B'Burg Diary: Changes in the air!

Blacksburg is fast shedding its leaves and putting on new colors.

Literally.

This is the Fall season, perhaps the most beautiful of the seasons here. This is when the weather starts getting cooler and the trees start preparing for winter by slowly but surely shedding all its leaves. This phase has the absolutely beautiful side-effect of all the leaves taking on different shades on orange, red, yellow and even purple, giving the town an incredibly colorful outlook. Plus, as the leaves fall off, all the sidewalks, and bylanes are rendered an incredible mixed shade comprising all the leaves from these trees. Trust me, its beautiful.

Along with the Fall Colors, the weather has got pretty cool too. Even a few days back we could call the days warm and pleasant and the evenings cool, but the past few days have seen the mercury plummet to a minimum temperature of below freezing point! As I write this at 9.56pm, the temperature outside is 3C! This is of course just the beginning, with proper winter still to set in, but we are beginning to see the glimpses.

And the fun thing is we're actually enjoying the cold! All wrapped up in jackets, this is a welcome change from the heat and humidity of good old home. I know, by the end of winter I'll probably be singing a different tune, but why not enjoy it till it lasts!

B'Burg Diary: Classroom stuff...

You've probably been in some sort of a classroom right? At school, at college? Well, this might interest you then. The US classroom is a big difference from what we are used to back at home, and it's pretty cool, actually... makes you wonder why things can't be like this in India.

For one, we have actually gone back to pencils. Pens, or ink in any form, is not popular at all, and after a while I realized this is actually pretty logical. All classnotes, assignments, tests, homework, is done in pencil! The advantage: the ability to erase and make corrections quickly and efficiently. Pen usage inevitably leaves lots of scratch marks, and occasionally leave you short of writing space; with pencils that's not a problem at all!! The stores are filled with a large variety of pencils and erasers, with only a small section of pens!

It's ok to bring food and / or drink to class. A cup of coffee, or soft drink, along with a snack of some sort, is quite the usual sight! It turns out it doesn't really distract from the lesson, or disturb the class, when you have a snack or coffee; on the contrary, it might actually help you stay awake at a class at the fag end of the day, especially if you haven't had much sleep the past night! This is one funda that I find pretty cool, and something that can really quite easily be incorporated back home, right?

It's ok for a class to be going on and for students to be staring into a laptop. Lots of people takes notes on the laptop, and many simply play games or surf the internet when they get bored in the class. I actually do both: some of my notes are on my laptop, and it's also my way to stay awake when a class gets boring. Some of my friends have got used to getting a "I'm in class... tell me, what's up?" kind of response when they say hello to me in an instant messenger. It turns out this kind of thing doesn't ruin the studying atmosphere either. The idea is that I am taking a course because I want to, so my interest in the class is not in question... Had I not wanted to be in class, I wouldn't be in class! If being online and chatting with friends helps keep myself awake and hear something of what's going on, it's actually helping me! As you will surely agree, some classes can get boring at times, and can get quite sleep inducing.

Might seem a little weird, but think about it: doesn't it make for an interesting and fun class atmosphere?

Are we turning virtual?

I wonder, with the advent of the internet and everything being 'virtualized', are we ourselves becoming more attached to the virtual world?

I have this very close friend with whom I have shared all my stories - joys and sadnesses - for the past many years. Now we are both busy with our lives, we don't get to meet as often as we used to, and of course the easy solution has been to keep in touch through emails and instant messaging. I've noticed very recently that of late we've become more comfortable having written conversations, than actual voice communication. When we talk over the phone, we are a little more laboured, thinking about exactly what we should be saying... whereas over the internet, with the written medium, we are much more free flowing with our thoughts... I wonder if that's just because we've changed as people as times have changed, or is it really because of the radical change in the medium? It's not really a question of the relationship having changed - we're as good friends today as we used to be... if not better today than before - it's just that the communication medium has changed drastically!

Are we becoming more comfortable not seeing someone's face, not hearing someone talk, as we have a 'conversation'? Are we, as a civilization, getting stuck to the monitor and the keyboard, using smileys to convey the emotions that once our facial muscles expressed, and gradually becoming more comfortable with the smiling yellow cartoon than with the human face that it has replaced?

It's personally a big relief that I still miss seeing the smile on my friend's face as we share an old joke... thankfully, I have yet not fallen, at least entirely, for the yellow thing with the big smile...