my autumn

its taken me awhile to post -- but I was waiting to download pictures. here's one of my parents and i at a "Diwali Mela" in south street seaport.

here's another of uncle mohan, mom, and aunty sheila at the diwali party at home:



other things i did this fall include: going to long beach, ca for a high school friend's wedding. here's a picture of everyone from high school that was there:


and dressing up for halloween as Violet Incredible (from the movie The Incredibles). here's me and more high school friends dressed up:

Hi.
Gratitude to Uma for starting this blog.
I'm starting to blog again at www.ajaysara.blogspot.com.
Ciao for now.
Ajay

Colorado Summer

Well, we have had a great summer. Manoj turned 1 and Alok turns 2 on Monday. They are fantastic boys - talking, playing, learning. We have been hiking, swimming, playing at the park, making new friends, enjoying grandparents (my parents just moved here). We are getting ready to go to Maine to meet Maya. Everyone is excited about that.

The boys are fascinated with trains. They can't get enough of riding trains, looking at them, playing with them. They are adorable as they both play and say, "Chug chug choo. Choo choo."

Manoj is a talkier at 14 mos. old he has a huge vocabulary and is a great parrot. Alok is a runner and climber. He is extremely graceful and athletic. They love music and Papa's "lin" (mandolin).

We invite visitors any time. We hope to see you all soon.

Next Steps

My stint in Cambridge is over --- I graduated!

Graduation was a two day affair that went really well! Wednesday, June 6th there was a reception for my program, our families, and our professors. Mom and Dad seemed to have a great time meeting everyone. After the reception they stayed for a party under the graduation tent. There are pictures of both of them dancing with my friends and my friends' families on their camera! I'll dig them up for my next post. Thursday, June 7th was a full day starting at 7am for me. There was a University wide ceremony in the morning. Apparently 35,000 people were in Harvard Yard. Immediately afterwards there was a diploma ceremony for the Ed School, and finally there was an afternoon ceremony where Bill Gates spoke. You can read his remarks here. That evening Mom, Dad, and I went to dinner in Boston with Aunty Sheila and my parents friends the Bhavnanis who had all been there for the whole day. All in all - the two days were perfect!

I am now back in NYC. This past Wednesday I moved out of my apartment in Cambridge and spent a couple days at home in NJ. (Mom was extra helpful and made a second visit to help me move out.) I have found an apartment in Manhattan and a job! Starting Monday I'll be working in a Marketing / Product Development role for Scholastic Education. Their offices are downtown - right in SoHo! I'm really excited about the position. I'll be working on educational software products they are working to release / upgrade.

Going to the U and the summer in Delhi!

Hi All,

If you haven't heard I will be going to the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities this fall.

I've been admitted for a business major in their business school and in the honors program but most probably I will mix it up with a minor in Econ/Public Policy or something like that.

My dates aren't decided but I will be arriving in New York around the starting of the second week of August and will head to Minneapolis from there.

Nothing much happening here in Delhi!Grand dad and grand mom are doing well. Grand dad is seems to be working in his shop less and on my US visa documents more these days with my visa appointment date approaching on the 18th.

I went for river rafting to Rishikesh last month and had some fun by doing some crazy cliff jumping and amazing white water river rafting in the freezing water.

Look forward on meeting all of you this fall!

And So It Begins

Many you have long since told me that all of a sudden, one year, you suddenly have a ton of weddings to go to. It's now officially happened to me. None of my friends got married last year. This year I've been invited to 5. 2 in NYC, 2 in Canada (outside of Montreal & Banff), and one in Long Beach, CA. 1 former co-worker, 2 friends from grad school, 1 friend from college, and 1 friend from high school.

This weekend I was in NYC for the first of these weddings. The below is a picture of me and some of my former eChalk co-workers with the bride.

While in NYC this weekend I also managed to: catch up with friends, hear Kiran Desai speak (she was excellent though I actually liked what Vikram Chandra had to say more, which I hadn't expected), and see a movie at the Tribeca Film Festival.

All in all - a really fun weekend. Back at school now. Lots of work looming ahead as we enter the last 1.5 weeks of classes and then finals!

Love
Uma

Minneapolis

Hello All -

Ariana is 9 months old and such a joy! Deepak and I continue to have an absolute blast with her. Her favorite new tricks are clapping her hands and waving goodbye. She's rather verbal (what a surprise)....babbles a lot and often says "hey dada". She also enjoys standing in front of our picture window to wait for Deepak to come home from work as well as watch the spring snow storms we've had.

Pamela

My First Blog

My first posting to a blog - a new experience for me.

Wanted to let you all know about our new website that I just got up and running:

http://web.mac.com/radvani

It has pictures of the nephews and the dogs and from trips and pretty soon will have pictures of the new kid on the block

Tari is due on May 22. The baby is breech now and unless it flips over pretty soon will probably have a c section done in the middle of May. I'll keep you all posted.

Spring looks like it is finally coming after a few hellish April storms here in Maine. We are planning on laying low this summer and enjoying New England. I'm planning on getting a recreational lobstering license this year so if any of you want to come and help pull traps, or if you just want to have some good eats, you are always welcome to join us.

Ranjiv
radvani@mac.com

Colorado

Just a quick note and update. Mohan and Sheila were in Fort Collins to visit us this past weekend. We had a great time and great weather. I ran a half marathon. Sanjay made great shirts for the boys as you will see in the pictures. Alok is really talking a lot these days and he is so curious about everything. He loves ants. Manoj, too, is talking - bath, ball, bite, bye. They all sound similar but the vowels are distinguishable and he uses them in the appropriate context. So, we shall count them as language. Sanjay's job is going well.

miami

hi all --

im excited that people have started posting. if nothing else, i heard back from almost everyone so it was a good chance for me to reconnect with people.

i was in miami this past weekend. 3 of my friends from bryn mawr and i met there. the weekend was extremely relaxing. lots of beach time. plus it was warm enough to go in the water. overall it was great to spend time with my friends. last year the 4 of us were in nyc, but this year we're spread between nyc, atlanta, and boston. here's one pic from the trip:

others can be found by clicking here.

love,

uma

my first clog sorry blog

Hello all:

This is a very good idea indeed. It is nice to get news and share it in group. Uma dear, I am very impressed at all your achievments. Sanjay, interesting to hear you about upcoming. new job. I have actually heard of the firm - I wonder if they have a bay area office?

As for ourselves, we are busy with work and garden. Michael is back from his extended research trips and is about to publish his book with Brill Press. Its to be called Through the Eye of Time, Arunachal 1860-2006. So he is busy with that. The SF office that I have been managing for a while has expanded (our neighbors moved) and now I have to stay ahead of/lead/inspire/supervise/motivate 11 people! Its too much and I work a lot. But its all good and I have very interesting urban design/park scale public projects. I'm right at Union Square if any of you are in town for a conference etc. It was lovely seeing Amitji a few years ago. I am also teaching at UCB - just one class a week in the spring, but it always fun to be back on a campus. So that is our news in short. Pics are from trip to India in Dec 06.

Adit

New job

Hey all -
Thought I would let you know here - I got a new job. I am leaving the comfortable nest of Colorado State University, where I have been since starting my master's degree 5+ years ago. I am heading to an Environmental consulting firm, Golder Associates , where I will be an environmental staff scientist, doing mining reclamation and restoration, environmental impact statements and a bunch more. Will have to tell you more when I know more myself.

I had started to hit up against the ceiling in academia placed upon those who are in research but don't have PhD's. In addition, the salary was not nearly enough for our needs. This job is better on both accounts. The only drawback is that is in Denver. They have a Fort Collins office that I might be able to start working in some, but def. not to begin with. So I'll be communting. I think I have reserved a place on a van pool, so that is good. But it means a much longer day. So, potentially we will move south to the big city.

We'll keep you informed. Hope you all are doing well, and I hope to see you on these pages sooner rather than later!

Love,
Sanjay

the boys

Here are some pictures of the boys on our first Spring hike. We discovered Manoj's first tooth making it's appearance on the hike. At 9 1/2 months, we were excited to finally see him with a tooth. Alok loved watching the "buh" (birds) and digging in the dirt. It was a perfect day. Rachel

A blog for us cousins

I had the brilliant idea that we should have a blog for the Advani Cousins.... an easy place to check in on each other and share news. A way to stay better connected since we all live so far apart.

You can post as often or as infrequently as you like - but the more the better! Pictures are good - for the same reason you like reading magazines a lot more than dense journals with nothing but text (or maybe that's just the grad student in me -- i feel like i haven't read anything without two columns of tiny text in ages.)

As for an update from me...

I'm well into my second and final semester of my program. I'm definitely loving it - but change my mind on a daily basis as to whether I'm excited to be done and ready to start working or really sad that I can't just spend my days getting smarter.

Some highlights from my semester thus far:

Mom and Dad came to visit for my birthday. The took some of my friends out to dinner to celebrate. We ate in a restaurant in an old house and sat in a private room. It was a great night! Mom and Dad seemed to have a good time and even went out to a bar with us afterwards. They didn't stay at the bar for more than 5-10 mins -- but I was still impressed that they went at all.

I also celebrated my birthday with my friends here. They surprised me and took to me the Knicks-Celtics game (a fun coincidence that the Knicks played in Boston on my actual birthday if you ask me). Here's a pic from the game. There were 9 of us there - but this pic came out the best.

After the game we ended up heading to a bar in Harvard Sqr to meet some of the others. It was a long night that even included karaoke:

(the girl to my left is Carly - she's my best friend up here - we do lots together - and i'm going to her wedding in Banff this October!)

One last picture highlight - last night I went to the North End in (of?) Boston for the first time. It's Boston's "Little Italy." We had an amazing dinner, got cannolis, and then ended up getting cupcakes from a bakery that was giving away what they had left at the end of the night (in case you've forgotten -- anything free - particularly food is very exciting when you're a student)!

(see, there's carly again to my left. the guy is our friend matt. he's also in our program. the 3 of us agreed that last night was one of the most fun nights we've had since moving here.)

Finally, for those of you interested in the more academic side of what I'm doing up here:

I had to make a personal website for one of my classes. It's really rudimentary - but feel free to check it out. I'm actually no longer taking the Teachers Unions class - I dropped it in favor of doing an Independent Study with my advisor. For the Independent Study I'm working on a research team that's funded by the DOE. It's exploring the use of handheld computers and GPS systems with middle school kids in an "Augmented Realities" curriculum. Check it out: Handheld Augmented Realities Project (HARP).

I'm also on one other research team: EdTags.org. This project is exploring the powers of social bookmarking for educators. For those of you that consider yourself to be educators - feel free to create an account and play around! That project's been keeping me extra busy the last week or so since I'm helping plan a training session for it that's being held later this week. Speaking of things I'm doing this week - I have a ton of reading I should be doing...

I hope you all latch on to this idea and start posting as well!

Love,

Uma