Chai Garam

Today I was looking for some coffee in the kitchen. I was almost about to make French Roast when I saw a box of Chai which I did not see before. So I picked the Chai and opened the lid of the brewer and guess what someone before me made the same Chai :) Guess today I was supposed to enjoy a hot cup of Chai.

Take Me Home

It’s time to go home. This is the last week of my internship in DC. So I am wrapping up stuff which I need to get done before I leave. Writing a small report, uploading documents, updating web site and some more small assignments. 10 weeks was not a too little of time but they just flew with a speed of a lightening. I was lucky to find a decent apartment with good roommates in Foggy Bottom which is one of the vibrant parts of the town. Living neat GWU campus and minutes of walking to metro station was the best part of the stay.

In between I had to move along with my roomies as they found a new place nearby. Well the new place is sunny and bright and I am having a decent time there. I got to visit Georgetown many a times. Spent good money at the shopping malls, visited National Archives and US Capitol, two of the “Must Visit” destinations for me. Also got to see some movies, club and in general strolling on the beautiful roads of DC. In all the stay was productive and interesting.
Work was good and it did get a little bit monotonous in between but overall a good experience. Met good colleagues and a wonderful supervisor who is also arranging a small farewell party for me. I am moved by this gesture!

So far so good. V is coming to town on Thursday and then Saturday we are driving to NJ. And then next Monday I am flying home to India, Pune….To the place I belong :)

Almost heaven, west virginia

Blue ridge mountains
Shenandoah river -Life is old there
Older than the trees
Younger than the mountains
Growin like a breeze

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads

All my memories gathered round her
Miners lady, stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty, painted on the sky
Misty taste of moonshine
Teardrops in my eye

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads

I hear her voice
In the mornin hour she calls me
The radio reminds me of my home far away
And drivin down the road I get a feelin
That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads
Take me home, now country roads
Take me home, now country roads

Words and music by bill danoff, taffy nivert and john denver

If you are a student in SPA, one of the two important classes you would end up taking early in the program are 501 and 502. The research methods classes. 501 is the one which teaches you what is a research paper, what different approaches to research are, how to ask a question for research and how to write a paper. Well to tell the truth, even with a degree in Economics, I did not know anything about writing research paper. After taking 501, no when I think about horrible papers I wrote before, I feel like going back to time and redoing all the work. Now at least I know how to approach a problem. Of course as I will keep on working, my writing will be improved.

502 is the next in sequence which we can call Regression Analysis or if Introductory econometrics per se. In the first stage, we learn how to approach a problem and in the second stage we learn how to actually quantify what is measured.

Both the classes are rigorous and require lot of hard work. But I must say that those two are among the best classes I ever took. No matter what grade I got, I learnt so much that I now feel confident that I can write a small decent paper. Of course there are tons of more things and techniques to learn. But I enjoyed every single moment of my class. With excellent faculty members every single class came with new ideas, techniques and new questions. I read research papers which were written the way we were expected to write.

I know many of us have this inherent fear of “anything that looks like mathematics”. But trust me in both of these classes mathematics and statistics comes along as something that can be totally entertaining.

Field of social science is not easy to quantify. There is no way we can put value to human life and any aspect of it. But methods class gives a direction that helps to understand the importance of quantifying these “un-quantifiable” entities and how we can utilize this knowledge to attempt to solve different social issues.

I really hope everyone enjoys these classes and finds how analysis changes the approach towards solutions.

Time passes by very quickly. My Internship started in May and before I thought about it, it’s almost time to leave. Just this week and next and I will be done. It has been a good experience. I got some insight to kind of work association does. Though my work was mostly regarding publication and compliance center; because I was also surrounded by people from International section, I had a chance to get a small glimpse of their work.

It was a great opportunity to understand what a great job local governments do. The publication, requesting for permissions, answering queries, compiling news articles, doing some HTML coding all was a great learning experience.

I think the experience matters! Though the internship will not be like a full time job , but the insider’s view of the work helps not only in future endeavors but also develops a great deal of respect for all who strive for perfection to make things happen in the organization.

Today I got into an argument with V about "language". We were arguing about English. The point of argument was if English is a good language. I was of the opinion that English is the most straight forward, simple and professional language I have learnt. And V was saying that even with these qualities English need not be considered as "Interesting" language. He had some good points. He said that English is very simple ,easy to learn and of course a good language for communication. But it is not necessarily a good language for literary values. I am not sure of the literary values so I said that Shakespeare wrote in English and he is certainly one of the most well known and well respected authors in the world. However, according to V , Shakespeare gave some masterpieces because he was a genius. But English is not great because of that. In fact he gave some literary jewels to the world and English happens to be the language he used for it.

OK. The jist of the argument was that English has limitations when it comes to expressing some emotions, feelings or I should say that there are many other languages such as French, Italian, Spanish etc which make even most mundane expressions more poetic. Such as Senor is sweater than Mr. Of course I can not comment about this as the only foreign language I know is English. The rest are Indian languages.

Ladies and Gentlemen let your thoughts flow in this debate. I am an ardent supporter and a huge English lover. I think its the language of knowledge and wisdom.

What do you want to say about it?

I like Emraan Hashmi

I like Emraan Hashmi. I know you are balked at this statement. You must be thinking what’s wrong with me. The girl who worships Kamal Hassan and does not miss Johnny Depp and Tom Hanks movies, what has suddenly gone wrong with her! But well with all due respect to everyone who hates Hashmi, I will say firmly that I like him.

This long week end I got to watch three of Emraan’s movies almost back to back. I started my movie run with Jannat (2008 hit) and ended with Aksar. I have to say I totally had great time. Even with few “Rated” scenes and weird dressing sense of all of the actors, the movies were entertaining.

I know Bhatt camp comes up with all these flicks where there is always a twist in tale and Hashmi is running behind the girl with all his appeal (!). But one thing which I admire about these movies is, they have no star actors and still grab most of the fame and lot of money. When Jodha-Akbar and SarkarRaj are struggling to save the face, Hashmi’s movies are becoming big hits of Bollywood. And mind you Hashmi is doing a better job by each film. Jannat was very interesting and even the new comer girl has done a good job. Music is good, script is cool and pace of the movie is super fast. I think what I liked about the movies was the “Pace”. There was not a single dull moment. Something was happening all the time. Even with all the routine song-dance sequence the thrill did not go down. I guess Bhatts very smart to introduce Hashmi and even with his “not so positive” image they are able to collect good money on their productions. I don’t know if the movies are good or even ok for most of the audience. But I have to say I would any time and every time Prefer Hashmi to Karan Johar. At least I know “Mera Paisa Wasool Hain!”

Being in DC on Independence day was an interesting experience. My day started with 4th of July parade and ended with amazing fireworks on Lincoln memorial. Enjoy some of the fireworks...

Working full time is no fun. Even if you are working with the best employer, good work, wonderful people and relaxed work environment; still you are bound to get tired. It’s not about what you don’t like it’s about that 9 to 5 routine you get your self into. Work gets monotonous and after a while it loses the magic it had. It’s inevitable that you will be starting your work week thinking about week end and especially if it’s a long week end then everyone around you asks you the same question all week “What’s for the week end?”

Americans live for work and I completely agree with this statement. We have few holidays, less breaks, less vacations and lot of work days. Technically being generation Y kid, I should be giving more preference to family over work. (I just read an interesting article about Baby boomers, Gen X and Gen Y people and their work priorities) But I love to work. I think America got into my skin quickly in this regard :)

Anyways the purpose of this post to crib about work and not to say how much I like it :) Well when I am in school I am the happiest person on the earth. Even with loads of assignment, GA work, classes I am very happy as I am busy with all those great new ideas. I can work all week long during school year as it’s always new work, new class, new home work, new project , new research. The new work is always exciting. Spending hours on internet, in library and in instructor’s cabin is totally fantastic as I learn something new constantly. So all the hard work and stress does not matter much. However, when I started working over the summer, there was great excitement in the beginning as I was learning new work, system, sources etc. But soon as I got used to it I became a little tired of the “same old same old” feeling. Work is still good but I just think the initial zeal has gone down. Now many things I can work on even with my eyes closed. I am glad that I could contribute to resources at work and was able to get some backlog done really quickly.

DC is great and I have much fun everyday but still the routine kind of makes me less enthusiastic. Of course the experience is going to be rewarding. Just that I fear, what will happen when I start full time job? Hmmm hope I would be able to keep my zeal even if I need to re charge myself now and then.

Well guys what do you think? DO you feel the same?