Thursday, December 21, 2006

Moving to Southern Hills

Dear Sumant,

After having lived in Ambassador Hall for around 2 and half years I am now planning to shift to Southern Hills with Udita. I am actually pretty excited to move in with him. He is a kind of person who is always excited about learning new things and especially Mathematics and languages. Today I moved two of my bags to that apartment. I am glad I was able to visit Barnes and Nobles today and finished two more books. I finished "Squeeze the day". Its a little book that I been reading at walmart book store and today I finished it cover to cover. However this is a kind of book on which you meditate and so mere reading is not enough. The other one I read was "Do It! Let's Get Off Our But's (The Life 101 Series)"
Some of the Quotations I loved from the book are
"The man who tried his best and failed is superior to the man who never tried"

"There are two things to aim in life first to get what you want and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of the mankind acheives the 2nd".

"Come to the edge he said"
" They said we are afraid of it"
"Come to the edge he said"
They came
He pushed them and they flew.

"It is not the having it is the getting"

"He who is not busy being born is busy dying"

"When the student is ready the teacher appears so"

"Do or do not. There is no try"

"Success is simpl a matter of luck. Ask any failure"

"FEAR is false expectation appearing real"

Some of the words I learned were
1. Antediluvian (antiquated, extremely old)
Young people today regard black and white television as an antediluvian form of technology. Aunt lil a "dil luvin" lady reads tales of antediluvian times.
Mona then said to her mother "your ideas are so antediluvian". Today all the girls are getting tattoos.

2. Abstemious

3. Heresy (Opinion contrary to the popular belief)
This had a cartoon associated with it depicting a bald man in a village "Hair-a-sea"
In the little village of Hair-a-sea it's heresy not to have hair"

4. Acquiesce
He finally acquiesced ti purchase the aqua s pool.


5. Surreptitious (secret, furtive)

6. Stolid (dull, impassive)

7. Torpor

8. Artisan

9. Rhetorical

10. Conviction (strongly held belief)

It is my conviction said the warden that every convict should shun gun.


11. Artifact (Object made by human beings)

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Some Graduation Photographs





Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Gresham College, Video Lectures

For all you video lecture aficionados. Grisham college's website is a dream come true. This college provides free video lectures in diverse topics. I did watch one on virus and would like to watch one on Pi. Check their website at http://www.gresham.ac.uk/default.asp and I am sure you will be hooked to it.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Christmas gift

Dear Sumant,

Yesterday I attended the Christmas party at Vine Community Church and then went to see the Salsa Night at Inter Faith Center. Some good news, I got my Christmas gift as I got accepted to the grad school with full tuition waiver and a quarter assitantship. So now I can take Math 501 with Dr. Salah and Math 409 with Dr. Kammler and Math 419 with Dr. Ban. A lot of professors gave me encouragement including Dr. Schurz, Dr. Kathleen Spector, Dr. Jeyaratnam, Dr. Andrew Earnest, Dr. Thomas Porter, Dr. Mike Sullivan, Dr. Jerzy Kocik, Dr. Mary Wright and Dr. George Parker. So I thank them all for keeping faith in me. I week from now I am graduating and yet the feeling has to sink in. I plan to attend the ceremoney. I didn't attend my first one.

Rest is great :)
Best regards
Sumant Sumant

Good Math links

Dear Sumant,

Here is one more website which has some great links to online course material on math. http://ratnu.tripod.com/maths.html

Cheers and best regards
Sumant Sumant

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Phil 105, ILP

I took this course when I had to drop a class and to remain full time, my advisor Dr. Mary Wright suggested that it could be an easy course to fill in. I had heard about Dr. Hahn that he is a wonderful teacher and his class are all jam packed. So I signed up for that class not realizing that an ILP course is different, I will have to slough on my own. I was too busy with my classes that semester and had to fight to complete the first 20 percent of the course in the next semester so as to get an extension. I am graduating this semester and today I am writing this blog after having taken the final. I aced the first two exams and my homework score has been good. But if you are considering taking this class make sure you take it through the class room instruction. I attended Dr. Hahn's lecture this semester and he makes it so easy. Also find a study partner. I had Julie Davis and together we did most of the exercise and she was a lot of help during discussion and refining the finer points. This course is easy with Dr. Hahn and with any other instructor it could be lot more tough, the reason is Dr. Hahn put so much effort in making you go over the stuff again and again. So why not take with him ? He keep you entertained and motivated and I will certainly cherish the memory of taking this course with him.

Sumant Sumant

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Chaos today

Dear Sumant,
I am just back after giving the Math GRE. It was a good experience and through this exam I was hoping to gain experience and confidence for my April attempt. Meanwhile things are busy now as semester is nearing its end. I still don't know what is going to happen in the near future, I am sanguine that I will be able to get some TA or RA so I can continue my classes uninterrupted. I really want to take 501 with Dr. Salah and 409 with Dr. Kammler and 419 with Dr. Ban. I tried watching the Hindi movie "Vivah" and was surprised about the rave reviews its receiving but to me it looks artificial and lacking depth so I will save my review for some time later once I finish watching it but what I have watched till now didn't make a positive impression on me.
Last week we had to submit a typed homework for my math 421 class and I enjoyed that. I will be probably be posting that on the website. Also it did made me realize that no matter how good is the math editor it still takes time to put the symbols by using mouse. If one is conversed with Tex one can definitely do it fast. So I now look forward to the mastery of Tex in coming months.

Best regards
Sumant Sumant
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