Tempe Festival of the Arts

I was pleasantly surprised to see Downtown Tempe transformed into a fair of sorts yesterday, which I was told was the Tempe Festival of the Arts. It's a bi-annual festival where Mill Avenue in Tempe plays host to a number of stalls displaying artworks created by Phoenix area artists. I had gone to the Post Office, and after the work I thought I'd catch a glimpse at some of the stalls. Most of the stalls displayed paintings, artwork, embroidery and similar stuff. There were a few musicians and street performers as well. 

Apparently, this event has been going on for quite a while now, and the organizers receive well over a 1000 applications from artists to be a part of the fair.  Apparently some of the proceeds go to local charities as well. Check out more at: http://www.tempefestivalofthearts.com/HomePage.aspx

Pics courtesy: Arvind Ramachander & http://www.tempefestivalofthearts.com/HomePage.aspx

SPICMACAY - ASU

ASU chapter of SPICMACAY(Society For Promotion Of Indian Classical Music And Culture Among Youth) had organised a classical musical concert last week. I attended the concert and it was mindblowing. Four leading artists (tabla, mridanga, violin and sitar) were invited to perform and all were top notch. Usually tabla is used as 'saath' for hindustani music and mridanga for carnatic music, but here they experimented with cross duels as well. The final  duel - jugalbandi - where all four artists performed a bhajan (vaishnava jana tho) together was the best of the lot. All in all a saturday afternoon well spent.

ASU problems making frontpage of NYTIMES

We all are familiar with the various budget problems ASU is facing. Today's NYTIMES carries a frontpage story on this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/us/17university.html?hp

At the expense of sounding foolish, i hope this changes some things for the better.

Post 26/11

It has been always like this in India and among us Indians. While there is a crisis there is a huge hue and cry and once things get past it, even if there was no significant effort done to review the causes and prevent further reoccurrences we forget about it and things calm down until such a point when we see it appear before us in the form of Kargil War. When 26/11 attacks occurred every Indian, back home or in various parts of world showed support and anger against the barbarism. We at ASU, forming one of the largest Indian student community, also staged a peace protest condemning this violence. It was nice to see that this had attracted the attention of the ordinary people of other countries and they too participated in this protest. (Especially because not many in US are aware of world politics except I-rak or Af-gan as they call it.) Forget what happened back home post 26/11, with politicians and diplomats trying to appease US or abide by their policies, or may be to protect ourselves from the possibility of instability in the region due to Taliban resurgence in the wake of an Indo Pak war. It’s a complicated political situation. Question at this point is what have we as Indians, abroad done towards it, barring a peace protest? Did we think what role, may be small, we can take to correct things?

     We are the 14 million strong Indian community at US or various places abroad form the size of a Delhi electorate, who are surely literates and can take an educated decision about our country’s future. With the general elections coming up, we should know that this size of well educated mass is deprived of their rights to form a better future for themselves and their country. Our Representation of Peoples act does not allow an NRI to cast his vote. I believe atleast 10 million of them are wanting to go back to India and settle with their family, live a happy life – After earning a good money/education/position here. But upon return, don’t you want to see a better India than the one you left?As being a part of one of the largest Indian Student Communities in US I would like you all here to think about this.

 There has been some work done by people in this direction to file a petition for the change in RPA act 1950. Please read through this http://voterswithoutborders.org/ and you will realize some very interesting facts about it. Americans can vote from a Space Ship, while we are just on the other side of the globe. I am sure if we the students take this initiative ahead it will provide a huge momentum. Our network is stronger than others. We all have atleast 5 friends in different Universities in US and if the message spreads we can achieve our goal faster.

Let us act today, and we can see a better tomorrow.

(Photos courtsey Arvind R.)

Irritating aspect of ASU

OK guys...Since you all are working on your writing skills, i will indulge you in a question, till you are ready. What according to you, is the most irritating thing about ASU?

Give an honest answer and you can list multiple things as well.

Do not be afraid of challenges

I have learnt a lot of things after coming to ASU and not the least of all, is handling failures. I want to recall one particular incident during my first semester. It was the semester break and i was desperate for campus jobs. The job i was currently at, was closed during the holidays, and i had to pay the month's rent off my pocket. The number of postings were not that great. I was applying to each and every one of 'em but no replies whatsoever. Finally i got a call for a programmer position in a space research laboratory which paid $14/hour. It was way out of my league and i was surprised to get a call in the first place. The interviewer wanted to talk to me next day. I read up whatever i can about unix, linux, C, C++, etc and went to their office. A guy looking very much like a scientist came up and asked me to sit in a conference room. Soon, two more guys joined him there with a copy of my resume. They sounded very pleasant at the beginning but then started bombarding me with questions i had never heard of and did not have a clue about. It was the most embarassing one hour i have faced in my life. At first i tried to ward off their questions with clever answers, but soon i started getting tired of my idiotic answers. At the end of my hour-long grilling i was so devastated that i made the cardinal sin of asking the interviewer how did i perform. This was my final dialogue:

Me: Can i ask you guys how did i do?

Interviewer A: We'll call you back if you are selected.

Me: It looked like the skills i have are not sufficient for this job.

Interviewer B: We are not looking for someone who knows everything. We are looking for someone who are willing to learn what is needed.

This interview changed my perception about failures. For a long, long time i used to think back at this interview and feel embarassed. But it made me realise that i had lasted one hour in an interview in which i dint knew a dime. And i started feeling proud of it. That day, i would not have dared go near a mirror and face myself. But not today. I have learnt that crimes are something to be embarassed about, not failures. And that is an important lesson.

Time Series Analysis, Predicting Future...

The other day i was reading Time series Analysis and hence gave inspiration to this thought!!

Rather silly and funny.. nevertheless worth mentioning.. :P

If we count time since the earth began in seconds it grows and continues to grow every second...

Now, 

If we take inverse of this time, the series converges. Hence it is analytic.

Hence limit exists for such a series.

Hence any formula used to predict the future using this has a finite and definite value..

Hence you can predict future precisely! :)

Stephen Hawking coming to ASU

One of the most brilliant scientists of our generation, Stephen Hawking is coming to ASU on April 3. He's been one of those guys i am a genuine fan of...Perhaps whoever have read his book 'A brief history of time' would echo my sentiments. Hopefully i can catch a glimpse of him....I will try for a ticket to the symposium on Monday. Hopefully some are still left.

Links:  

http://origins.asu.edu/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Brief_History_of_Time

Photo album

First off, i am starting with a picture album of ASU....(Courtesy: Srivatsa)

Here are a couple of slideshows of the main places in our university where we hang out..

Welcome note

Hello!!

We are a bunch of students at ASU and here we show you ASU through our eyes....Discover what ASU means to our lives and what we feel about anything related to this place.....Get ready to experience the relationship we have with our university....

Welcome to our blog!!