"Tiempo para un viaje por carretera" - call for change

Its been over a month since i got back to Texas and all i have done in this period is write...write...research...write...and more research. And barring the trip to California early this year, I really havnt seen much of US barring the airports and aerial views from the air plane! My conscience for sure is screaming out loud that i havn't used my time rationally. But i do give my share of priority time and due importance to Google and Yahoo (mail/chat). I must say that new themes on Gmail are inspirational and i dont even feel like signing out!!

In any case at the end of two years.....what do i get?
- No job for one because the economy has gone downhill ! In fact its rolling down!
- A master's degree and a speech from the outgoing president of this country... Now, although some would consider themselves previleged, being a rare ocassion for a graduation ceremony, i am at this time neither happy nor sad....the all important factor being i am not gonna be able to spend much time in the US... - and that is 'the inconvenient truth', whether Al Gore accepts it or not!

Hence my focus is on the immediate future ;) I am really looking forward to the next two weeks.....to visit Hollywood!!, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam....a fun road trip.
And it all starts within 12 hours from now!

Some would probably ask, if it really makes sense to go for a trip when the economy is in a pulp, jobs are at stake; and i would say if ya'll have jobs keep em' and be worried about it. I don't, and neither is anyone interested in hiring at the moment. Might as well make my time 'useful' instead of wasting on sending applications to positions that dont exist, and when HR's are so keen to send rejection letters.
But there is still another reason for the timing being appropriate for a road trip. One look into the oil barrel prices says it all! Gas prices have not been any cheaper than 2.0 $ to a gallon over the past few years, and now its 1.7 $. Its unbelievable that oil barrel prices actually dropped from 140 to 40.

Talk of 'freakonomics' heh....!! So ya'll professionals can take your time and figure out what to do, while i am gonna have some fun, and i want to see some decisions made when i return!!

¿Entiendes?

flushed and drained....

There are those certain days when you know right from the time you wake up, 'Today is going to be a bad one'. Especially on seeing the clock which was trying to do you a favor by crooning a melodius piece in the ear, is now on the floor breathing its last....all it took was a chop of the hand!

Since that happens on a regular basis the other indicator is the watch which, if its especially is a swiss make will show the exact time - and in essence i had woken up at 2 in the afternoon! How does one combine breakfast, lunch and tea ?? After a quick 'brun cha i', I ran to catch the 4pm bus on route 4, got out of the bus at the usual unmarked destination on campus, started walking towards the recreational centre and a dazed brain sent out weak alarms - 'you have left your keys on the bus, dummy'!!

Frantic search in the innumerable pockets of the tracks reaveals that the brain is working, but on an celeron processor @ 256 Mhz... Unfortunately the campus bus services are impromptu, even if one has the schedule in hand. It is a working Indian service model, which meant i would have to wait another 25 mins for this bus to come back, and would you have ever guessed what could possibly go wrong?
The bus changed !! The driver changed !!...and the new kid on the block behind the wheels had no clue where i should go to look for it. I tried my best to give clues to get answers that i was searching for, but in vain.

It dawned on me in a few seconds later - i was 'homeless'. Brain was spinning @ 512 Mhz now.

Previous experiences on loosing wallets and cell phones, and finding them in the lost and found department had helped in cementing a belief that I will be able to get back whatever i lose....eh..'personal items' ofcourse!!
Fortunately i had my cell this time and a few enquiries resulted in possible leads to nowwhere, where in i can trace my keys to a unknown locations. But it so happened that all items that are lost in the bus are brought to a counter sometime in between 8 and 10 pm...At a time like this one would count on being happy that there are possibilities, and its often snatched away in seconds...My cell phone let out beeps which indicated 'recharge me' and as it grew louder i took the life out of it - staunch believer of energy conservation!
The passing minutes seemed to feel like hours, and a little after 8 i approached the help desk to see if the items lost for the day have been turned in to which i got a negative response. The same happened at 9 and 9:30 pm.

Homeless, A dead phone, tired legs and the worst time for stomach to groan helplessness. Brain at 1Ghz but the stomach was churning even faster.

Reading and rereading stale articles on the campus newspaper was tormenting and worse was that I didn't have my 15" screen when i needed it. A little after 10, with an eager face, searched through a bunch of keys, goggles, hats and an umbrella; all that have been lost in a day ?? And there were quite a few cellphones in it too....everything except MY keys! So, i was still homeless. Emergency services was the only way out -
Revived my dead phone one last time which seemed to care less about my predicament, flashing sign of 'invalid battery', a call to the apartment office in asian chopped english - "key lost, please help, outside apartment..."
Trudged back to my apartment, waited in the cold without a jacket, courtesy of google desktop weather which predicted 12 deg in the evening but didnt tell me it would be windy....A hispanic in what seemed like a golf cart came by a few minutes later, check my id and gave a spare 7 day key (ofcourse it didnt mean it was gonna deactivate or melt on its own, but they were to charge me after 7 days - i miss india at times like this, I would have easily found a duplicate-key maker on the streets).

'Home value' had just topped the charts for me and all i wanted was to sleep without feeding my stomach. What more could probably go wrong ? You would think....
A quick glance at my 15" screen confirmed my brain dead status - 2 rejections lay in my inbox, to job posts that i was hopeful to getting while applying for! Life is good, no second doubts about it.