Welcome to Miami !

It has been almost three weeks since I have arrived to Miami, US to pursue my graduate studies in computer science in Department of Computer Science at University of Miami. If I may honest with you, these three weeks have been the most toughest and sort of expensive weeks of my entire life so far and it seems that the next week is also going to be more tough with the tropical storm Fay.

So when I landed in Miami three weeks ago, I had succumbed with a kidney stone, one of the most painful illnesses one could ever have. Since I was being a kidney stone patient for almost 2/3 years, I kinda new what hit me this time. No one to blamed but me because I don't drink enough WATER. So I started drinking plenty of water but the pain continued to persist throughout the week and next week. Normally from my experience, this excruciating pain should go away after 9/10 days but this time it didn't and I had no pain medicine with me. So finally I went to my universities health center to check this out and they immediately transferred me to University of Miami Hospital ER to CT my kindness and appendix. Thank god that I was negative for appendix but the CT showed that I had a swamp of particles in the kidney which was ready to pass down the narrow tube (urethra) on its way to my bladder, which was going to cause more pain. So I had given Vicodin, one of the most powerful pain medicine you could ever find on this plant. Pills were great, they did what they supposed to do. I believe my student health insurance covered the costs involved but I have to wait and see the report. It seems that the pain is kinda gone now but not completely yet that's encouraging. So guys/girls, if you are reading this, don't take it for granted, just drink enough WATER.

Officially I stared the graduate program on 15th August 2008. I'm not quite decided what should I do for my grad studies yet. I wanted to do distributed systems but there are plenty of research areas and I hope time will tell the answer. Anyhow I needed a transportation to go the Uni which is almost four miles away from my apartment. Public transportation in this area suck worse and quite expensive. Hence, I bought my first vehicle to go to Uni, which cost me $ 70 :). I haven't ridden a cycle for more than 15 years and this is going to be quite an experience and I love it.




To add to the excitement, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted that the tropical storm Fay is going to hit Miami big time on Tuesday at around 2.00 pm, specially Miami-Dade county where I live in. As this is not a hurricane, residence here believe that this storm is not going to do much damage and I hope it will stay that way. So, if I don't blog at the end of this week, there is a probability that I might have blown away with the gusty winds :). Anyway I hope that this will not going to be too serious.

Miami is a pretty exciting place and I will try to share my experiences, hopefully stay alive and healthy and write to you guys. To get the spirit flowing, listing to "Miami" by Will Simith ;).

Guys, ***c pain, I did went to South beach and the place really bringin the heat, you gotta see to believe it!.