Chicago Diary: First week in the CHY city

Oh! Do I miss enjoying the beautiful summer in a peaceful small town, watching nature transform itself from a gloomy spring to bright cheerful summer? My first week in the CHY City was an amalgam of emotions. The very first thought of working for a top notch company was filled with excitement. But the excitement was followed by thoughts of leaving my beloved one, and of parting from the little pleasures of a small town. Not but the least came the uncertainty of living conditions in CHY city and getting to build the friends circle. Nevertheless the journey till now is filled with adventure. The very first few moments included taking local train to the Union Station and from there another train (about 2 hours of journey), followed by a cab from the train station to the apartment. Ironically, it took me 11 hours from airport to the apartment. The new apartment is somewhere between a dorm and a rooming house. The people work for software companies on a project basis, this meant that I saw nearly 10 new people in the same house within a span of 5 days. Apparently, after the initial chaos there is some order in the roommates’ influx. As a consequence of this temporary orderliness there is a temporary schedule for the other house activities, including rest room usage, kitchen usage and TV.
Most of the week was spent working. The adventurous part was to reach to work place I had to clear all the hurdles of beating the traffic to rest room, get onto the right train, catch the shuttle which departs right on the dot and finally to reach work by 7.30 AM. Never it has been so intensive that we had to meticulous do all the things inorder to be somewhere. I guess that’s part of the CITY LIFE. The work itself was very exciting and interesting. Firstly, I was made part of the elite R&D by the virtue of my degree and was made to attend at least 2 meetings everyday. Secondly, there was no real draft of what I would be trouble shooting, so had to come up with own ideas of making something troublesome…… (hmmmm..). It is worth mentioning that the R&D team was really good, knowledgeable and helpful, which made atleast part of the job easier. Apart from all the good and interesting things about the job, weekend was always a warm welcome.
During the first weekend I got to enjoy cricket and cards. On the cricket front, my previous contacts helped me get into a team, which put on the best display of aggressive cricket. They bowled the opponent out for 30 runs inside 10 overs and clinically chased the target in 6 overs. The game was well under 1.5 hours. This meant that we could play a practice game of 15 overs. I got to open the innings with a “wham bam thank you” kind of attitude which resulted in 15 ball 30. The next day we went to a casino. This was the first time I played roulette, three card poker and slot machines along with perennial poker. Though there were considerable losses in the first three games, profits were reaped from the ever trusted “texas hold’em”. So much so for the profits that we ended up having groceries for six people for two weeks…. yippe skippe.
I hope that the busy schedule doesn’t keep me away from writing a blog. So come back to read more.