University of Tennessee

“Community leaders Jim and Natalie Haslam and the Haslam Family Foundation have given the University of Tennessee $32.5 million, the largest gift ever to the university from individuals.”
04/06/2006: http://www.utk.edu/news/haslamgift.shtml
04/06/2006: http://pr.tennessee.edu/news/release.asp?id=2417
04/05/2006: KnoxNews
A very generous gift indeed. And in the true Volunteer spirit.

The UT webmail quota has been increased to 100 MB from the previous 20 MB. This increase was supposed to have been implemented on Jan 1, 2005. But till yesterday, my quota was still 20 MB. Just checked now, and my webmail quota is now 100 MB. Yes!!!
I have a Gmail account but I don’t use it too often. Reason is that there is no IMAP access. And I just can’t live without IMAP! 😉 But if Gmail decides to offer IMAP, I am even prepared to pay for it. 1000 MB email space with IMAP access? That would be just awesome! 🙂
Update (6:14 PM 1/28/2005): There is an article in the Daily Beacon about the increase in the Webmail quota.

Tennessee “Vols” beat Florida “Gators” 30-28 tonight. My throat is sore now after all the shouting and my back aches a bit but I really enjoyed every bit of it! It was a great game!

The win was really an unexpected one. Tennessee was trailing Florida 27-28. I thought we had lost it. Then with 6 seconds to go in the game, James Wilhoit kicked a 50-yard field goal and Tennessee won 30-28.

Attendance was a record 109,061 and I was one of them :). This is the highest attendance at UT’s Neyland Stadium. The previous record attendance was 108,768 in the game against Florida on Sept. 16, 2000.

Detailed news article at UTSports.com

Parade	The crowd	A Vol fan
Cheerleaders	The stadium filling up	Half Time
109,061 spectators!	Vols beat Gators 30-28!!!	Celebrations!

A great game! And I am glad I was able to watch it.

The International Festival was held at the University Center (UC) Plaza today. It started at 10 am and continued till 3 pm. I was there from 11:30 am to 1:20 pm. The food at the Muslim students stall was good. Had biryani and chicken wraps. Also tried some food at the Indian stall.

Russian stall	Madhu, Anuj, me at the Indian stall	Brazillian stall
Me, Nikhil	Korean stall	(L-R) Dance by Pranita, Mansi and Pooja
(L-R) Shubha, Pankaj, Neel, Polisetty	The audience	Mansi applying mehendi on Jo Ann’s hand

There were stalls from various countries including – Brazil, Korea, China, Bangladesh, Russia, Thailand etc. There were a lot of different kinds of dances. Took photos. Will put up the link pretty soon.

Update (4:33 PM 4/17/2004): The photos are online here.

Coming back to the blog after a long time. I am writing this blog Monday morning and so I don’t really remember (not right now), what happened on Saturday morning. Anyway, I will touch the main points.
Saturday was Game Day. Today was the first football game of the season. UT vs. Fresno State. I did not get the tickets 🙁 because I came to know of it late. Next time I should go early and get my tickets. Manish, Pady and many other guys went to the game. This was Manish’s first game that he actually watched after coming to US. Last time, I had watched around 3 to 4 games. This time, the excitement is a bit less for me. Needless to say, UT won! – 24-6 (Of course!!!). Here is a news item from KnoxNews.
Watched S.W.A.T. today at 4:10 PM at West Town Mall, Theatre 1. I am watching a movie in a theatre after a pretty long time. I know reviews of the film have not been that great (C on Yahoo movies and 2.67/5 on Movies.com). This week it was 2 in US top 10. This movie is definitely not for non-action-movie viewers and they may feel that the action is too much. Personally, I liked the movie a lot – all the high-tech action was just great!. Definitely MY type of movie. It did become a bit slow in the middle but picked up really well at the end. You can read the movies.com review and the yahoo movies review.
Kabra came over in the evening and Saurav called me and told me that are in Nashville and would be reaching Knoxville towards midnight.