Week One at Columbia

So while I’ve been here for two weeks now, classes only started this past Tuesday. And even though this wasn’t a full week of classes, I saw enough to be able to pour it all out in a blog post. Besides, I haven’t written anything since I left home, have I?

So right off the bat, I’ll acknowledge that Columbia is going to be a lot more work that Adelphi. I have six classes at the moment but I will drop one math class after weighing my options. I already have homeworks in three of my classes and readings for all my classes. It will probably get worse next week when the other classes start to have homework.

Professors here are nice. Though not big on office hours, they seem like friendly, helpful people. Classrooms are nice and big for the most part although my MATLAB programming class has 70 students registered but only 44 computers in the lab. Some of my friends are in classes that have way more students registered than there are seats available in the rooms. The only class where I have 100+ students is Mechanics of Solids but we have a good room that can seat everyone.

Still trying to decide on a research position. There are several available, but I can’t seem to decide which one I want. It’s a good thing we are not given cable TV access here automatically. You need to pay and sign up which will keep us away from getting service. It means no console gaming and no LOST or Battlestar Galactica, but I’ll have to deal with it. It gives me more time to get work done and to join clubs and organizations on campus.

Well, I’ll stop right here. I have to go pick up a text book and some other stuff.




iLeave

Sorry folks, I haven’t posted anything in nearly a month since the Taj Mahal post. To be honest, I haven’t had anything to write about. Yes, I have been posting news on TechSpot.in quite regularly, but nothing forced me to write anything here. Well, now that my Indian Summer has come to an end, I’m writing an obligatory post.

This one will be somewhat short because the longer one I had typed up is on my laptop which is in my bag already. So anyway, let’s move along. I am somewhat nervous since I’m going to a new university. New friends, new professors, and of course, new administration to deal with. Hopefully the week-long orientation will be a good initiation and help me get somewhat settled in before school starts on September 4.

I won’t you bore you any further. I fly out on August 26 on a 2:25am Lufthansa flight. Of course, that means I’ll be offline until I move into my dorm room which should be around 12pm EST on Monday the 27th. So, enjoy the internets while I’m away suckers!




New Theme!

All right my five faithful readers, I’m done with searching for and installing a new default theme for the blog. It has been sitting in the Theme Switcher for a while now and some of you curious types might have seen it already. But at this point, all my tweaking is complete and the new theme is ready for the prime time. If you haven’t done so already, select the “Dark” theme from the theme switcher and poke around the site with the new theme. Hit the more link below to find out about all the changes made and other things I thought you should know about.
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Update

I haven’t really posted anything since my PT concert review. In the meantime, I have come back home to India and am relaxing. It’s hot with temperatures hitting 46 degree Celsius (110F +) but not that bad when you stay indoors. The primary reason I haven’t posted is that I’m theme-hunting once again. I like the current default (Fluidity3c) and I thought I could mod it and get it to look better. But my attempts yielded nothing good so I abandoned that plan and went looking for a new theme altogether. I uploaded and then discarded quite a few for varying reasons and at this point, only one survives (AbstractGreen). It hasn’t been modified in any way, not even the header. Design-wise, I like it but the colors are too bright and the header is ginormous. If I can suddenly discover motivation, I can modify it and use it. But that might take time. Have patience!

I didn’t just waste all my time searching for new themes. I also went ahead and redesigned (somewhat) the header over at TechSpot Forums to make it look neater and we added the Arcade back. I have also been posting news on the main site so make sure to check it often for updates and the latest in technology!

Out.




TechSpot v2.0

Ladies and Gentlemen (Neil Peart drumroll): TechSpot.in v2.0 is now available!! We have not only updated the forum with a new theme and a spanking new Market Place section for our members to buy and sell goodies, but we have also added a customized news portal to our home page. If you log on to www.techspot.in, you will see a portal with a custom-made theme and the pick of the news. There is no copy-paste involved here folks. In fact, we are one of the first Indian websites to post customized news articles, unlike some of those other “reputed” and “popular” sites you might have heard of. The fun doesn’t stop there. You can post comments and discuss the posted news within the portal itself! Post your opinions on the latest news and see what others have to say about it.

So come visit the new and improved TechSpot.in v2.0 and let us know how we’re doing! We are constantly listening to our members and adding features to our website. Allow us to tickle your TSpot.