A trip to techvista @ chennai ..

I am trying to focus only on techvista in this post. Will write another one on "racha" happened in the trip :) ..

As many of you know, ppl were notified just 3 days ahead of the event. So, we had to come up with new ways of reaching chennai :D .. Techvista was on Oct 1st and we started for chennai on Sep 30th morning :)) .. the plan was hyd -> vijayawada -> chennai.. I expected the bus journey to be bit boring where ppl wud like to sleep but it went the other way .. Had a lot of fun playing DumbC where a movie called "kondapalli raja"( a telugu movie) was guessed by showing avinesh :)) ( he is called konda :P) .. reached Vij. station and here is whr Bava (pradeep rajiv) showed his true colors :P .. he dressed like a school boy and behaved in the same fashion 2 :P .. boarded the train to chennai, played dumbC again and reached the city @3:30 AM in the morning, not the best of times to reach a relatively unfamiliar city :) ( I know the places but not the language :D ) ..

We had a "morning" walk arnd the station to find out an ultimate ( I am trying to be sarcastic here) staying place called "geetalayam" .. tht place cant be forgotten for a long time .. a lot of events tuk place thr, whr the receptionist's logic redefines Physics and questions Faraday's n Newton's laws to its core .. freshened up and reached CTC (chennai trade center) @guindy on time..

courtesy: Bhanu kiran's cam

Have to say tht the crowd in any of the events @ hyd will behave in a much dignified way .. pre-lunch session consisted of a few talks followed by a doubt session. By the time, tht session is done, long queues were formed at every counter .. joined a relatively smaller queue but due to some awesome event management, stayed at the same place in the queue for 1/2 hr :)) .. by the time we sighted fud, it was almost at the bottom of the vessels ..

The talks were awesome and there were some really big names @ the event like hopcroft, shafi goldwasser, Shree nayar, etc...

courtesy: chetan's cam

There were some awards presented to "best posters" present in the event. 5 fellowships have been awarded to different grad students. After the concluding talk, we came out with "tired" faces :D ..

CS in a lab !

In the mean while, Prof. Y enters the lab to check wht Mr.X is doing (Mr. X is playing CS) ..
Mr. X turns around !!
Prof. Y takes a luk @ the score ..



this cartoon is sketched only using free hand ( text boxes are edited using photoshop ) ..

My first serious post !!

Well .. to start of .. I have never been a blogger myself but I did read and follow all the 'active' blogs in smr's blogroll over the past few years of my stay in IIIT .. this is the first serious post from me after my initial "hello world" post :D .. so, I expect people to cheer up for me ;) and encourage me to write new posts every now and then :D ..

So, to start of, a few people have taken the initiative of reviving the "bloggers community" in the college. We have celebrated the 30th of AUG as IIIT-H bloggers day (unfortunately I cudnt attend it due to convocation time :D). The blogging community in the college has been dying down over the past few years and I myself was very sad to see the number of updated posts to be as low as 1 per day on average :( .. now a days, its very heartening to see atleast 2-3 blogs being posted per day :)

The past few days or rather weeks have been very very busy. I hear people saying that they know what their thesis problem statement is. But I don't think that way will work out for me :D .. I think in my case, its just "keep moving forward !!" .. keep working on some interesting topics and just before I want to submit a thesis, I will come to know what my thesis statement is :)) .. anywayz .. gradually the hope of graduating in an year is vanishing :)) (which is common among CVITians :P) .. ofcourse, I haven't worked much this summer but will definitely cherish many moments of this summer for a life time :) and I hope a few of those will continue all through ..

Research has been and will be my primary interest but I want to clarify one thing to all those who still think I am going to pursue higher studies. The fact is I AM NOT GOING FOR A DOUBLE MS or PHD !! I will be very much happy to get out with a masters from IIIT-H though. I really dunno what I have planned to do if I don't complete my masters by the end of 5th yr .. Lets c what the future holds ..

Coming to a small conversation between X and Y ( X is a parent and Y is a student whoz studying in IIIT-H), which I think is funny but looking in another angle, its an issue to ponder upon ..

X: So, Where do u study ?
Y: IIIT .. doin MS by research

X: What is it ?? I know MS which is done in america. What is this MS ??
Y: Its the same MS which you have heard about but its masters by research which is different from masters by course

X: So, you did not go to US for your higher studies !! ( gives a wierd look at Y pitying that his life is wasted !!)
Y: Dont worry !! Its much better than MS by course which many people opt for to pursue in "the" US and is on par with MS by research which is offered in many famed US universities ..

X: Heard that there is some corruption going on in IIITs and a few seats are getting reserved ( he did not know that AP-IIITs were different from IIIT-H) .. how far is it true ?
Y: Nope .. No idea ..

Thats it !! I think I have written enuf for the first post !!