Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Recap of new things in 2005

  1. Taught class (lab course) for undergrads for ulmost an entire semester and got gud feedback
  2. Attended many interviews for big companies and worked for the first time in a company, in summer
  3. Performed some gud research and wrote a decent paper and got it published in AAMAS workshop
  4. Finished off the main courses in MS, with decent standing
  5. Got more of economic freedom
  6. Places Visited: Coolfront (west virginia), Pittsburgh, Atlantic City, Brussels, Antwerp (Belgium), Amsterdam, Utrecht (Netherlands), New York (to come)

What I did in 2005

Well... 2005 was indeed a great year for me, though not as great as 2003. Probably, this was the year I was expected to work, the most. I never had so many night-outs, so many times staring on the computer screens and bits of papers. I got used to sleeping at 2-3 am in the night and waking up at 9-10 am in the morning. Life was hard and I had to do things differently, than I was used to making in the first 21 years of my life.

Let me recap on few things I did this year ---

Jan - I spent almost the entire month on my research on Peacekeeping robots. I studied a lot about defence operations, robotics, swarm intelligence and multi-agent systems. I programmed a bit on Ant-Colony Optimization and got gud results for TSP. I read abt swarm intelligence in a couple of books and found it impressive.

Feb - Spend time on developing my research idea and coding the stuff. Spent a bit of time on learning Breve -a simulator for robotics, for my Advanced Robotics course. TA work for 201 took a big chunk of my time for FEb-March-Apr-May.

March - Went to coolfront - a resort in West Virginia and had a weekend of fun. Wrote my research paper and submitted to AAMAS workshop and the initial plan of 3 papers were cut to just 1. Did a bit of work for my Multiagents course. Spent sometime preparing for the Microsoft interview (which eventually got cancelled due to snow).

April - Did work on polishing my paper for the Basic Research Methods class. Presented the work in Graduate Research Conference and won 1st prize. Did some more work for my courses.

May - Applied to Cougaar and after a bit of preparation, got through it. Spent the last few days watching few movies, arranging my accomodation and stuff at virginia and booking for the Europe trip.

June - Went in Cougaar, spending most of my time learnign Java and Swing. I learnt some crucial lessons on design, over there.

July - Some more of the work at Cougaar. Went to the AAAI Summer school at Pittsburgh and had a nice presentation at CMU. I was impressed with the robotics institute. Went on to Amsterdam and Beligium for AAMAS conference and it was awesome.

August - Bit more of work at Cougaar. Spent time seeing the fight between developers and management at Cougaar. Spent time on thinking for my paper. Went to meet a research at Brookings.

September - Spent time on coding my research project. Started my applications and started working for my SOP. Spend time on working for selecting a topic for Algost project and did basic design for OS project.

October - Time went for preparing for OS exams, coding OS project, Algost Project/Homeworks and Exam. Did my SOP and prepared for Microsoft interview.

November - Coded up for Algos Project, wrote draft reports, wrote mid-terms, interviewed with Amazon.

December - Finished the exams, Algos and OS projects and having leisure time

Exams are over! Chill

The exams are over at last. Things are chilling down. This semester had been such a tough time for me, I wanted the semester to end, badly. I hope I'll be getting gud grades to take good memories from this semester. I've some grading stuff and some research stuff to finish. After that, I'll be having a great time in India.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

I bought a Nano

It is a great thing. I bought a Nano.... I made a purchase decision in 5 min and itz so amazing. I take many rash decision and this is one among those. Whether falling in love or falling back or buying or ... I'm too fast and rash. The Nano is awesome and it is a new music experience. Ok, let me get back to work.