Its been a splendid year at Essex but its now time to go home for the summer. About this time next week, I’ll be home, most probably enjoying a meal of Paradise Biryani with my family and friends. I do look forward to go home but I will sorely miss my friends here for the 3 months back in Hyderabad.

Its been a boring yet busy week. I’ve had various things to get done regarding the various societies that I’m part of. I’ve finished a majority of these things but a few still remain which I plan to get done in the following week.

I’ve also finally sorted out my accommodation for next year and will be living in a beautiful house with 3 of my friends very close to the University.

Over the past week, I discovered that the photography society had a darkroom which hadnt been used for over a year. I, being the president of the society for the next year, opened up the room and realized that it was a fully equipped darkroom. I’ve been messing around there for sometime and tried out different things. I havent been able to process a photo yet due to the fact that I do not own a film camera but its been very interesting to understand how film processing works.

I’ve also been cooking quite ardently simply due to the fact that I want to try and finish most of the food that I have before I leave.

Blackadder has been another great source of passing the time. Every episode is just so witty and amusing, I can never get enough of Blackadder and Baldrick.

Life over the past year has certainly affected me as a man. I have changed for the better, by life in a different country, away from home…

I shall most probably be back in Hyderabad the next time I post here, so good bye till then!

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We had the two final events of the year over the weekend and with those events, this year has officially come to an end. We still have some random bits and bobs to get done but nothing related to academics. I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by, it seemed like it was just yesterday that I left home for Essex. I remember how sad I felt to leave India and was nervous about my experience in a new country. Fortunately, everything has been perfect over the past year and with the great group of friends that I’ve managed to get, I’ve always felt like I was home.

Most of my friends will be leaving over the next week, and I know that I’m going to miss them a lot. A lot more than I thought I would miss them. We’ve bonded over the course of one year, known each other better than our families, learnt to live and cooperate with each other, and I feel that I might spend a majority of the 3 months in India looking forward to getting back here to meet my friends.

The event on Friday was called ‘The End’, aptly named, since it was on the day right after everyone’s exams got over. About 2000 odd students come out to the squares in the University to drink and be merry. The squares got pretty crowded but with a DJ in once side and all your friends on the other, there was nothing that could go wrong. It was tremendous fun, as I experienced, and we went on till about 3 in the morning, partying away to glory.

The Summer Ball on Saturday was a bit more exclusive event but nevertheless, still very popular among the students. We had a flat meal at a fancy Italian Restaurant before going to the ball which was great with good food and good company. It did rain during the day which resulted in the venue becoming muddy but it didnt deter the spirits of the party-goers. It started off slowly, with the only exciting thing being the circus rides. It improved slowly and after a few rides here and there, we got into the tents, where they had several different artists and DJs in the different tents. These tents were where we spent a majority of the time, had great fun and lasted till 5 next morning and ended up in the Survivors Photo, which was, much to my excitement, taken by a large format field view camera.

Not surprisingly, we spent a majority of Sunday sleeping off the weariness after having partied for nearly 10 hours at the Summer Ball. It was a beautiful sunny day so we had a little picnic by the lake and a game of Monopoly.

I’ve been taking photos galore with my new Carl Zeiss Flektogon 35mm f/2.4 which I’ve fallen in love with. Its my walkaround lens since its focal length of 35mm which is equivalent to 50mm on a crop factor camera like mine (Canon 40D) seems to be perfect for every situation. I havent got too many things planned for this week but I’m sure I’ll find something to do…

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3 exams finished, only 1 more left and I’ve got a week till that one so I’ve got some freedom till then. My Politics exam went on well but the real kicker is the Statistics exam which was really good considering the fact that I had only one to study for it, the subject that I dislike the most.

I’ve been getting lots of things done over the past week, things that I’d wanted to get done for a long time so it was good to get all of those off my mind.

I was browsing randomly around a couple of days ago when I came across this article which talked about a man who took a Polaroid everyday for 18 years of his life right upto the day he died. After having tackled about three fourths of my 365 Day Project, I know how demanding it can be on some days to get a photo done. And this is only 257 days in for me, he took photos for 6,697 days from 1979 to 1997. It is quite a remarkable feat and I truly respect for having the determination and courage to go through it for 18 years. Thats more than my age. I have been contemplating undertaking a similar project and I’m still continuing to contemplate it, I havent really made up my mind yet. You can read the article here.

I’ve been reading about some photographers lately, the ones who really inspired me were Michael Muller and Platon. Michael Muller shoots celebrities and promo shots for high profile movies, the latest and most famous one being Iron Man. He has a very impressive portfolio and has done portraits of the some of the most famous celebrities out there.

I felt Platon is a bit more ‘legendary’ than Michael Muller since he is the one who photographed the leader of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin himself, for the cover of TIME Magazine in 2007 and also won the World Press Photo in 2008 for Portraits with that photo.

His interview about the photoshoot is very powerful and he talks about his experience, I feel every photographer should listen to this, to know how it feels to photograph one of the most powerful men on earth. You can watch it here. (Click on 2008 Interviews and then click on Putin’s photo) The interview is about 10 minutes long and definitely worth listening to.

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Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve had meetings for the various clubs and societies at University and I was duly elected President of the Gliding Club, President of the Photography Society and Vice President of the Politics Society for the next academic year. I’m quite thrilled by these posts which I have undertaken and I shall do my best to ensure that I help all the societies equally.

I successfully spent the International Shutdown Day without using the computer all the day. I had to take photos of sports for most of the day so it was bit easier to refrain from using the computer since I had something to keep myself occupied with. I did feel the urge to use it in the night after I’d finished all my work but I managed to keep myself under control. And I hadn’t really missed many happenings on the internet as I saw on the next day.

Thanks to a friend, I finally got the chance to play the most coveted game of the year, Grand Theft Auto IV. I played the game on a Xbox 360 but I didn’t really care which I console I played it on as long as I got to play it. My first impressions of the game was the highly improved graphics from the previous games and the physics. Enough cant be said about the new physics engine which is very realistic and gives a whole new feel to the game. We also played the Multiplayer for sometime which was great, we had a bit of a lag but otherwise had a new and exciting experience. I tried to do a mission and I almost completed it when I got killed at the very end. I just cant get used to the dual joystick use in consoles since I prefer PC gaming. Regardless, if you’re going to get only one game this year, make sure it is GTA IV. You can watch a very good 10 minute video review of the game here.

I’ve made some changes to my wishlist, I’ve now amended it to include items that I actually want as opposed to things that would simply be nice to own. Take a look at the updated Wishlist here.

After many months of thinking, I bought myself a Flickr PRO Account yesterday. It offers unlimited upload of photos along with several other incredible features at a very reasonable price of approximately $2 a month. I shall be embedding the Flickr Gallery into the site soon. You can take a look at my Flickr Stream here.

We’ve got exams from next Monday and honestly, I have hardly studied anything. I really hope I get things done soon.

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I went Gliding yesterday after more than a month. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to glide and had some very enjoyable flights yesterday. The weather has improved which made the whole experience more pleasurable and we had a great day out at the airfield.

GTA IV comes out in less than 2 days. I wasnt really anticipating the release of the game that much since I’m not as interested in games as I was 2 years ago when San Andreas came out. However, I did want to try out the game just once to see how it is and if there is enough improvement as has been publicised. And yesterday, I read IGN’s review of the game and they gave it a perfect score of 10 and called it ‘One of the best games ever’. I also watched the gameplay videos which are totally awesome. And some of my friends over at GTAGaming got invited for all expenses paid trip to New York by Rockstar Games to have a sneak preview of GTA IV, you can read about their exciting experience here. These events have reinstated my interest in the game and I look forward to release. You can see a countdown to the release of the game here.

I got a PC Sync Extension cable for my cameras flash so that I can fire both of my flash simultaneously indoors, I have taken some exciting photos with some new techniques and you can view some of these on my Flickr Stream and my 365 Day Project. I can also use my flash outdoors now, using the cable and I’ve been experimenting to get unique shots which can be seen in the links above.

I had an Economics Test a couple of days which went fairly well. My exams start on May 12th and ending on May 30th. I also got the result of my Politics Essay and I was quite happy with it as was my teacher.

In order to make my domain more ‘UK-friendly’, I have now redirected my previous derelict website and domain name - Cozmonite.com, to this site so that now anyone who visits that domain can click a link to visit this site which is my primary website.

And I have some big plans about the photo gallery which I shall try and implement soon so that it will be easier to view photos here.

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Term starts tomorrow, the past literally whizzed past me. I didnt do anything majorly productive over the last week although I did manage to get some stuff done which I had been wanting to do for a long time.

My dad came to visit me over the weekend which was great, I got to spend some quality time with him, talk about random stuff like the good ol’ days, it was felt nice to meet him after 4 months. Today’s photo of the 365 Day Project is a dedication to him.

I went to London on Thursday and spent about 12 hours there, taking some photos a majority of the time. I was helping a friend out with her project. The photos came out amazing and I shall be uploading them very soon.

International Shutdown Day is back with a bang this year, and it is the 3rd of May 2008 which will be the day that people all over the world shutdown their computers. It is an optional event, as always but I hope there will be more participation this year. I successfully managed it last year and it was quite refreshing to see how many things one can achieve sans the computer. I personally feel that its something everyone should atleast try to see whether they can achieve it or not. Getting addicted to computers is probably not the best thing that can happen to you and this is like a simple sort of test for that.

Some interesting news around the world,

A mouse at the University of Iowa successfully managed to navigate a maze in less than 30 seconds, on which scientists had spent more than a year to construct. I have to say that I were one of those scientists, I would pissed as hell right now.

And some good news for all bloggers, Britannica has said that it will offer its online version for free to anyone who can prove that they publish regularly on the internet and this includes bloggers, webmasters and writers. If you are one of the above, you can submit this form to them and if approved, you can avail this free service for a year.

For all of those who have struggled to solve the Rubik’s cube, fear not for Gizmodo has put up up a 6 step (yes, you read that right, only 6 steps) guide to solving the Rubik’s cube. Take a look at it here.

The most anticipated game of the year, GTA IV, has gone gold and the copies of the game have started shipping to retailers. The game releases on the 29th of April for the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

Sony always manages to make innovative and unique ads and they’ve proved their skill once again by making an ad in Miami by filling the city with foam. They had to custom make the world’s largest foam machine for this advertisement for their line of digital cameras. You can watch the ad and its making here.

And in somewhat sad news, the Aston Martin used by James Bond in the 007 movies has crashed into a lake by accident after the driver lost control in the rain while delivering it to the shooting area.

And thats it for now, more photos coming up soon!

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After 3 weeks of traveling, I am finally back at University. It feels pretty good to be back at a place which I can call home for the time being.

I spent the last day at Oxford walking around the city and visiting several places. I went to the University Church and climbed up to the tower from where I had a great view of the spires of the city. Apart from that, I visited many colleges including Trinity College, Magdalen College and walked around their campus and got a feel of their atmospheres. I also went for a very informative visit to the Bodleian Library which is one of the biggest libraries in England receiving about 5000 new publications every week! The library also happened to be used for some scenes in the Harry Potter movies and the ground floor was used as the infirmary in the movies.

Blackwells was my next stop, being one of the largest bookshops I’ve ever been too. Its pretty huge and has every book you can think of. I spent a good amount of time pondering over random books there. I went to the Ashmolean Museum after that, and it had free entry which was a good thing. However, as with all museums, it had boring parts and exciting parts. Unfortunately for me, about half of the museum was shut due to renovation work being carried out and I have reason to believe that the sections that were closed would’ve had the interesting bits since the rest of the museum was relatively boring. It was filled with the usual Egyptian relics, Italian statues, etc, etc and honestly, I’ve had enough of these.

I spent less than 24 hours in Nottingham but managed to get across to the main places even though it was raining and hailing on and off throughout the day. I visited the caves of Nottingham which was quite interesting and presented in an excellent manner by a man who dressed up in costumes pertaining to the time period of the caves. The Nottingham Castle, although not very big, was a nice place. It had a really good museum, which was definitely better than the Ashmolean even though a lot smaller. I spent a lot more time in there looking at things which were displayed in innovative way designed to catch the attention of the viewer. They also had a special Robin Hood exhibition which was once again, very well exhibited in new and interesting ways.

I got back to Essex yesterday evening and it felt great to get back. I have one week of relative freedom ahead. I have updated the 365 Day Project so make sure you take a look through the album. And after this great trip, I have decided that my favourite holidays are ones by the sea or ocean. Listening to the sea and watching the waves is something I can sit and so forever. I shall upload the photos of the trip soon!

Update - I have uploaded photos from the vacation onto my Flickr page. You can check them out here. I shall be adding more soon.

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Last week has been quite hectic with essays to give in, last minute paper work to be done, etc, before leaving for the Easter break. We have one solid month of vacation which is pretty good although can also be a reason for boredom. I, however, will most probably manage to rid the boredom since I will travelling to different places around the United Kingdom over the next 2-3 weeks.

I had to write and submit a 2500 word essay for Politics which was okay. I got the results for my Economic Analysis test and Intro to Economics assignment results and I got 99 and 72 respectively. I had to attend several society annual general meetings since it was the end of term. I was elected to the position of Vice President for the Politics Society for next year.

After a bit of a hassle, I received my printer yesterday. It is a Canon Selpy CP 330 and is truly portable in the way that it has a battery and can be used to print directly from the camera wherever you are. Its quite compact and is pretty fast too. It is a Dye Sub printer and uses a thermal technology to print instead of inks which is what makes it portable. It can print upto 4*6 which I think is enough for quick prints. The print quality is excellent too, with vivid colors and sharpness.  And on a side note, I have to thank ebuyer.com for their excellent service since they collected the first faulty printer I received and sent me a new one the next day.

I watched a couple of movies, ‘The Fifth Element‘ and ‘A Scanner Darkly‘ and both have their own positive and negative points. ‘The Fifth Element‘ had a pretty crazy storyline but I still liked it a lot, it had a good blend of Sci fi and comedy which is something you dont see often. And with Bruce Willis added to that, there is now way it can go wrong. ‘A Scanner Darkly‘ had some really amazing visuals, great work by the animators. They had to edit each frame of the movie individually and it must have take a lot of effort and dedication to do it. I cant say I liked the story too much though, it was okay, but a bit too weird for my liking. ‘The Fifth Element‘ is a must watch for any Bruce Willis or Sci Fi fan while people who like movies with a new feel will enjoy ‘A Scanner Darkly‘.

University life has been good the past term and probably better than the first term since I’d met so many more people and was involved in several activities. I’m looking forward to the vacation, one, for the break (deserved or not) and two, for the vast photographic opportunities.

Have a Good Friday and Great Easter!

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University of Essex vs. University of East Anglia.

40 Matches. 800 Participants. Two Universities. One Winner.

Derby Day is a huge sports event held once a year between the University of Essex and University of East Anglia. The event is held at both the universities alternating every year. This year, it was held here at Essex and all the participants from East Anglia came down here.

I was assigned to photograph all the hockey matches but ended up taking photographs of a majority of the events. The first hockey match was the mens and kicked off at 11AM. Essex won with a spectacular score of 8 - 3. This was followed by the womens hockey at 1PM which Essex lost but up a great fight and managed to get a decent score of 4 -2 even though East Anglia’s Women Hockey team was three leagues above ours. The final hockey match of the day was the mixed match and was quite entertaining. It was a very light hearted match and you could see that most of the players were having fun. We won this match too with an excellent score of 9 - 6.

In between all these matches and during the half times, I went over to several other matches to take a look at the scores and also to snap some photographs. One of the first ones I saw was American Football/Rugby which was quite exciting with a lot of action in the match and a huge crowd cheering them on. They won with a decent lead and while they were celebrating their victory, I headed down to the football fields and got a quick photo of the Womens Football team. I was running out of space in my camera so I came back to my room to upload the photos on to the computer and also made myself a simple lunch.

After that, I went down to the Sports Centre and got photographs of the womens volleyball which we unfortunately lost by a rather small margin. Once the volleyball got over, I went back to the football field where there were 2 mens football matches going on simultaneously on adjacent pitches. Both the matches were quite good and had a large supporting crowd who kept the matches alive. The teams managed to win one match and draw the other one.

We had a quick stop at Womens Netball and after a couple of photos, took a break and went down to the bar. We got ourselves a free meal each since we were volunteering to help out with Derby Day. After the meal, I headed downstairs into Sub Zero to watch boxing. The audience for boxing was beyond what I’d imagined and the sound of the cheering could be heard all the way to the top. The fights were a bit bloody but still very enthralling as could be seen by the roaring sound of the audience every time a powerful punch was thrown.

I came back to the flat for a hurried meal and went back to the Sports Centre for cheer leading which was pretty good, I must say. It was one of the final event of the day with only mens basketball remaining. As of now, I think Essex should have won Derby Day but we cant be sure until the final results come out. However, I do expect Essex to win since we won a majority of the sports including Athletics, Horse riding, Pool, Cricket, Basketball, etc and the scores when I last saw them were about 17 - 11 to Essex.

Photographs are being processed right now, I shall upload them as soon as I can.

Update - I have received confirmation that Essex has indeed won the Derby Title with a final score of 21 - 18.

Update 2 - I have uploaded the best photographs from the events, you can view all of them here.

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This week has been quite productive. My Economic Analysis test went on great and it was one of the several positive points of the week. I took photos of a few matches for the University newsletter for next week’s issue, and in last week’s issue, they had the photo I took of ‘The Twang’ and also gave me full credit for it. I did a presentation about France in my Politics class and I thought that it was pretty good, seeing that nobody else has bothered to make a Powerpoint except for me.

I finished reading ‘Bravo Two Zero‘ by Andy McNab, its a book about a SAS mission into Iraq to disable some Scud launchers, and how they caught before they could do anything, and the torture and pain they went through before finally getting back, minus 3 dead comrades. It’s a fast paced book, and hard to believe that its a true story. Reading it is quite an experience, and gives you the feeling of what it is like to be in a battlefield. It makes you realize what soldiers go through for our safety. A definite must read by fans of action books.

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I watched ‘Scarface’ last night. I’d say the movie was good but I personally didnt like Tony Montana too much, he is bad-ass, agreed, but probably a bit too bad-ass for my liking. It probably was also a letdown because I expected better of Montana, to be a better human being than he actually is. I took down the poster of Scarface in my room, I dont think Montana deserved the spot. The wall looks a bit empty now, but I have another poster in mind.

I’ve added the LibraryThing widget on the left side, it displays random books covers from the library of books that I’ve read. And thats it for now, I hope that the coming week will be good too.

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