WHITE-OUT!!

Yayyy! Finally I'm in Michigan, and the University is absolutely brilliant! I'm loving UofM, and I'm already feeling bad that the next 4 months are going to fly by! I've got absolutely fantastic housemates- Manisha aka Mommy, Komal and Sophia, and a bunch of absolutely crazy neighbors- Alap aka Aaloo, Jay and Prasad (aka Sadman- for his sad jokes). And there's the crazy engineer gone nuts Sameer, who, btw, is also from Bangalore, and ou can make that out almost immediately; his accent is still very very Bangalorean (READ BISHOP COTTONS, even though he's not from there)!

I got a bunch of amazing classes; and while I'm still trying to convince MAIS to promise to buy a book of me (only then it's worth buying the book, really.), I got a Mac Book Pro 15"- it's called the spoilt apple, because I'm going to SPOIL and PAMPER it no end! And with it, *evil, wicked grin* I GOT ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE MASTER COLLECTION F-O-U-R!! Buuuhuuuhahahahaa! I'm probably the first person in Srishti to have got it, and guess what, it's my very own edition! (it's registered with this computer, so only I get to using it!) So lots of new things, even though I'm missing something far beyond what I could imagine- Jigglie!!

The craziest thing about michigan- is wherever you go in Ann Arbor, or A-square as it's fondly known, is YELLOW AND BLUE! yep, the varsity colors, the colors of the wolverines, and the way it's pushed is CRAZY! The patriotism that the kids here have towards this place is immense, only to be heightened by the football season! The place is huge. Sadman and Jay think probably more than 50K. I dont know for sure, I've only seen one smaller part of campus!

It's freezing here- today's high was -5 degrees celcius and today's low was -9 degrees C. Luckily, even the buses here and centrally heated (and free for UofM students), and very frequent. So getting around becomes really easy. And contradictory to popular belief, I'd like to believe that you dont need a car with such a system in place. Free cabs to take you home at night after mindight or 1 am or something like that. Why cant srishti have that??

The campus is split into three- south, central and north. South being the mainly the athletics area, central is the biggest, and has all the "cool places" and north is the quite abode of the artists and engineers! I actually have a special corner for north, I though I would be dying to go to central, but north is just fine. The duderstatd library is really inviting, and the best thing is that most of the buildings are connected in weird ways- it took me a week to get to know some of the routes, not all of them, and for someone with a very good sense of direction, it's all messed up for now! They have microwaves all randomly places, so you can heat your food! And bagel toasters, and grills! And coffee EVERYWHERE! Oh, it's glorious. Srishti could do with a couple of those; even though I do think we have a microwave in New Campus, in the kitchen. I'm not sure.

The best part about america- PEDESTRIANS do NOT walk on highways and busy roads. They love thier lives, and there's a certain respect between pedestrians and drivers! The indian fraternity is huge here. Lots of Indians. And I've learned so much in this one week, i'll probably come back a full library down in my tummy!!! Practically all the information you could possibly need is available online, through various sites and networking setups.

It's insane, but it's fantastic! Srishti could learn a thing or two about michigan, and michigan could do with a little bit of srishti! :D

And as for me, I could do with both anyday- only, a little less snow!!