Career Fairs

Hmmmm....the other day I was reading one of the status messages of my friend in facebook. It read "Career (Un)Fair". I exactly understood what he was going through when he posted it. I have attended five career fairs during the course of my graduate study at UF. Each one was extremely disappointing. I never managed to get a job out of these career fairs. I never understood why. I blamed it on different things starting from less than 4.0 GPA, international status, lack of experience etc.

I failed to realize that most of the time these companies that come to career fairs, were fishing for employees to fill average jobs. Big companies like intel, TI were looking for people to do testing or write documentation. I call these average jobs because, they donot require you to learn new things daily. They may just require you to execute a bunch of tests already agreed upon or write an application note based on someone else's work. After a certain point, I would have been unhappy over this very same thing.

Later on I did manage to find the current job I am in through craigslist. I am officially a computer hardware engineer with a lot of software duties. But, I have been learning something new almost everyday on this job. I think, I have done a good job launching my career this way.

So my dear facebook friend, maybe the jobs in the career fairs is'n't really something you want to get in. Hope you end up with a good job like I did.

My new bike

On the 11th of January 2010, I bought a new bike. This is my first big purchase, since I became a full time engineer at Blue Sparq, Inc., Cape Coral. It is a Jamis Durango 1 mountain bike. It has a 19" frame and has disc brakes. With the kick stand, bar ends this bike cost me 651$ including tax.

indians and their practice of eating with the hand

It was Christmas day and I was at a party at my boss's. The party was great, but I did not know most people. It did not help that some people did not know much English. But, the food was great. I was having a bean casserole and was at the same time listening to my boss telling his girl friends parents how poor a country India was. To further corroborate his point, he told them that we are so poor that we do not use spoons or cutlery while having food.

Since, I was bored I drifted into my own thoughts and experiences. I have been in the US for more than 3 years now and I was born an Indian. I have had the opportunity to use cutlery as well as hands. I must accept that there is indeed a difference. The food tastes different. In India eating food is perceived as an activity that should involve most of the sensory organs. So, apart from seeing food, tasting it and smelling it we Indians also touch it.

Moreover, I would also like to ask how many Americans eat a tortilla with a knife and a fork. Many Indian foods such as naan or roti are similar to the tortillas and are best eaten with the hand. In fact, Indians break the bread dip it in curry or chutney before eating it. Similarly we Indians blend the rice with curries so that each mouthful is unique.

Hmmm.....now did I tell my boss all of this? Naah...too much explaining

new year's eve

I went to a stand up comedy show at Marco Island by Pauly Shore on New year's eve. I went with my landlord's family. We were eight people in all. The show was at 8 pm, but we made sure we were there by 7pm. The other people in my group wanted to make sure they got the best seats. We were very close to the stage. Hmmm....definitely not my style. I prefer a little anonymity. But, anyway I sat down as nobody else seemed to care.

Slowly, the comedy show started. There were 3 guys doing the show. One of them was Pauly Shore. He was doing okay. The weirdness began with the third comedian. For some reason he thought I was an Irish guy and kept calling me the Irish man for more than half hour. I never knew that drinking blinded people. :P. He called me on stage and since I was not so prepared for it, I got all uncomfortable.But, people got bored of the comedy and booed the third guy away.

Then we had the countdown and the ball drop. I was given a champagne toast. So I turn around to wish Happy New year and find that my whole group was missing. Instead, there was this drunk middle aged woman standing next to me. She wished me happy new year and I wished her back. All of a sudden, she says that I have a beautiful face and kisses me. At that exact moment, my whole group came back and they were looking at me and started laughing. I got even more conscious of myself and uncomfortable. I thought I will set the glass on the table and explain what happened to them, but I ended up pushing the glass and the champagne was all over the table.

Finally, the landlord came to my rescue and asked if they should be heading home. I was thanking him for shifting the focus from me. Everybody agreed and we all left. Hmmm....no more attention drawing this year.