Brown Motion

This title refers to the business of University students hosting potential applicants to their campus.  We did the rite of passage in visiting some Southern California campuses as our kid prepares to apply for ongoing learning at one of the (esteemed) houses of education. Some observations of this endeavor we endured.  Endure perhaps is too strong a word but it does get exhausting.  Show up at appointment time and get your car parked.  Spend around $12 for that privilege.  Then get yourselves checked in to an auditorium or lecture facility on campus. Cue the arrival of docent / paid interns who have a prepared speech to provide highlights of the school.  This is the Rah-Rah moment.   All great things with amazing people - faculty, students and the like.  Bunch of metrics that start looking the same with a few schools crammed into the trip as we did. I get to ask 'what is one thing you would change', knowing it will be treated like a rh...

The 25th COEP reunion.  My personal visit to India this winter was in part to appease my better half and agree to go meet up the global alumni from our graduating engineering class of 1991.  Personally to me the meet and greet, which was entertaining to a degree was not as much the high point as the food (always a big draw for the even bigger tire around my waist) and the chance to breathe in the nostalgia that is 'the diesel fumes off the freeway (Mumbai - Bangalore highway)'.  Optionally there is the boat club with a trickle of a river - more sewage than river - to sniff. Regatta anyone?  Mula nadi - COE Pune Boat Club  So here are some of my fun memories from the recent gathering - a melange of marathi jevan - good food, old timers who as someone eloquently addressed as being 'once a flower now a cauliflower', and the Gothic stone architecture of the 160 year old buildings. The welcome was traditional - fit for a royal - with tutari wajan (a bras...