Gyrosphere-ing

Thanks to UNL GET REC’d I got to experience one of the most awesome things in my life yesterday – the Gyrosphere.
As soon as I knew that this was going to be one of the events, I couldn’t wait to get on the gyrosphere, well at least until it started rotating. But within a couple of seconds I realized that with all the harness around me I could never ever fall off the thing. Soon all my fear vanished and I completely and absolutely enjoyed the ride. I wish every one of you get the chance to get on one of these things some time or other. And also that I get a chance to hop on it again, soon.

Here is an image of how it spinned me! (Click on the image to see the animated GIF )

In case you didn’t already notice, the person wearing the powder blue sweater and wild flapping hair is me. I’m extremely sorry if your are disturbed with the image quality – I had to convert from a video file into an image file.

Have you ever hopped on a gyrosphere yourself? Tell me about your experience.
Till then, Keep Rocking!!

My new bamboo plant

My residence hall allows us to keep only plants and ‘non-dangerous’ fish (yes, even I have no idea what that means)  as pets. Since I was never a fan of fish as pets, I never wanted to get one. So since I have been here I have always wanted a plant for me. But then, I hardly open my windows, specially when it’s this cold. And plants give away carbon dioxide at night., so my parents didn’t want me to get one (again because I almost never open my windows). Livig like this was especially difficult as I have always grown up surrounded by pets and plants back home in India.

So when I came to know about this event by the Campus NightLife of UNL, where they were giving away baby bamboo plants, I was super-excited and asked almost everyone I knew to come with me. Unfortunately, I was myself late for the event. But a dear friend already had one for me!

So, finally, I got my new baby bamboo plant yesterday. Here are some snaps:

I’m already in love with this awesome new addition to my room! I will definitely keep you updated about the states of my plant as it grows in my room. I already know, thanks to this article, how to take care of my baby.
Let me know what you think of this 🙂

What you do when you don’t want to do anything!

What you do when you don’t want to work?
– I take snaps, of me.

What you do when you don’t want to study?
– I take snaps, of me.

What you do when you are bored?
– I take snaps, of me.

What you do when you are tired?
– I take snaps, of me.

Yes. That’s me for you, and seriously, its true. The list even includes chatting, eating, studying, and one time it was even crying. I’m always ready to take a snap or have a snap taken of me, in fact, mostly to take a snap of me. Like, just before an exam, before/after an important meeting, while giving a demo at lab, while working on a critical experiment (my research needs I work with a lot of cameras, so that helps) and at all other normal times as well. I have even documented (myself, through snaps) when I was working, as late as 4:00am, in the lab for a project due the next morning. You see, no level of stress can deter me.

So why did I bring this up today? Frankly, because its too cold and too gray to go outside and photograph something for Project 10. I had no clue what to do! And, usually, at these times I take snaps of me. 😀 Enjoy a few snaps of me dancing under the shagadelic effect of my webcam.

I seriously and earnestly wish that you are not bored or think that I’m bizarre (some of my friends do). Do you have any such odd habits? I would love to know about them. Till then, Keep Rocking!!

P.S. The internet protest yesterday was a huge success, although, there’s still a long way to. As I had already mentioned in my previous blog, I wanted to turn this page black yesterday. But sadly, later I came to know that only people who own their page could do that. But keeping with what I had written, I did not post anything yesterday. So a part of my promise was fulfilled.

Breakfast Bowl

The snap was taken during a breakfast a few days ago.

A few weeks ago when I stayed over at a friend’s place I came across these cereals which she was having for breakfast. I do not like to drink milk. So as a general rule I do not buy cereals.  But I couldn’t resist the colorfulness and the unique shape and taste of these spooners. So that very day, while shopping, I got myself a bagful.

But the snap above documents the first and last time I had these at my home. I couldn’t make myself eat another morsel another time. These are not bad, but just not good according to my taste. I have been suffering guilt pangs for wasting food. But yesterday, finally, I convinced a very good friend of mine (with a very pronounced sweet-tooth) to take these away from me. 🙂

How do you feel about cereals? Let me know!

P.S. Just wanted to remind you that tomorrow, 18 January 2012, will be the largest internet protest in history. Thousands of sites across the internet, including some of the biggest in the world like wikipedia.org (English version), will be blacking out and directing people to contact Congress to kill the web censorship bill, SOPA and PIPA. You can read more about the bills here and here. And if you want to join, you may want to check this. I will be joining the protest and blacking out my site tomorrow. So there will be a gap in the Project 10. But all for a cause.

Something Reminiscent

Every time I see this flower, it reminds me of a very special festival in Kolkata – the famous Durga Puja. And I start missing my hometown even more.

The flower is called kashphool in Bengali, my mother tongue.  I don’t know if the one we find in India and the ones in USA are the same, but they definitely look similar. But one difference is that we can only find it around late September to early November in India. But here I find these flowers everywhere since Winter began.

I have been wanting to capture these flowers for a long time now. But I never got the opportunity to. Finally, today, on a chance trip, I got to capture this.

I hope you enjoy the shot.

Of Barks and Cones

The weather in Lincoln is getting better with each passing day. And so I have been able to go out to take some more photographs for Project  10. However, while clicking these I was worried that the content in my blog was getting monotonous and familiar already. But not having any other option right away, I thought that I will try focus on some specific patterns in nature – like dry barks of trees or fallen pine cones on the ground, patterns that are indicative of the harsh winter right away. Now, I don’t think those patterns come out very prominently in the snaps below. But since this is only the beginning, I hope I will be better with time.

I would really appreciate if you would let me know what you thought about these snaps and also what other things you would like to see in unApologetic. Till then Keep Rocking!!

A Colorful Sunset

After an exceptionally cold spell for two days with temperatures reaching a low of -18C, it was again warm and cozy (by Winter standards) in Lincoln today. And I was lucky enough to experience a beautiful sunset. Just wanted to share that with all of you out there. I hope you enjoy it!!

The Sweet Temptation

Most people think I’m weird, but its true that all my life I have hated fruits of all kinds – except may be an occasional mango, or a seasonal orange. In fact, I have always hated apples so much that I have had it force-fed to me only about three times in my entire life.

But all my equations changed when I was once accidentally introduced to the sweet temptation of the fruit you see in the snap above once I came to America.

The story of HOW

I was once shopping with one of my best-est friend in a local grocery store. Since I was new here I was observing her shopping pattern so that I had some idea what to buy and what not to. While my cart was full of instant breakfast, ready-to-eat meals, and cheap cup noodles, her’s was full of dairy products ,fresh vegetable and colorful fruits. Challenged,  I decided that I had to get some fruits too. And on an impulse picked up blackberries, strawberries and red grapes.

Of all the fruits I got myself, the one that stayed with me are the GRAPES.

Pop it in your mouth or make a smoothie, it’s delicious in any form. Yes, sometimes I still do get the jitters about eating grapes, as let’s face it, at the end of the day, it’s still a fruit and my life long apathy towards this food-type doesn’t help me so much. But every time I force myself to pop a few into my mouth, and the sinful sweetness of American grapes (I have no idea if they are imported and if yes, from where) just melts the fruit-hater in me. I can now safely say, I have finally found my favorite fruit!!!

What is your favorite fruit? I’m eager to know 🙂

A windy day

Having never experienced snow before I was extremely apprehensive about the Winter in Lincoln, Nebraska. Especially because my friends here kept warning me because of my exceptionally low cold-tolerance. They also reminisced how brutal 2009-2010 Winter had been for them and that since 2010-2011 did not match up to its predecessor year, this winter might. But this one was unlike any other for Nebraska that I feared. In 2011 there was snow for around 10-15 days in December. The snow came in just ahead of my finals week and melted a day before my final exam. And since this was the first time living in snow for me, I enjoyed every bit of it. I thought I was spared the legendary Nebraska snow and thunderstorm………. till yesterday evening.

There was a wind alert on weather.com for Lincoln. Now how bad could a windy day be, so I dressed myself up in two layers and chose to forget about my winter jacket. Mistake! A ‘feels like’ of -3C felt much more like a -10C to me. And mind you, a wind blowing at 50mph is not a wind, it’s a S-T-O-R-M and I’m not overreacting!

Now I had to have a fresh something for my blog, so I was going around with the camera in my pocket. And then along with the wind came out a burst of tiny salt-grain size pieces of snow. I mean it was funny at first. The force they came in with, the sound that made against your clothing, the wave like gusts it created on the ground. I tried to capture that, but I was engulfed by the overpowering wind gusts, I realized, almost every attempt to capture a non-static object would be futile. So here is the most static living thing that I got to photograph – my arm!

And by this time I started feeling that my legs were going numb. So down below you’ll find an array of my attempts to capture nature on a very windy day. I neither had the patience or the cold-tolerance to take a decent snap yesterday. But with again temperatures in Lincoln falling down to a ‘feels like’ of -18C, I guess I will soon have it.

 

 

So long then. Keep Warm. 🙂

The very first one – introducing [Project 10]

When I started this blog on Saturday I was extremely determined that I will post something here everyday. Ironically, the second semester of my graduate studies was to start from 9 Jan 2012. At the same time I was not very consistent with my new resolution of Facebook-ing only one hour per day. Now old habits take time to die. But we can always nurture new ones with patience. So I am starting this new project here. I have named it Project 10 and my task would be to post 10 photographs consecutively for 10 days and write something on/about it. The other important guidelines are that all the photographs posted here have to be taken by me and also I should not post any that I have already used in some kind of social network or anywhere before. (I hope this last rule will force me to take more snaps.)

Let me warn you that all I own is a Canon (a brand I swear by) PowerShot ‘point and shoot’ camera. So my photographs would not really be all that great from a critics point of view. But I assure you that I will try to be as good as I can.

Photo 1:  A Cup

On the night of 8th Jan, I was watching some macro/micro photography tutorials on Youtube, and my camera happened to be there by me when I woke up the next morning. The very first thing that came to my mind was to try out some macro shots. A pen, some silly frosted cereals later nothing came out quite to my liking.

Now, the very first thing I need when I wake up every morning is a huge cup of steaming hot green tea, so this tumbler is always left on the table by my bed. And since I had a camera in my hand I just thought I will document the weird pattern on the tumbler. One shot and I forgot about it.

But when transferring the snaps to my computer, not surprisingly, this was the one that stood out the most. The vibrant colors, the blurring in the background due to the not-intentional Macro mode on the camera all added up to it. You can see the blurry image of the red football poster in the back ground: In the deed the glory.

A fresh start to a new semester in the red Husker nation! Hope this one goes well!!