December 2003

Did you know who invented the world's first digital
computer? When Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and a
graduate student Clifford Berry were building the
world's first digital computer at the basement of Iowa
State University's Physics building, it barely came to
their minds that they were stepping on to a
significant stone that laid the very foundation of
computing technology. It was neither fame nor fortune
that had motivated Dr. Atanasoff to invent a machine
whose principles would change the technology forever,

A sumptuous Thanksgiving feast was held at Juri and
Madan Bhattacharyya's place on November 27th in Ames,
Iowa. As usual there was the local Kharkhuwa community
as well as visitors from Iowa City; Prabhat and Uma
Goswami with daughter Monaalee and son Sauvik; and
Devajyoti and Monika Kataky of Woodbury, MN with their
daughters Meghna and Devika

- Satyam K Bhuyan, Ames, Iowa

"To the Stars" is a repetition poem in which my intent
was to use at least one line and reproduce it
somewhere else in the writing.  All topics were given
in the Writer's Workshop class I attended recently,
but the individual student selected the themes.  For
this poem, I used the theme from a Japanese Animation
series known in the U.S. as "Robotech."  For fun I
added a Robert Frost and William Cullen Bryant verse
and slight sensibility.  That just came to mind in the
3rd and 4th paragraph.

To The Stars

Last summer my friend Mary's grandmother came over to
visit and she had purple hair. This summer she topped
that!! Now she has everything purple even her rearview
mirror is a light shade of purple. By the end of the
week I was sick of purple, even though it used to be
my favorite color. Now all I could see was purple
swirls in my head whenever I went to my friend's
house. From then on I would always go past her
grandmother's room as fast as I could; straight to
Mary's room I know I wasn't the only one terrified.