Licensed to ..... DRIVE!!!!

Back home in India getting a license is one of the easiest things possible. You just register in a driving school and learn a little driving and then go for your road test with an assurance that you will get the license. The driving school will ensure that you get the license unless you really flop the test. Of course we can be a little adventurous and try to get the license on our own. Here in US getting a license is anything but easy.

I had heard a lot of stories about how tough it was to get a license. I always took it with a pinch of salt. After all how tough could it be to drive the car? But once I landed here and ventured out to the RMV I started believing the legend. My adventures with the RMV spans over 4 chapters. So here goes.

Chapter 1

First step is the written test to get the permit. Before I could go for this written test I was asked to study or atleast read the driver's manual. Now this was something new to me. The book had so many pages and there were so many numbers. Phew... How was I ever going to read through the book and memorize all the fines and penalties mentioned there? I had a tough time trying to cram the wordlist for GRE. Now this?? Anyway with some perseverance I finished the book, obviously I didn't memorize any of the numbers. I just hoped none of it would appear in the test. We headed to the RMV and after standing in the long queues we got to know that we needed one more document. So much for all the learning. We headed back and decided to give it a shot some other day.

Chapter 2

This time we were more prepared. We took all possible documents we had and headed out to get the permit. Luckily they accepted the documents and allowed me to write the test. The hiccup was that I had forgotten whatever I had read hurriedly a few weeks ago. I just hoped that the test would be easy. Last time I was at the RMV I saw a few people who had failed the written test. With butterflies in my stomach I headed for the exam hall. The test seems to be a blur now. All I remember is I had to get atleast 15 or 20 questions right out of the 25 questions. With bated breath I answered each question as it appeared on the monitor. I finished it successfully in 10 minutes. When I stepped out my husband thought I had flunked it since I came out so fast. Fortunately I got my permit that day.

Chapter 3

I started preparing myself for the road test. Driving was not a problem for me. I had to focus more on parking, especially parallel parking. Once I booked my road test we headed out and practiced the parking for 3 - 4 days. Everyone we knew had some words of wisdom to share. "Turn your head and look behind you before you change lanes." "Look at the mirrors every few seconds and make sure the official notices you look at the mirrors." "Drive slowly and carefully." "Don't drive below the speed limit.". My head was filled with all the advise and in all this time I forgot to look through the manual. Little did I know this small error on my part was going to cost me. We headed out to the RMV again on a Friday afternoon for the road test.

After filling the form we were asked to wait for an instructor. A grumpy looking man came out and asked me to get into the car. As soon as I stepped in he asked me to show the hand signs. I stared at him with pitiful eyes and tried to show whatever signs I could recollect from India. Who uses handsigns here? He had me stumped right there. He said the signs were wrong and that was the end of it. We were sent packing home :(

Chapter 4

I fumed for some time over this failed attempt. Nevertheless I booked another test the very next week. Since this centre was full I booked in Worcester. That place could be a nightmare for new drivers. The roads are bad and most of them rise very steeply. With bated breath I went to give this test. All I remember is following every instruction to the tee and driving extra carefully and successfully getting my licence. Hurrah!!!! Now I'm licensed to ... drive!!!

Bittersweet Victory

Yesterday I woke up to the wonderful news that one Indian dream had come true. The elusive gold medal for an individual event had at last been won by Abhinav Bindra. It couldn't have come at a better time. While India is shining in a lot of areas sports has been one area where we lack luster. This win is a very good thing.

The victory though is a bittersweet event. Sweet for the reasons given above and bitter because it took so many years for such a huge country to win a single gold medal. Bindra will be hailed as a hero for a few weeks. After that he will fade away just like the other Indian Olympians like Rathore & Malleshwari.

Once the initial celebrations are over with and the numerous felicitation ceremonies are finished with he will endorse 2-3 products and then as usual be put on the backstage so that we can go back to glorifying our cricket players. We never learn that there are other much challenging games in this world apart from cricket. Even if someone has the determination to pursue a different sport, they are ridiculed and sidelined.

Why is it that though our national game is supposedly hockey we don't even know who is in the hockey team? What happened to our soccer team? The only soccer player many of us may know is Baichung Bhutia. What about after him? Why is it that we are unable to develop any swimmers when Chinese, Koreans & Japanese, who have a similar physique, are able to garner so many medals in swimming?

I hope the Indian Olympic committee does some serious thinking and proactively encourages young talents and starts preparing better teams for future Olympics. Or if they feel that cricket is the only game that deserves all attention then let's just scratch the Olympic committee and refrain from sending any athletes for future Olmpic games.

Now I part with some photos from the medal ceremony of Abhinav Bindra, courtesy my friend who had the good fortune to witness this event live in Beijing.

A proud moment when the Indian flag flies high...

Aadi Perukku

My husband & I were savouring our first cup of coffee on Saturday when my mother called from India. She reminded me that it was Aadi perukku (or padinettam perukku - falls on the 18th day of the Tamil month Aadi). Since it is not like diwali or pongal it never occured to me that the festival was on that day.

All the plans changed and soon I made the traditional kalanda sadam which is special for the occasion. The menu turned out to be semiya payasam, cabbage kootu, coconut rice, tamarind rice and appalam. Once all the cooking was done we offered some prayers to the Lord and then had our meal.

We went to the temple in the evening. My God!! The temple was so crowded. One one side Ayappan abishekam was taking place. On the other end prayers were being offered to Andal. We reached the temple on time to see all the artis. After that we took part in the Ayyappan poojai.

After the Ayyappan poojai they had full course of prasadam. We had sakkarai pongal, tamarind rice, lemon rice, aviyal and curd rice. The food had that divine taste one associates with temple food. Something is really extraordinary about the food temples serve. It has a special taste. Once we had our share of the prasadam we swapped places with the volunteers and started serving. There was a biiiiig line of devotees. When we thought the crowd had dwindled a fresh set of people appeared out of nowhere. It was just amazing about how many people turned up that day.

By the time we got back it was almost 9 p.m. It turned out to be a day well spent.

First Camping Expedition

Friday evenings are usually the time when we sit down and think about what to do during the weekend. For the last few weeks we had tried religiously to get a camp site to no avail. We are slowly approaching the end of summer and soon will have to cocoon ourselves due to biting cold. We were discussing about this when a friend of ours called to share the good news that the elusive camp site had somehow been obtained. We were to start early the next morning for Cape Cod for camping. Yippee!! Camping at last.

We started preparing a checklist so that we did not miss anything. The most important things being sunscreen lotion and some food. The next morning we would have almost missed the trip if my mom had not called early on to convey some news :) If not for her we would have relived the scenes from Home Alone except for the fact that there's just 2 of us here instead of the 20 odd members they show in that movie.

At around 8:30 a.m. we headed out. Our destination - Nickerson State Park in Brewster. Due to time constraints we decided to meet our friends near the camp site. When we hit the roads it appeared as though entire MA was headed our way. Fortunately we didnt have too much traffic jams. Once we reached Cape Cod our GPS got a little confused. We made 2 trips up and down the Sagamore bridge before it got it's whereabouts correct. To give the GPS some time to figure out we stopped at the all famous Dunkin Donuts, after all America runs on Dunkin so maybe our GPS would start running fine too ;)

We got to our camp site successfully by 1 p.m. As soon as we got to our camp site we set up the tent and simultaneously got the camp fire going. Luckily for us the place was so hot that we didn't have to try too hard to get the fire going. After about half an hour we had set up the tent and started with lunch.

Soon after lunch we headed for the beach.The water was nice and cool. Perfect for the sunny day. After lazing around the beach we went for a long walk and followed it up with some kayaking. Low tide had started and though we headed far from the shore the water was very shallow. Once we were satisfied that we had soaked enough sun we headed back to our camp. After a quick snack we headed towards a lake. Watched sunset there and then had dinner and ended the day with a few rounds of cards.

The next day began early for us. It was so bright that we couldn't sleep late :) This time we had a tough time starting the fire as all the wood was moist with dew. Took us one hour to prepare tea. Finally we had some breakfast and headed back to the lake taking a hiking path. After a relaxed day there we headed out to grab some lunch. By now we were out of energy to start a fire and cook. As we are vegetarians the only option we had there was Subway. We followed it up with a huge ice cream cone. After lunch we drove back home tired from all the activities but feeling great about the fun time.

Our home for 2 days

The Campers

Down a hiking trail

Few random shots

Tale of TOEFL & GRE

The must dos for any graduate school aspirant - writing TOEFL and GRE. While TOEFL was a piece of cake GRE appeared to be a tough nut to crack.

My preparation for TOEFL was similar to those of most test takers - NOTHING. To appear as a sincere aspirant I bought a study book for TOEFL and after leafing through it for 10 minutes I decided I was not going to learn anything so I slept through most of my study time. On the day of the exam I arrived promptly at the centre at the stipulated time in the evening. All of us waited eagerly for the start of the exam. Due to some server problem our exam got delayed just like most of the flights. To add to this I was the second last person to report. And they have this system of starting the exam in a first come first serve basis. So I had to sit idle till the other 11 people were comfortably seated in their chairs.

At last I was allowed to start my exam. I couldn't wait to finish my exam and return home. After all my wedding was just a week away and we had a lot of things to do. I guess this sounds as wierd - writing TOEFL a week before one's wedding. Well it's all courtesy of the college I studied in. Anyway that's another story to be told later. I managed to sit still in my seat long enough to complete all the sections. Best part was not getting to know the score as soon as the test is over. I for one was not extremely eager for the scores. But when the scores eventually did come I was surprised to have surpassed my expectations with flying colours.

Coming to GRE, now this turned out to be a totally different cup of tea. The wordlists loomed like huge mountains. Try as I might I was unable to learn the words and their meanings. Even though I am a voracious reader this type of learning was totally out of my legion. I tried all possible methods known to me to learn the words. All of them gave me the same result - successfully finish one word list and be horrified at not being to able to recollect the words the very next day. This went on for some time. Finally I decided to move to the other sections. They proved to be easier. Quantitative appeared to be my strength. I could never judge my position regarding the essays simply because I could never get myself to write one essay (till the day before the exam). As for antonyms and analogies they depended solely on the wordlist so the less said the better.

Everyday I looked at the Barrons with a frown. This appeared to be a monster that just could not be conquered. After long deliberation I just decided to try my luck with GRE. After all time was running out for admissions. So with a million butterflies in my stomach I scheduled the test and with even more butterflies I ended up an hour early in the test center. Fortunately this time I got to start my test early itself instead of waiting for the stipulated time. The essay sections seemed to be ok.

Next came the dreaded verbal section. Once the 30 minutes were over I was able to breathe a lot easier. Next quants. What I had considered to be my stronghold turned out to be a bit of a challenge that day. Too many geometry based questions stumped me. Finally with bated breath I awaited the next section. To my horror the next section turned out to be verbal as well. So I ended up with two Verbals. Anyway I cruised through this round of Verbal. After completing all the sections I awaited the tentative scores pretty nervously. I was in no mood to write it again. Hey what a surprise. I cleared the test with more marks than I expected. Yippee.. This calls for a celebration. So we headed to the nearest hotel for a delayed lunch :)