Better Late Than Never!!

Karthik and I started to decorate our tree on Sunday (which was donated by my beautiful sister Amity), only to run into a few snags. We couldn't get the lights on the tree to work so I went on Monday to buy replacements. When I first checked the lights it looked like only four lights were out. (I bought the kind that the whole string does not go out if one does not work). After I hung about three quarters of the string of lights, I noticed it was more like 1 in 4 didn't work! Once I got the lights up, I waited for Karthik to come home so we could do the rest together. We put up tinsel, ribbon, and candy canes. To my benefit he didn't realize that you eat the candy canes; he said that if he would have known that we would have gotten something else to decorate the tree with!! We opened the box of glass balls to put on the tree only do discover it was missing the hooks!! I told Karthik we would have to wait until I felt brave enough to fight the crowds again to buy hooks. The next day yours truly had an epiphany!!! I thought why not take the left over tinsel and hook that around the balls!!! I know pure genius!! We were not able to decorate the bottom on the tree because of a certain dog whom I will not name...
Over all I think the tree looks pretty good...though you really can't tell from the pictures...


Henna kept me company while I finished the tree, while others hid under the bed....

Galveston!

Karthik and I went to Galveston on Sunday. Though it was VERY cold, we had a great time. The dogs were running everywhere. To our surprise Henna kept running in the water! We ate at the Rain Forest Cafe. They had a pretty cool atmosphere but to be honest their food is not worth the price. After we ate we visited Melissa. We didn't really get to stay very long because Karthik had a test to study for :( What a party pooper! ;) In all we had a really great time!

Bling! Bling!

Ok, I should totally be studying for my final tomorrow...but I couldn't resist!!

Too much to do!!

I have too many test and papers this semester!!! I'm looking forward for school to be over in the next couple of months! Karthik and I are counting down the days until we get his test scores. We will find out this Friday/Saturday, so needless to say someone has been on edge for the past couple of days. It will be nice to know how he did so we can plan out the next several months. Karthik will be starting with the City of Houston as a health inspector on November 1st. On top of good health insurance (which is waaaay cheaper than mine) they are going to provide him with a car, phone, laptop, and a printer. Unfortunately, the pay isn't that great, but the hours are good. We are happy that they are giving him a car because that means he won't be putting so many miles on his car. That will REALLY help when he is in medical school because I'm sure that buying a new car at that time will be out of the question. He is really excited to leave Grainger! Well that's pretty much what is going on with us!

OOOPS! My Bad!!

I have been soooooooo busy lately that I forgot to post this good news. Karthik got the City of Houston job!!! YAY!! The only downside is that it doesn't start until November 1st. Sooooo needless to say Karthik is counting down the days...well right now more for October 14th (that's when he gets his test scores back). I should be getting ready for school right now but I figure this is a justifiable reason to be late!!

My Sweeeeet Husband!!

Isn't he sweet!!?? He surprised me with these today!!

Three Days Off!!

Well I have three days off!!! (Friday-Sunday) So far this is how I have spent it....

(Notice the pillow hog)

Birthdays!!!!

Happy Birthday Mom and Drew

Happy First Birthday Sam!!!

Sep. 5th is Sam's Birthday!!!!!

What Happend to Time!!???

Since school has started I seem to have lost something very dear to me.....time. I don't know what has happened...even more disturbing to me is I could have missed the House season premier and not even known!!! It seems that I have more papers, projects and over all reading to do in all of my classes this semester than in others. I have 3 papers due in two weeks!! Ok, I'm going to try and stop whining long enough to tell you about my classes. My first class is Foreign Policy. It's been kind of a let down so far. The professor also teaches at HCC. The good thing is that means this class shouldn't be too hard, but we are going on the 3rd week of school and have not had a real class yet not to mention a syllabus. (Oh wait I did say I wasn't going to whine anymore didn't I?? OOPS.) My next class I enjoy a lot!!! It's Social Policy. It seems like it will be a really really cool class! We are reading a book called Class Matters. (While finding a link to this book I saw another site by The New York Times, which is referenced in this book a lot. It will give you a really good idea about the book). My third class is Hindi. The professor is super nice and very, very, very (I really can't say very enough) supportive of students who are not accustomed to the sounds of the Hindi language. It's a far cry from taking Spanish in PI with all the Hispanic kids dying laughing as I was reading for the class. Thanks to PI, this has been a very hard to get over. My fourth class is Public Administration. The professor is very nice. She is also a high school History teacher. (Ok this is really where I'm going to break my no whining statement)...My fifth class is The Politics of Developing 3rd World Countries. I was looking forward to this class. The operative word being was. This class is a HUGE let down. The teacher is a Grad student that gets his notes directly from the book. He reads his notes word for word on a sheet of paper and loses his place ALL THE TIME. He will say the same sentence about 3 times and at the slowest pace imaginable (and with long pauses so he can find where he is at in his notes) and then spend five minutes explaining an easy concept. He did this when he was explaining to us that (get this) Children from poor countries have more cases of malnutrition then rich countries! He even went as far as to draw a graph for five minutes!!! But there is a silver lining to this...a guy told me that his friend took it last semester and said that it was an easy A.

Ok moving on to how y'all can help me. This is one of my papers...and I have no clue who to write about. I have an article by Time Magazine on Hillary Clinton...but to be honest I don't think she has much of a chance. Here is the info about the paper. We have a presidential election coming up in 2008 and the candidates are scrambling already. Your policy project during this semester is to (1) pick one person with a realistic chance of becoming a nominee, and whom you might support, (2) pick an issue of social policy which is almost certain to be debated in the 2008 campaign; and (3) write a memo to your candidate preparing him or her for the election campaign concerning this issue. You should pick one of these issue areas (and only one of these): immigration, health, income/poverty, race/gender/affirmative action, education, the federal budget, or biology and policy. This is really a research project that is due at the end of the semester but I need to turn in a proposal for this project. (On Monday September 19, turn in a “Resource Base Project.” Include a one-page statement of who your candidate is likely to be and why your issue is an important one; include five tables, graphs or charts on this issue; include copies of two New York Times or Washington Post articles on this topic since the semester began; include a description of one major law and one major court case in this area. This is worth 5% of your course grade). I am really looking forward to this paper. I think it is a great way to get people (me especially) ready for the election. I personally would really like to focus on Poverty and its effect on education provided there is enough info linked to a candidate. I really think that besides helping me for this project that this is a good discussion for my blog. Who do you think is a good realistic candidate?

Hello Everyone,

For a change its Karthik writing this time. First, my apologies for not updating about my MCAT test experience which I took on August 19th. I want to start of with the brief introduction about MCAT first. MCAT is longest standardized test in America, it takes 8-81/2 hours. It has Physical Sciences (which includes College Physics and General Chemistry), Verbal ( 10 passages and 60 questions), 2 essays, and Biological Sciences (which includes Biology and Organic Chemistry).

I took the test at Houston Baptist University, which is good center for taking the test. I entered the test room at 8:20 AM and the test started at 8:40 AM until 4:45 PM and of course 10 min breaks and a lunch in between the above sections.

In order to get into a Medical School one has to get atleast 28 out of 45 (15 Physical Sciences + 15 Verbal + 15 Bioloical Sciences). But there are instances where people got into Medical Schools with 24, they are exceptions. Apart from the good MCAT score one should have an excellent GPA in college and involved in extra curricular activites.

This test is about how a person can logically and critically think in sciences and verbal and very importantly endurance (8hrs of test taking). The August 19th MCAT was considered by many as relatively tough test which is good and bad, as it alienates people who didn't prepare enough for the test and I can never guess what's the scale is like. After they grade everyone's test, they will scale the score and this remains classified.

I am just hoping for the best score which can get me into a Medical School. It takes 60 days for the test scores to be released. After the scores are released and after me applying for schools, the game starts with interviews. Usually each school conducts 2-3 interviews or in other words rounds per student. I wish to go Univ. of Texas at San Antonio as its a good school and I love that place (hopefully lesser guns and crime). If not and if I am unlucky I may go back to Texas A&M University, the land where ignorant people live and I am very happy for Brad as he is not choosing Texas A&M.

And last but not the least, I really had a nice time at Amity and Randy's Party, thanks for inviting Diddy and me. I know everyone is anxiously waiting for my cooking, hopefully it will be soon and probably in next 2 weekends.

And finally, thanks for reading this segment of the blog.

Hurry Up Test!!!

Karthik's test is in 6 days!!!!! I can't wait to have my cook back!!! I have been making dinner since his test is getting closer and let me tell you...his food is MUCH better. I'm more of a cereal and milk type of girl, if you get my drift. ;) I know I told everyone that I was going to post a picture of Karthik with a goatee and then we would vote to see if he would shave it or not. Unfortunately, he waited until I was at work and shaved it!!! He said it was too hard to keep up and he needs to study!! I think that is just code for he didn't like it (hmmm or maybe I should have figured it out when he told me for a whole week he didn't like it and wanted to shave...). Oh well. I did manage to get a picture of him with it though. I liked it.

Opinion Time Again!!!

Karthik's mother just sent me these designs for some of the jewelry to be made. So I want y'alls opinion on which one I should pick. And remember...just because what's pictured is a ruby does not mean it can't be changed out with another stone. For example, I like in the first picture number 3 but only if it were diamonds. The 3 stone options are ruby, emerald, or diamonds.
I want comments on this!!! For all of my friends that claim they don't know how to comment just click on comments and then choose your identity you don't have to have an account. Click on other or anonymous.

Just In From India!!!!

Even as a little boy Karthik was serious!






























This was Karthik dressed up in College! Can you tell which cot is his!? This was his Corps uniform for the evening.

There's Monsters Under My Bed!!!!!!

AND ON TOP OF MY BED TOO!!!!

To My Big Little Sister...

(Because I love you I won't post your age!)

Happy 4th!

Okay, So I'm a little late....


Karthik and I didn't do much of anything today. We slept, went to the gym, swam, and watched tv until it was time for me to go to work. Oh well, maybe next 4th we'll do something cool.....

Say Hello to My Little Friend...

Karthik and I originally planned to get a car for me at the end of the summer. We were really debating if we wanted to get a Nissan Sentra or a Toyota Corolla. (Me personally wanted something that oh I don't know...maybe where the seat is actually still bolted down to the car, A/C, Power stearing, working exhaust system, speedometer, didn't leak though the window when it rained..leaving a FUNKY smell for a good week or so, a door that locks and window that goes down, ETC....you know all the things my car wasn't). Anyways, we were just going to look which we have done in the past. Originally, we were looking for used cars but Karthik's company has some sort of incentive with Nissan so we just went to innocently look. Well we ended up getting a deal we couldn't pass up! When we found this car we went to other places trying to see if we could get it used with only like 40,000 or less miles on it. However, every car we found that was like that car was only a little less than the new one!! We even found one place that had my exact car, just a 2005 with umm about 24,000 (maybe a little more) for more than my car!!! The moral of the story...Take Karthik with you when you buy a car...he is ruthless. He wouldn't budge on the price at all he even kind of embarrassed me a couple of times ;) But in the end he got the price he wanted. Now about the car... it's a 2006 Nissan Sentra Special Edition. 1.8 S Audio Package and 1.8 S Sport Appearance Package
16" aluminum-alloy wheels
SE-R style grille and fog lights
Rear spoiler
Rockford Fosgate-powered audio system with in-dash 6-CD changer
Leather-wrapped steering wheel
I'm so happy about my new car!! Don't I have the best husband ever!!???






Yes, those are beige mats. They wanted to charge us $150 for floor mats that said Special Edition. I think I'll settle for black mats from AutoZone for $20.

Do You See the Difference!?!?

Before Green Card

After Green Card

















Last week Karthik and I had an interview with INS. I was pretty nervous but in the end he was granted conditional permanent resident status. (We have to reapply in a year and a half to take the conditions off). Right after the interview we found out that Karthik got the job he was hoping for! So we celebrated by going out to lunch at Niko Niko's and bought a TrueForm 11 series bed. It is so nice waking up without my back and head hurting!! Since all this, we have been super busy. Karthik has his first full length practice test tomorrow. So he has been working hard to study for that along with working. This is my fist day off in 10 days...so I'm taking some much needed time to relax. Oh yeah, real quick. I don't know why but Mozilla does not show this page correctly...for some reason only Internet Explorer will line everything up. I just thought I would let y'all know...I got tired of trying to fix it.


Poor Henna went to the vet a couple of days to get fixed. She was out of it for about a day or so, but she is now back to going a billion miles an hour.




Sam went to the groomer and now is cute as ever.

Picnic

Last week Karthik and I decided to take a break and have a picnic in Memorial Park. It was a great day with lots of fun!!

Not much going on here....

IT'S OFFICAL!!! Karthik and I have no life. Since school has been out we have pretty much stayed at home doing nothing. I swear one more day of just sitting around watching TV is going to kill me!! I got so bored last weekend, while Karthik was at school, I actually spent the day cleaning. Yes, I said it CLEANING!!! Karthik spends his days studying, despite the fact that he promised to love, honor, and entertain me. He claims it was not one of his vows but I distinctly remember it being said. The dogs are no help either. I mean you can only throw something and have it brought back to you so many times before it gets boring. Oh well, summer school starts next week. I guess I'll have that to keep me busy....I can't bring myself to say that it will entertain me but hey at least it's something to do. Here are some pictures to show you what we have been up to.



Me after cooking dinner



Sam waiting for food to be accidentally dropped while Karthik chops vegetables



Karthik took a picture of my food cooking. Do you think that's a sign that I need to cook more???


Henna helping Karthik study




It was so cute Henna took the towel off the chair and was covering Sam with it.



Henna is not the only one that helps Karthik study!!