Back in Champaign

Am back in Champaign. Seattle trip was hectic. Every day I would go to sleep after 12:30 and wake up before 6:30. Sit through 8 hrs of meetings on Wednesday and Thursday. On Tuesday just walked around for a really long time. So overall it was pretty stressful.

But it was also a lot of fun. I got to see a Norwegian Independence Day parade in Ballard. It was very interesting with marching bands, jokers, and dressed up people and a motorcycle show by Seattles finest. Then we had a really nice Grilled Salmon dinner at Sandy and Todd's (our hosts) place. Well then I had to go to Yogesh's place for another dinner. Enjoyed it too, had a long chat with Yogesh.

Final night was spent with a dinner at Vikas's place and then dessert at Dillitante's dessert place in the Capital Hill area. Ram came over and then we went out and reminisced a lot. Staying at the campus, I had never realized how much time had passed. But meeting all of these old friends made me realize how old I was.

But coming back to the campus made me young again. So I am a happy young senior graduate student. There are so many contradictions there that I can not help smiling.
Signing off with a simle :).

Trip to Seattle

Well I have finally arrived at the famous city of Seattle. For long I have planned to get to this city but always managed to find a reason not to come.

As usual I slept through the entire plane ride except the period when the breakfast being served. I woke up had breakfast, pulled out me laptop. Didnt even open it and slept over it. The stewardess had to wake me up before the landing to shove my laptop infront of my seat. Even after doing that I conked out. Woke up when people started moving.

Vikas was there to pick me up at the airport. We had Lunch and then he dropped me at the Pike street Market. I walked around the market a bit and then headed to the Seattle Center. Went up the Space Needle Tower. Was a really nice view (but 14 bucks, they should have student discounts like those in Europe.). Then went into the Science Museum (was for kids mainly but I still enjoyed it. Grad students are mostly kids.) Saw an IMax film on Greece. Was pretty nice. They recreated the Parthanon using computer graphics (actual use of some CS research).

Am going out right now with Robin and plan on dinner with Yogesh tomorrow. Oh and yes I have 2 days of work ahead of me.

Summer as a Grad Student

Another summer has arrived. For most students it is time to enjoy, go on backpacking trips through Europe, have a wild time.

But for us graduate students it just means that we have to work at a higher rate. No courses are taken during summer, and hence we the only thing you end up doing is research. The amount of work goes up. It is good, for during the semesters we have to attend talks, go to courses, and do a lot of stuff except research. Summer gives us a time to do active research.

See the graduate student in me comes to fore. I still cant think of doing anything in the summer except research. I started this blog blaming the system. But the fact is that as a graduate student I enjoy summer more not for the good weather, or for the excursions. I enjoy it because it gives me a greater chance to do good research.

The curse of being a grad student.

Post Prelims Joys

Well the prelims seems to have been a very good thing for me. Professors seem to take me a lot more seriously. I think there are really just two milestones in the life of a PhD student. The first is the Quals exam, and the second is the Prelims Exam. The defence actually marks the death of the PhD student. Or rather I should say that it marks the rebirth of the Graduate Student as a fully functioning member of society.

Before the Quals exam a graduate student is treated like a baby no one wants. The student moves from project to project working with seniors (if he is lucky to have a senior enough professor to have enough seniors in the group) or just working on endless list of ideas that your professor gets. Once you are done with your quals you get enough respect that actually people start listening to you. But after the Prelims you are at a point where you can actually see the end of your graduate life. That is the point when you clearly see the golden cup of Thesis Defence. Before the prelims you can see the halo around the cup, but the actual cup cannot be seen due to the fog of research. But once the prelim is done the Cup can clearly be seen, you only need to walk to it and pick it up.

Another free trip

I went to sleep today at 1:30 and woke up at 9:30. I might be challenging fate, but would still go out on a limb and say that I am over my jet lag. But now that I am over the effects of one trip, I have been drafted into the plans of another.

Have plans to go to Seattle from the 16th to the 19th May. I am sure that this trip will not lead to that strong jet lags. The time difference is just 2 hours as opposed to 8 hours between Rhodes and Champaign. The good thing is that the trip resolves around writing grant proposals for Bioinformatics project. Both are things that interest me very much. Training in writing grant proposals will come in handy in later stages of my life, and bioinformatics is a great, interesting and challenging field to work in. We will have two days of meetings to formulate the report for Stage 1 and write the proposal for Stage 2.

The other exciting part of it is, I have never been to Seattle, so this gives me a chance to visit the city for free. Also I have many friends in Seattle whom I havent met in a long time, and will love to meet once I am there. So overall I am looking forward to this visit.

Jet Lags and Free trips

I have been back at Champaign for 5 days now and am yet to completely get over my jet lag. In the past 4 days I have gone to sleep at 1:00 am on Sunday night to wake up at 7:00 pm on Monday; not slept the on Monday night; gone to sleep at 10:00 pm on Tuesday night to wake up at 7:00 am on Monday, a false feeling of having overcome the jet lag. On wednesday, I came back from the lab at 5:00 pm, and dont remember when I fell asleep. I woke up at 10:00 pm, went again to sleep at 1:00 am on Thursday, to wake up at 7:00 am. On I finally managed to keep myself awake till 10:00 pm yesterday but am awake now typing this blog (local time 4:15).

This is very new to me, as in my many visits to and from India I have rarely had any jet lag. This time the trip was to Rhodes Island in Greece. Boy, it was enjoyable. Somehow I had managed to get a research paper published in a respectable conference, IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, and had gone there to present my paper. I got to meet many important and interesting people, hang out with my co PhD students from many different Universities. The people I hung out most with were Avery Ching from Northwestern, Amitabha Bannerjee from UCD, and Adam Oliner from Stanford. I dont mind repeating that the trip was great.

Getting back to the theme of jet lags, my time in Greece wasn't free from them either. I got to Rhodes at 9:00 at night on Tuesday after an amost 27 hr travel trip, had dinner with Avery and went to sleep. I conked out immediately, but not before calling the hotel reception for a 7:00 am wake up call (wanted to attend the Key note speech at 8:30). The next morning I was wide awake at 4:30 ( a huge jet lag for someone used to going to sleep at 1:00 am and waking up at 9:00). As if my attempts at getting some more sleep werent failing badly enough, a rooster in a farm right next to our Hotel (it was a 5 star hotel) started crowing at 5:30. Any dreams I had of going to sleep for a couple of more hours were completely gone by then and I was wide awake. The good thing was I able to watch some Greek TV (which was well Greek to me, but the soaps seemed equally corny) and replay of World Snooker Championship matches (something that I thoroughly enjoyed). Well the tradition continued and I woke up every day between 4:30 - 5:30 even the last day. That day I checked out at 12:00 pm Greece time (4:00 am Champaign time on Saturday), went to the Rhodes old town. Then went to catch my flight (Olympic Air), leaving the hotel at 9:00 pm (2:00 pm Champaign time). The flight as usual was delayed and took off at 1:00 am. Through a circiutous root that took me to Athens, Paris, Cincinnati I got to Champaign at 10:00 pm, traveling a total of 32 hrs. Now this was one tiring journey with very little sleep in the planes. I dont know why I wasn't able to sleep in the flight this time around. Usually as soon as I sit on my seat in a plane and the plane starts moving I just conk out. I do not even recline my seat. I rarely feel the plane take off, and wake up only when the thrust of landing hits me. But this time around I just wasnt able to get any real sleep. But well, did I tell I thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

Now that the rantings about jet lag are over let us hear about the free trip. For the first two days I stayed at the confrence site, attended 6 different sessions, including the one where I was presenting my paper. People seemed to like the idea and had a few questions to ask. All the key note speeches were enjoyable. The conference center did not have internet access in the rooms, only the conference lobby having internet access. As soon as the sessions would break, all the delegates would connect to the internet, speeds we were getting were about a 1 KBps. Have I told you I enjoyed the trip thoroughly. The food was great, people friendly, and I got to stay at 5 star hotel for free (my advisor sponsoring the trip).

On Friday I finally managed to get out, and went to Lyndos one of the ancient Greek city states. The trip was a part of a tour organized by the conference (though it cost us an extra 30 Euros). Went there with Avery and Amitabh (Adam's talk was in the afternoon so he could not make it). Caught up with Sameer there, and ate some lovely crapes. Bought a few gifts for family. Came back that afternoon and attended Adams talk. Went to dinner with the other three (despite staying there for 4 days I ended up eating at only two restaurants outside of the conference hotel). Finally fell asleep at 4:00. Got up early, got ready had break fast and browsed the internet for some time, I was having such strong cravings for the internet that I decided not to go to any of the sessions, and enjoy a much better internet access. In the afternoon I went to the old town of Rhodes (an World Heritage site). Finally got back in the evening, had dinner alone at the beach (met Dr Subhash Saini there). Took a few beautiful pictures. And finally returned to the Airport.

To see the pictures of beautiful Greece go here.