Monday, July 09, 2007

The year that was.......On The Rocks!

For those of you who didn't know already, UIUC is home to the Krannert Center for Performing Arts, one of the best performing arts centers in the world! What is even better is that the Krannert Center has a completely student run association called the Krannert Center Student Association through which students can volunteer as ushers for all the performances at Krannert and hence watch them for free!! So ofcourse, I had to become a member of the association! :) Other than ushering, the association also organizes other things like guided tours and various student run events. One such event is "On the Rocks" a series of one act plays! Sometime in February there was a call for auditions for On the Rocks and I decided to try it out just for fun since I had never done it before! So I went to the auditions and read/acted out a few lines from a few plays in front of the directors (also students)! I also had to act like I was a dragon and a teapot! haha I personally thought I had done a horrible job and had a good laugh about it with my friends, some of whom had come to watch me audition!! Here are some pics from the audition!



After a couple of days, to my great surprise I got an email saying that I had been selected to play Mike the page boy who turns out to be the surprise hero in a play called "The Business of Dragons"! So after a couple of months of practicing two to three times a week and complete stage rehearsals for a week, we performed before reasonably sized audiences at the Krannert Center amphitheatre! It was a great experience! (Including the cast parties after the performances ;) ) Here are some pictures of the cast for The Business of Dragons!:


The year that was.......Google Games!

In April Google held the first ever Google Games! The first games were ofcourse held at UIUC :) Kevin sent me and and a couple of guys from Daniels hall an email asking us whether we would be interested in forming a team and participating in the contest. Enough of us were interested and we formed our team "4 Normal Guys and the Nerd"!! It was a very diverse team consisting of Kevin (ECE PhD), Dimitris (Math PhD), Jessie (Math PhD), Lothar (Physics Grad) and me! There were three sections in the contest puzzles, wii athletics and a lego bridge building contest. We dominated the puzzle section and were the only team to solve all the puzzles! We were average in the wii athletics section and ended up 5th! The lego bridge building section was a lot of fun and we surprisingly managed to do pretty well due to a very clever design decision! Overall we ended up 2nd losing out by a whisker to "Legs Are Just Wheels with No Rims and Only One Spoke"! We received a sweatshirt, sweatband, lego watch and t-shirt for our efforts! We had a lot of fun during the games and will definitely do it again next year even though we will unfortunately be missing Lothar! Here are some pics from the games:


Doing the team dance at the opening ceremony!


Our team sign




Building the bridge! Lothar et al came up with the cleverest idea for the main columns!


Our bridge! The other teams did not appretiate the Google sign! So the judges did not consider it for the best looking section :(


Starting to load the bridge for the strongest bridge section


Our bridge remains unbroken even as the covering plates fall off!


At the closing/awards ceremony

The year that was.......Vancouver!

Not very long after the snow started melting, it was time for Spring Break! Wooohoooh! A bunch of us decided to buck the trend of going south to warmer climes and went to Vancouver instead! Navi had been praising Vancouver (his hometown) all year long, so it was time to put his words to test! He was great host to us and even accommodated all of us in his home for the whole week! Thanks again Navi! In the end he was more than proven correct! Vancouver is the most beautiful city I have seen and the trip was amazing. The high point for me was skiing at Whistler (venue for the 2010 Winter Olympics)! Here are some of the pics from the trip:


Arrival terminal at the Vancouver airport


Bhangra at Navi's cousin's wedding! Balle, Balle!


At the Capilano Suspension Bridge











Amazing views....




At the waterfront in downtown Vancouver


Reuniting with the Pacific after 8 months!

















Trying out absinthe!



From Stanely Park





Driving to Whistler!




All ready for some breathtaking skiing!






One of the many, many times I fell......


.......and woke up to continue until my next fall! haha



Bunny ears !?!?



Looking up a black diamond! (not me ofcourse! I restricted myself to the beginner/intermediate slopes!)