I never had so much of sleep in my life as I did in the past four days. My exams got over and life suddenly seems so sluggish here during the semester break that it actually becomes fundamental to survival to actually move out of town and travel. But many people who don't have folks around the US have no place to go so they stay back and picnic around. Anyway this is the time when one gets a very good opportunity to enjoy and see more of the US with a break of twenty days.

Surprisingly, the grades of the exam were declared only 2 days after the exams actually finished. I managed to get 2 As and a B which makes my GPA (Grade Point Average) = 3.67/4.00. The grading is done on a A-F scale with A being the best (A=4.0, B+=3.5 etc). The performance evaluation is quite relative with the grades being calculated on the basis of the class average on the homeworks, exams, projects, etc. There is a requirement of many colleges and companies for students to have at least a 3.0 GPA to qualify for an assistantship or an internship. Therefore, a student must aim at doing well with grades and to be always much above the threshold. I have really noticed the stress that the professors lay on learning the content and experimenting with it rather than actually cramming for grades. They are very much lenient with grades and more happy if people actually imbibe the education rather than forget it overnight after the exam. The examinations are also based more on application of skills in different cases rather than asking proofs of theorems etc.

The weather is getting really chilly as we approach Christmas and the story of Chicago, Michigan, and New York is even worse. The news bulletins are all filled with stories of people getting stranded here and there and almost every flight getting delayed because of the weather. My friends felt pretty awful when they were told that they would be reaching India 2 days later than scheduled and that made their trip to India shorter by 2 days which was highly disturbing for them. I guess now for us guys every day in India "counts".

News : I guess old but, finally America has a new President.