Misc

My excursions outside of academia are extremely limited unfortunately. Having said that, here are some of the things I like to do in my free time:

Reading

I help co-organize a book club at my university, where PhD students from various different disciplines get together for bi-weekly book discussions, over brunch. We mostly read novellas and short stories, and follow them with a series of short articles.
My reading outside of the book club has been extremely limited to the occasional historical fiction and science fiction. You can check out an outdated list of some of my favorite reads listed here.

Snowboarding

Michigan terrain doesn’t have much to offer, except the snow capped hills (reaching not even 1000ft) which were perfect for a budding snowboarder like me. The green trails were a perfect place to start, and after having practiced for about 5 seasons, I can now ride the blue/black trails with ease.

Sports

Ann Arbor is a sports town, and the football season doesn’t fail to draw in everyone around me, each year. Never really bought into American football, but I am a big fan of watching the game live at the Michigan stadium (the largest football stadium in the US).
Also thanks to the cheap sports channel subscription offered by Fox Sports, I am able to catch at least the highlights of most Cricket, Soccer and Tennis tournaments happening around the year.

Cinema

A big time cinephile, my favorite way to kick back on the weekends is to put on a random recommendation by the folks at r/truefilm.
Some of my recent favorite directors include Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Arrival, Dune), Russo brothers (Avengers), Baz Luhrmann (Elvis, Moulin Rouge) to name a few.

Outreach

I am a strong advocate of outreach initiatives tailored for various minority groups studying in the US universities. In my limited capacity, I have served as the Outreach Chair for Graduate Student International, where I help organize social events for international graduate students. You can find some of the events I have helped co-organize listed here.