Big Moment For Me

Guess what? ? ? I completed my coursework... and had my graduation ceremony today. It was exciting to walk across the stage in a black-graduation-gown, and receive the certificate from the Dean. However, its a sad feeling to say good bye to student life... Lot of photos were taken, and u can check them out here.

The whole graduation ceremony was webcasted on UTD website. So, this allowed my parents, sis and all my relatives to witness me receiving the graduation certificate on stage. They were indeed very happy and celebrated this occasion.

Company Dinner

The R&D dept at Intervoice sponsored a dinner tonight for announcing the quarterly results and developments made this academic year. The head of the dept also announced the list of promotions in this year 2005. There were a total of 19 promotions... and the quarterly results looked fairly good.

What excited me is that my name was mentioned while listing all the promotions. I was promoted from Co-op position to Engineer-1 position starting Dec 10. Anyways... I am very happy and excited abt it. I had dinner with many of my collegues including Gopal Kesavan.

After the dinner, we had a casino-night organized. Here, we play with fake money and there are 4 prizes for the top 4 winners. We played for nearly an hour and a half... and surprisingly, I am the 4th prize winner. I got a $100 gift card that can be redeemed at Best-Buy stores. It was a wonderful night...

Thanksgiving'05

Well... Its about my Day-After-Thanksgiving purchase. I bought not many compared to my last year's purchase. Just a few damn good DVD movies that were on sale (Catch me if you can, Apollo 13, Minority Report, and few Friends seasons). Then, I bought a paper shredder from Target, and ordered a DVD burner at amazon. Thats pretty much it !

Happy B'Day to ME ...

Well... I am now 24 ! May GOD bless me...

Free-bees to download

I found some good software at downloads.com. Just thought I could share it with u guys...

• Data Crow 1.9 - Organize and sort all the media content you have / bought
• yLend 1.0.2 - Keep a track of all items that you lend to somebody
• yWriter - Useful for writers of books or novels
• Miniminder - alert you of specific dates at system start-up

Last Exam Of My Life

Today, I had the last exam of my academic life... Its Telecom Software Design term exam. I've technically reached the end of M.S program. Hmmm... I'm feeling good, while also feeling bad for having reached the end of my student life. Now onwards, it will be a different way of life all together... Its JOB life. I will have to wait 10 more days to get my Masters degree in hand. December 10, 2005 is my convocation day, and everyone is invited :-)

Stuff from india

When Rajesh anna went to India on his official visit, my parents met him and gave some stuff to be given to me. I got them all today... sweets, photoCD, and a few T-shirts. Hmmm... sweets were delicious, and the T-shirts were chosen right. I enjoyed watching every photo in the CD. They brought to life every moment that I missed by being far away from my homeland. I spoke to my parents & sis, and they were describing behind-the-scene stories about most of the photos. Its fun ~

Kindled the FIRE

A deep thought kindled the fire in me at end of the 3-day symposium. At first I was admiring at those speakers for the amount of knowledge and the number of accomplishments they have had. I asked myself... Where am I heading towards? What am I doing for my career?[Nothing] Will my student life end after getting my MS degree?[Dont know]

After contemplating on it for a few days, I came up with answers. I should march towards a great career, and not a mere job. Till date, I've been gaining knowledge beyond my MS course-work, and have a couple of SUN certifications (SCJP, SCBCD) to my credit. But, I did not put effort to find where I would stand after 5-10 years down the lane.

I aspired to have atleast 1 book to my credit. Why don't I start researching on just 1 specialized topic of my interest (say Web-Services) including its past, all the present technologies associated with it, and its scope for future. In a period of time (close to 3 yrs), I will gain expertise and be a master of it. Then, it would be a right time for me to write a book on it.

Well... it all sounds too ambitious initially, but I believe that I can do it with proper planning and diligence. Lets wait and see...

No Fluff Just Stuff

Last weekend (Nov 4-6), I attended a Java symposium named "No Fluff Just Stuff" along with many of my collegues in Intervoice. The talks were delivered by writers of popular books. They are great speakers both in terms of knowledge and communication skills. I am fortunate for having got this opportunity to interact with them.

I never realized that there are so many latest technologies related to Java that I have not even heard of. For instance, I learnt about aspect oriented programming, Java Metadata, Spring, Hybernate, JAAS, Java memory management, Java 5 concepts such as generics... The talk by Venkat subramanium is one of the best of the lot. I attended his session on Aspect programming, and managed to learn it before that session ended.

Dilema of buying a used car

I was tempted to buy a used car (against my principles not to buy used stuff)... I know it makes perfect sense to buy used stuff if the product is in good condition and is a good deal. But, I just have this principle not to buy any used stuff embedded in my mind... Dont know why ! So, I quickly acknowledged my innervoice and trashed my plan to buy a used car.