pre-school

First day of pre-MBA classes. I like it! Even if it's accounting!
For someone with NO prior experience in accounting, I didn't think it
was boring at all! Looked at Hershey's annual report. Basic
fundamentals about assets, liability, shareholder equity, and debits
and credits and of course, balance sheets, and income statements and
cash-flow statements et al.

Great way of getting back into "school mode." There were about 100
people taking the class (broken up into two sections.) The instructor
is really great. He had everyone's names memorized, so he just went
around the room casually calling everyone by name and asking them how
they liked Chicago so far etc. That was really phenomenal!

Met a bunch of people during class, the breaks and at lunch. Good
diversity. A whole bunch of people from New York and the East Coast in
general. Another bunch from the bay-area. Not too many people from
the south, I thought. A few from Europe, a few more from Asia, and a
few from latin-America. Lots of diversity of funtions. Trader-types,
engineers, brand-managers, marketing folks etc. Young and old ( = 30+
;)

The socializing is beginning. I'm skipping a $6-steak offer in favor
of an Indians-at-Regents get-together.

like raagas, morning and evening fruit

I have been informed, in no uncertain terms, that bananas are decidedly
morning fruit. Eating bananas in the evenings is like having milk and
cereal for dinner.

Cars, here in the midwest, aren't all that nice.

Concrete roads sound different from asphalt roads.

of mujibur and sirajul

Life is slow. The afternoon heat is oppressive, and it seems
inconceivable that in a few short months, it'll be colder than all
hell, the lake will be frozen over, and life as I know it will take on
a strange new turn. Not to mention that b-school will have started,
500 type-A personalities will be rarin' to have a go at each other, the
suits will descend upon campus, recruiting parties will be in full
swing, and I'll probably have had enough rusty nails for a life time.
Then, of course, there's the fear of the unknown: can one order up a
rusty nail at cocktail parties? Will I need to buy clod-hoppers come
snow? But for now, I have pushed those vile thoughts away, and have
tried to get excited about the cooler 80s.

Lunch at Subway, and I saw this guy with a Mujibur and Sirajul t-shirt
on. God, it seems like decades ago when Dave had dominion of
common-room TVs (but I'm dating myself) and spam was still filterless.

chicago -- first impressions

In a word -- hot as hell! We got char broiled today, at the Ohio Street Beach. The world was out, conservatively dressed we thought, in jeans and shorts instead of swim-suits-only had it been Cali or Miami with 90 degree heat and 70% humidity. The water was an awesome 75 degrees.

Anyway, so the Thunderbirds airshow over Lake Michigan for which aforesaid world had gathered to see, was prematurely aborted when one of the planes lost a missile rail (?) in one of their fly-bys. Said world trooped off in search of shade with much alacrity, while we got
ourselves a $6 pink-lemonade and no rental bikes because of a) lack of money and b) heat.

Early evening found us with a growing emptiness within that could only be sated by Indian food, so we set out for Devon after a quick browse on City Search revealed not much else closer by. (Last night's India House dinner with Sanjay and Kakuli had been quite a hit, so we thought
we'd keep with the Indian-food trend.) We marvelled again at the unlikeliness of Devon, before settling down with Undhiyu + Poori, Khichdi + Kadhi and Fafda + Jalebi at Sukhadias, not to mention some doodh-no-halvo to go (which nomer brings out great bouts of giggling
from Deepti who seems to think that the correct name for the thing is, simply, "Milk Cake".)