New year's resolution

For 2012 one of the things I really want, is to resurrect my blog. Although it was never (officially) pronounced "dead", it has been in a "comatose state". I do have a lot to tell, as living and studying in California has been a wonderful experience, which is making me grow a lot both as a student and as a person. Sometimes laziness just settles in and it's easy to yield... will try to overcome that! Besides a slow blog demotivates its readers, and I don't want that to happen. Please, bare with me :)
Lets start by a brief overview of the highlights of last year.

In 2011, the whole batch of senior students in my lab has graduated. Doctors Hamed, Sunhyoung, Nikhil and Vijay.

My lab is split into two rooms. The office I work in, I used to shared it with Vijay and Nikhil (respectively above these lines). Both of them are now in India at Yahoo Research. These are the guys, within the lab, that I've grown more attached to. In fact, Nikhil was almost my co-advisor :) And Vijay is an extraordinary fellow that knows a lot about a lot of things. We used to call him "Vijipedia".
We used to spend countless hours drinking coffee and talking about the most awkward issues...