Congratulations to the Patriots on an incredible feat! It was one of the most boring and uninspiring games, but in the end, what matters is the score.

For me, this is Superbowl XL. The first superbowl I saw was in January of 1979, barely 5 months after I arrived in this country. As a young man thousands of miles away from home, deeply homesick, I needed distractions and sports provided that.  Just like the millions of young Indian men, I was a devoted fan of cricket at that time (and continue to be). Only issue was that cricket was not as abundant as it is today. And it was played all around the world in odd timezones. We used to be glued to short wave radios for commentary and read the newspapers for additional details and photographs. I come to the US where cricket was only known as an insect at that time and not as a sport!

I used to go every day to Indian Embassy, some 6 blocks away from Hunter College with the hope that they had “The Hindu” newspaper. This is a regional newspaper that covered Tamil Naddu, where I am from, and I enjoyed their Sports coverage. The Embassy typically had newspapers from approximately a week prior and The Hindu was not their priority because it is a regional newspaper. Imagine getting scores a week later and sometime missing a key day! It was depressing.

So, i gave in to learning about American sports. My apartment mate tried to teach me football by having me watch both College Football and Pro football on the tiny 13 inch black & white TV.  It is enough to say that he was much better at teaching me theoretical chemistry than football. I became friends with another Indian family in the neighborhood and that is where I learned the intricacies of the game.

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My wife and I traveled to India recently, a trip that I always look forward to. We spent time visiting friends and family, but we also had planned a trip to visit five Shive temples in the south referred to as “Pancha Boota Stalams“. They are manifestations of the five prime elements of nature: land, water, air, sky, and fire. In addition, we visited Manipal University in Karnataka. Though they are now Manipal Academy of Higher Education or MAHE, I prefer to refer to them this way for a couple of reasons. This is how we knew the institution when I was going to College in the 70’s. Secondly, MAHE reminds me something that sends chills up my spine 🙂

As I have mentioned before, we always sign on for the $10 a day International Pass from AT&T, which is very convenient because you are using your phone exactly like the way you do in the US. However, because our stay was a little long, we opted to get local SIM card (which is not trivial for foreigners, but because we are overseas citizens of India, we can do so somewhat easily) with the help of a relative. This got us off to a very smooth start in terms of communication.

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It is true that when you are enjoying what you do, the time goes by fast! We are engaged in several major initiatives in Library and Technology Services and several of us are also involved in many other campus initiatives and projects.

Some of our colleagues have played a very important part in assisting with the Science Center Renovation as well as in supporting the reaccreditation activities.  This includes participation in multiple meetings regarding technology in the renovated spaces, be it faculty and staff offices or classrooms as well as provide data and narratives to those who are leading the reaccreditation preparations.

Not everyone is on the same page about wires in new spaces. Frankly, in our minds, we should take advantage of renovation to run conduits and run fiber even if there no immediate use because, in the end, that will be cheaper than scrambling to do this later. We have no idea what the needs of the scientists are in terms of computing and data access and network plays a very important part in all of this. For certain class of problems, wireless doesn’t simply cut it! However, budget and cost considerations are constant point of discussion during such a major project and our staff are doing a great job given how difficult things can be.

Several of the staff also played a major role in assisting with the move of the Science Library collections. They are distributed to other campus locations and remote sites. So far so good because almost 7 months later, we have not heard many complaints.

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I landed in this country on September 10th, 1978 and completed my 40th anniversary a couple of days ago. I am forever thankful for being able to come here and like several millions of others, no one ever would have predicted this would be my future. After losing my parents very early, I grew up with my uncle and aunt in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Thirteen of us in all (11 cousins, my sister and I), cramped up in a house roughly the size of a two bedroom apartment. I had no specific plans academically except I was very interested and curious. I was the only one of the 13 to pass the high school finals (which was a national exam) and since the admission to one of the then 4 Universities in Sri Lanka was next to impossible, my relatives funded my education in India.

I loved the undergraduate school I went to and then was fortunate to get into one of the best universities in India, Indian Institute of Technology, (IIT) Madras, where I did my Masters. My family wanted to me to work so I can support them financially. By that time, I was fascinated by quantum chemistry and really wanted to study further. To satisfy the family, I went for an interview at Bhaba Atomic Research Center (BARC). I was acing the interview and the interviewer asked me whether I thought of first doing a PhD and then applying to BARC. I told him that that was what I would really like to do. We then chatted for a half an hour about cricket and I left and he wished me well in seeking admission to a PhD program. I never heard from BARC!

Since almost everyone from IIT came to the US for Masters or PhD, that is what I also did. I applied to some four schools and got into one, CUNY. Thanks to students from IIT coming before me doing well, Professor David Beveridge was glad to have me in his flourishing group in Hunter College at CUNY.

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This is the time of the year when you hear “Where did the summer go?”. Thats right, summer just went and here we are, welcoming our students over the next few days before the classes begin. Our attention at this point is getting some of the most important communication out to the faculty, staff and students about the changes in matters related to the Library and Technology and making sure that every service that our faculty, staff and students rely on, that we support, works and works reliably and well.

We have an exciting year ahead of us with some major projects such as Workday Student, which I will continue to write as we march forward. We will soon be releasing news about a course catalog app based on course data from Workday, now that we have curriculum management live in Workday. We have some exciting news for our students in terms of their eligibility to become members of the Wellesley Free Library and enjoy the member benefits. (more…)