An eventful week

Ow, too many things happened too fast this week. My Mom/Dad got their visas, they will be here for my graduation! Thats the biggest news of all, and their visa has been granted for 10 yrs...I could invite them over anytime I miss them:) They have already started making elaborate plans on the things they wanna do when they are here, many got to do with the variety of food stuff they wanna feed me;)

On the work front, things have been looking real good...what with the presentations we are asked to make to the industry guys. There had been a poster presentation scheduled for the security researchers and our project was selected for the same. CMU is nerdy, this I knew...but you put in a bunch of damn smart people, provide them the required infrastructure, fund their projects, provide them the required ambience to groom their ideas and Boom! what do u get, an excellent futuristic world. The projects that were showcased were truly mindblowing. Biometric face recognition, iris matching, survellience systems, the automatic network recognition, self healing systems, threat modelling, vulnerability anaalysis, automatic code generation, system modelling etc etc. The topics were varied and each one was only better than the other.

Our project fell under the threat modelling category...and grabbed quite a few interesting personalities' interest:) We had visitors from Boeing, TCS, JP Morgan Chase and a lot more companies. Many researchers asked for a demo. Some company representatives asked if they could install a prototype in their own company. The JP Morgan Chase got amazingly interested in the topic, he has been researching the area for more than 10 yrs now...and when he heard that I am graduating this May, he immediately got his visiting card out and asked us if we would be interested to work with him, hehe...so much for this project that I crib about these days...it was good work and I did have fun researching it, but can I do that for my living, I guess not...I am quite practical and unless I see the immediate value and applicability in real life projects, its difficult for me to sustain my interest. Call me short-term visionary or whatever, but thats what I am!

And after this eventful evening, all participants were treated for dinner at the Carnegie Museum. There was this huge hall with paintings and sculptures all around...it was like being in a place of so much peace yet a sense of magnificence and mystery to it. The ambience was amazing! Had a few drinks before the food arrived. The lecture that followed it was quite boring, and the speaker was monotonous, speech was uninteresting...I have listened to a lot of software engineering stuff in my Masters already now...and was a bit too buzzed to concentrate too...but the good food and surrounding more than made up for it. Overall, a very satisfying day, I must say!

Our client is happy with the way the projects shaping up and as a token of her appreciation, she treated us in an Indian restaurant. She was so much fun. We talked on all topics from American culture, religion, Indian men, Bollywood movies, parent's tolerance level towards kids in India v/s here....our future goals, the career path, arranged marriage etc etc...It was nice. One thing I realize and accept is to never generalize on anything or anyone. Every individual is different under different circumstances under different influence:)

We have a carnival on in the university to commemorate the SCS 50 yrs. There are seminars held all day, so can easily grab pizzas and cookies, brownies for food;) There are fun-fairs, soft ball games, and plays, movies, musicals held all week long. Its fun, so much to do when no classes to attend...and on the personal front too, things are looking great...am I finally getting into something serious, guess only time will tell...