First week, iPhone!

To say that the first week was pretty hectic would be gross-size-of-the-universe understatement. I'm taking five courses this semester (Calc III for CS Majors, Beginner's French, Intro to Physics, Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in Java, and Intro to Computing Systems) plus I have work 8 hours a week at the ResNet office (read previous post). I'm liking all my classes so far, all the professors are good and the schedule is pretty cool as well. I've got labs in both Physics and Computing Systems, but they are yet to start. We do all kinds of cool stuff in the Computing Systems lab, and towards the end of the course we'll be doing assembly programming for Nintendo GBA.

One of the good thing about this course is that you can do uber cool stuff like change the opening logo and sound of the GBA and then show it to people. Then when they are shocked and ask you "How does one do this?", you can reply "Well...You can't!". *smiling nod*

Work has been fun as well, I'm learning a lot of cool stuff, in addition to earning some pocket money (well, bank money actually). Freshman move-in week was a very hectic week, as we had to go to all residence halls and make sure that everyone is connected to the internet. I got to play around with all sorts of new and awesome laptops. Now I've realized how much of a pain in arse Vista is. Even though Georgia Tech 'officially does not support Vista yet, most of the freshman had Vistas on their machines and one out of ten gave us a No MAC Address found error.

Anyways, here is how my schedule looks like for this semester:


As you can see, there aren't many free gaps on the weekdays. The good thing is that weekends are totally free.

Now on to the next part of my post.

Ze iPhone.

I ordered the 4GB one two days ago from the Apple website. I was kind of bored of my Nokia 6280 and wasn't too happy with T-Mobile's service either. So I'm going to have to change my carrier to AT&T. As of 11AM Saturday morning, my iPhone is resting at a FedEx sorting facility at Hampton, GA, which is just 17 miles from my place (thanks Google Maps). Hoping to get in a few hours.

I'm going to end this post by leaving you guys with some iPhone pics.















Making-you-feel-jealously,
Dhruv

Ibanez, and new job

After a well spent 3 month summer in India, I'm back to the summer in Atlanta. And Atlanta's summer is a lot worse than India's summer. Some say its because the sun rays have wayy more UV in this part of the world, some say because its not humid at all, I say I don't care, but I hate it.

This semester I'll be living in an on-campus apartment with 5 of my very good friends. I was the first to move in (for reasons you'll learn later in the post) and I completely love the apartment. Its huge, and its beautiful. It took me about a day to unpack, but fortunately I'm done now.

One of the first things I did when I got Internet connectivity was ordering my guitar. After a lot of mind debate between the Epiphone Les Paul and Ibanez IJX121, I finally decided to go for the Japanese monster. Here's a pic for you guys to feel jealous. It should be here tomorrow.

In other news, I started with my new on-campus job. I'm working now as an RTA (ResNet Technology Advisor), and basically my job is to assist people with all their Internet, Cable and Telephone problems. Today was my first day of work and I really enjoyed myself. Since the freshman batch of people have started moving in, we were helping out the freshman get logged on to the GTech network. I must have said "Hi! I'm from ResNet, do you need any help in setting up your internet?" atleast 400 times today, and my knuckles hurt due to excessive knocking on people's door.

One really awesome assignment I worked on was making a switch from the old Cisco switches to the new swanky HP ones. Georgia Tech has recently upgraded its network connection from 100mbps to 1gbps. In order to perform the change, we got access to the data closets of the resident halls, which were the most imposing rooms I've seen in my life. I tried searching for a pic on the internet, and the closest I got was this :

I don't think I had seen these many wires collectively in my whole life. It was a really great learning experience for me to actually go into the room which provided the internet for the whole building.

My job goes on till Sunday, from 8am to 6pm. But I'm not complaining, I'm getting to learn a lot of cool stuff, meeting some really smart people, and earning some good money.

Monday will see my classes start. I'll talk about my classes and schedule for the semester in the next post. Till then, do whatever you want.


Tiredly,
Dhruv

Simpsons, Gandhi, Simpsons, Simpsons, Chak De India, PHEW!

Yea, you're not a genius to figure out I saw the movies.

So, I saw Simpsons, Gandhi, Simpsons, Simpsons, Chak De India in that order. Here's a brief review of all of them :


Simpsons - 2 words. Go watch it. Ok 3 words.

Its mind-bogglingly awesome, for both a hardcore simpsons fan, and even for the unfortunate newbies. Simpsons fans would have realised that there were quite a few repeated gags, but, frankly speaking, I wouldn't mind watching them over and over again.

My favorite line by Homer - "Why does everything I whip leave me?". Pure Simpsons.


Gandhi, My Father - It was an interesting watch, brought out a side of the nation's daddy not many of us are aware about. I love movies which show two sides in a balanced manner and leave it for audience to take their stance themselves, and this did just that. Akshaye Khanna acted pretty well, way beyond my expectations.

The movie was a pretty slow, though. My mind wandered quite a lot, like thinking about what decides the shapes of clouds during the movie, but well, my mind, just like Homer's, wanders easily.


Chak De India - Again, a very good watch. I actually thought that Shahrukh Khan played the role flawlessly, hell, I even thought he wouldn't cry, till the last few frames. Thats still pretty good looking at his average.

The whole movie was pretty realistic, no crappy bollywood drama. I felt it tackled a lot of important issues :

1) Feminism
2) Racism - The whole North East and the Telugu/Tamil scenes
3) Cricket overshadowing all other sports
4) Corruption at the Sport Authorities
5) Language barriers in sport teams
6) Independence of a married woman
7) Stereotypes against Muslims in Indian teams
8) Levels players stoop to for personal gains
9) Treatment of new players by experienced players

If you like sports, or/and India, or neither, go watch it.



In other news, I have been following the test match again, and guess what, we're winning again! Coincidence? I think not.

In other important news, I slept for only 7 hours last night.

In other unimportant news, I leave for US in a few hours.



Au revoir,
Dhruv