Chicago Diary... Day-3

Finally, the last day of Chicago trip has come. In accordance to our previous plan we left from Brookfield Zoo at 10:00 AM. I did hared about this zoo and the variety of animals it has. After driving for 45 min we reached there, by the time we entered there it was almost time for Dolphin show, we rushed to the show area and made it there in good time... show was really good and I really enjoyed watching dolphins for the first time in my life.

After the 20 min show, it was time for roaming around zoo. The whole place is divided into world sections and you could see almost all major animals of the world. Africa, South America, Asia, Australia etc, all continents were there with a great collection of animals. Apart from this they also had some special sections like one for frogs, water animals, lion family etc.

I really enjoyed Africa section with giraffe, zebra etc, the Australia section with kangaroos, birds, and the best of all is the tropical section with all species and similarities of monkeys with baboon, orangutans and lot more from a size of frog to that of human being.

All continent sections were divided into open area with large animals and closed area with small animals and reptiles. It was a great time there!!!

Now, its time to move back to Columbia. Nishant has some homework to do, so I suggested him to do it in car itself and I will drive all the way back. It was a fun journey back with just one major stop in the way and overtaking most of time with some great night view night drive...

Chicago Diary... Day-2

Date: Oct 19th, 2008

The morning begins with a wonderful breakfast, Gujarti thepla, Kaju Katli, some Namkeen etc. After having stomach full of breakfast, we left to catch the train from Cumberland station which is very close to our hotel. There we came to know that some construction work is going on and train will drop us at Irving Park station and wee need to catch the connecting train from Belmont station, but heats off to the system here that cts (Chicago Transportation Services) has arranged a great bus connection which immediately take you to the Belmont station without westing any time and you can catch the next connecting train from there. We got the train from there and reached Washington at 10:50.

Our first spot for the day was Millennium Park which was 10 min walk from Washington station, I must admit it is one of the best example of the modern construction and engineering work (watch photos when I upload), especially the bean over there was simply great! I spend about 45 min in observing bean and taking photographs there, from there we went to Old Navy shop at downtown Chicago for some shopping.

After shopping we decided to move to the Shadd Aquarium and Field Museum, it took me some time to figure out the bus connection over there and I must admit I almost lost my direction sense (which I am proud of!) into those streets with sky creepers, luckily intuition paid that time and we got the right bus to the next destination.

Shedd Aquarium was a good collection of the marine life, divided into sections as the continents of the world but it didn't live up to my expectation. I was expecting some more, but really disappointed with occeanerium closed there and I could not see the dolphins :(. But overall its a decent place to spend 2-3 hours. After that we moved to Field Museum, it was freaking great place, but due to time constraint, we need to shorted up our visit to limited sections within three hours. If you really want to enjoy this place, I recommend you about 5-6 hours for this place.

Then comes the last part for of the day... Devon Street!!! The true and authentic Indian street in Chicago, we invested almost two hours to reach there but all time paid off as soon as I started eating Masala Dosa!!! OMG... I was really missing it badly... it was eating like I have not eaten for some billion or trillions of years. Then it was time to come back to hotel... we started back about 10:30 and reached back by 12:30... and crashed on bed!

This is the morning of day-3 and this is the last day of the Chicago trip... I am trying my luck again with zoo to see Dolphin show lets see...

Chicago Diary... Day-1

Date- 17th Oct 2008
Time: 2:30 AM

Its time to leave for Chicago in order to reach there by 9:00 AM. I had a short nap from 10:00 PM to 12:00 PM so that I could drive well. Nishant started driving for first half of the journey, we have selected some internal route to reach there as soon as possible, but the first half of the journey was bit tough as we had a lot of turns, slow speed limit and some animals coming on the way (deer was the biggest in the lot). Finally I took over that driving at highway and started slowly, after half hour I started increase in pace and we were running at 80-85 mph on the road of 65 mph. This brave decision paid off and we made it to Chicago by 9:00 AM (hurreeeyyy!!! My first US city ever!!!).

As decided earlier, we meet with Nishant's uncle at Marriott Suits (O'Hare, Chicago), it was frikin' good place with a 72 inch plasma TV in each room, we took bath there and started packing up the stuff to shift to another room in Marriott O'hare in a 4 BR section. After moving stuff there, we decided to roam around the town with local transportation (train and bus) so that we can save some time in traffic and could see the life local Chicago people. As we started around 12:00 PM in morning, we planned to cover two spots first day and then to have a downtown walk.

So, it took us 10 min to understand the local train system of Chicago (which was surprising similar to that of Mumbai), and we then started our Chicago visit officially, first reached the downtown area to collect our Go Chicago cards and then visited the John Hancock tower... This place was frikin' 95 stories tall and has one of the best view of coast line on one side and skycreepers on other side. Then we went down and Nishant had some cheese cake (which was looking yummy) at cheese cake factory and then we took a bus to Nevy Pier, there we took the architectural tour of the city. Believe me guys, this city has some of the greatest constructions in the world, it was a complete worth of the money and time... seeing some of the best building from Chicago river and sailing all the way into Chicago town was a great experience.

The weather was getting cold, so we spend some time inside Navy Pier and also prepared 'bhel' there!!! Then started roaming around the place and had ride of Ferris Wheel, by the evening all of us were hungry and want to eat the famous Chicago delicacy Gino's Pizza. We took a cab to Gino's and it took us 30 min to get in as it always has waiting line there. Finally we ordered one large veggie pizza with 8 slices. The pizza was so heavy that the great pizza eaters like me and Nishant were able to eat just two slices :-(, uncle was able to make just one and we were left with three more... took it with us for breakfast next morning and left back for Hotel as Nishant has to submit one exam... reached back by 9:00 PM and I simply crushed on bed and just woke up for next day!!!

Now leaving for the day 2 adventure....

A Moment, some signs and a reminiscence

Sometimes a moment is enough to change a whole world, just a small fraction of time changes direction of life in such a way that a person spend his whole life in that direction. From all the stories that I have read, or heard from all the experiences of the people around me, came to know that this moment comes most unexpectedly, but it is for sure that this moment comes when you really need it.

In my regular discussions with friends, I was talking to one of my friend, he was talking about a book that he read sometime back. In that book it is mentioned that signs are there in all spheres of life to reach to ultimate goal in life, all you need to do is identify them and follow them... and those who have successfully followed them are most successful people in the world.

When I look into my past, I find that behind every successful venture in my life, there was a whole mechanism working behind me and I was following the right signs with best of my efforts. Every failure had a success story following it... sometimes some huge and unexpected setbacks live you on unknown paths and you struggle to get back to your normal life, but most of time it left some reminiscence with you... that guides you, that helps you, make you laugh and sometimes make you cry... when you move on to your 'voyage'.

Thought...

20 Days...

So finally 20 days left for India Nite'08... last meeting was with mixed reaction, some of the members were lazy as always some of them were gearing up for coming tensions and some were bit nervous about it.

The scale and popularity of the event has made it prestige issue for any CAI (Cultural Association of India) team, especially this year when we have to wear the big boots after last year's grand 50 year celebration and success of India Nite. Things are looking under control, but looking at last experience you and always expect unexpected and as the President of the association I have to face all the outcomes The issue becomes more serious as this year we are having Consulate General of India as chief guest and with him you can definitely expect some top most faces of the university.

Well keeping my fingers crossed, looking for the next weekend when I could have a break from all these activities and enjoy some moments in Chicago...

Schedule...

The days are going crazy, lot of work with a little output...
If I think of my daily schedule, the only two things that I remember is that I wake up around 7:00 AM and sleep back about 1:00 AM. In the whole day I have-

- At least two meetings for India Nite
- One group meeting related to research work or job
- At least 40 incoming mails and 10 outgoing mails
- About 10 official calls
- Some job searching
- Some rejections
- Watching some Indian TV show for some time
- Some research work

That's all that I can recount right now, I used to think that I am a good time manager but these days that assumption is going wrong. Hopefully things will be better with time, specially after 8th November.

Subconscious Self

Mind and its control---

I was reading this book for some time back (though not completed yet), it has a very good description of all tips and tricks to control mind. In this phase of career, sometime you really seek a perfect control over mind, but one can understand how hard it is to control it.

Couple of days back, I decided to try to control it... got success in some and missed some then I realized that the biggest challenge is to control the subconscious mind. You may be good at hiding things, you may be good at suppressing you anger and emotions, but this subconscious mind is a kind of background processor that stores all those wanted and unwanted information and time to time it pops up those information. Deja-Vu, dreams are two best examples of presence of this subconscious mind. Some experiences are such that you feel like that you have gone through it and on the same side sometimes your dreams keeps you reminding what you really want to forget or live behind.

I am about to start reading about this subconscious self withing every one and will updated on this blog page if I came across some interesting information.

Random thoughts...

१। मैं सुबह का सूरज हूँ, जीने वालो को अंदाज़ नए देता हूँ,
बड़ी शौख है तू, मुझसे यु नज़रे न मिला,
खुली आखों से काज़ल भी चुरा लेता हूँ।

२। ज़िन्दगी उन लम्हों का नाम है, जो जिन्दा रहने के लिए मजबूर कर दे...

३। ज़िन्दगी भी क्या क्या रंग दिखाती है, हर मोड़ पर एक नए हमसफ़र से मिलाती है...

४। ये अंधेरे भी छट जायेंगे, उजाले फिर लौट कर आयेंगे,
उड़ गए थे दो पंछी अलग दिशाओं में,
एक दिन उन्ही रास्तों पर फिर मिल जायेंगे।

5. I am an evil, just got misunderstood...

6. Heaven kicked me out... and hell is afraid that I will take over.

7. If you can't understand my silence, how can I expect you to understand my words?

8. I am not a player... I am the game!!!

9. I am not a tease... I am a reminder of what you can't have.

10. Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once...

11. Smile... when it hurts most