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 Letter 17 Approaching Christmas December 11, 2000 

Every nook and corner of the city is dressed in red, green, and white. Christmas is coming! The celebrations are much in competition with the festive season of diwali. The streets, buildings, rooms, cafeterias all are decorated. But along with all this, it is the exam week going on which is the toughest time of the semester for the students and I guess the time when Coffee machines make big business because nobody gets to sleep!

The amount of initiative and effort people put in decorating their houses and offices during the festive season is really commendable. The offices of staff here are actually little different from most of them I saw back in India. They have a very pleasant aroma inside especially that of espresso (since many people have small kitchens inside) and the characteristic light music playing on the computer which is so effective in getting concentration to work. Almost all work in done on the computer and every official correspondence is carried out through E-mail. Plus I guess the Computer is so omnipresent and every new technology that comes into the Market sure makes an early appearance here. Besides Desktop and Notebook PCs, many students own handhelds as well just to be on the cutting edge while on the move and organize their appointments during the day. Missing a single appointment or deadline can be really detrimental to future prospects.

I made a very short and eventful visit to the mall on Sunday, which made it impossible to park my friend's car since the whole town was out for shopping gifts for Christmas. Parking is a big hassle in many parts of the US (especially big cities) because almost everybody travels by car and the parking rules are strictly enforced. I remember a friend of mine who was staying 3 miles from school and used to come 1.5 miles on car, park it, and come through the rest of the distance walking just because there was no parking lot close to his department. One cannot just park anywhere and one of the few things that students here really hate is the word "TOW".

I guess my first Christmas in US should be pretty eventful, Looking forward to it!

  Letter 16 Nitin Ahuja Letter 18  

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