I'm back...

Well, I've made it through the mess of airports and have arrived safely back in Chennai. I have many comments to make about the flights, but those will have to wait until I'm in a funnier mood. :) I arrived here about 4:15 in the morning, although it was almost 6:00 before I could make it through customs and collect my baggage to meet my friend outside.

I woke up later in the afternoon and managed to drag myself into work to check email. (Welcome back! The cab was an hour late! :) Some things never change...) There's nothing like sitting in a car decorated with flowers, party decorations and a statue of a cow on the dashboard [The only thing missing is that it wasn't blinking with little lights!] that's hurtling down a dark street (that's more like an alleyway) filled with people, bikes, and other vehicles coming at you from all directions while your driver swerves to avoid the potholes and other road work to welcome you back to India. :) Wow! I've missed this! :)

Reunion

There's nothing like a class reunion to bring out the cattiness and pettiness that you thought you had left behind in high school... :) The reunion was, in a word, disappointing. Before the reunion, we had a pre-party at the house of one of my friends, Noele. Mike, Sarah & I spent about 45 minutes driving up and down Main Street in Greensburg (which, let me tell you, is hardly exciting enough to merit one trip down it) looking for the cross street from the Google directions. We didn't have Noele's phone number to call; the only other person we could call was another out-of-towner, Shannon. We drove out to pick up Shannon at her hotel and used her directions to arrive at Noele's about an hour later than we said we would. :) Later, we discovered that Google was giving us directions to a street that ran parallel to Main St., not perpendicular. *sigh* My only consolation was to imagine how bad the directions would be if Google or Mapquest gave directions in India. :)

The pre-party was a lot of fun. Noele has three adorable kids, skinny and blonde, just like her. In fact, Noele's get-together was a lot more fun than most of the rest of the night-so much so that I propose that from now on all reunion functions should be held at her house. :)

We discovered the most disappointing fact soon after we arrived at the venue for the evening. Only 31 people registered to come to the event! 31! Our graduating class was approximately 300, so that's only 10% that registered. Actually, even less because there were about 6 guest (spouses/S.O.s) that weren't part of our graduating class! The turnout is especially bad since, according to classmates.com, about half of our class still lives in the area. Plus, about 4 people who registered didn't even show up! Can you imagine paying $60 for this thing and not even showing up?

Not that very many people felt that they got their $60 worth anyway. The buffet dinner was okay, but the DJ/host wasn't very good and it was a cash bar (which made very bad bloody marys, by the way!) Most of us skipped out early and went to a local bar (where, we were joking, we would probably see more alumni than at the reunion) where at least the drinks were more reasonably priced. All-in-all, most of us felt we saw most of the people that we wanted to see at Noele's. But would we have all planned to be in town in the same weekend otherwise to do our own thing? Probably not. At least I did get recognition for coming the furthest! My only competition was someone who was working in Norway!

Rochester

So I've managed to drive (safely!) back to Pennsylvania after FREEZING through my trip to Rochester. True to form, the sun managed to stay hidden for pretty much my whole visit there, reminding me (again) why I was so willing to leave for the warm temperatures of Chennai. :)

I was in Rochester to participate in the wedding of my dear friends, Stephen and Malinda. The wedding was very nice-small and intimate-which I think they were going for. Malinda was so calm, none of the detail that didn't go exactly as planned ever seemed to phase her. That's the way I want to be when (if?) I ever get married-full of grace and assurance that no matter what happens, I know I'm marrying a man who will help me get though the times that things don't go exactly as planned.


*Mental notes from the wedding: 1.) Make sure that if you are having the reception at the church that congregation is larger than your guest list because you don't want to have to be out buying flatware at Wal-Mart the night before the wedding. :) 2.) If you care about the bridesmaid's dresses being all the same, make sure that they are all stitched by the same person. Apparently there can be many interpretations to the same pattern. :) 3.) Remember that kids in the wedding party will be cute, but also unpredictable. Even the eldest one might need their hoopskirt tied in the middle of the ceremony. :)














It was great to meet up with people in Rochester again. I met many people and missed many as well. [Sorry guys!] But, I knew that was going to happen. It was hard to see people, get a little bit caught up on the past six months and then have to say good-bye all over again. *sniffle, sniffle*

But, hopefully, the next six months will fly by as well. Liz & I have many trips planned for our remaining time in India, so we have plenty of stuff to look forward to when we get back. Tonight, I'm getting ready for my 10-year high school reunion. Whoa, does that make me feel old! :) I can't wait to see many of my friends who I've only been in touch with through email, but I'm worried about recognizing others there. All I know is I better win the prize for who traveled the furthest to get here (especially since my friends from Guam & Hawaii aren't coming!)

Driving...

I was a little nervous about driving all the way up to Rochester alone, mainly because I've been watching cars drive on the opposite side of the road for six months now. Plus, I did experiment with driving once while I was in India. Actually, driving once while I was in India was one of my goals that I stated when I first got there. But, I did decide that I should wait and observe for at least three months before I attempted such a feat. One of my friends even offered to teach me...but he never came through on that offer!!!!

However, one night when we were leaving Fisherman's Cove another friend (Raghu) decided to let me try to drive his car (and no, this had nothing to do with the re-painting of his hood!). It was around 1 AM and it's a pretty deserted road between Fish Cove and ECR (East Coast Road.) I readily agreed! I was pretty happy because I didn't stall it out at all, even while shifting with the left hand and steering with the right! But I have to admit, the cows by the side of the road were a bit disconcerting!

Anyway, I think that I made the transition to driving in the US okay-the only problem is when I'm on an unlined road, I find myself drifting a bit to the wrong side. Hopefully I can correct that in the time that I'm here. :)

Visiting...

I'm home now...for a quick visit to the US. I arrived here Sunday night, overnighted in NYC and flew to Pittsburgh to meet my parents early Monday morning. Compared to India, NYC (at least around the airport seemed so quiet!!!!) The flight over generally was pretty uneventful, though. After flying Air India for my vacation last December, I'm always amazed when the flights are running on time, but I've had no problems thus far on British Airways. :) I ended up taking Independence Air from JFK through Dulles to Pittsburgh. Man, are they cutting back-they give you NO food on the flight-not even peanuts! *sigh* It was really rough coming from an international flight where they feed you something like every two hours, it feels like. :)

Anyway, I did manage to upload pictures from August and September and post them to my blog. Enjoy!

After staying with my parents for a couple of days (and trying to get on somewhat of a normal sleeping schedule!) I headed to Rochester for my friends' (Stephen & Malinda) wedding. Yep, I'm a bridesmaid...and I'm not thinking about the saying that goes along with that... :) Rochester is COLD right now!!!!!! I miss Chennai...the heat...now I remember what I was so happy to get away from in April! :) But it has been good catching up with people that I've been missing. Unfortunately (in some ways), I'll only be here for about a week, then I'll head back to Pittsburgh for a few days, then back to India!

Bangalore

Liz has been pestering me to visit Bangalore with her for quite some time now, so last weekend we made what I'm sure will be our first of many trips there. :) Bangalore is in the next state over, Karnatika, about a 7 hour drive from Chennai (I think). We ended up taking the bus both there and back. On the trip up, we took a bus run by a private company and on the way back we took one run by the state government of Karnatika. We left at 1:30 in the afternoon on Friday and arrived in Bangalore around 9:30. On the way up, we were treated to a Tamil movie for entertainment. Even though there were no subtitles, I had little trouble following the plot since it was almost an exact copy of the English movie "What about Bob?"

After getting there, we took an auto to Liz' friend's flat, where we were staying. It was quite a treat to find that the auto drivers actually use the meter if you ask them to. We ended up staying up for a while even though we didn't go out because the people on her street were still celebrating Ganesh's birthday by blaring loud music.

Even though they were up late the night before, her neighbors still managed to get up early and again start blasting loud music Saturday morning. We got up too and headed out to Martahalle (I have no idea how to spell that) where all of the outlet stores are. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to spend there as we had dinner plans with Liz' friends from Microsoft. We hoped to go out afterwards (all I've heard is how Bangalore has so much better night life than Chennai) but apparently there is a new police commissioner who has restricted dancing as well as the closing time for the clubs, so we were unable to go anywhere. We ended up hanging out in the room they had booked in the Leela Palace (a luxury hotel there.)

The next morning, we got up and had a fantastic brunch at the Leela Palace. Then, we were off to shop til we dropped in The Forum-the American-style mall there. I loved shopping there! But, after a while, the sheer number of people there got to us a bit. We stopped off to eat and have a drink at the 13th Floor. We stopped and visited another of Liz' friends who recently had a baby and then headed back.

The next morning we woke up and headed back to Chennai. The government-run bus was much nicer than the privately-owned one and a much better value. Unfortunately, they played two Hindi movies that I was not able to follow-one with Salman Khan (not that I minded missing THAT one) and one with a young Amitabh Bachan.

All in all I had a blast! Bangalore is such a nice city to visit-the climate is much more temperate than Chennai; the shopping was great (tho I've heard that I still need to go to Commercial Street!); and it was so relaxing to get away from the stress at work! I wasn't ready to come back!

Trainees

Somewhere along the way (last week) I finished up my second batch of induction trainees and started batch #3. Batch #2 was pretty fun and I liked the fact that there were only 12 of them instead of the usual 20. They all passed and were sent off to Microsoft & Dell. On the last day of class they surprised me by bringing in a cake and a gift-a model of the Taj Mahal. I was so touched!

My new batch runs again from midnight until 8:00 AM. I've decided that I actually like this shift better than the 4:00 PM-midnight shift I was just on. For me, it just interchanges my sleep time with my working times and still leaves me my evenings free to do things. Besides, I enjoy that fact that there are less people around the building and the temperature is usually cooler.

The weird part is that, on this least desirable of shifts, I have representatives from both of my previous batches. The ones I sent to HP from batch #1 are finishing their technical training; the Microsoft contingent from batch #2 are starting their product training and I have batch #3 for communications training. Kind of weird to see them all in juxtaposition.

Anyway, I am looking forward to the trip back home as a break from the teaching schedule. Hopefully my voice will recover during that time-I'm sounding pretty hoarse these days. Any seasoned teachers out there have ideas for recovering that?

I'm coming home!!!!

OK I knew that I got to come home after 6 months, but at first October seemed very far away. Now that I have my return tickets to the US booked it seems much more real! I'll be back in the US on October 2nd (and I have to overnight in NYC!) and then on to Pittsburgh the next morning. I'll head up to Rochester probably on the 6th and stay there for about a week. I then depart again to Chennai on the 17th.

I'm so excited!!! Much more than I thought that I would be! It will be wonderful to sink my teeth into a nice juicy hamburger (yes, Pete, I have tried them here-they're just not the same) covered in ketchup that is vinagary and not sweet! To travel in traffic that is neat and orderly. To have breakfast foods that I'm used to! Aaah, I can't wait... :)

Kanyakumari-Day 2

We actually were able to get ourselves out of bed early enough to see the sunrise this morning (I don't know when the last time I saw 6 AM was!) and boy was it worth it-especially after not being able to see the sunset the night before. Watching the colors change as the sun rose was indescribable.










After heading back to bed for a few more hours of sleep, we headed off for more sightseeing before catching the train back to Chennai. First, we stopped at the Sucheendram temple, dedicated to the blended form of Shiva, Brahma & Vishnu, but unfortunately that part of the temple was closed when we arrived. There is also a huge statue of Hanuman (the monkey god) in the temple as well. This is the first time that I've been to a temple with a statue of Hanuman; I found it interesting that they put a mixture of butter and paneer on the statue's tail because in the Ramayana the demon god Ravana sets Hanuman's tail on fire. The other interesting part was that we arrived at 'bath time' for the statue. There were 5 or 6 priests all involved in the task of washing the statue (which was probably 12 feet tall!)

After the temple, we headed off to Padmanabhapuram Palace, a tribute to the days when this area was part of Kerela. Unfortunately, we arrived during the time it was closed for lunch. Due to time constraints (of our train back to Chennai) and the onset of rain, we had to abandon the plan of seeing inside the palace.






Our last stop was Tripparappu Water falls. Here we found people bathing under the falls, while kids played in a very dirty looking pool nearby. Bathing under the falls would have been a fun experience, but we didn't bring enough clothes to change into. Instead, we visited a rather run-down aquarium that advertised with a huge garish fish outside of it. Inside we were treated to a personalized tour of the aquarium's various inhabitants. Not only did they have fish from all over the world, but they also had quite a few snakes. The 'tour guide', for some reason decided to only pull the poisonous ones out of their cages for closer inspection. Then he offered them to us to hold as well. Somehow I ended up holding a pittu viper (?). Ok, probably not the smartest move to make...but it ended up ok. (I only ended up breaking out in a cold sweat when the snake turned around to get a better look at me!)









Then we hurried back to pick up food and catch the train back to Chennai. As always, the vacation was much too short!!!

Kanyakumari-Day 1

But seriously, all toilet stories aside, the trip to Kanyakumari was WONDERFUL!!! It was so good to get out of Chennai and see a different part of India. (Yes, I know it's still Tamil Nadu, but the landscape was so different!) Seeing the greenery all around made me remember why I told everyone that I wanted to retire to Kerela when I came back from my vacation in December. It's so beautiful!!! (Pictures to follow soon, I promise...)

Upon arrival in Kanyakumari, we hiked to the station (traveling 3rd class does have it's disadvantages-we were in the almost last car!), and headed to check in at our hotel. We had our pick of rooms and after choosing one, we settled in, showered and headed off for a full day of sightseeing. First, we took the ferry to the island temple and statue. I hate to admit, but I was comparing the safety standards of the ferry with those in the US the whole time. The sea was a bit rough that day and they never firmly tied the boat to the dock, hence it tended to drift away from the dock a bit. That didn't seem to bother the staff, they just pulled or pushed you off as quickly as if it had been right up against it. :)









Not only is it the meeting point of the three bodies of water (Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal & Indian Ocean) at the southern tip of India, Kanyakumari apparantly is also quite the pilgramage spot, so we there are a lot of temples and shrines to visit. On the first island there are two-a temple devoted to Lady Kanyakumari, an incarnation of the goddess Parvathi (with what looks like a footprint in the stone) and a shrine dedicated to Swami Vivekananda. On the second island there is a 133-foot-tall statue dedicated to the poet-saint Thiruvalluvar.

We came back to shore, not much more safely, and decided to eat and rest for a bit. Unfortunately, when we set out to see the sunset, we realized that it was too cloudy to see much. However, on the way to sunset point, we passed by the Gandhi Mandapam, where the Mahatma's ashes were kept until they were submerged in the sea.








We also stopped by to visit the shore temple, dedicated to the goddess Parvathi. There is a story that two Americans were saved by rowing to shore by the light shining off of the diamond stud in the statue's nose, however the doors directly to the seashore are now closed. The "vendors" selling oil and other religous items in the temple gave me an interesting perspective on the story of Jesus and the moneychangers in the Bible.

Marking my territory in India

Well, I've successfully made my first railway journey in India. The trip to Kanyakumari was lovely...I will write more about it in an upcoming post...but I figured the train voyage deserved it's own separate posting. :) The trip to Kanyakumari from Chennai is approximately 15 hours. We traveled third class A/C, which means that there were three berths on each side of the compartment and no curtains separating the compartment from the aisle. The trip down wasn't too much of a problem. The train left Chennai at 5:30 PM. The people in our compartment were fine-nothing to complain about. We ordered dinner on the train (tho we had brought plenty of snacks), although train food is not really any better than airplane food...and the coffee is generally pretty bad. :) The amazing part was waking up the next morning seeing a completely different landscape. The scenery was much more lush and tropical. It was beautiful!!!! (Especially when opening the side doors of the train and leaning out...) :)









The trip back was also relatively uneventful. There were two young girls traveling with their father in our compartment. The 9-year-old enjoyed practicing her English (with a few translations by her father) with me; however, when it came time for us to go to bed the younger one, the 4-year-old, did NOT want to sleep at all. For us, it was entertaining...for her father, not so much! :)

The part of both trips that deserves mentioning, however, is the bathrooms. :) You might be thinking that the best thing to do would be to avoid them...but that is virtually impossible on a 15-hour trek. I should insert here the fact that there is no repository for train toilets-you just do your business and it ends up right on the tracks. (As you might imagine, there are many warnings NOT to use the toilets when you are at a station!) On the way down, we were lucky enough to have two 'western' style toilets (bring your own toilet paper). Unfortunately, though, one was dark and Liz realized too late that the drain in the floor was not working properly. EWW! Her pant leg was all wet and we had to devise many creative ways to alleviate the odor that lingered after washing them off... On the way back to Chennai, there was only one 'western' toilet at our end of the car. Once, when it was occupied, I considered using the Indian-style ones, but, as the train began rocking more vigorously, I wasn't sure about maintaining my balance while squatting (and I didn't want a repeat performance of attempting to wash out a my pant leg!). :)

Singleness

So this past weekend my church had a seminar for singles focusing on the topic (you guessed it) "Preparing for Marriage". No, I didn't go. :) But it did get me thinking....

Now, albeit, it was geared more towards the part of the congregation in their early 20s. And here in India, there is still a lot of pressure to be married young (culturally-I know there are exceptions). But still, is it any different in churches in America? Sometimes I feel like churches in American generally don't know what to do with their singles, especially their single females. Especially those of us in our late 20s or older. From my perspective, single males have it easier-they can usually fit in with the men's groups with no problem. But it's difficult for single females to fit in with the normal women's groups-because the topics are often catered to home, marriages or families. And if the church does have a singles program, too often the topics are focused only on preparing for marriage. Even though these programs are usually supposed to encourage the single during this period, it often has the opposite effect making you question yourself more.

What do I think should be done? I don't mind having separate singles events and married couples events within a church, but I don't always want to focus on that status. Can't we focus on being content with our status as it is without having to look at it as preparation for the "next stage" (which may or may not be marriage)? Can't we just work on following God regardless of our marital status?

OK. I'll get off my soapbox now! :)

Updating...

I keep forgetting to write about work on here. (Hmm...maybe that's not a bad thing...) :) Anyway, I have been moved back from the Dell floor to the COL (Center of Learning) where I am now training induction batches full-time. My first batch went from midnight to 8:00 AM. (Can you imagine?) , but that's over now. My trainees all passed their final assessments and I've sent them off to both Dell & HP. Now, I'm with my second batch which is in its second week (out of three). We meet from 4:00 PM to midnight and afterward they will be off to Microsoft and Dell. Training here is (mostly) fun...except when the technology and management doesn't cooperate. :)

Also, I've updated some of my April & May posts with pictures-now that I have regular access to a computer with a CD drive and a connection to the internet. :) Enjoy!

This weekend I'm off to Kanyakumari-this time with CONFIRMED train tickets!!! :)

Influence

Many times when I've felt that things here were out of control, I've found myself resorting to what I'm now calling "the Diva stage." "When exactly will it be finished?"; "How can you assure me that it won't happen again?"; "Why didn't you tell me this in the first place?" are questions that I find myself asking in vain attempts to reassert control over my surroundings. Most of the Indians around me usually tell me to just relax and everything will work out ok.

Therefore, I had to laugh when one of our friends who we hang out with a lot related his story of dealing with the car dealership here. He had given his car to the dealership to repair a dent in his hood. In the process they had to repaint it; however, when he went to pick it up, they had painted it a lighter color than the rest of car. The workmen claimed that there were many shades of 'satin gray'. My friend said, "That's why I gave it to you guys-I wanted it to match exactly. If I had wanted some variation, I would have given it to the shop down the street." They then said that would repaint it. I was so amazed when I heard his reply was, "How are you sure that this time you are going to get the right color of 'satin gray'?" It sounded so much like any phrase that I would have used in that situation. :)

Kidnapping

I was watching the show Six Degrees on Discovery Travel & Living the other day. (We don't have a set-top box, so we only get about 6 English language channels, so there aren't always a lot of choices for programming!) Basically, the host of the show travels to a city and his or her goal is to walk around, meet 6 people there and learn about what they do there. Anyway, this one was set in New York City and the host was (I think) British. One of the people (actually it was a group of people) that he met had a business where people in the city paid him to break into their apartment, kidnap them, and rough them up a bit. People PAY him for this service? It seems like it was a fairly lucrative business-he has several employees to help him undertake his "missions." Does this seem odd to anyone else??????????? One of the "victims" that the host interviewed was saying how a service like this helps people learn to deal with their fears. Talk about niche marketing...

We've got to get out of this place

Since Monday's holiday (India's Independence Day) gave us a three day weekend, we decided we needed to celebrate by traveling somewhere outside of the city. There were two problems with this decision: 1.) we didn't decide to actually start planning anything until Thursday, and 2.) many other people in India shared our same idea...

Our first idea was to go to Kanyakumari, at the southern tip of India. I've heard it is beautiful as you can see the meeting point of the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. The sunrises there are supposed to be magnificent. (Some of my trainees have sent me absolutely gorgeous pictures of it, reinforcing my desire to go.) However, by the time we booked the train tickets (on Thursday to leave Friday evening) , the train was full and we ended up on the waiting list somewhere around numbers 12 & 13. (I thought Indians didn't like to plan things???) :) We went to the station Friday evening and waited to see if we would get on...our numbers kept jumping up on the list-11 & 12...then all the way to 2 & 3...but, unfortunately, that's as far as we got. We didn't get on the train. :( :( :(

So, disappointed, we came home and began to consider our other options. We decided that it would be fun to go to Pondicherry with a couple of our friends. We started calling around to find a hotel...we made many calls, but all the hotels in Pondicherry are booked-WHAT? Not only was it a holiday weekend, but it was also the birthday of one of the founders of the ashram. WHAT LUCK! *sigh*

We all decided to stay in Chennai for the night and try to come up with something to do for the weekend. No good ideas, though. By Saturday evening, however, Liz & I were desperate to get out of the city-ANYWHERE out of the city for a change of pace. One of our friends said that we should head to Pondicherry anyway-if we were there in person, they wouldn't turn us away. We decided to head out, even though it was already 8:00 PM. We stopped at several hotels along ECR (East Coast Road) to inquire about rooms, but they were all booked.


This was a sign to us that we were not going to get a room here-there were already people sleeping in the reception area! :)





We eventually ended up in Mahabalipuram where we found a guest house with one A/C room and one non-A/C room. With the permission of the owner, we moved the beds from the non-A/C room into the A/C room and all piled in. (It was a bit cozy, but at least we were all able to sleep without sweating!)


We dragged ourselves out of bed the next morning...but Liz and I discovered that we were going to need to make several stops to the bathrooms throughout the day. After breakfast (which is hard to find after noon) we headed on our way for Pondicherry. We again stopped by several hotels and resorts along the way, but again they were all booked. We even stopped by Auroville to see if any of their guest houses were free. After driving around in search of many different people, we were told that they were all full-not surprising since it was The Mother's birthday. It was not late afternoon and we were starting to worry a bit about finding a place. One of the hotels we stopped at was able to "hold" rooms (non-A/C) for us at another hotel; however, by the time we found it, they had already released the rooms. Fortunately, they had two A/C rooms coming available at 8:00-about 45 minutes away (which seemed an eternity because we were all hungry and wanted to go somewhere to eat!) We did check in with no problems...except that we couldn't get any towels until the next morning. :) What luck!

We slept in late the next day (aaaahhh...restful sleep), got up and went shopping in the afternoon. We started back to Chennai a bit later than planned and I just barely scooted into work in time for my midnight shift.

I don't know; I think that if Pete has an anti-science zone around him, I might have an anti-hotel or anti-vacation zone around me. :)

Just when I thought I'd begun to settle in...

...I woke up Saturday morning around 10 AM to find that the power was out. Judging from the temperature in my room (very hot!), I'm guessing it went off around 9 or so. Actually, it wasn't just hot, it was stifling. UGH! And, by 10 AM, I had only been asleep for about 4 hours, after getting home from work sometime around 5:30. Grumpily, I pulled the couch directly under the fan in the living room (it runs on the generator) and managed to doze on and off for the next couple of hours. *sigh*

By 4 PM I'd had enough of that (the couch isn't really that comfortable for sleeping!) and the power still wasn't back on. "That's it!" I decided, "I can't take this-I'm going to stay at a hotel." I felt a bit of pampering was in order to restore my world back to some balance. After calling around to a few hotels and on the recommendation of one of my friends, I chose the Quality Inn Aruna. Not a 5 star hotel, but with A/C, room service and more than just basic cable (Star Movies here I come!), I figured it met all of my needs. And, it even had a bathtub! I checked in and then went to dinner at a nearby restaurant.

When I got back from dinner, I asked the front desk for bubble bath and they said they would send some right up. Oh, heaven!!!! :) While I was waiting for them to deliver it, I turned on the TV to see what movies were available. Wait a minute-Star Movies is not at all clear!!! This is so not a good sign! A call down to the desk to see if they could do anything about it. "We'll send someone right up." "Ok. And don't forget about the bubble bath." "No problem."
10 minutes go by and no one comes. Another call to front desk. "Yes, yes, we're sending someone." I decided to start filling the tub. The person comes to tell me that they have no bubble bath and offers shampoo instead (so not the same). :( Then, I notice that the bottom of my pant leg is wet-on top of everything else, the bathtub is now leaking. Now, I'm demanding a new room. They offer me the one next door, but the first thing that I check out is the TV-no Star Movies at all and the rest of the English channels are fuzzy. *Sigh* At this point, I decide I just want to leave. It's already midnight and I need to get up for church the next morning. The power is back on at my apartment and I can at least watch VH1 there at no additional cost. After a minor discussion with the management, who wanted me to look at yet another room, I was on my way home. So much for pampering myself.

But, after all that, there's something to be said for falling asleep in your own bed. Or, maybe I was just too tired at that point to think about anything else-either way I slept wonderfully!

Pondicherry

Yea! So I've been here 3 months now and I've finally made my first trip out of Chennai. (Well, I suppose I could count the trips to Mahabalipuram, but that's too close! :) ) Pondicherry is about 2 1/2 hours south of Chennai. It is noteworthy because it was originally a French colony and still retains some of the French influence there. (Malinda, when you come to visit, we'll have to take a trip there! :) ) It's not actually part of Tamil Nadu, but, along with a couple of other French colonies makes up a Union Territory. Pondicherry also famous for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and nearby Auroville (the vision for international peace)-neither of which I visited on my trip. :)

I made the trip down with two of my co-workers-Raghu and Jeff (another American trainer). We conveniently took Raghu since he has family there and we could crash with them! :) Raghu's family lives in this traditional style family house-something that looks (to me!) like it would fit in at Dakshina Chitra (see my post on the same from April). There are two levels-with the family living on both, a big atrium-like place in the center, and a swing hanging from the ceiling on the lower floor. Staying with his family was nice-they stuffed us full with good South Indian food! The only bad part was the lack of A/C (can't imagine trying to A/C the house-too open air) and the mosquitoes that ate us alive! Oh, well, the price you pay for a vacation... :)

Like I said, I didn't visit either the ashram or Auroville-we just couldn't really seem to get our butts in gear in order to get there on time, but we did visit Sri Manakula Vinayager Temple, a temple dedicated to Ganesha (the elephant god). Jeff and I both tried to back away when the priest came around to put the ash blessing on our foreheads, but he very determinedly marked us anyway saying "Best of luck." I guess that's not too bad of a blessing. :)

Other than that, I spent most of my time shopping (much to Jeff's chagrin!) :) Yea! More salwars-and even I think they match! :) :) All in all it was a great trip and I hope to go back again soon!

Catching up

I know I've gotten a lot of worried emails lately, so I wanted to quickly let everyone know that I was ok. (And yes-will catch up with those emails soon.) Yes, there is severe flooding, but it is mostly concentrated around Mumbai (Bombay)-in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Here in Chennai, there has been some rain, but not torrential monsoon as there. In fact, here they are actually worried because the rains have not raised the water levels enough, which could make problems later on.

Other than that-just finished a hectic training session at work. Hopefully things will be calm for a couple of days so that I can recouperate-though there is a chance that I will have to change to days and do classroom training full-time. I have mixed feeling about that...

Be on the lookout for new posts, though, I will update you all on my weekend trip to Pondicherry! :) :) :)

Aesthetics

One of the things that I'm learning here is how different the Indian view of aesthetics is when compared with the American view. (To clear up any misunderstanding right off, aesthetics: a particular theory or conception of beauty or art : a particular taste for or approach to what is pleasing to the senses and especially sight.) One of the first examples that I had of this was when we first arranged our living room. At first, we had the typical arrangement of the sofa opposite the TV, flanked by two chairs. The "coffee table" that we were provided with was more of the size that I would use as an end table, but it was in the middle of the arrangement. However, once we receieved all of our furniture, Liz and I decided to be a little bit creative with the arrangement. We decided to leave the sofa opposite the TV but put the two chairs separated by the table on the perpendicular wall and leave their opposite open to the room. We liked the open feeling that it gave to the room. We also figured that a rug would tie the whole room together nicely. (Well, we still figure that, we just haven't purchased one yet. :) ) It was interesting to see the Indians react to our arrangment though. Our maid was the most concerned, trying to convince us to move one of the chairs back to the opposite side. Everyone else reacted with quizzical looks at the arrangement or the grudging comments of "I guess this arrangement is pretty ok."

The other instance where I've noticed this discrepancy is in shopping for clothing. I recently purchased a new salwar suit (pants, top and dupatta [scarf]) at Naidu Hall. When I went to try everything on, they handed me the pants and the top, but not the dupatta. I didn't think much of it since I figured that it wouldn't need to be altered like the other pieces. However, AFTER I had given them for tailoring, I noticed the dupatta and thought to myself "I don't think those colors really match." But I went ahead and purchased it anyway and took it home to ask Liz' opinon. She quickly agreed that it didn't match, so I, feeling better about my sense of color, decided to purchase material for one that I thought matched. Then the people at the matching center store [Indian] kept telling me that the colors on the original dupatta were "correct" and I didn't need to find another one. Interesting.

I guess this discrepancy may explain why I was unsuccessful in purchasing material to have another salwar suit made for me. For me, the problems were not only color, but also shapes ("No, the triangles on the top don't match with the paisley print on the pants!" or "Squares and circles just don't go together!") Is this proof that the American aesthetic is completely different than the Indian aesthetic? Or am I just too picky? :)