Swamped with work.....

I am really sorry for delaying the update on the blog.....i have been swamped with work.....its been a busy busy....couple of weeks.....I know that writing will not take a long time....but somethings have to taken care of first and the post on Sapna cannot be written in haste.....so please bear with me.....as I promise that one of these days....I will continue with the story......

In the meantime.....I would like to wish my darling sister Deepika a very very HAPPY BIRTHDAY.....Hope u had a great day

Farewell........

Wednesday night was my cooking turn and as usual I had gone to play racquetball with Kiran and started cooking at 9pm. Then i saw that i had a missed call from Hemant....little did I know why he had called.....he had called to let me know that they were going out for a farewell dinner for Sapna (huh?????)....what ?????? farewell !!!!!!!!. I was stunned !!!!!!!! I didnt understand what was going on??? why are these guys giving a farewell dinner to Sapna when she is getting married in Jan and was planning on leaving akron after that ???? I was totally confused....i had no clue that she was leaving for India the next day !!!!!!! It was too late for me to join them for dinner and as it was I had to cook for my roomie. So I called Sapna and asked her to let me know once they get back from dinner.

In the meantime, while cooking I was thinking about how I met her and all that. Its actually an interesting story....we had a common friend Nitin (studying in houston)....I had no clue who Sapna was (till last June).....Nitin called me ask abt Akron...what kind of a place it was and if they had a good student population and all that stuff.....then he told me that Sapna got a job there and wanted to talk to someone abt the place....Sapna who???? then he told me that she was his best friend's (Sandeep) Girl friend and all. I told him that she can call me and that i could take care of her accomodation temporarily. Then i talked to her a couple of times and I didnt know where to set her up??? so I decided to ask her if she had any problems staying with me for a couple of weeks ???? I told her that i was staying alone...my roomies had gone to India....and that she can have a room for herself....as expected she said that it was fine with her. She came to Akron on the weekend of the july 4th....Sandeep came the next day. when I went to meet her on her arrival I was surprised to see the car completely Jam packed and had enough space to just accomodate her. even if I tried I could have gotten into the car....it was well packed....heheheh. I showed her the route to her workplace and we had a lot of fun the 2 weeks she stayed at my place. Most of the times i got invited for dinner so I used to take her along as we would get better food than we could cook. Then Nishant came back from India.....now we had to look for options to set Sapna up temporarily....it wasnt too hard as she was a talkative and easy going person....


I have to go to a seminar now....willl complete the blog soon...hheheheheh

We got the Intramural Champions shirts.....

As I mentioned in my earlier post....we are the new Wallyball Intramural Champions.....we got our shirts today. The shirts are the prize we won for our tournament victory. All of us went to the office eagerly....atleast the other three guys did...I was kind of enthu but not very very excited as I was a couple of years ago when i won my first shirt.....all of us chose the sizes and colors to our liking and we even got a shirt for the 5th guy on the team who played only 1 match !!!!!!!!! but I guess that worked well for the rest of us as we practiced together and performed as a team better....he could not make it to the practices and most of the matches due to class...

I must have won atleast 14-15 shirts so far in my three years here.....not that I am boasting.....but I have been lucky enough to get the shirts for my friends too.....though I won many shirts i think i have only 4 with me.....I gave them to my old roomies, friends and also sindhu. I even took some shirts to india to give them to my friends as they had a University of Akron logo on them. Badminton was the main reason that I got that many shirts.....I used to win the singles and Mixed doubles regularly and the year Hemant was my partner i even won the doubles (that reminds me....hey hemant did u get a shirt for that????). We used to get shirts for playing against the Kent State University in the Inter-university games. Wallyball and racquetball got me more shirts. so over all I am happy that i won the shirts becoz I have never bought a University of Akron shirt....I have bought my department and College of engineering shirts but never the Univ shirts.....hey that reminds me of one more thing....last year at the International Dance party I won the "Best Male Dancer" award for which the prize was.....one more shirt (heheheheeh)....I gave that to a friend who I felt was/is/will be a better dancer than me (i think I better fit the TP dancer or Ghati dancer category). I think thats too much of writing on shirts....I dont think I have ever written so much abt shirts.....

Comment section added......

hey people.....i have added the comment section....I have been wanting to do this for a long time but had no clue how to do it. Thanx to Rajesh I found out how to put it on, actually it was very very simple......but... once u know the process most of the things are simple...isn't it ???

Fall'03... Wallyball Champions....BIOHAZARDS !!!!!!!!!!

Biohazards is our team name and we as u must have guessed by now that we won the thursday night league of the intramurals (intra-collegiate).......yeah !!!!!!!!!!! we had a very very close game...but ultimately we won !!!!!!!!!!!!! I am very very happy.

It was a very satisfying victory as it was a sweet revenge.....we had lost to the same team in the league stage. That loss made them the top seeds and us the second seed . We were comfortably wining that game and suddenly our game fell apart and we lost in three games....that was a very frustrating loss. Tonight we were determined to beat those guys.....our team Rajesh, Shadi, Luay and myself....have to beenplaying well lately......Shadi and Luay upfront for setting up and spiking, rajesh and i stand in the back court to receive the serve and to take the smashes...... to do all the running around. We started off with a series of good serves and solid spikes. shadi is our main spiker....if he has a good day we win easily else it becomes difficult. Its hard to win without spiking. The other team were good athletes and we covering the court with ease. we won the first game easily 15-7. we didnt expect such an easy victory but we took the win. Then we expected them to make a comeback.....to our surprise we took off....exactly the way we did in the first game and we ran to a 13-2 lead......all of us were playing well and shadi was having a great day....then it all started....they got their game together and our game started falling apart......they won point after point and finally won the game....15-13. thats 13 points on a strech!!!!!!!!! we were down and we getting back the memories of the previous loss.....the final game was played at their pace and they kind of dictated the terms in the first few points.....they were up 9-3 and shadi lost his cool.......once he loses his cool his game falls apart and he starts making silly mistakes......then we started our comeback...we were very very determined. shadi regained his composure......Luay started controling his spikes and served well.....rajesh was running down everything. So we were back into reckoning.....we equalled at 9-9.....now it was their turn to get restless and they started to come under pressure...from then on every point was contested closely and the rallie became longer and both the teams were pumped up. we could see the emotion in both the sides after winning a point. we somehow got the upper hand and shadi at one point made a brilliant retrival with his foot (any part of the body is allowed).....we won the game 15-12. atlast we win back the title......yes, we were the champions for 2 years....2000-01, 2001-02....but last year we couldnt get a team together so we couldnt play.

this week has been pretty hectic with midterm, homework and project discussions for Dr.reddy's class and Dr.V's class.....the semester is coming to an end and its going to be busy time for all of us with 2 projects, one paper presentation and two final exams and another midterm......

India has lost both the games that i watched.....its very disappointing to get up at 4 in the morning (or not sleep all night) and watch for 8 hrs to see them lose.....not that they are not trying....but they can do better. welll I hope they do better from now on and we go on to win the cup.....that looks a difficult propsition seeing the Aussies play....man !!!!!!!!!! they are definitely a team to beat!!!

watched MATRIX REVOLUTIONS.......it was very very disappointing....it wasnt that bad but I went in expected more. I was very disappointed with the second movie so i was expecting them to make up with the third......but alas I was disappointed. the movie was too slow and boring for the first 30-40 mins....from then on its was ok.....but Adi, Sindhu and I were having our own fun by passing comments....

Now my hopes rest on LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING....and i am sure that it will not disappoint....

Cricket time again......

Yesterday we played cricket after a long time....we played tennis ball cricket. We played Seniors Vs Juniors.....all the juniors who could make it were on one side and we (seniors) were mostly from the Akron Cricket team....it didnt take us long to realise that tennis ball cricket was completely different from the season ball cricket......we got used to playing with all the gear that we were too early for the shots and were swinging before the ball even reached us. But we were also trying to have as much fun as possible while playing some serious cricket.

Our team: Rajesh, Honey Venkatesh, Avinash, sunny, vikas, Adi, hemant, Dhanraj and myself. The juniors were also equal in number.......we played 3 matches...one 6 over game, one 4 over game and a last 2 over game.....we won the series 2-1....the games were hotly contested and people got real serious at times but over all we had a great time.....the problem with tennis ball cricket is that we have many people and have less overs to bat and bowl. so people should understand that they cant do both.....if u bat then wait for ur turn to bowl.....if u bowl then go last to bat......these should be the general rules of play.....but these are my views as winning is not of as much importance as is having fun. we wil try to play as much as possible to play until the weather interferes.....its getting cold and we are lucky to get the couple of days of warm weather.

I didnt sleep at all last night.....as I was up till late to watch a telugu movie with Sindhu and her roommates....it was 2:45 Am by the time we were done with the movie and I was going to sapna's place to watch the India-Australia match.....so we stayed up and talked till 3:50 and then i dropped sindhu home and went to sapna's place. The match started on a positive note for us.....Zaheer got Hayden with the first ball of the match.....but from then on nothing went right for India.....Aus went on to score 286/8 and then we started....in the mean time...Sapna made some tea for us....Hemant, Adi and Chappar (Honey).....India started off on a disastrous note....Veeru got out the first ball of the Innnings :(:(....from then on Laxman followed....tendliya played well but he got out for 67 (or 69) thats it....Dravid got out tooo for 59 well made runs and then on we just collapsed like 9 pins. We were all out for 209.....ggrrrrrrr....we lost to a second string Australian bowling attack !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i cant believe that.........our first string attack gets beatn by them all the time....cant we even beat their second string consistently????????

I had met with my advisor after a long time.....I finished making a poster of my master's research and had given it to my advisor for corrections...he liked the poster a lot but needed some to check the details of the poster. He is back into the lab ...... that feels goood......we were worried that he would not be able to make it back for 5-6 months.....but his recovery has been very astonishing and he was back in no time. though he is not completely back into his research mode......but he comes to the lab 2-3 times a week to the lab. thats more than enough to keep the current research going.

The winter is setting in very fast......its been very cold for the past couple of weeks...but the last couple of days were nice and warm to wear shorts.....probably for the last time for the next 5 months.....