Friday, August 29, 2008

The right place for unbiased information on diet pills

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In summary, Cheap Phentermine, is a store-house of information on Phentermine and other diet pills.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Need to lose weight?Try out these diet pills.

Many of them who are trying to lose weight will be in search of a magic remedy that will work wonders for them. They might have resorted to all forms of exercise, dieting and even starvation but to no avail.

But now, there is indeed a possibility available to all you people out there. There is a diet pill,fenphedra, that has been doing the rounds in the body building circles. It has become a rage of sorts for people wanting to burn fat but without having to face any harmful side effects.It functions as a CART stimulator. CART, Cocaine-Amphetamine-Regulatory-Transcript, is the chemical in our brains that signals to the body indicating that we are full and hence we consume less food.

The three main ingredients of fenphedra are Di-Caffeine Malate, Synephrine and Phenylethylamine.A lot of users who have tried it out are raving about it and now it is your turn to realize the wonders of this amazing pill.


Friday, August 22, 2008

A sign of things to come

I had my first day of classes today and as mentioned before, I have all of my classes on the same two days every week. So, of the two classes, one went on alright and the other got me all nervous!!The professor has a reputation of sorts and his intro to the course had several students dropping the course within minutes after the class got over. I am still in a quandary.

We have an international students welcome party tomorrow night followed by a tour of raleigh and then a "Two cents of Hope"volunteers meeting. So, a lot of interesting stuff lined up this weekend. However, I am so nervous about one of my classes, I think I better brush up on shell programming and Unix programming.

Uh, the cycle begins now!!

In other news, I got my own laptop. The shipping and delivery were so quick, I was amazed at their efficiency. Things were never like this before.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

A whole new meaning-rediscovered

August 20th-Classes begin for Fall 2008. I dont have any classes on 20th and my first class is on 21st. In fact,my timetable is pretty much convenient. All my 3 courses fall on Tuesday and Thrusday and I have the remaining 5 days off. It is this flexibility that impressed me most about the education system in the USA.Back in India, if were to pursue some form of higher studies, we would have a strict 8 to 4 schedule with classes being incorporated every possible weekend. It is this imposition of so-called discipline and lack of flexibility and free time that results in a literal burn out. We are so fatigued at the end of it all that we have no time or interest for research, reading up on allied subjects or even plain unwinding and this very obviusly affects our productivity.

What I appreciate here is the beautiful work-life balance and the importance given to the individual. Of course, I still will have assignments, projects and coursework to catch up on the rest of the five days but the fact that we are given time for it all is so amazing. In fact, I get to choose my courses, my professors,my advisors according to my interests and convenience. Nothing is thrust upon us and so each of us is given an oppurtunity to pursue our respective fields of interest in an atmosphere of freedom. This is why there is so much of active research going on out here and so many publications in International journals.

I can go on and on, but for this post, this should suffice.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Pics from Raleigh










Here are some pics from Raleigh, NC. Not taken too many pics on university campus, so most of them depict those taken during our trips to Lake Raleigh .

Monday, August 18, 2008

A flurry of activity

After the period of lull mentioned in the previous post, there was a flurry of activity. An information fair followed by a full day orientation. Got to learn a lot about how things work down here and the system here is so different from that followed back in India.

What is missing here is the traffic, commotion, noise and life that is so unique to most Indian cities and with no exception to my very own Madras. Down here, it is so calm, peaceful and smooth, it is like we are in a separate world altogether.

However, we do not feel the absence of Indian faces here because they abound every where. Even during orientation, all the speakers were like, "The Indian community here is so strong". It really is. This was re-iterated by the presence of a vast number of desis attending the Independence Day celebration on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Two more days of orientation for graduate students and computer science department students and we are all set to start with classes from this week.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Period of lull

Now that we have done with all our mandatory work down at the university and also made the initial shopping visits to Food Lion and K-Mart, we are back to playing the waiting game. Waiting for orientation to start so that we have something to keep ourselves occupied with. Meanwhile, we visited Lake Raleigh(the nearest tourist spot ) and took our first snaps at the USA. Long idle walks and late night chats and movie watching sessions have left me longing for some sort of activity. The lack of a regular routine is killing me and am awaiting the weekend and the impending start of classes.

Till then, its back to mindless killing of time.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

An affair to remember

So today I went with my room mates to stock up our refrigerator. It was our first time grocery shopping out here and we were taken aback at how things work here. It's processed food and frozen eatables all the way. Milk in huge cans;ready-made frozen chappathis;instant upma;instant sambar;instant everything. Cut and frozen vegetables and canned food. In all, very little time spent cooking. My mother was like don't go for too much of processed food unless you want to ruin your health. Though she does have a point, there are two reason why these instant foods are so popular out here. One, no one really has much time to cook an elaborate meal on a regular basis. And here, I speak on behalf of the student community. But, more importantly for us, it is difficult to lug around shopping bags often since most of the time we end up car pooling. So, stocking up on fresh produce frequently is out of the question. And also, fresh veggies and fruits are more expensive than their frozen counterparts.

However, we have taken a decision to incorporate some healthy eating practices. For instance, we decided that we'd make chappathis afresh than using the frozen ones often and also cut down on eating at the fast food joints that abound everywhere in sight.

It's to be seen if we can live up to our decisions.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Olympics and India

So the Beijing Olympics is the talk of the town and is all over the media. China seems to be doing a great job of hosting it and despite the recent earthquake they have managed to keep the spirits riding high.

As far as India is concerned, the chances for a podium finish are always a dream and if we do make it, it will hog the limelight back in India for several months. That reminds me of one thing-the huge amounts of prize money given to those who make it to the top. Rathore got it for shooting and he was awarded enormous amounts of money as a token of appreciation. Wont it make more sense if the Government and sponsors take steps in nurturing talent and creating infrastructure targeting these Olympics and grooming the sports persons? This can help towards bettering our performances and increasing the medal count in the long run. Many countries have dedicated training centers established for this purpose and this has been reaping rewards for them. We should follow suit if we want to make the dream a reality.

At the end of every Olympics, we reflect on what went wrong. But take no action. It is high time we stopped passively waiting for that elusive medal but instead get down to brass tacks and do something about the issue.

So here's wishing good sense prevails.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

To miss or not to miss?

My seniors and batch mates keep asking if I miss home. I tell them, "No, I dont". I wonder why we should really miss our homes?Yes, we have been accustomed to a lot of things over the years and a shift to a new country will definitely leave you a little disoriented. But all it involves is a little bit of getting used to .There is so much to do that you never have much time to reminiscence and miss home.

We still do call up people back home and the ubiquitous Internet is always there to help us stay connected. So, it is all in the mind.

What I do miss, is reading the Hindu over a cup of freshly brewed filter coffee early in the morning. Doing everything over the Internet is a little annoying. But that is how it works here.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Life of a Desi Grad student

OIS.On campus jobs.Laptop deals. AT&T connections. Yard sales. Self cooking. Long walks. Wolfline buses. Wolfpack. Wolf everything.

Tree lined avenues. Wooded areas. Awesome roads. Better cars. Non-interfering people. Great professors.

Course discussions. Homework. Projects. Deadlines.Wal-mart trips.Internships. Placements.

Sleep, now what is that?

Bonding. Cribbing. Enjoying.

Learning. And some more.

Loving it.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Life in the USA

So, after a really tiring and long journey with two stopovers I landed at Raleigh, NC, USA.It was a new experience, travelling alone, across two continents.

I was picked up by my seniors from the airports and landed at my temp accommodation at my seniors place, a bunch of really friendly and helpful girls. Since I landed on a weekend, I could not get much work and so set out exploring the campus and gorging on typical american fast food-pancakes for breakfast, Pav Bhajji for lunch and Dunkin Donuts for dinner-all in one day.
I am thankful that my seniors are such good cooks-hats off to them-I cant thank them enough.

Waiting for Monday morning, have to set out on all the mandatory work and getting myself acquainted with the campus.

For now, waiting for my room mates to land so I can move into our own apartment.