Perils of inaction

Getting a Michigan driving license was at the back of mind for quite a some time. In fact, I ha decided that I will get it in the winter break. But I am just too lazy when it comes to doing things that are not so important in near future. And this time my lethargy has cost me dearly.
As said earlier, I wanted get the driving license in December but I just slept through the entire winter break. By the time I finally gathered enough enthusiasm to get the license, it was January 14. The writing test went smoothly and I cleared it without much of pain. All I had to do now is go to the testing center and give a driving test. It would have taken hardly two hours. But my lethargy struck back. I had six long months to give the driving test(written test score is valid for six months). So I never really bothered to do it soon. Last week Michigan State changed the requirements for getting a driver's license. Now a person must be a citizen or a permanent resident of USA (i.e.Green card holder) in order to qualify for driving license. However weird the rule may seem, it was a government rule. So basically people like me CANNOT have a driving license.
Ahhhh.......if only I had shown a little more seriousness about getting this done :-( I hate myself.....

Orkuto ergo sum

Renè Decartes once famously said "Cogito Ergo Sum" (I think therefore I exist). Today this may be rephrased as "Orkuto Ergo Sum" (first word is my gift to latin). Day by day, I see that people are becoming more and more dependent on orkut/facebook. They don't ask for email ids or phone numbers... they ask for orkut ids. I was shocked when I came to know that CATA (Capital Area Transportation Authority - Organization which manages Public Transport in Lansing) too has a facebook profile. It is very interesting how technology changes (I wanted to write takes over but may be its a bit early to say that) our lives....

So close yet ....

Grad schools usually have no chicks or very few of them... Back in Kharagpur our entire batch of 13 grad-students consisted only of males. So its quite an event to have a nice chick in your course...

Thats why I was quite excited when this nice chick walked in our class the other day. Ahhh, finally there are more motivations to go to the class other than just building strong foundation for research.....

Next day, while I was in meeting with my adviser the same girl walks in. She was going to work under my adviser in the same field. Wow... thats luck. She also happens to have graduated. Is this a divine signal asking me to take some action ?

My adviser decides that I should team up with her for our course project.... Boy...can it get better than this.........

And then Mr. Murphy strikes........ She happens to be happily married for two years...
:-( I think I should rather concentrate on my research.....

Disaster

I have only one course this sem. That means two lectures per week. One of them was on Thursday 12:40 PM...
Here is what happened this thurday :

Thursday 1:00AM - Started watching a movie (dhol). I had some work to finish but I was just not feeling like doing it...
1:30AM - The movie was quite boring...so I decided to do the work instead...
3:30AM - Finished the work ... went to bed
5:00AM - Didn't get any sleep whatsoever... so resumed watching movie.
6:00AM - Second half was bearable... I won't call this total waste of time. Again went to bed to try and get some sleep
7:30Am - Still.. could not sleep....... Got up and had a morning tea with arvind (my roomie). Had breakfast. Again decided to try to sleep for some time. So put an alarm for 10:30AM and slept.
10:30AM - "Ahhh Still 2 hours for the class.......let me have a small nap......"
1:00PM - I woke up with a start .....!@#$%

Worst of all..... The professor teaching the course happens to be my adviser and this was his second lecture of the term....

USB pendrive can be washed!!!

I may forget my wallet , but I never forget to carry my usb flash drive (Transcend Jetflash 1G... not something I can boast of, but still...). I find it handy to have it with me in case there is a need to transfer stuff . It is much lighter than my lappy and It's faster and much more convenient than a CD.
To make the long story short, I always have it in my pocket and last week I forgot to take it out when I laundered my clothes. So it underwent a nice 40 minutes hot water wash. I came to about this only when I was putting my clothes in the dryer. And to be frank, blood froze in my veins for a whole minute, when I realized what I had done. I had few important PDFs some, songs and most importantly my graphics project in it. I literally kept it on my room heater for two full days ......... for drying :-) On the third, I put it in my lappy.............and it worked as good as it ever had. Not a single byte was lost. Now thats what I would call true data-clean-up.

Moral of the story : You can wash a pendrive ......just make sure to dry it before use :-)