First Yell : GIG EM AGGIES

"How much ever different people seem to be, they are the same ultimately"

I'll guarantee that you will agree with me on this by the time you finish reading this blog.

Lets start with some history first. Texas A&M was the first public university in texas and is perhaps the one with the most of tradition and history. By the way, why is it called Texas A&M ????. Texas was a state where aggriculture was the main money spinner before they stuck oil. So the unversity had only the Agriculture department first and then added the Mechanical dept down the line. So till sometime in the late 80's it was called the Texas Agriculture & Mechanical University . Later in the 90's as more courses came through they dropped the full version and stuck to just Texas A&M. And all students here are called Aggies(From Aggriculture) which is considered to be a very proud thing here. The university has a lot of traditions which are followed passionately here.

And one of them is 'First yell' held before the first match of the american football season each year. American football has a large fan following here just as Cricket has back home. People are mad about it. And this year on the 29th of august , at 12:00 in the night around 6000 aggies converged at Kyle field , the home ground of the aggie football team to participate in the "First yell" event. During this night the cheer leaders of the team teach the new students who have just joined the university on How to 'Yell' and support the team while its on the field . It was quite an intimidating site, no wonder the aggie supporters and fans are called the 12th man, they are a PART OF THE PLAYING 11(or 12 ) . They teach you how to wave, make actions and yell during the match . And the best thing that I found out was that the Whole student section of crowd which supports the team watch the whole match standing (What??? people shuld be crazy).

I had never been to a cricket match in a stadium back home but the 'First Yell' event was the closest i could get to one. It was an awsome experience. I plan to go to some of the home matches in the season.

Coming back to what I said in the beginning "How much ever different people seem to be, they are the same ultimately"..........

By the way the aggies had their first match against Arkansas state on 30th . The match was close and although the Arkansas team was considered weak they managed to beat the Aggie 18 -14 . This after the aggie were leading 14-3 in the first half. Sound like a familiar story . Yeah after all the hype they manage to loose the match after a good lead in the first half. All the supporters came out of the stadium disappointed and I'm sure that somebody had a word or two for the new coach Mike Sherman. This reminds me of how we follow cricket back home in the same fashion . People are the same Ultimately .They have the same passions in life wherever they may be.

But I'm sure people will support the aggies again in the next match as much as we do the Indian cricket team after each loss................

Just as I was about to sign off on this Blog I got good news, the Aggies had won their second match against New Mexico 28 - 22. People were happy and celebrating and again just as in India after we won a single cricket match.

Its a long season and Hope the aggies break their loosing trend in recent years and return to their glory years under new Head Coach Mike Sherman.

Finally Signing Off ........ (Whoooo it was a long Blog ) by Saying "Gig em Aggies" .

Vathakulambu and Thair satham

I finally shifted to my new apartment yesterday night. I was a bit tired after shifting and it was already 8 PM.

Then a friend offered us a ride to Walmart for buying the start up groceries.

I had already been to Walmart once. But it never stopped to amaze me mainly because of the size and wide varieties that are available for each item.

Its somewhat like 'saravana store' in the US. But I don't think they compromise on quality here.

We took an almost impossible '2 hours' to complete our shopping and got most of the stuff we wanted. We had filled up two big carts and got tired of pushing them around.

Finally we finished and thought we might have busted around 500$ , but..... we found that the bill was only 200$ .Wow cost of living is really less in Texas.

all done we returned home in my friends car and unloaded it. We were all tired and very hungry.
We then cleaned the kitchen a bit and then put all the perishable stuff in fridge.

Anyway why is this blog called 'Vathakulambu and Thair satham'???????? i didn't read abt it till now.

Thats because we finally finished everything and then made rice and had it with 'vathakulambu ready mix ' got from back home. Although it wasn't anywhere close to the original it tasted better than one under the circumstances. Then we had the anytime food 'thayir sadham'(actually 'yogurt sadham') and went to sleep.

Most often its some inconsequential thing that defines your day. Similarly its 'Vathkulambu and thayir sadham' that defined my day AND THIS BLOG.

PARTY for International Students

Wow ......... It was truly an international experience.

I thought Texas A&M was full of Indian and Chinese students only.But I managed to meet people from at least a dozen countries. There were more I couldn't meet.

It was real fun there, apart from the good refreshments there were events that made u mix with people of other nationalities.

There was an event in which you had to go and collect the name and hobbies of people from other countries.I got it from guys nd gals from china,japan,south Korea,Ghana,Iran,Mexico ....

And the best part was the dance party at the end. People were a bit hesitant to dance at first.

But then the DJ played...............Wow Bhangra ...........hehehe and the whole lot of Indian students were on the floor.He was playing mostly punjabi and even the Chinese and the Americans joined us.

I even got to dance with two Chinese girls and other internationals.The best part was when we made the Chinese sway...........guess what........ to 'sing is king'.The Chinese guys were trying to do bangra and needless to say failed miserably ,even i couldn't manage much.Then there was this Japanese guy who taught us how to dance in their style. It was very slow and couldn't match up with the pace but nevertheless we enjoyed it.

Finally all done we chatted with our new international friends, then reached home around 10PM. Its been sometime since i have partied so hard.The last time was when i was in Infy Pune and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Will include photos when i get them.cheers

2nd week at Texas.Its Raining

Its been raining for the past few days.And I have got wet more than once.
But at least its not the Hot Texas Sun that beats you with temperatures soaring upto 40 deg .

Things have cooled down a bit now ,Both the weather and my pace of life here.

I completed my international students check-in yesterday and there was a big crowd there.Looked like a carnival or something .Only problem is it wasn't any fun.This was the last of the formalities that had to be completed before you could enroll yourselves for course.

Once I had done that I thought of registering for some courses,but found out that someone has already done it for me.hmmm ......... It seems my Dept registers me for some courses by default. Anyway I still have an opportunity to change them if I want to after talking to my advisor.

I have got some half a dozen Orientations to attend in the coming two weeks before my course actually starts.I think ill go for all of them bcos of the free lunch at least .

I'm still searching for a part time job.Hope i get one before the Course starts bcos I wont have much time after that .

My first Blog

Its 8th of August and this is my first Blog.Its been one week since i have come to the US.

First up it was a tough flight from Dubai to Houston almost 17 hrs. I then came here and am staying here with one of my friends from Infy pune. The Indian student association here is doing a great job in accommodating all incoming Indian students.

The place is full of Indians. You see them everywhere.That's bcos the education here is relatively cheap to other places. I went around the Campus for the first two days and completed my formalities.I liked the campus very much though it was very hot out here 39 deg.

I talked to my seniors in the MIS course at the Mays business school and the picture generally sounded bleak bcos of the recession and jittery job market.

I'm currently searching for a student job position and hopefully with some hard work and luck ill find one soon. Meanwhile I'm enjoying my time here and making new friends.