Land of dreams??????

• Gunman slaughters more than 30



• More than 30 people were killed Monday in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, according to university officials -- making it the deadliest school shooting incident in U.S. history. Virginia Tech President Charles Steger called the killings "a tragedy of monumental proportions."



• Gunman identified as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old English major from South Korea.



• Ballistics tests show one of the guns found was used in the dorm and classroom building shootings

Taken from CNN.

Land of dreams, land of opportunities, became a land of tragedy yesterday for so many students. The main question on most of the people's minds is "Why?". Why does a young student want to kill same-aged students? Why? Why so much rage? Why make innocents the victims of this rage?

It seems it all started yesterday April 16th 2007 morning at about 7:15 AM when police recieved a call about 2 shootings at the West Ambler Johnston Hall at Virginia Tech University. They barricaded that hall, but based on the initial information decided that it was something related to domestic shooting. Hence the campus wasn't closed and the students weren't informed, so that campus life could go on as normal. But later at 9:15 AM, again shootings were heard at Norris Hall (the engineering department). Police stormed in to discover the shooter had shot many students (31 of them died, others have multiple injuries) and himself in the end. Though there have been shootings at schools in the past, this is the bloodiest and highest in body count.

It seems there wasn't a shooting victim that didn't have less than three bullet wounds in them. God!! I still don't understand the rage that could have caused such a terrible tragedy. I mean, how can anyone do such a thing! I don't "get" it!

Imagine the situation of the parents. The victims were all mostly young students (some were professors), dreaming so many dreams for the future and building the required foundation for a wonderful life. Its always difficult when a young life is taken. Not that the old aren't important. But the young people hadn't even "lived" their lives. Two people, one a professor and the other a student of Indian origin passed away in this incident (yesterday according to an Indian newspaper, no Indians died and hence this is an update..). Its even more difficult for the parents of international students. First of all, most of these students are on financial aid, so their parents may not be that strong financially. Moreover there are hassles of visa. Though there is an emergency visa available, imagine going to the consulate for visa stamping at a time when your child is dead on the other side of the world!All in all what a waste of lives!

The media, as usual, is having a field day! They are interviewing students, police and have even brought in their security analysts to "analyse" the situation. They are also repeatedly playing videos of the campus and interivewing family members of the victims again and again! The Don Imus racial slur controversy, the Anna Nicole's baby's father identity and the Iraq war tragedy, that were overwhelmingly overpoweringly present all over the TV just 2 days ago, are not to be seen at all now. Just shows how the media use a tragedy to increase their own ratings. Its outrageous! I'm sure next they'll interview a pschychologist to determine the mind-state of the killer, some other University president who'll probably talk about what they are doing to protect the students, another police superintendent for tips on how to protect yourself if a killer is out in the hall and so on. Heck! They'll probably even get a gun specialist to show how easy it is to buy and use a gun, in the process influence other young future killers! They'll milk it for all its worth and I'm sort of disgusted with the whole thing right now.

This is not the first time a shooting has happened in the school. In this particular case, the shooter was a South Korean. But there have been other cases where twelve students and a teacher were killed because of 2 American teenagers shooting them (Columbine High School Massacre, Colorado). There was even another story where a 12-year old kid shot another 12-year old friend accidentally! Why are the guns so "accessible"?? Why the heck? How can a young 12-year old get his/her hands on a gun and even know how to operate it??? Aren't the parents looking at what their kids are doing? Or are the kids so sneaky that they are fooling their parents into thinking that they are innocent??

I don't understand it. The government schools here are the best, providing all sorts of facilities to the kids (unlike the Indian government schools which are practically sheds). Free education is given to kids until the age of 16. Free transportation is provided in the form of buses. There are even road rules around these buses to protect the kids from traffic hazards. The private schools are strictly for the elite rich. Despite all sort of convenience, why do the children move towards drugs and violence? Is it a case of too much good? There are children struggling to come up in other parts of the world, but here, though they have everything, why do they get into all things "bad"??

Few years ago there was a huggge rise in number of deaths of kids due to Choking game. The game involves strangling one self to induce near unconsciousness by restriction of the supply of oxygen to the brain. The instructions (a step-by-step guide) for this particular dangerous game were freely available on the internet in non-child-restricted websites. The worse thing was that the parents were clueless about this particular game while it was a "hot" new trend at schools. It seems it gives a "high" like a drug. The parents usually found out about it only when their children ended up dead (most of the times this was thought to be suicide!!). Whats a parent to do in such a case? Again the children have everything here, yet it seems 250 to 1,000 young people die in the United States each year playing some variant of this choking game! Crazy, I tell you!

Recently there was another report of a 17 year old boy not only smoking pot (marijuana) himself, but giving it to his 2- year old and 5-year old nephews to smoke too. A 2 year old smoking pot!! Whats the world coming to? The little boys weren't even aware of what they were doing, but shouldn't a 17-year old know what the effects of smoking, moreover smoking marijuana are? The guy was not only guilty of handing it out to the little boys, but of taking a video of this for his obvious enjoyment! The young children were literally staggering due to the drug effects!

Also, there have been cases of child molesting by priests, how more horrible can it get? A man who you trust with the kids might be the one who ends up harming them, scarring them for life! If even a God's place like a church isn't safe then what place is? If a protector becomes a predator, whats a child to do? Whats a parent to do?

Land of dreams eh? Looke like its certainly not for the children! No place in the world is probably safe for kids, but this is literally scary! How can parents not be worried about their children in this kind of environment? Not that it happens everywhere in US, but the instances are so many, that its frightening. Even if you trust your child enough that he/she will not get involved with drugs and the choking game, whats the guarantee that he/she will not be shot by a classmate? Obviously all students cannot be made to wear bullet proof vests or the campus security can't be so serious as to check all the students for guns daily (well, maybe it will be after such a "massacre" as they are calling it). Yes, there have to be changes brought in terms of gun accessibility. Yes, there has to be education provided to the children on ill-effects of such trends.

Meanwhile, I guess all parents can do is to do their best to inform children of all hazards and leave the rest to fate and God..

Emerald Coast Parasailing yeah! :-D

Yet another road-trip, yet another travelogue, yet another adventure. I can see my life as a series of travelogues and adventures :-D. Hey I am not complaining, not at all! On the contrary, thats exactly how I want it to be :). Before I get all teary-eyed (:-p), let me start off with a bit of history. We had the Easter long weekend coming up, and didn't really know where to go. You don't get good airline deals over long weekends, so well, that wasn't really an option. Last year we had been to Washington, D.C for the Cherry blossom festival, and Sri suggested going there again, but I wasn't in the mood at all. I wanted to go somewhere south and the lady of the house somehow always manages to get her wish ;-).

And so, after much humming and hawing, Pensacola, Florida turned out to be the place we'd go to. We'd move on from there to Destin, Florida. The weekend would be a bit cold there too, but staring at beaches is wayyyyy better than being cold sitting at home staring at nothing (yeah the cold has returned to Lexington in the form of a cold wave and my plants are withering again :( :-p). Here's the trip sketch :).





5th April 2007:

Since Friday was a holiday, we started off driving at about 6 PM on Thurday evening. I drove the first shift of 2 hours (yeah for me!!) and was really surprised. I mean, I thought it'd be diffcult, but it turns out city driving is more strenuous. In freeway, if traffic is less, all you have to do is switch on the cruise button and only worry about the steering :-D. I put on the new RD burman duets CD that I had burnt and enjoyed driving immensely. Sri took over from me later and though we did stop at an Indian restaurant ("Taste of India") for dinner at Nashville, TN (the spicy dinner took its toll later ;-) :-D), he drove through to our stop for the day at Cullman, AL. Meanwhile, we did gain an hour due to timezone change :).


6th April 2007:

Friday morning, I took the wheel again for a 2.5 hours drive and later Sri took over again. We had lunch on the way and reached Pensacola, FL around after 2PM in the noon. The first order of the day was to visit the National Museum of Naval Aviation there.




Compared to the huggggggggge National Museum of United States Air Force we had visited in Dayton, Ohio, this seemed a bit small. But still it had a pretty good collection.




There was a conference going on in the museum, so it was nice to see the naval officers/sailors stand in attention while the National anthem was sung :). But the best part was that there were some aircrafts with their hoods open, so we could actually see the cockpits of some of the fighter planes and even climb on to one :-D.




The enclosure is pretty small and there are 1000s of gadgets! It was lots of fun :).

After being there for an hour or so, we set off driving to Destin. Destin is hardly an hour away from Pensacola and the Gulf of Mexico is the coastline to both these places. The whole coast is called the Emerald Coast, I am guessing its because of the green colour of the sea :). While driving, first we encountered a beautiful bridge connecting Pensacola to a place called Gulf Breeze :).





The following snap was taken while we were driving over the bridge :).




Later there was another bridge near Destin and here's the view from the bridge:




The Emerald coast has many apartments, mostly owned by (obviously) rich people who also own powerful speedboats. So its a common sight to see speedboats on the sea everywhere :).

After reaching the hotel and resting for a while, we turned back to a place where there were still backwaters from the sea and where a few people were kitesurfing (this term I found after some research on google :-D). The water was freezing (as I mentioned earlier, though the temperature was pretty nice there, the wind chill was high and hence it felt cold), so we just sat on the white sands for a while and watched the kitesurfers :).




It was fun watching them maneuver the kites in the wind. What was shocking was that sometimes the wind was powerful enough to make the surfers fly. Since they were falling onto the water, it was ok. But it was still shocking to say the least..

I also clicked away a couple of more shots of the back waters (as expected :-D).




Soon it was sunset time and we went to one of the beaches facing the Gulf of Mexico in hope of a chance that we'll glimpse a sunset. But sadly, all the beaches facing Gulf of Mexico, face south, so the sunset was a bit unsatisfactory. Well, the beaches certainly weren't :-D.




The green sea and the white sand made a pretty wonderful combination. I have seen a lots of beaches, but most of the time the water has kinda been muddy. So this was a really enjoyable and a very pretty sight :). Anyways, after strolling around in the beach for sometime, we headed back to have dinner at an Italian restaurant (no Indian restaurants at all in the region :-p) and retired for the day :).


7th April 2007:

The next morning, we woke up a bit late, had breakfast and headed to a Gilligan's watersports :). Our intention (well, more like my intention :-D), was to go para-sailing. But we were worried that we may get wet and this was a major factor as the water was freezing :-p.

But the people there assured us that we'd be getting off the boat and later land on the boat, so there would be no water involved (except that the boat went on water ofcourse :-p). Also we were told that high up the temperatures were further cold and it would be better to wear some jackets/sweaters :).

We had an hour's time to get prepared, so we went back to the hotel and dressed in considerably warm wear, we headed back. Once we were there, we had to wait for quite sometime as there were people coming in and they usually prefer to head out in a full boat. Meanwhile we saw the life jackets being prepared..





This boat carried us all the way forth and back :). You can also notice the parachute (green and white) all wrapped up.




We had paid for double parasailing which means the 2 of us go parasailing together and there were 4 more couples who joined us on the boat (1 young couple, 2 girls, one 5-membered family in which an young boy refused to go parasailing but joined us on the boat, while the dad went with one of the daughters and the mom with another :-D). The boat went slowly at first (in an area with restricted speed, so as to not create any waves for the people who were kayaking) and as soon as it reached the sea it started going in its maximum speed :-D.

After reaching an optimum point at the sea, one of the guys (there were 2 of them) got the parachute ready for the actual parasailing :).




Before that we were already given life jackets and we already had harnesses tied around to our waists. The first couple to go was the young couple. Their harnesses were bound to the parachute and like a kite the parachute was reeled out. The boat sped to push the parachute higher. Our guide told us that it'd go upto 600 feet and later would be stabilized around 350-400 feet in the air. The ride would last for upto 12 minutes. As soon as they came back, it was our turn. We handed out the camera to the guide and were tied to the parachute ourselves..




The first instance when you are reeled out of the boat and your feet leave the boat is scary because thats when you are trusting the parachute to hold your weight :-D!




From then on its all fun :-D.




As you go higher...




Higher...




Higher...




And more higher until you are stabilized.





And just like the functioning of a kite, if the chute starts coming down, the boat speeds up for the parachute to regain the height :).

It was a thrill from the time it started to the end. Its literally like swinging on a swing in the sky :-D. It was really cold up there, but it was not scary in any way. Unlike bungee jumping, there's no free fall at all. Also, even if something happens to the chute, and you fall into the sea, you have life-jackets and so its still safe :). Well, it was really a cool experience. I felt like I was floating and flying in the sky to my heart's content. The boat we got off from, looked like a toy boat from way up there. Plus the view of the emerald coast was fabulous. I almost wished I had another small camera to capture the sights from up there..

After about more than 10 minutes of cruising in the skies (:-D), which included some wavering of the parachute due to high winds + boat direction changes), we were slowly reeled back in.




Again, they reel you in to the deck of the boat and you need to stand up to land on the boat safely. Then your harnesses are removed and you are safe to go back to your seats. It was wonderful, but I did feel very cold and kind of dizzy after landing on the boat (maybe because I was "swept" off my feet :-D). Well, Sri was totally fine for a guy who didn't even want to go parasailing :-p. Basically, we both enjoyed it a lot and we were even speculating that it'd be worth repeating if we can go back to the Emerald coast during summer when it'd not be so cold :). There were actually a few other things we missed because of the cold - dolphin tours, swimming in the sea and maybe even scuba-diving :-D.

We were on the speed boat for quite a long time after that since we needed to wait for other couples to finish their turn. Meanwhile the camera was back in my hands and I clicked away :-D.




Notice how green the water is. There were even pelicans/seagulls and cranes in the water which made a very lovely sight :). After about total 2 hours in the sea, we returned back to the docks and headed to the hotel for recovery, rest and later some lunch in a Tacobell :).

After lunch, we decided to take a scenic highway from Destin towards Panama city. But well, the "scenic" factor was missing as the place was covered with condos and huge apartment buildings (yup rich people :-D). We did stop at a beach for sometime and I was amazed again at the transparency of the water!




Even the waves were transparent!




Notice the shades of green :). Absolutely fascinating! Still the water was not that cold, so were able to dip our feets into it and stroll along for a while.

We decided to head back to another so-called scenic road known as Gulf National seashore in between Destin and Pensacola and started driving. The Gulf seashore starts at Navarre beach and ends at Gulf breeze. This is the bridge that goes to Navarre beach.




Look at how tall the apartment buldings are. Sri wondered how they could construct such buildings when this area is prone to so many hurricanes (New Orleans is only 3 hours away + it seems Katrina hit this area also pretty badly).




The sidewalks in the picture above are not covered with snow but the white sands :). It looks so much like snow that its amazing!

Sadly, our drive got cut short as the road was closed at some point (the reason was that the sand had spread to the road due to winds and they hadn't cleared it up yet). We did stop at another beach for another lovely view though :).





All in all a beautiful journey. We headed back and my mini-golf loving eyes soon caught one on the way back and we both played mini-golf there for sometime :). The settings were beautiful and we had loads of fun. Once Sri even hit his golf ball into a pond and lost it (we had to share mine after that particular disaster :-D).




We later went on to some nurseries to look at a couple of Jasmine plants. I even bought 4 lovely ones (sadly, its been too cold in Lexington and 2 of them are rotting, I only hope they are able to make it :( :-\). And so ended the day..


8th April 2007:

The next day, we woke up pretty early, had breakfast in an IHOP (I had never eaten in one before, the breakfast of strawberry pancakes and omelette with capsicums, onions and tomatoes was wonderful) and set off driving back. The total drive would be 10 hours + we'd lose one hour due to Timezone change. Sri took the first shift of 2 hours until we reached the main freeway and later I drove for 2 hours. We stopped for veggie burgers at Burger King and again Sri took over. This time he drove for 2.5 hours and later again I drove for 2.5 more hours. We both were pretty strained and tired when we reached home, but the trip was worth it. Moreover it was wayyyyyy better that Sri driving alone :-D. I always would feel guilty when he had to drive all the time and this time I felt that there was some contribution from my side too and so was glad :).

So alls well that ends well :-D. And here's your moment of zen :-D.




This was taken while we were driving towards Florida. Looks like a price list, doesn't it? A garland for $8 and a mobile for $112 :-D. In fact, Garland and Mobile are both places in Alabama :). There were a couple more places - "Evergreen" (which reminded me of Dev Anand, the evergreen hero), Castleberry (what a weird combination :-p) etc. But too much of anything (even if it is humour) is not good :-D. So thats it folks, goodbye and have a great day :).

Cracking the TOEFL IBT :)

Sorry for being missing for almost a week. Well, it was Easter long weekend and we were off on yet another of our adventures, but that will be for the upcoming post...

TOEFL. Test of English as a Foreign Language. When I started studying for it somewhere around the end of January 2007, I thought it would be easy. After all like Amitabh Bachchan says in "Namak Halaal",

I know such English that I will leave the British behind. You see sir, I can talk English, I can walk English, I can laugh English, I can run English, because English is such a funny language.

Hehehe. But there were problems in queue. The format of TOEFL had changed and there was a new terrifying "Speaking" section introduced. I am a good speaker, in front of friends that is :-p. Put me on a stage and I start blabbering (though I do sing on stage). Singing seems like a lesser evil compared to speaking on stage anytime :-p. Though the speaking section in TOEFL would be just recording on a computer, it was still enough to make me nervous.

Let me start at the beginning. The new TOEFL IBT (Internet based test) is for 120 marks and consists of 4 sections carrying 30 marks each:

• Reading: The regular comprehension. A passage is given, you have to read through and answer the questions listed about it later. The advantage is that you can refer to the passage whenever you want (it doesn't go away). But there are some questions which might prove to be a pain. Like the one worth 2 points which asks you to choose 3 options to summarize the passage out of 6 very-similar-points. I was not very worried about this one.



• Listening: In this one, you have to listen to lectures/conversations etc and answer questions. The audio would be played only once, so you cannot really refer to it again, but you are allowed to take notes. Here again, I wasn't very worried as I had the Barron's TOEFL iBT Internet-Based Test 2006-2007 12th Edition with CD-ROM book from the library and practiced the taking notes part very well.



• Speaking: Now this was a pain. There are 6 questions in the Speaking section of TOEFL. First 2 deal with your favourites/opinion. Next 2 are integrated questions, you have to read a passage, listen to a conversation/lecture and speak stating the summary. The last 2 are listening questions, where you listen to conversation/lecture and speak summarizing the topic. Man, I practiced about 7 model tests totally, yet my answers would come out stilted. I pulled Sri into listening to some of my responses and he gave some suggestions. Though I improved, I was just not comfortable with the section :(.



• Writing: You have to write 2 essays for this section. One is an integrated essay where you need to read a passage, listen to a lecture and then summarize (again the passage would be available for reference but the lecture was played only once) and the other an independent essay where you have to write on a topic arguing for a position. I didn't even practice this one. I consider my blogging enough practice :-D. I did look through the sample essays provided in the book. But didn't really bother too much.

The previous TOEFL CBT is considered "intelligent" in which how you answer the first section determines the type of questions you get in other sections (this is still used in countries where IBT hasn't been introduced yet). But thankfully, the new IBT doesn't have that. Anyways after studying the Barron's TOEFL book I mentioned, I was ready to take up the test. I wanted to take it on 10th March 2007, but when I tried to book in on 6th, I found out that there would be a late fee for that date :-p. So I booked it for 17th March 2007 (for $150!) and finally took it up then.

The test was at 8 AM in the morning and Sri drove me to the test centre. I noticed that there were a lot of Oriental people taking up the test. After showing my passport for identification, I was taken to my seat which had a computer and a headset (with headphones and a microphone). After making myself comfortable in terms of volumes etc, I started off. The total test would be for 4.5 hours! The reading and listening sections were comfortable and I completed them within the allotted time. I didn't even check my answers, I didn't really want to waver, so with complete concentration read the passages, listened to the lectures and answered the questions.

There is a break of 10 minutes between the listening and speaking sections and this is mandatory. So went out and made myself relax for the upcoming difficult task. While there I met a oriental student, who gushed that the test was very difficult and he thought that he wouldn't be doing well. The fact surprised me (maybe I had taken too many model tests and was well-versed with the reading and listening) and kind of made me more confident :-D. Then I returned to my table for the Speaking section. I tried to speak as clearly as possible and though I made a couple of mistakes (like forgetting to look at the time and not completing one of the answers in time, a couple of grammatical errors), I felt good. I think now that I could not have done any better :).

The last section was the writing section. The integrated essay came out wonderful (I'm not really supposed to mention the topics as I signed a copyright agreement while taking the test :-D), the only problem was that just as I was correcting a final grammatical error, the time was up and the essay auto-saved itself :-\. The independent essay came out even better :-D. I thought out points and hammered (suththi-hodiyodu :-D) them nicely into the essay. I had done well :).

The results were supposed to be after 15 days or so I thought. So on April 2nd, when I panicked and looked at the registration site, I found out that it was 15 "business" days. Oh well. I was confident yet had doubts.

Confident me: "I'm sure I'll get above 100 :)."
Not-so-confident me: "What if I don't even cross 79? :(."

(79 is the minimum score stipulated by the university I want to apply to).

Well, today is the 16th "business" day. Morning as soon as I got up, I checked whether I had any mails and didn't find any from the TOEFL people. So I logged onto the registration site to see that the scores were "available". I took a deep breath and clicked on the link.

114/120

Reading	29/30
Listening	29/30
Speaking	27/30
Writing	29/30

They also had paragraphs describing how "High" my scores were and indivudual sectional summaries. God! I am so ecstatic! I have been jumping up and down ever since. I knew that I wouldn't score well in Speaking, so am really surprised at the 27. I was sure that I'd score something around "20-22". Well, with all the weird accents around, maybe mine was pretty clear for the examiner and he/she must have given the marks just because they understood what the heck I was talking about :-D. I'm happy and I'm grateful :). I guess you must have guessed it'd be a positive result from the title of the post and the smile there ;-). If it had been bad, I don't know whether I'd have been able to write a post on it :-\.

Well, one down, another to go! GMAT, here I come!

Buh-bye car!

After a companionship of almost 2 years, our Nissan Sentra (NS) has finally found a new home.




Sriram bought the NS, 2 years ago in April. I hadn't even come to US then. He actually got it third hand, the NS first belonged to an old woman, later her son and then us. Yup it was old, yup it wasn't really suitable for long drives (we never did take it to one), yup its radio was conked, but it was Sri's first own car. It was our first car as a couple and that makes it very special.

When we bought the new Toyota Highlander (TH), we didn't really want to sell the NS. I wanted to learn to drive in NS, the selfish idea being that even if I crash it, it was old anyways :-p. Moreover I was kind of intimidated by TH too, it was too huge to start off learning to drive in. So NS became the first car I drove in the US. Again another first..

Once my driving license was done and I had started driving the TH with comfort, there was really no use for the NS and it was sadly occupying space and taking money in terms of the monthly insurance premium also. So we put it up for sale. After a couple of "lookers", we finally negotiated a pretty fair deal and everything got finalized yesterday. A lady bought the NS and took it away yesterday evening.

As she drove away, I felt sad, don't know why. The NS certainly didn't have a high financial value, but it had a bit of emotional value for both of us I guess. Now the previously full garage looks empty with only TH standing there. It feels like we have lost something. But in time I know we'll let it go. In time it will all be only pleasant memories. I only hope the lady takes good care of it.


How do you find the words to say
To say goodbye
If your heart don't have the heart to say
To say goodbye
- Alicia Keys

Superman, err woman :)

Looks like I was right almost 2 years ago when I wrote this post - The Superwoman syndrome :).

Superman 70% Green Lantern 65% Spider-Man 55% Supergirl 55% Robin 55% Wonder Woman 50% The Flash 45% Iron Man 35% Catwoman 30% Hulk 25% Batman 15%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

The Sense of a Poem..

The Sense Of A Poem


I'm not a poet, yet
Thoughts have a mind of their own.
They grow and when they have grown,
Feel about the known and unknown..

I'm not a poet, yet
Thoughts observe day and night,
Criticize things left and right.
They have an opinion on every sight..

I'm not a poet, yet
Thoughts sense the smell of an event,
The nuances and layers of an element,
Be it may in past, future or present..

I'm not a poet, yet
Thoughts sound like restless apes,
Sounds which then form multiple shapes
Until every single distraction escapes..

I'm not a poet, yet
Thoughts always want to have a say.
Their determination will not sway.
Only when I write, do, at rest they lay.