May 30, 2003

I have been job hunting for the past 2-3 months and so far have had only 2 interviews!!!!!! Thats a cause of concern for me. The fact that I have graduated isn't helping either as I cannot work on or off campus (officiallly) :):)... that means no pay ....no income.

but my advisor has come in like a savior and told me that he can help in some way for the summer. That was relieving!!!!!!! Even 400 a month will be better than nothing.

The cricket season is almost underway for this year. There are lot more teams than the previous years. I thought that I will not be the captain this year as I was hoping to find a job and go elsewhere, but I guess things have worked differently for me and I the captain still:):).This year initially I thought will not have a good team. But my view has been proved wrong by the team members. This year we have a lot of good players and we are playing well as a team. My initial views abt the team were due to the lack of enthusiasm and participation at the practice sessions and I regretted being the captain as I had to act like the boss and i dont like doing that as we are all peers.

But now, I am enjoying being the captain of the team as the team members have been showing more enthu and dedication during practice. Now I dont have to tell anyone what to do as all of them know what has to be done and have begun to understand the game better. We still have a long way to go but at least we have a good start..

Of the four practice matches we won 2 and lost one and almost won the other one, that is becoz the other left the field when we needed only 14 runs from 7 overs with 4 wickets in hand. That match was abandoned due to the bad sportsmanship of few of the players from the other team. During two of the practice matches our batting clicked very well, we scored 72/3 in 11 overs and 164/6 in 23 overs. In the last two matches the batting failed but in one of them the bowling held its end and we won the match. we bowled out the opposition for 71 in the first match and we defended a megre total of 83 by bowling out the other side for 74. Even in the last match we played the bowling almost did the trick for us we almost defended the 89 run total but the other team chased it in 27 overs for the loss of 7 wickets. That much for cricket.

I have been watching a lot of movies lately, english, hindi and telugu......in short i can say on an average i watch 1-2 movies a day!!!!!!! and over the weekends it is 2-3 movies.

I think I dont have anything else to write so if I continue it will only be boring (hoping that it has not been boring so far:):))

last night was my cooking turn and I made palak ka dal and cabbage coconut for dinner. But sindhu wanted to eat a pizza so we went out and got a jalapeno and onion topping pizza from Papa Johns:):)


May 28, 2003

I got back from Houston yesterday morning at 3.40am!!!! I hate American Airlines!!!!!!!! They made my start and end of the trip miserable. The connecting flight from Dallas was delayed by 4 hrs!!!!!!!. THe only good thing about American Airlines is that they have good pretzels and they paid for my ground transportation to akron.

well, I could not post any news for the past 5-6 days as I could not get access to the internet. Now that i am back in Akron I can keep my blog updated:):)

For all those who visited my blog last friday, here are the details of the rest of the trip:

My friends Rahul, Dhiraj(chachu), Praveen (pashu) from Austin drove down to Houston for the weekend. Nitin, myself and the other three form a unique group. we are all experts in our own ways in cracking PJ's. You should be at the scene to belive this.

I have to admit that I had been out of touch with this typical characteristic of VESITians (my undergrad college). But after the weekend with those four crazy fellows I think I am getting back in form.

we spent the night at Nitin's place after having dinner at a Pakistani restaurant at 1:30am. For me and Nitin it was a second dinner. We started off with the PJ's, I was completely blown away in the contest by my friends. They agreed in unison that Sai (myself) had lost touch and thats what happens when U become a family man ( Sindhu!!!!!!). I was determined to prove them wrong so I started working hard may be I was working harder on the PJ's than on the court.

Coming back to the court, I had my semi-final match in saturday. I thought I will win as I had started playing well, but I was matched up with my long time nemisis ...... a leftie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been hating lefties since the days of my competing in the Sub-junior (under 12) levels in Badminton (no offence Adi :)). I cannot recollect even a single instance in which I had beaten a leftie in a tournament. They are a jinx for me. I just freeze I guess when I see a good leftie player. It just throws me off..

well, this guy...martinez III... was my oppponent. He was hitting the ball hard, the first part of the match was close....6-6. Both of us were trying different serves to trouble the other. He hit the jackpot first, he started serving the high-lob Zee serve on my back hand. THats it!!!!!!!! For the rest of the match I was done for, i could not return the serve and I lost 15-7,15-3. THats one of the most humiliating defeats I have faced in the recent months. Well, I was down and out but Sindhu and my friends managed to keep my spirits up for the next match... the 3rd place play off.

I had this match on Sunday, my friends dropped me off at the hotel the previous night as I had a game at 10:30am and all of us were positive that none of them would wake up before 1 pm. I told myself before the match, play as hard as u can U have come this far for nothing. The match started, it was a close first game 11-15, I lost the game. I was relapsing to the previous day, but this Indian Guy i had made friends with came to watch my match and he helped me in calming down. In the second game, I started serving the high lob (Bhaddu's nemisis) and my opponent started making lot of mistakes. He took three timeouts during the game to disrupt my concentration but I held on to win the next game 15-3. The stage was set for a tie breaker, he started off strongly and jumped to a 6-1 lead. He thought he had me and went for an overconfident fast second serve and double faulted. thats the only chance I wanted and i grabbed it with both hands. i served out the match reeling the next 10 points and winning 11-6. Thats its!!!!!!!!!!!! I won my first National Championship medal ever!!!!!!!! I am not sure if I will be able to repeat the feat ever but atleast for the moment i am on top of the world!!!!!!!

May 23, 2003

I won!!!!!!!!!!

I just won my quarterfinal match in the under 24 Mens division. I am in the semifinals now!!!! yeah!!!! I won 15-4,15-11. I am sooo happpy!!!!

THe lob serve worked to perfection today. Thanx to bharadwaj i worked on it and won!!!

got to go more later

May 22, 2003

I Lost:(:( !!!!!!!!!!!

Well, my hard earned victory yesterday has been overshadowed by my defeat today. I lost my second round match today 15-6,15-13. I dont know whats wrong with me I usually play a very good first game and lose the second but here in Houston its been the other way around!!!!

I have been very very sluggish in both my matches during my first games, i lost yesterday the first game 15-3 and today 15-6. that tells a lot abt my mobility on court and abt my shot making.

today i played like a piece of crap in the first game, i dont know what has been happening but i have not been able to hit my backhand well here, the same thing happened even last year but thank god this year at least my forehand is working.

well, i came back pretty well in the second game and it went neck to neck alll the way. at 13-14 when i served he barely made it to the ball and the return was weak I thought i can kill the ball very very easily, i hit the ball as hard as i could and it almost went past him, i almost leaped with joy but out of nowhere he hit a behind the back shot which came staright into me and hit me!!!!!!! i lost the serve and with that my match. I have only myself to blame for not being able to play well in the tournament.I always have this tournament syndrome. god knows when i will get over it!!!!!

more abt my tournament tommorow when i wil lplay my age group
I didnt get a lot of time yesterday to write abt my match, here is how it went......

HE won the toss as asked me to serve. It went pretty good till 2-2 then he just took off!!!! i dont know what hit me I wasnt able to kill the ball and he was killing that he got. I lost the first game 15-3, I was tired and almost lost the match mentally. The fact that I had never won a match after losing the first game didnt help. But anyways I thought there is nothing to lost and told my self to play one point at a time.

I started sevring the high lob serve that irritates a lot of my friends (especially bharadwaj:):)). that worked!!!!!! i am genius!!!!! I got one point at a time and I was leading 14-7 when he took a time out. That almost proved devastating. He came back to 14-12 and I thought I am done. BUt the refree had other plans I guess, he gave me a favourable call and I won the game 15-12!!!!!!! The tie breaker was pretty close but I almost led all thru the game and finally won the game 11-6. Thats it!!! I did what I never did before. where else better to do it than at the nationals!!!!

well, i have my next match tonight at 6:30 pm and I play a good player so I hope that I play well again.

May 21, 2003

IN Houston!!!!!!

Well, I reached houston after a long delay and guess what???? my friend who was supposed to pick me up was in the work airport!!!!!!!!!!!!

To add to my frustration my baggage was torn and the airline said that they were not responsible

I got to meet my friend Nitin atlast. After 3 unsucessful attempts in 3 yrs we met atlast. He showed me around his University and we ate at a mexican restauant. Man!!!! the food was delicious.

well, let me get to the main point of my visit. I played this morning in my Men's C division and won the game 3-15, 15-12,11-6.

the hotel guys here is giving me a look as if to say that my browsing time is up. I will describe abt the match tommorow.

Thats it, got to go and sleep i am dead tired after my marathon match

May 19, 2003

Yippee!!!!!!!!!

This thing actully works and its fast tooo:) I can post my thoughts in less than a minute
Hello people,


Thanx to my friend, hemant I found this place where I can post my thoughts and update all my friends as to whats going in my life. THis is much better than emailing everyone the same stuff :):)
Hello World!!!!!!!! (standard computer program for beginners :) )