Cost of Staying Fit

One of my friends put this status message on Facebook:

“America is a country where half the money is spent buying food, and the other half is spent trying to lose weight”

It seems true to me as I remember the day when I started going to gym, of course not the paid one (who want to pay around $100/ month when you are not sure if you are going to use the facility or not).

I put on weight after coming to US due to unhealthy free food which I ate during my graduate studies and irregular timing of eating.

 After working for few weeks, I felt that nothing was working. Then suddenly one day I saw an ad on my company gym saying “New Year - New You: get 50% discount on a trainer starting this New Year”. When I checked the rates, it was $1/min even after discount. Looks like trainer’s pay is more than a Software Engineer and you have the advantage of meeting ‘new’ members everyday. The one scene of Hindi movie ‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ got alive in memories.

But, present is something different. I talked to one of the trainer and registered for 45 min classes.

 The schedule he gave me is as follows:

1)   Don’t eat any sugar

2)   Don’t drink any coffee/ tea

3)   Run at least 20min per day @ 5.5 miles per hour

4)   Drink at least 2 cups of Green tea

5)   Drink at least 8 cups of water    

6)   Do exercises as given

7)   Gave me a sheet of what to eat (I didn’t follow as most of things is non veg )

After paying, I asked my friends what else to do. The additional stuff is:

1)   Drink water after half an hour of eating

2)   Eat 2 hr before sleeping

3)   Try to eat less rice

Other things which I did is stop eating delicious chocolate ice creamsL

There were many motivations for losing weight (most imp. is I am paying), I lost more than 12 kg in 3 months.

Every friend whom I met after a gap of 3-4 months used to ask the secret which I am revealing here: Motivation to write this blog entry.

Reduce Weight: feel Energetic :)

The first flight to US

As usual, I was planning to write this blog for a long time. I was thinking that in job you always have enough time every day. Thinking this, I kept postponing my next entry day by day.

Anyways, I was thinking of blogging my first journey to US.

After consulting many of my friends, I decided to join University of Minnesota for my Masters after getting admits from Minnesota, USC and Ga Tech. (Why???. It’s a long story I will blog later ? ).

Finally the day arrived when I had to go overseas for my higher education. This was the first time I was going that far from my family. While in job time in India, I used to visit my family every 2-3 weeks. It was evident that I will not be able to come back to India at least before a year. Thinking all this and along with nervousness of the first International travel, I went through all the formalities of airplane boarding.

While boarding, I met another student who was going back to US after a visit to India. During the conversation, he mentioned when to graduate, how to look for job, how to manage medical benefits while looking for job, OPT, CPT etc. I started thinking that getting student visa is just the start of whole trouble. Life will not be easy in US :(

The flight was full and my seat was in the middle row. Next to me was an NRI family with 2 kids. I had normal conversation with the lady of the family. She was sharing her 15 yr of experience in US. I started realizing again that life would not be easy in US.

In the mid night, I was surprised to see that people were sleeping on the floor of the aircraft. Sleeping between the legs of people is much wired for me. I think I slept well in the flight as I can sleep anywhere.

I kept many medicines which include Vicks inhaler, Allergy medicines, Disprine, Digine etc in my backpack. And the time arrived when I was thinking I might need them: the time when my aircraft landed in US. Before leaving the plane, I checked once again whether I have all the medicine.

After leaving the plane, I took a deep breath and try to feel whether I had any allergic symptoms or not in US weather. Realizing that there was nothing wrong I moved toward the immigration checkups .

I had to catch another flight to Minneapolis from Chicago airport. The airport is very big and I got confused which inner train I had to catch. The family which was sitting next to me helped me in giving the right direction.

After reaching my terminal for flight to Minneapolis, I felt little bit hungry. I started roaming on the airport. It was morning time around 7 am. As I am a vegetarian, it was tough to find a vegetarian dish. Before leaving to US, I tried to learn what is veg and what is not from internet. I tried to recall that list anyhow. I figured out some dishes, I converted the price into rupees. Then I said ‘it is dam expensive’ . Even the tea costs 200 rupees. After thinking a lot, I dropped the plan of having breakfast.

I had to call one of my senior from my undergrad college (MNNIT) with whom my temporary accommodation was arranged. I moved toward a public calling booth and get to know that to make a call you need 50 rupees (1 dollar ) per min . I said this is again very expensive as compared to 1 rupees per min in India. After thinking for 15 min, I decided to spend 50 rupees only for one min.

After reaching Minneapolis, I had to call one gal who was voluntarily picking me up from airport and dropping me to my temporary accommodation. I called her and told her I would be out of the airport at Gate B by spending another 50 rupees. The name and voice seems American but I was expecting an Indian gal.

To pick up my two checking bags, I went to pick a cart which cost $5(250 rupees). I pushed a $5 bill and went to other end to pick the cart. While reaching to other end, I realized that carts were locked again. I tried to find a number to complain malfunction of cart renting but at the end, I realized that I had to take them from the end where I inserted the bill. Again I inserted $5 bill to get the cart (Loss of $5 just after landing in US). I was very upset. I noted down the number and was thinking of calling when I would reach my temporary accommodation.

I was standing outside Gate A of the airport and surprised to see that the girl was American. This was the second time I was talking to an American. While in car, I asked her there were no bikes on the roads. She told me bikes were not allowed on these roads as they are slow. I told myself that I read it that US bikes are best in world. It was little difficult in finding my apartment.

After reaching in my temporary accommodation, I told my friends about bikes. They told me bikes here mean bicycles and Motor bikes mean motorcycles :P

Confusion about Graduation

I was planning to write this post for long. But, it was getting delayed due to my laziness at my home.

In US, it is up to you when you want to graduate. When I joined my graduate program in Computer Science in University of Minnesota, the only thing in my mind was to finish the course as soon as possible and start with a job in India or US.

I was pretty much done with my course work by Fall 2011 with only 2 credits left out of total 31 credits. I was planning of applying for my graduation as soon as landed with an job offer . At the end of Fall’11 semester, I got a full time job offer from Dell – Compellent. At that point of time I had to decide when to graduate. That moment reminded me of my undergraduate days of MNNIT,Allahabad, India where all of my friends including me were wishing to have at least one more semester to enjoy the college life. I had the very same feeling while deciding whether to graduate in mid of Spring ’11 or wait till end of Spring’11 semester. I am not sure why but I again delayed my decision of graduation.

I waited till the last date of my appointment at MCTFR for fall semester. As my appointment as Research Assistance was renewed for Spring’11 semester also, I had to tell my end date for this appointment period. I was not sure whether MCTFR guys will agree for my half semester appointment. If they would have said no then I had no choice but to graduate at the end of Spring semester. But, the answer was Yes. They agreed for my appointment till mid of March.

When I was talking about my appointment till mid-March, I was happy that I would graduate soon (2 months early) on the other hand I was sad and upset. I worked in MCTFR from Fall 09. Sorry, I mean to say I enjoyed in MCTFR from Fall 09. All the facilities and privileges would only last till mid-march. There would be no free cookies/food, no sharing of stories with my colleagues. Most important, I would lose my big and spacious office with desktop. In MCTFR, I never felt like I was working there.

Also, after graduation I will be back to my same professional life which is a little bit boring. In my grad life, there was always a lot of excitement in the form of projects, assignments, events, free food or some sort of exam. Every day was different with different type of challenges and assignments. I was already missing my grad life in starting of Spring’11 as I had only one course but the rest of the time was filled with preparation for job interviews

All the things have to happen at some point of time and I had to decide when all this will happen. I was sad as I opted for sooner timeline for these.

Finally, I decided to fill my graduation after my EAD approval. My EAD approved in end of Feb and I applied for my graduation at the end April month. Graduation in mid-march gave me 2 months vacations at my home in India before starting my professional career again.

Culture to the core

This semester I joined Culture to the core at University of Minnesota. The detail can be found here
http://cultureatthecore.blogspot.com/
In the first class, I need to write a letter as follow
You are pretending that it is 20 years from now and you are writing to your younger self (today's self) and telling yourself all the wonderful things that have occurred because you followed your dreams.
This is what my response was :

Hey Abhishek,

Hope you are doing fine. Still working on some assignments /projects?

You should put your efforts now and try to do your best. This is due to your hard and diligent work I reached here and enjoying every moment of life. Life is tough sometimes but when you will come out of this and look backwards you will clearly see what you have achieved after putting these efforts.

Updates from my side are that I have owned my software company ‘Ram Systems’ based in our native city Chandausi. Though based in a small town of India, this company is doing excellent in terms of revenue generation. This is always your dream to settle in your home town and give back to your town which gave you firm roots in terms of excellent education, culture and best environment to learn. The benefit of this is that now educated people need not move to metros and your town is making a lot of progress. I am also planning to setup a branch in Allahabad so that NIT, Allahabad students can work while studying in the college. I know that you are quite impressed by the academic environment in US and I am just trying to implement the same in India.

As far as my social life is considered, I am well settled with my wife and two kids. The most important part is that I am living with my parents. I often have business visits to Delhi for some meetings with clients but rest of my life is full of fun. I am putting 1 hr in Gym and half an hour in Gardening. I think I have visited pretty much every part of India as my wife also loves traveling. We used to go for trip every month at least for 2-3 days along with my parents.

It may seem like a dream to you. But, dude this is reality. This is due to your efforts I reached here. The foremost important thing is that never stop dreaming. These are your dreams due to which I am here.

Remember the lines

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams

Never stop dreaming!!

“Rise up My dream is to fly over the rainbow so high”

MY first visit to Hospital in US

I never wanted to write on this topic as I never wanted to visit a hospital in US for any illness. But, I had to visit due to the persistent uncomforting in my stomach. Probably, my stomach also can’t digest continuous intake of spicy and delicious Indian food like the natives. I can verify this fact in future.

I heard from my friends that if you want to schedule an appointment with the concerned doctor then the date of appointment may be as long as after 1 month. For my stomach, I wanted a quick consultation from the doctor. This problem has happened in past as well after my arrival in US. But this time it continued for 4 days so I thought that it might be a serious issue and visiting a doctor might be a good idea. After browsing to my university (UMN) hospital, I found that I should go to Gopher QUICK Clinic. Benefit here was that to avail this facility, you need not fix any appointment and I thought for me this was quite an appropriate solution as my problem was not that much serious.

Before going, I asked my friends how much it would cost me. After asking them I figured it out that as I am in Graduate Assistance Plan so I need to pay $10 coy fee and $10 for medicines at the max (This is what I believed). The bigger problem is how to explain my stomach problem in English. I can explain well in Hindi (my native language), but it is hard to explain in English (not much medical words in GRE ;)). I just rehearsed in my head what I need to say and started walking towards the clinic.

When I reached at the counter, I tried to explain my problem to the receptionist so that he could redirect me to a concerned physician (that what I used to do in India). While I was trying to explain him my situation, he asked “Do you have Diarrhea?” and I replied “What?” . The whole picture of a person vomiting and doing watery stools revolved in my mind. I said “NOOO” and gave another try to explain the whole situation. At last he told me to sit in the waiting room. I sat on the chair. While sitting there i was praying that he would have understood exactly what I tried to explain.

It was mention on the sticker that if the waiting time is more than 15 min than I should check again at the reception for my appointment. This was good. After 10 min a doctor came out saying my name. I went with her in a room and it looked like she was not a doctor. She asked me some questions while filling some form. Same problem aroused lack of vocab to explain my situation. She said some new words and I asked for detailed meaning of them. I was taking full care so that the ‘doctor ’properly understand my situation. After 10 min of Q&A session, she asked me that what time was suitable for me to fix an appointment with the doctor. I asked “what?”. My doubt of she not being a doctor was true. After some timing options, she fixed next day @ 9:45 am. Then I asked her what I should eat for one day. She opened a booklet then tried to figure out what can I take. It seemed a little bit awkward to me as in India even a compounder can tell you what you can eat without looking anywhere. Lastly she told me that I was having an appointment with a female doctor .and whether I was comfortable with that? I said yes and asked her why was she asking this type of question. She replied that some time patients have problem with feminine. I was surprised.

Next day, when I reached there, I just had to show my University card and receptionist figured out with whom I had an appointment. This time I was supposed to pay $10. Now again, a new ‘doctor ’ arrived and took me to a new room.
Before going into the room, she took my weight. She again asked the same questions “why are you here? What is the problem? How you feel?” . She asked some questions “Are you single? Are you sexually active? ” I simply replied “NO”. I couldn’t correlate her question to my stomach pain or stomach disorder. In India, these types of questions are never asked. She also checked my blood pressure and asked me to fill out a form which had all the questions already asked by her. Then she went out by saying that ‘Doctor’ will arrive soon. Finally the ‘doctor ’ arrived and asked me the same questions. This is the third time I was answering the same questions. UFFFFF. This time I told her that I might not be that much explanatory while answering the questions. She told me that you are answering in the same way as normal native person do ? . I know I was not but a reason to smile. After a checkup of my stomach, she asked me to go for blood testing and I was afraid of paying again. I first searched for a card swap machine at the blood testing desk and felt relax when I was unable to figure it out.

The procedure of blood sample is same as that we have in India. After that I again went back to the previous room and the actual doctor told me to wait till the report arrived. After some time she came in and told me that there was a problem similar to Diarrhea. I was quite surprised that how could this happen to me without any loose motions. She gave a pamphlet of what to eat and what not to eat in Diarrhea. It was quite surprising as in India doctor used to write all the things on paper. After reading the paper, I was quite confused and discussed with her what all I could take and what need to be avoided. At last, she gave me a free Energy drink and asked me to go to the pharmacy to buy the medicines. She did not tell me the procedure of how to take the medicine.

One more interesting fact was that in the first meeting each doctor asked me my last name and date of birth for verification.While taking in the drink, I moved to pharmacy. There was one window for placing the order and one to pick up.

When I ordered, the receptionist gave me an electronic device which would start vibrating and blinking when my order would be ready. This was quite an amazing device which proved quite effective in removing long waiting queues and also useful for person with disabilities. Technology at its Best. When my device started blinking and vibrating, I went to collect my prescription. After that I was supposed to go to another room where a pharmacist told me how to take all the medicines. The total bill was $8.89.

The overall experience was good and the whole management was awesome. The only irritating thing was to explain my stomach problem to three people. It was little bit frustrating.

My first Bus journey in US

Finally I decided to blog my first entry.

This is my first visit to US. I am quite excited to know why people are so excited to visit US ? What makes US so different from India or any other place? . Till this time , I have lot many experiences to be shared but I will start from the latest one.

I had just visited my cousin brother’s home in Kalamazoo, MI. This journey was special as I was traveling alone for the first time in US (though I have traveled in buses connecting the university to my home a number of times, but none of the journey had been more than an hour) .

The story started with the confusion about which route to take to reach the place. As usual, I consulted all my contacts even my lead in research office. Finally, I concluded that the bus is the cheapest way to travel. Now, the question came about which bus to take. There are many bus services in Minneapolis (like any other place in US) and unlike India where you have only Government Bus Service (I am not considering private ones as they are of short route and also uncomfortable). Also, train is much costlier than bus. I finalized Greyhound bus as it only stops at Kalamazoo. I decided to go by switching the bus at Chicago as the round trip cost $100 while direct bus cost $200(don’t know why? May be due to direct service of the bus. Quite opposite to bus services in India, where you can get 2/3 rupees benefit in direct journey by bus).

Now came the biggest confusion, at what time should I take the bus from Chicago? I could either opt for one which would leave for Kalamazoo in 1 hour 15 minutes or the one which had to leave in 3 hours. Literally, I took half day to decide and as I was at Rahul Meena’s home in Sant Paul with Ashish sir, I was shooting my ‘logical ’ questions on my these two undergraduate college seniors . They were just fed up of my questions. FYI, among all my seniors here in the university I am known for asking questions. Sometimes, they do wonder why I am not asking questions and ask me ‘Are you ok? All queries answered?’ ?. Finally, I booked the ticket for the bus which was supposed to leave in 1 hour 15 minutes of my arrival in Chicago for an adventure. Let’s see what happen if I miss my bus. Though, I had consulted my brother before finalizing, still there was some sort of uncertainty in my mind.

Finally, the day had arrived. Though, it was mentioned in the ticket to report at the bus stop 1 hour before the departure time, I left my apartment just 1 hr before. At the station, there was a queue of passengers waiting for getting their luggage checked. I realized this thing later. There was a girl/woman at the counter who is handling the queue. I was surprised by the cold treatment of hers. No ‘hi’ No ‘hello’ even No Smile. Am I back in India? In nearby campus area of the university, every one greets each other even on an eye contact. But, nothing as such here. There might be some university effect on the people. After saying to her that I didn’t want to check in the luggage, she told me that the bus was to leave from Gate 10. She was so fast in speaking that I had to ask her two- three times.

The queue was some more similar to what we have at Delhi metro stations. The military serving persons are given the preference in terms of boarding and choosing the seat. The surprising thing is that there is only driver in the whole bus. No conductor or helper like we used to have in India. He is responsible for the announcements, tickets checking, luggage and other stuff. Before stepping into the bus, I was praying to God that I should reach Chicago on time. It was good that the bus started on time.


The best thing I found was that there a Restroom was attached at the back of the bus. Now, I had the same comfort as in the train in India. Seats also seem quite comfortable. After bus started there was a welcome message from the drive through mike along with whole schedule of the journey andbreak timings .The first break was at McDonalds. I was surprised to see that the bus was exactly on time. While, I was travelling from my home town, Chandausi, to Noida, bus used to stop at a ‘Dhaba’ . But, here McDonald is dhaba. I had myself made Pasta and bread but I had forgotten to bring some soda. To get one, I entered McD. At the billing counter, the girl asked ‘is this all?’ so fast that I had to ask her 4 times. After realizing, what she was speaking I couldn’t stop smiling. Shame on me :D.

The whole arrangement inside the bus was same as that of plane. You can have your individual light. In some buses, you can even have free Wi-Fi and power. When bus started, the driver again announced that the whole route was clear and we would reach Chicago on time. This gave me a lot of comfort ?.

The bus reached Chicago on time(7 am). When I entered the bus station in Chicago, the situation was somehow comparable to stations in India. Some people were sleeping on the floor while some were sitting. All the power sockets occupied and people were talking on phone while charging the phone. The Restrooms were OK not good. A foul smell was prevailing inside them . I had my bread sandwich with juice. After that I went to the ticket counter to have my tickets and there too I found the same cold behavior of the receptionist. I have started expecting much.


The next bus started on time to Kalamazoo. The bus driver was a little bit more particular about disciplines: phones on vibrating mode, no loud music through head phone and so so… There were around 15 passengers. I tried to keep my eyes open as this was the only day time in the whole journey. I loved to watch outside while travelling and this journey was a special one. When we were entering Michigan state, there was a slogan something like ‘Michigan : the state of Wine’. It was snowing heavily as we were moving around Lake of Michigan. The view outside was awesome. Houses covered with snow, lakes covered with snow. Even, I spotted some dears. I loved it. I decided to have a short nap. When I woke up, I was surprised to see that the nap had lasted for more than an hour :O. How come? I also had Indian time in my cell phone. Then I realized that I was in a new time zone and my phone automatically synchronized with the new time zone. The nap was only of 5 mins. Surprising even after snowfall, we were late just by 10 min for Kalamazoo.
I called my brother and he was at station to pick me up.

In the return journey, the bus was on time. Again, I was praying that the bus should reach Chicago on time. But, there was a Jam which lasted for 45 min. What I could see was that some truck had derailed from the track. But, traffic was resumed quickly. Suddenly, there was an announcement from the driver to keep silence as he was losing his concentration and he also pointed a lady in particular. This is never been a case in India where passengers talk so loudly. I think as when we travel on freeway at high speed, driver needs some more concentration (highway are freeway here). After some time there was again same announcement from driver, he was again complaining the same thing to the same lady.

My bus came late to Chicago by 20 min. When I reached, it is 9:10 pm. Same situation at the bus station but people were not sleeping. When I was standing in the queue , a person came to me and said ‘CD, DVD, Night movies… CD, DVD, Night movies…’. I was surprised to hear this in US. This remind me the scene of Nehru Palace in New Delhi, India, where there are people shouting ‘CD,DVD, Games, Software …CD,DVD, Games, Software …’. This brought a smile on my face. Nothing new in the return journey except it was snowing heavily near Minneapolis which resulted in delay of bus to Minneapolis by three hours

The whole bus travel was an experience to share. Overall, you can compare the bus services in US with chair car in trains in India in respect of comport, timings and all facilities .