out. In adversity like this I always like to think of Saurav Ganguly (given my affinity for cricket) and how he fought his way back into the team when nobody was willing to give him a chance. I think mental strength and showing the stomach to fight are the key to be able to pass through a phase like this. Life has to move on since I have a poster session at 8 am tommorrow and then have to sit and do my Machine Learning Midterm - which would need some doing given my absence from class for the past week. As Raj Kapoor used to say -"The show must go on" !