SCREW BLOGGER.

I have withstood your failures for the last time.
So, enjoy my new blog at:

http://christineindia.tumblr.com/

Indian Thoughts

Some random thoughts from the last few days:

• If the theatre department here has a motto/mission statement, it is probably "Hey, let's see how much of this American girl's time we can waste?!"
• Classroom debates here get so much more heated so much quicker than in the US. People were legit shouting other people down during my English class.
• Who knew IPA would come in handy? But it has been, with learning Hindi. It makes understanding a phonetic language with a whole different alphabet a lot easier. Also having fun writing my friends' names in Hindi script ^.^
  
• WHY IS IT SO HOT? Edit: Thank god it just started raining. Maybe it will not be so terribly heat-wavey.
  
• Who knew rickshaws could get pulled over? The one I was riding in did.
• Kathak dance is fun, but hurts my feet, because apparently a key task in it is "Slam your feet on the ground as hard as possible." Also, my ability to zone out and completely mess up a very simple step is rather remarkable.
• Sitar is hard... there was no part of my body that did not hurt after my first hour long lesson. But I'm pretty sure I looked bad-ass playing.

See, Badass. Yeah, look at me playing that one scale I know. looking grungy with my glasses.

Sorry.

I AM A TERRIBLE BLOGGER.

I have never been the journal keeping type - strange for someone who loves writing and reading, I know. But truthfully, I enjoy reading blogs more than I enjoy keeping them. And even whilst having adventures and new experiences that I like telling people about and taking pictures of, instead of writing about them immediately, I am storing them away as ideas for future writing. Truly, I have at least twenty ideas, for both fiction and blogging, fermenting in my head right now, that I haven't put to paper because my head doesn't work that quickly. It needs time to ponder what I'm doing before writing about it. If I don't, I feel as though my posts are long winded rants that meander and make no sense to anyone. Which is what makes me a TERRIBLE BLOGGER.
So I am sorry about the long stretches of time between posts. I will try harder to make my brain work better.
For now, here's an idea that has come to the forefront of my mind rather quickly. It's a list though, and those do pop up to me faster than actual entries do.

Things That Have Happened at My Indian University That Would Not Happen in My American One.

1. A professor saying "Well, if you go to Europe, and you go to America, Europe is really just so much more civilized. They are more civilized and have more culture. The Germans most of all. 'Culture' is a Germanic word, and no other civilization at the time had a word for culture. Which is why the Germans are the most civilized."
2. "The French are also very good. Very warm people."
3. Professors end class 10 minutes late and start ten minutes early. Especially when you've just had another class right before that started ten minutes early and ended ten minutes late. And the average travel time to class is 15 minutes.
   
4. "Oh, our classes don't start Until August 1st. Yes, I know the rest of the University started on July 19th. Ours don't"
5. "Also, your professor is in Colombia until August 10th. So your classes don't start until then. Even though you have to be registered by the 1st and don't know if you can even get into the class."
6. The bus is supposed to come at 10:50 and get to the Social Sciences building by 11, for your class at that time. Instead, the bus comes at 11:10 and gets to the Social Sciences building at 11:25, which is when you get there anyway by walking.
   
7. Also, your teacher locks the door at 11:20 because the monsoon-force wind bangs the door open and shut every thirty seconds
8. The power goes out 4 times in a class period and no one says a word. Or even flinches.
9. Despite the loud annoying beeping noise and the fact that now without power to the fans your classroom temperature can best be described as "standing at the gates of hell"
10. 'Syllabus Day' is actually 'Two Hour Lecture on Medieval Feudalism and Oh, You'll Get the Syllabus Eventually" day.

BUT, Despite the frequent blackouts and alternating monsoon/surface of the sun weather, the annoying scheduling of classes and buses, and overall ineffectiveness of trying to schedule anything, I am thoroughly enjoying it here. Without the ability to schedule, I went through three stages of attempting to conquer my control freak nature:

• Frustration
• Utter hopelessness
  
• Relaxation

Not to say I still don't get frustrated and sometimes feel so helpless about everything not working that I want to cry, but it has gotten much better. And with long stretches of time without anything to do (Waiting 2 hours for a taxi! Long walks/bike rides to other parts of campus! No class on Fridays!) I am experiencing less structure and stress than normal. And while this led to panic attacks last year, I think having the ability to chalk all this craziness up to India makes me feel a lot better about it.

So, to illustrate this - guess what I did today? Slept until noon, ate a lovely Indian lunch with too many carbs, read blogs until 4 and at "tea time" (best invention ever, by the way) had 4 cups of chai while discussing comic books and movies and poetry and books, then watched videos of Mary Roach interviews, ate dinner and now am writing this blog while waiting for more videos of movies I want to watch (An Education again, A Single Man and Revolutionary Road) to upload. All in all, thoroughly unproductive by my standards. And I felt awesome about it.
And anyway, how could I not when I just got to spend half an hour running around the common room playing with Tanvi:

Adorable!

So that's all I will write for now, that's all I had stored away in my head. At this point it will become random musings and indecipherable rants. And no one wants that. So I'll write on my trip to Bangalore and the other things I have been up to later. Hopefully soon.
Thank you for sticking around with me, despite my terrible journal keeping habits.

Lack of sleep

Hey all my readers clearly begging for an update... riiiight.
So I have not been good thus far with keeping this blog up, but between orientation junk, trying to get to know people and the general annoyances of internet service here it hasn't been happening. I'll try harder though!
After this weekend things should start calming down - classes really start Monday. I'm trying to get classes outside of the SIP (Study in India Program - the overarching program for Americans and Europeans studying here) ones, because I would like to try to be a part of the larger Univ. of Hyderabad campus than just this little corner we foreigners have. I picked two classes in the English department - "Indian Novels and the Nation" and "Indian writing in English." I was a little wary of them, because I want to take classes that my school won't offer, but seeing as I can't remember the last time my department offered an Indian literature class (A quick scan of Courseavail says they haven't all last year and won't next quarter) I would like to take advantage of the opportunity.
However, the fate of my fourth course (I have the two Lit ones, a Hindi or maybe Telugu class, and one more spot open) is up in the air. Typical of theatre, even here, the Performing arts school hasn't given us a schedule of class times. A friend I have met here, a fellow theatre enthusiast, claims it's probably because they don't want to give times, they just want you to always be there. Seeing how I spend about 15 hours a day in the SCU theatre department, I am suspicious that this could be very very true. And seeing how obsessed I am and how dedicated I have gotten to theatre, I worry this may be very very true for me.
Worried because I would like to do things a little differently here. I overextend myself and refuse to back down from it, under any circumstances. So with my lightest course load of my college career, I won't know what to do. I'm already planning on taking a bunch of non-credit performing classes (Vocal, dance, music), as many as I can take, plus with fitting my schedule into a mon-thurs week, I'm leaving myself a three day weekend every week so that I can travel as much as possible. Will I be busy? Yes. As busy as usual? That remains to be seen.
But this is all too early for this speculation I think - I've only been here a week. I'm still learning things about this amazing city I'm in and still adjusting. I think I'll still be learning and adjusting until December 5th - and then I'll leave!
So I'll be back to post this weekend about fun things like Khojo (Search) Hyderabad - a scavenger hunt through the city by rickshaw!
Thanks to any of you reading this and sticking around through the infrequency!

Hello from Hyderabad!

Woo I made it here in one piece! With all my luggage!
Seriously jetlagged, I'm sitting in the lounge area of the Tagore International House where I'll be living.
Quick summary of my trip:
Got to JFK, 15 hour flight. Read Stardust and half of Eat, Pray, Love (Embarassing.) Watched An Education. Screaming babies. Couldn't sleep. Sat in Mumbai airport for like 5 hours as my transfer plane was delayed. Met a lot of other American students in my program who were also stuck. Flying out of Mumbai. Raining. More screaming babies. Couldn't sleep. Bumpy landing. Panic attack hoping my luggage would come unharmed. It arrives, wet. Three girls lost luggage, one lost all of hers. Hoping they get it back. Meet the guy who drives us, we're 3 hours late. Get to U of H in time for breakfast. Tasty. Unpack and Nap. Lunch. Nap. SIP (Study in India Program) got a new building, we go to the official opening. Beautiful flower arrangements on the floor. My roommate and I have only one key for our room. No sense. Sit and figure out the internet in the lounge. Dinner. I love tea.

Longer update later with pictures when it isn't dark.

Week of Insanity.

Here's what I've been up to:
Saturday: Fly home, go to my Grandparents' 50th anniversary mass/party, then speed home to CT to go see my lovely friends do a production of The Laramie Project. Collapse and fall asleep.

Sunday: Work for 4 hours and see more friends!

Monday: Get my wisdom teeth out. Ouch. While still clenching gauze in my mouth and drowsy from pain meds and just being put under by IV (Which was terrifying) I get three shots and a finger prick at the doctor's office. I also get a prescription for a bunch of other meds. Fall asleep with so many chemicals in my veins I feel unorganic.

Tuesday: Hair cut! I go to see David in the city, with my Mom, who also got her hair cut, and my brother and sister. Theresa, obviously, would never let someone come within five feet of her hair with scissors. Bob is waiting for his annual Head-Shaving for Cancer. So they sat on the couch and watched Real Housewives of New Jersey for an hour and a half instead. That show is actually one of the trashiest and silly things I've ever seen. My brother and sister and I go to a sweet used bookstore in the city before haircut, then my whole family goes to this awesome Belgian restaurant for dinner. I missed out on playing a nerdy boardgame with my friends though :(

Twitpic from right after hair shearing.

Wednesday: Eye doctor, new prescription for my right eye contacts. He gave me a free pair of clear contacts - the first time I've worn non-colored contacts since seventh grade. Then I went to the mall with my friends Gina and Jess - I bought a hat/feather/headband contraption with change. I have no money after spending so much on prescriptions I need for India.

Thursday: ANOTHER shot. This time for Typhoid. Felt drowsy and basically just napped all day. Too much stress on my body.

Friday: That would be today. Hopefully I will be seeing friends tonight. I got a call that my contacts (To make my eyes green again!) are in, and I have to go pick them up. Tomorrow. Also, dyed my hair red! It was already red, but I needed to even it out - cutting it so short made it patchy.
Also, I found a disturbing comparison - I felt like a Red-Headed Mia Farrow from Rosemary's Baby. I was wearing a little frock dress and flats when I felt like this. Also, I had a demon baby, but that was just coincidence.

Creepy.

Alright, back to doing nothing.
5 Days.

Waiting/Hurrying Up

A lot of waiting and hurrying up going on.
I'm waiting to go home for a week, and I'm hurrying up trying to re-pack my things.
I really want to hurry up and go to India, but I'm also trying to wait so that I can say goodbye to all of my friends...

I sat at a Borders all day on Monday, when I found the Women's and Gender studies section, as well as the drama section. Books! I spend all my money on them...

Here's a quick sampling:

The Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti (Founder of Feministing - check it out on my links!)

Full Frontal Feminism (Also by Jessica Valenti) I plan on corrupting my sister with it!I bought this to better understand a monologue from The Vagina MonologuesThis was actually in the Biology section, but it is SO GOOD. I also recommend Stiff by Mary Roach.

So, there's my life right now. Updates coming up with notes from back on the East Coast soon.