The Journey till now: Fall 2009 to Fall 2010

Hi Blog how are you? I am doing good. As usual sorry for not updating you as regularly as i would like to but still here i am trying to make an effort. All said and done it feels great to update my Blog.

I landed here in LA on aug 5, 2009. Its been 1 year and 17days the ride till now has been full of both joys and sorrows, happy and bitter memories. But at the end of the day all of these were experiences which were part of the journey. As the saying goes what doesnt kill you only makes you stronger so i guess all of these experiences have made me stronger in their own way. One of the good things about the journey up till now was the people with whom i shared the journey. So this post is dedicated to all those people who have made my journey more eventful in their own way:

Initially when we came last year while we were settling down in our apartment we met lot of Indians living in the same building. Since we couldnt remember the names of all the people living in each apartment we used to call them by their native place for eg right across the hall lived guys from mumbai so we called them bombay guys(sorry to bal thackeray) and opposite to them lived banglore guys. All this was done for the purpose of convenience and not for being a regionalistic bastard.

Luckily for me all the people whom i met here at USC either in my apartment or in my courses from India were not the kind of people who used to discriminate on the basis of region, religion etc etc. I have had the privilege of not only knowing but also being friends with people who belong to different parts of india. During the 1 week i still remember how we started sharing food with Karthik, Sushant and Manjeet who are from down south. I dont remember what we exactly we cooked and shared with them but what i do remember is that they gave us Tandoori Chicken which was awesome. It was at their place where i cooked chicken for the first time. And then it became like a daily affair in Fall every friday. These guys have been good friends as they used to let me invade their fridge when we were out of stuff. It was thanks to these guys that i got hooked onto sitcoms like 2 and half men etc etc :P. Plus they were nice company to be around especially when i used to be locked out of my place.

Similarly day by day interaction with bombay guys increased ie with Nisarg, Sagar and Souranshu especially the daily Counter Strike sessions at night during spring semester. Thanks to them I was able to experience food like Toastada, Sheer and other mumbai food which i had never tasted before. They are nice company to have especially for going out for walks or for discussing things about philosophy and life.

Then comes Vairavan and i must say i am lucky to meet a guy like him. He is a gem of a guy. He has been a friend and more of a guide. Thanks to him my journey here at USC has been easier and more enjoyable. He is a guy who enjoys a good meal and a good laugh. He is 1 guy whom you can rely on. I am also lucky to have met his ex roomate Arjun who too is a nice guy. Arjun is a good friend and a guide who keeps on advising on what to do and what not to. He is an awesome cook and i love eating the various dishes he cooks though i am yet to eat anything he cooked since spring semester ended. Both of them have been very nice to me. And thanks to them i have learnt a lot about life and more.

At USC i have met 2 more people who have had made a positive impact on me they are Venkat Raman and Venkat Balaji(VB). I met VB in the latter half of spring semester and i must say i havent interacted with him too much but whatever i did it made me realize we had a lot of things in common. He was very helpful to me and i would like to wish him best of luck for the future. Venkat Raman is also an interesting chap a nice guy who is nice company to have especially if you wanna go and have a meal together or if you wanna talk about girls in general. I would like to to mention about Anushree as she has also been helpful to me not only for helping me out with the content for interviews but also for providing me with food when i was hungry. I would also like to thank her for giving my roomates and me home cooked food which was delicious. But i guess i need to remind her that she has 1 of our containers and we would really appreciate it if she returns it containing some awesome dish :D

Last but not the least my roomates Anu, Sumit and Devesh. They too have been nice and helpful to me. Sumit is a nice chap who was willing to give me a helping hand right at the start when i wanted to collect my phone from Fedex. He was the one who went with me to pick it up but unfortunately i wasnt able to get it but that wasnt the point. He cooks well but doesnt do it very often. Anu is not only the guy who is tall, dark and handsome but also a guy with a big heart. He was the guy who literally took care of me when i was unwell. Just to add he makes awesome sweets. Devesh aka Vito Corleone is a good guy who not only cooks good food but also is awesome at playing Counter Strike. He is good guy if you wanna discuss history, politics, religion etc. Also we have 1 more roomate this fall his name is Abhinav up till now my interaction has been limited but whatever it is he seems to be a nice chap. Lets see how things go with him.

Anyways enough talk time to hit the bed..