winter break begins !

Fall semester exams got over on Thursday and that evening we had a final farewell hangout at PHI on Forbes with the graduating batch from 8 pm thru midnight. I got out at around 11:30 pm as I was not feeling comfortable in the smoke anymore.

Next day, I hit the gym for a few hours and enjoyed the steam room and the spa (Carnegie Mellon is a luxury brand - no second thoughts about that). Later, I had a talk with a recruiter about my offer and discussed the conversation with my career services folks to take a feedback if my conversation was in the correct direction.

On Friday evening, I decide to get freed of all the thoughts of the placements, etc. Consequently, we went for farewell of Shashank, an exchange student from Singapore. Playing charades was a nice light-hearted event with sumptuous meal (yummy !) to follow along with audio/video in the one of the Porter Hall rooms.

Later, we made a sudden decision to hit the Prive Ultralounge and have a good time - dancing !
Ambience: Good
Bar: Average to good (they messed up on my tab)
Crowd: Average to good again.
Dance floor: Can be well arranged.
DJ: Average to good (giving him good for being sensitive that there's Indian population and playing a Bhangra #)
Overall, I will give it a rating of 5.5 on a scale of 10. This is because I have experienced better ones earlier!

Next day, at 11 am, the phone rings - the dreaded call...from the landlady - is she going to visit? is the kitchen clean for her inspection? is she going to impose a fine on us? Apprehensions in my mind dont let me think but I HAVE to pick up the phone. What if it's a call to inform us of something else (say, cancellation of her inspection trip?). When I talk with her, she says, the maintenence guy is going to come in a while. Phew - a relief - because I was expecting something else. Meanwhile, I get ready before he comes because I have a lunch to attend with one of the earlier MISM reps as they are going.

Lunch was ok with a greek wrap (I've never had lunch at Shadygrove and so, I didn't know what to expect...shadysticks were nice though). Surprisingly, the Shadyside area was slightly crowded on a Saturday morning. It may be primarily due to holiday season and people doing holiday shopping.

Post-lunch, I came back and went to Waterfront for a small piece of work and later, got hung up on phone with a close friend and talked for long hours - it was as if we were catching up after a long time. Finally, I got hold of this great book by Mary Buffett "The Tao of Warren Buffet". I recommend it to everyone who wants to be successful in general.

In the evening, I came back to pickup my friends and went back to Waterfront for the movie Apocalypto. Nice movie ! It was nominated for a golden globe award in the best foreign film category - no wonder, it had English subtitles. More about the movie on one of my other blogs!

The weekend has been hedonistic so far and I want to catchup with my temple proceedings alongwith some other meetings. I wish I could've travelled to India or PRC this vacation but there are some things which are out of your control and you need to accept that !