Long Time, No See!

It has been almost 9 months since I've posted my last post. Now, that's a very very very long time. The longest time I've inactive on my blog. But now, I'm back! And hopefully, will not repeat this :p. So, here is what has been keeping me busy of late.

March and April - Development of new release of Synovel Collabsuite. With this version, we are making the product open-source, and a long time dream of mine has come true. There are a ton of new features, which you can find in the company website. Currently, only the licence has been changed, but eventually we plan to move the entire project to sourceforge/launchpad, and get the community involved.

May - My close friend and brother-in-law Vamsidhar Thummala, gets married. He is pursuing his Ph.D at Duke University. It was a hectic month. The wedding was great. Though traditional, it was done in an unconventional manner. Unlike Indian marriages, where hundreds of people come to the wedding, Vamsi invited only fifty to seventy of them, and therefore was able to spend time with all of them. And on the same day evening, there was the reception, again a reasonably small crowd. Veena and I helped with the arrangements of the reception.

June - Preparation for GRE. Surprise! Surprise! Yes, I'm considering pursuing my masters. It is kind of late for my age, but like the old proverb goes - "There isn't any barrier to study". After being in the corporate field for quite a while, I felt like taking a break, and going back to academics. Added to that, the prospects of studying abroad is in itself an enriching experience. So, here I was, preparing for the exam, and finally gave it on June 30th. I scored a decent 1370 (790 Q + 580 V) with 4.5 in AWA. That was slightly more than what I had anticipated.

July - My parents are constructing a new house. Unfortunately because of my busy schedule, I wasn't able to help them much with the construction. With me being done with my exam, I started to help them with the construction activity, especially the electrical layout of the house. Most of my time during this month was spent on this.

August - Towards the end of the previous month, unfortunately, my father-in-law, T. Venkata Krishna Reddy, passed away. He had some pain in the stomach, and so was admitted in the hospital. Within a few hours, he suffered a heart attack, and passed away. We all mourn his loss, but that is indeed a blessed death. Vamsi came immediately from US for a few days to perform the last rituals.

September and October - Back to the MS application process - TOEFL, LORs, SOP and submitting applications. Within the next couple of days, I should be done with the first phase of the masters application process. Now, all I have to do is sit and wait. I have applied to only the top universities as I did not see a point in pursuing masters in a mediocre university at this stage of my life, and therefore keeping my fingers crossed. I intend to write a detailed blog on GRE & the application process for MS in US once I am done with everything.

With me now being relatively free, I should be able to dedicate more time to my blog readers :).