I have been keeping myself busy primarily with my PhD coursework in my 4th semester at Purdue. This is the time when I finish most of my coursework and delve into research. I'll be taking my final oral Qualifier exams this semester and I hope it goes well and I officially become a PhD candidate. We worked on a couple of paper submissions and the reviews are pending on them.

Last Thanksgiving tempted me a lot into buying my first DSLR camera - a Canon 500D (Rebel T1i). I can see people going - "Aah, one more guy with a fancy camera", but I really hope I can impress myself with my photos. I truly believe that photos keep memories alive through the years. Anyway, I've decided to start with the kit lens 18-55mm and a 55-250mm telephoto zoom lens. I've transformed into a Flickr user over Picasa after receiving recommendations from a couple of friends and here is my Photostream. The zoom lens is producing some superb images when I use it for shooting portraits with easy background blur.

My camera is my second best companion while traveling. I prefer spending and visiting different places instead of lazing back at home. Last winter, I went on a small road trip with Ashwathi to Brown County state park. I was pessimistic at first about the worth of this trip during winter, but it turned out to be quite a nice trip. Brown county park is located near the small town of Nashville - I really mean small; the whole town is built around Van Buren street. The park was a quiet escape and the weather was in the 40s and partially cloudy with bright skies, perfect for photography. I'd love to head out to a similar park sometime in Fall to camp and spend more time close to nature. And finally, I spent a quiet and exciting New Year back home at W Lafayette with an Italian Dinner at Olive Garden.

I've also been doing this one-new-restaurant-every-Friday thing, which actually started out last Fall. A couple of us guys pick some new cuisine and restaurant every Friday and try it out. Although we've had a few experiences that were not too good, we get to try out so many different styles of cooking. And after all, its TGIF!

Meanwhile, I also caught up on movies such as Sherlock Holmes, 3 Idiots (Hindi) and Avatar (3D IMAX) and a couple of other older movies. I am so happy we discovered the Purdue DC++ network for content. We had a similar one in our GZ LAN at NITT and this brings memories back..