Hello, Stanford!

Originally Posted: May 20, 2011

 

People have stopped reading my posts. Have I been writing so bad? Or is it the aversion to anything that begins with thelazy? Anyways, this one has to be interesting. I am just leaving office (yeah I got a desk in a quadruply shared room)  on a Friday and heading to my first weekend after a long tiring week. I had never been used to 9 to 7 schedules before. And I work now. Never before had I been so serious with work, except perhaps the JEE years.

Let us now talk about the place. I have lots of things to talk about. But I don’t talk much here. I have problems understanding their accent. People aren’t really interested in you unless you’ve got some work. So, I do serious work here. I will have to get used to the accent, but California has a strange hybrid of people, every other person seems to be speaking a different accent. But people follow rules, and are serious about their profession. People are often polite.

Finding ways is the most difficult task you do here for everyone seems to be unaware of the path to the nearby locations. They carry GPS enabled phones to get them through. Even the taxi drivers have GPS enabled devices to guide them. So, if you don’t have GPS, lookup a google map before you leave. M

ark your map. This is all you can do.

Another aspect, walking is good. Back there in India, when you walk, you are the most vulnerable person on the road. You have to look for every incoming vehicle. But here, you literally walk as if you were a king. The cars stop when they see a pedestrian crossing. Also, there is strong bicycling culture. People call it a ‘bike’ here. I got one for myself after I started the blog post yesterday evening.

Now, about Stanford. I like the place. I attended  a class on networking algorithms. Class size is small. Multiple professors may take a class. But yes, people still sleep, hardly anyone participates in discussions, and other traits found in us are present here too. Vegetarian food is hard to get. All vegetarian you can buy is: sandwiches and salads and you will soon get bored. You will have to cook. I cooked a few times, and I cook pretty OK. I like the food.

The weather: It was really cold for the first two days, but has been warm and sunny for 3 days now. The sun sets in quite late. I came home at 8:00pm yesterday and found the 4pm Indian sun shining over here.

I guess I have pretty much given you the basic feel of what things are like. I am beginning to feel comfortable here. Will add more as things move along.