it's been raining since you left me, now i'm drowning in the flood

The monsoon hasn't caused the widespread chaos here that has been happening in Mumbai. This is quite fortunate, although to be expected since Hyderabad is v. far inland and so doesn't get quite as much rainfall as the coasts. However, this may hamper my trip to London on Friday--hopefully it stops raining by then, since I'm supposed to fly through Mumbai, and it looks like tons of flights are being cancelled due to the flooding :( I'm going to call the airline tomorrow and see if they have more information, although given the absolute hilarity that ensues whenever I try to call people who speak minimal English, I do not expect solid results.

The internet is finally working again in my apartment, although it's extremely slow. Last night, we celebrated six expat birthdays that are all packed into a three-week period in July/August by going out for dinner at Fusion 9, followed by drinks at Cinnabar Redd. Dinner was v. fun and v. tasty, and drinks afterwards were also fun, although it was quite disappointing when the bar shut down, in true Indian fashion, at 12:15am. But, I had six cosmopolitans, which was probably a bad idea since I have a sore throat, but as many of you know, I have a weakness for cosmopolitans. We came home, and of course the smart thing to do when everyone has been drinking is to shoot off some fireworks. I stayed away from the actual lighting, but I enjoyed watching them, and then we came up to my apartment and ate popcorn and hung out until three. Yay.

I slept extremely poorly last night, due in equal parts to alcohol, a fever, and a broken air conditioner. In my half-lucid state, I was sure that I was coming down with malaria, since I kept vacillating between burning and freezing, but I think that perhaps I was overreacting. I made it to brunch today, then took a two-hour nap, then went out to dinner at Peshawri. It's an Indian restaurant in the Sheraton, and some people really like it, but I am not a fan. There isn't much variety, and I prefer the ambience at Angeethi, although Peshawri utilizes red and green apron-bibs to differentiate between veg and non-veg eaters. So, with my red apron tied on, I felt like I could be at some seafood restaurant in the States, but alas I was stuck eating murgh makhni. Don't get me wrong, I love murgh makhni, but if I could have some steak and some deep-fried shrimp with a baked potato, I would be much much happier.

The head of the California office is visiting this week, so I will have to tone down my insanity just a little bit. Of course, this isn't really possible for me; case in point, he came upstairs to check out our apartment after dinner, and he went out onto the second-floor balcony. We never use the balcony, and apparently the pigeons know this--because when he opened the door, it was like some Hitchcock movie, with birds everywhere, and I definitely got some bird matter flung onto me. In my haste to evacuate, I said 'Jesus!' and pushed Arod, which did not help me to project the requisite team-player attitude. Sigh.

So, that was my weekend. Now I should go to bed--if I am going on vacation on Friday, I have tons to do before then. Goodnight!

guess i'll die another day

Before my cute little goth niece thinks that I'm turning into her, the above title is not meant to be disturbing or depressing; it's from Madonna's theme song to the most recent Bond movie, 'Die Another Day'. I forced Walter to listen to that song (and only that song!) when we drove from Stanford to Davis during fall finals week my senior year, and so it holds a v. special place in my heart.

However, I feel rather awful, and I'm guessing that it will get worse before it gets better. I woke up this morning with the sore throat, headache, and wracking cough that has taken over the city; the monsoon is not good for health, apparently. I thought I had escaped it, since most of the expats have already had it, but of course it had to wait until the week before my vacation to make its appearance known. I can't afford to miss any work this week, since I have much to do before I leave for London on Friday, so hopefully this thing won't knock me completely out of commission like it has everyone else.

I didn't blog yesterday because the internet in my apartment is dead. It's still not fixed today, but the person who was living in my old room left on Thursday, so I came down and plugged in to check my email. It's pretty likely that I won't blog tonight either, so please bear with me. Ranjit is making me sammiches, so I should go back upstairs shortly. However, I will give you a few details of the past two days:

Yesterday I worked, came home, and ate dinner with my roommates and others. We all sat around talking for a couple of hours, and then Lauren and I watched 'The Professional.' I was told that I would like it, since I expressed adoration for assassins, but this movie was definitely not what I was expecting. It was a great film, but not exactly light-hearted, and it starred a very young Natalie Portman who was apparently just as beautiful when she was 12 as she is now. After that, Lauren, Arod, and I sat around upstairs and talked until 1am--nothing like some girl-talk to make me feel like I'm not completely isolated from the rest of my life. I went to bed, and took forever to fall asleep--only to be woken up by a phone call from the California office at 2am. They were just checking to see if my phone was working, which was really irritating. After that, I was wide awake again, so I called my parents and didn't go back to bed until three.

I'd already made plans to go shopping today, which I fulfilled. I had one moment of absolute rage about the kids--I came down for breakfast, smelled and saw bruschetta (which looked amazing), tried to take a piece, and was told that I couldn't have it because it was for the babies. Only some vegan brats would eat bruschetta for breakfast, but I couldn't complain because they couldn't have the pancakes that Ranjit was making since they had eggs in them. So I ate a pancake, even though I *hate* pancakes, and thought dark thoughts as I watched the three-year-old scrape all the tomatoes off his bread and cover it in maple syrup instead.

After I successfully controlled my baser insticts, Holly and I went shopping. We went to Shoppers Stop, where I picked up underwear (I wash my own here since I don't want them to get ironed with the charcoal iron that burns everything, but I'm down to my last pairs, and it's so humid that even if I wash them today, they probably won't dry until at least Tuesday, and that will be too late to save me). Then we went to Cotton India--I tried to get them to shorten my jeans, but they claimed to have the wrong sewing machine for it, although they would shorten the skirts that I brought along as well. I picked out two more outfits there as well, and had fun using pantomime and drawings to indicate what necklines and lengths I wanted. I got home about 45 minutes ago, feeling extremely lightheaded and nauseous with a combination of illness and car-sickness. Now, I'm getting ready to eat sammiches, and then I'm going to take a nap before the birthday party tonight.

Have a great Saturday, everyone!

it was good, it was bad, but it was real

I had to be at the office at 7:30 this morning, and so I had quite the long day--it's pretty rare when I can be in the office for eleven hours and leave when it's still daylight outside. I left around 6:30pm to help Saamra, Lauren, and Arod look for birthday presents for Brian. We celebrated his birthday (and mourned Matthew's departure) by having dinner at Angeethi, since murgh makhni and garlic bread is amazing stuff.

We struck gold at The Dollar Store across from Touch; it had the same random hodgepodge of stuff that one would expect to find at a dollar store. I found this sculpture thingy that said 'friends' in various pastel colors, with doves perched on the letters. It may have even rivaled the awful ceramic things that we used to get for Mr. McFarland's birthday back in high school. We also got him a sari-clad Indian Barbie, a bunch of pop rocks, and a little black book (which we helpfully filled with random names and numbers). The best, though, was this shocking pen--it looks like a ballpoint, but when you push the button, it shocks you. The guy at the store showed it to us so that we knew it worked, and no one I was with wanted to try it. I'm stupid, and I'm used to getting shocked by my computer, so I figured it couldn't be that bad. So, I picked it up, pressed the trigger--and immediately dropped the pen because the damn thing was extremely powerful. It was like I had actually been electrocuted, and my thumb hurt for at least five minutes after that. The girls later pointed out that trying an Indian shocking toy was perhaps a bad idea, but it was extremely funny. The sad thing, though, was that Brian barely noticed when he got shocked, although whenever anyone else at the table tried it, they all agreed that it was awful. Who knew you could have so much fun with dangerous Indian electrical gadgets?

We also got Brian a cake, and we found some of those spontaneously-relighting candles. The waiters at Angeethi tried to light them for us, but they were taking forever, so we stopped them before the already-lit ones wore down. The candles themselves burned extremely high, like an old-fashioned lighter with the fuel turned all the way up, and they shot off nasty-looking sparks. They sparked even more when Brian tried to blow them out, and we ended up having to throw them in a glass of water since they wouldn't stop sparking.

Things are even more fun here than they are back home because nothing ever, *ever* works correctly the first time. For someone who enjoys absurdity as much as I do, this is a heaven-sent gift. The sparking candles, the strong shock of the toy pen, the amazingly ugly stuff that they had at the dollar store, all made me extremely happy. I'm going to be thoroughly sick of it by the time I get home, but tonight was great.

Now, though, it's time for bed--I need to rest up for the weekend. There are about six birthdays amongst the expats in the next two weeks, so we're having a big party Saturday night at Fusion 9, followed by drinks at Cinnabar Redd (this is convenient because they share a building and are owned by the same person). Sunday, we have an official work dinner thingy, and I have tons of work to do as well. But, a week from now, I will be packing my bags for Europe!

shocking appalling, all i can do for you

Today was good--I wore a new top to work, and it has a fringe of multifaceted beads hanging from the hem and the sleeves. There is nothing like a bunch of beads to make one feel more excited about things. And boy, was there a lot to be excited about--I had tons of stuff to do, as well as a conference call at 8:30pm, and I have another conference call at 7:30am tomorrow. That means I should really go to bed!

But, a few things of note before I sign off:

1) Watching trashy Hollywood-centered gossip TV in the States is depressing; watching trashy Hollywood-centered gossip TV in Hyderabad is freaking amazing. I just watched some show about the ultimate Hollywood blondes, which is why I'm still awake at midnight. I also watched 'Rockstar: INXS' tonight, which is really really good--I recommend it to all of you. I don't just like it because I have bad taste, scouts honor.

2) Mexican food is extremely tasty; I need to teach Ranjit how to make enchiladas. It was even better with the salsa con queso that Lizzie sent me. Mmm.

3) Vidya asked me to reference the 'dgim', whereby she sends me a 'daily gratuitous IM' every single day. So now I have referenced it. I hope that she is as happy that I mentioned her as I am that she IMs me every day.

Now, it's time for bed!

love is not a hand that holds you down

I made the mistake of taking a break as soon as I got home from work, rather than continuing to slog, and that break turned into several hours of eating dinner, watching 'Rockstar: INXS', surfing the net, and talking to Claudia. The end result is that I will have to get up early tomorrow to go into work, but I really want to go to bed tonight, and so I shall.

However, I'm ecstatic to report that Lizzie sent me salsa con queso with the most recent person to come from the California office! She officially qualifies as the rockstar of the week. I'm saving it for tomorrow, since I ate too many snacks at a three-year-old's birthday party to do the salsa con queso justice. The three-year-old is one of the children that I complained about in a previous post; the complaint was apparently justified, as his six-year-old sister came into my apartment tonight and punched one of my coworkers in the testicles. I was amazed at his control, since he didn't reflexively hit her (although apparently it was a close call). I'm so glad that I'm not a guy. Anyway, I love salsa con queso, and so I'm so excited about breaking it out tomorrow.

Lunch was good again today--they made cheesy garlic mashed potatoes, and so I was quite happy. Beyond that, I have nothing to report, other than to say that I have a hostel reservation for London! Yay! Ten days from now, I will be in Europe!

love inside the atom split

Today was great. This is because I actually ate something for lunch that wasn't a peanut butter sandwich or microwave popcorn. We switched food vendors today, and the new guys are really really good. Maybe they are just trying to impress us, but so far I am very happy. Apparently the first vendors had problems with rats and prodigious quantities of hair in the food, and so the second vendors were acceptable in comparison--but the second vendors made extremely greasy, nasty food that was very distressing over the long run. The new guys served some great tandoori chicken today, as well as a really tasty eggplant and potato dish that almost tasted like lasagna. The best, though, is that they have a salad/sandwich bar, which was fantastic--and judging by the fact that I haven't been violently ill yet, their vegetables are fairly safe. Yay. I normally fall into the 'boo vegetables' crowd, but since I have a tendency to want what I can't have, vegetables have become increasingly appealing here.

So, the unusual feeling of comfortable fullness in my stomach this afternoon made me almost giddy with excitement, and it was hard to concentrate on my work. I was in the office until 9:30, but much of the two hours between 6:30 and 8:30 was spent procrastinating until my conference call. There's a massage chair in the office, and so I sat in that for awhile as my back has been aching. The funny thing about the massage chair is that it's extremely powerful--as it was simultaneously squeezing my legs really hard and kneading into my neck, I vaguely wondered whether there was a chance that it would accidentally decapitate me. I emerged unscathed, however, and much more relaxed despite my fear of catastrophe.

I wore one of my new outfits to work today (see picture below), and received a lot of compliments for it. I think I managed to pull it off without looking like one of those despicable posers that I was so afraid of becoming; Vidya told me that since I'm not a dirty hippie trying to find myself by wearing Indian clothes, it's acceptable for me to wear salwar kameezes. Good--they're super super comfortable, and it felt like I was getting away with wearing my pajamas to the office. And the outfit had *sequins* on it. I never get to wear sequins! Between being able to eat lunch and getting to wear sequins to the office, today was a red-letter day indeed.

me in my sparkly salwar kameez - it gives me an excuse to wear sequins! the picture itself is in my living room, and i'm standing next to the swing of which i am so fond. 

i tried to blame it on the rain, but it was in my heart i guess

The rain here actually serves to make everything very dirty, since the flooding causes the rudimentary sewer system to overflow, spewing human and other waste across the roads. Since my pants are inevitably too long, the cuffs of my jeans absorb an uncomfortable amount of water, and I just feel dirty until I get home and can change into something dry. However, nothing that I own is exactly 'dry'; it's too humid for that. Also, my air conditioner, true to form, is now broken in a third way; the fan part has been fixed, and it no longer leaks, but now it does not output cool air, and it is not dehumidifying the room. Sadness. So my room feels like the swamp that one would expect, given my name.

But, I am going to go to a tailor this week to shorten my pants, as well as the two skirts that I bought today at Fabindia. I think that this is well worth my time, since the four inches that I usually just roll up at the bottom of my jeans will be four inches of fabric that I do not want to drag around Western Europe.

This weekend was very good, but I still want a vacation. Today, I had brunch at the Taj, then went shopping with Lauren. We went to Fabindia first, where I found the skirts; I got two identical skirts in different colors, since the merchandise changes every week and so I will never see those skirts again. Then we went to Cotton India, which is where I picked up my outfits yesterday. The women who work there should love me, since I went with Regina yesterday and then showed up today with Lauren, Matthew, Heather and Salim. We raided half their store, I think, and came away with lots of fun stuff. I did not buy as much as the rest of them, but then again I was there yesterday, and so I should have been able to keep from buying anything at all. I got a great shawl for the office, since the air conditioner works there and compensates for the warmth of the day by freezing all of us; I also got a funny, diaphonous chiffon scarf that made me feel like a creepy version of the Virgin Mary, and I had to add it to my collection if only because it could be a great piece of a Halloween costume. I also had visions of painting my face deathly white and trying to scare Ranjit some morning, but he would probably just think that I was hungry and so try to pump me full of mango smoothie, which I would despise. So, I shall be good.

After Cotton India, some of us went to Coffee Day, and then I came home and read for a couple of hours. Then, the same group that went to Cotton India, plus Arod, went to Ohri's for Chinese food. They have these amazing potatoes there that taste like garlic fries, and I had my favorite random drink there (it's called Drunken Shaolin Monk, and is made with rum, pineapple juice, grenadine, and a sparkly cocktail umbrella). Then, I came home, talked to my parents, and am now ready for bed.

I'm going to tempt fate and not take my malaria pill tonight; almost all of the other expats have stopped taking them, and I really need sleep. I'll make up for it by taking it tomorrow morning, which will probably make me sick--but tonight, I want to sleep dreamlessly. Goodnight!

wish upon a star, but do you know what stars are?

I posted a bunch of pictures below because it's been several weeks since I shared visuals of my experiences. I should have taken a picture of the dead rat that I saw being devoured by flies in the street today, since it may be a harbinger of the plague, but I decided to spare your sensibilities and my reputation.

I didn't wake up until after noon today, which was fantastic. I made my own breakfast, which felt good even if it was about the laziest breakfast I could have made; Ranjit had already prepared the egg mixture for the French toast, but he happened to be out of the kitchen when I went downstairs, so I performed the grueling tasks of dipping bread into the eggs, lighting the stove, and flipping the toast until it was done. Ranjit came in when I was halfway through and was quite upset that I didn't let him finish the toast, but I was feeling obnoxious and so I refused to give him the spatula. Flipping bread with a spatula doesn't really count as cooking, but it's as close as I've gotten since arriving here (unless you count adding hot water to cup-of-noodles, or making microwave popcorn, in which case I am quite an accomplished chef).

After breakfast, I saw Regina and Heather's apartments; this experience made me long for a house of my own, which I can paint and decorate to suit my whims. Regina got them to do some really cool accent painting, such as painting the ceiling and one wall a rich burgandy while leaving the other walls a very subtle cream. Her accent walls worked much better than the accent walls that mysteriously appeared in FloMo after I graduated; Loro lounge was pretty much ruined by the deep purple wall and the matching couches, and I'm glad I moved out before that travesty occured. Heather had some really cool artwork, and these great red drapes in the dining room that I found myself coveting. I was clearly born in the wrong decade, since I would love to sit at home and spend my husband's money rather than having a 'career' and 'independence.'

Actually that's untrue--I dreamed last night that my parents shipped my car to me, and I was extremely excited even though I realized in my dream that I probably shouldn't drive during rush hour. Independence is sorely lacking here, and thinking that I would be satisfied sitting at home redecorating all the time is probably a coping mechanism, so that I can believe that I am satisfied sitting in my apartment here all the time and going on shopping excursions every weekend.

Speaking of shopping excursions, after seeing the apartments I went to Cotton India with Regina to pick up the outfits that I got stitched last week. They turned out very well; I got two full outfits and two tops, and the stitching bill for everything came to Rs.610, or ~US$14. I will endeavor to get a picture taken when I wear one of the outfits. The outfits are called salwar kameezes, and they consist of a calf-length tunic (slit up to the waist to enable movement) over a matching pair of pants. The glorious thing about buying outfits here is that they are all so bright. One top that I got has bold vertical stripes, mostly in the red family, with colored beads dangling from the sleeves and the waist; the other top is a bright blue with mirrorwork down the front and on the sleeves. One outfit has a calf-length tunic with an almost irridescent combination of navy and green, with green pants and a matching navy/green scarf; the other outfit has a red tunic with sequins, with white pants and a white scarf. Yay for colors. Unfortunately, since I was with Regina I had ample opportunity to buy more stuff there, as she loves to shop--I resisted the urge to buy more outfits, but I did get a couple of shawls at a very reasonable price.

After that, we went to Qmart to pick up groceries. I intended to get dropped off at Coffee Day so that I could work on my romance novel, but at that point it was after five, and so we went home instead. Ranjit made v. tasty pasta and chicken parmesan for dinner, and Lauren and I watched the penultimate stage of the Tour de France; Lance Armstrong dominated, as expected, and he's definitely going out in style. We were going to watch 'Hero' afterwards, but it had been dubbed instead of utilizing subtitles, and the people doing the dubbing seemed to barely speak English. We quit after about eight minutes, since it was impossible to understand the dubbed words and it was completely ruining the film. They even dubbed the grunts and moans of the first fight scene, which was an indication that it could only go downhill from there.

So, that was my Saturday. I'm going to go to bed now in an effort to get even more caught up on my sleep deficit, since that sleep decifit is likely to start growing again as I do everything that has to get done before I go on vacation. Goodnight!

The view of Banjara Hills Rd. #12 (aka Pizza Hut Road) from the balcony of Cotton India. This is one of the most important roads in Hyderabad, which should explain why traffic becomes disastrous during the rains--the drainage here is actually comparatively decent. 

Regina outside Qmart. 

We first noticed this billboard because it has my name on it; it merited a picture because the girl looks too incredibly unhappy to successfully advertise a preschool. 

Inside Qmart, where we buy groceries. 

The very strange ambience in the lounge at Touch. 

I came home this week to find scaffolding set up on the outside of our apartment. They're apparently fixing something using the tried-and-true stick scaffolding; they also like to leave the extra sticks lying in the driveway so that they impede our drivers. 

The elevator at Angeethi. Only one of the two elevators is labeled 'fire escape lift', even though Angeethi is on the seventh floor and a prominently-displayed sign says 'in case of fire, do not use lift'. Fascinating. 

the world serves its own needs, listen to your heartbeat

I went to work today, even though my stomach will probably not be better until I stop being stressed (i.e. when I go on vacation). I had dinner with Lauren and the Matts at Touch, the extremely amusing restaurant/lounge with the funny white drapes and modern furniture. I took some pictures, and so I will post one tomorrow, perhaps. Dinner was v. tasty; I had bruschetta, and Greek salad, and spaghetti with a cream sauce, and a chocolate brownie for dessert. I also had a cosmopolitan (always my downfall) and some blue drink that contained blue curacao. Dinner was entertaining, partially because I allowed my imagination free rein and ended up envisioning me and Lauren personifying two different Indian mafia members (named after our favorite Indian dishes, murgh makhni and subz miloni respectively) engaged in a driveby autorickshaw shootout. I'm still friends with everyone involved, and so my imagination hasn't scared them away yet. Yay.

After dinner, the Matts and I watched 'Sin City'; I'd seen it in California before coming here, and I was quite happy to watch it again. This was a slightly illicit copy (quite possibly filmed in the cinema) and so there were no special features, but the quality was surprisingly good. I split a bottle of wine with one of the Matts, which was nice, and after the movie was over we sat around and talked about work, Hyderabad, the future, etc. It is quite refreshing to stay up until three a.m. socializing rather than working, and so I'm very happy that this happened.

I'm falling asleep while writing this, so it's time for bed!

i get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine

My stomach has been hurting for days and I've ranged from vaguely to extremely nauseous. This morning I came to the realization that a) it cannot be food poisoning if it has lasted for so long, and b) I won't get better by going to work on five hours of sleep and subsisting on poptarts and Diet Coke. So, I stayed home, popped some Cipro, ate some toast, and had a generally queasy, un-fun day. I wouldn't have gotten anything done at work anyway, since I felt miserable and probably would have had the same near-fainting episode that I had yesterday; but I still felt the creeping sense of guilt that I always have when I'm not deathly ill. It's like I can't accept that there is anything that should keep me from working 10-14 hours, and that a long-lasting stomachache should not affect me. So in response to yesterday's post, I can say that there was nothing today to keep me in the game. Sad.

I really have nothing to report, other than surprise that another week has passed so quickly. I've been here three full months, which means that my time here is halfway complete. Shocking. I think I'll go to bed rather than writing another novella, since sleep is probably the best cure that I could seek.

adrenaline keeps me in the game

I don't even want to talk about how much work I did today, although if I told you that I took two hours off for dinner and a slight amount of Tour-watching before doing a conference call and more work, and that I got up at eight a.m., you can probably figure it out. The title of this post is from Gavin Rossdale's song 'Adrenaline' from the 'XXX' soundtrack; it almost (almost) makes me want to see 'Constantine' again just because he played a devil in it, although the movie was pretty terrible. Anyway, here's a brief list of all the things currently keeping me in the game:

1) Electricity. Namely, I had to plug in my laptop, and if I touch anything other than the keyboard and mouse (such as any metal, ports, or the power cord itself), I get shocked. That's not good, is it? Either it's going to set my desk on fire someday, or it's actually a safe but brutally effective measure on the part of my employer to make sure that I keep working to avoid pain. Brilliant!

2) Europe. I will be on vacation in slightly more than two weeks! That almost makes is worth the fact that I can't take a break until then.

3) Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Today is the 61st anniversary of the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. I wish that I had brought 'Letters and Papers from Prison' with me; it really puts things into perspective. Above Bonhoeffer's cell door in Tegel Prison, a previous inmate had scrawled 'in one hundred years it will all be over.' That is true of so many things in this world, including my fatigue, my job, my friendships, and possibly the current position of the magnetic poles (that change would be much cooler than losing all my friends because I never talk to them, although unfortunately less likely to happen). Unfortunately I did not celebrate this anniversary by watching 'The Bourne Identity' with friends like I did last year. But, tonight I am thinking of Bonhoeffer (actually all of them, especially Dietrich and Klaus), Dohnanyi, von Moltke, Oster, Stauffenberg, and all the other people involved in that ultimately suicidal attempt to make one last, fruitless stand against evil. You should think about them too.

4) Our Lady Peace. They're releasing a new album at the end of August! Too bad it's not coming out a month sooner; their last album was the soundtrack to my last trek across Europe, and it would be nice to continue that tradition.

5) Peanut butter. Peanut butter is my friend and ally, since it is virtually the only thing that I eat during the day. By six-thirty tonight, I thought that I was going to faint from hunger and exhaustion; I definitely would have fainted had I not gotten an apple and slathered it in peanut butter. At the time it did not matter to me that the apple was probably washed in cholera-infected water, although Walter pointed out that this was rather imprudent. Oh well, time is running out for me to catch the bubonic plague, and I might be willing to settle for cholera at this point. Then I can pretend to be a Scandanavian immigrant, imagine that my bed is Ellis Island and the hall outside is America, and die under my covers while staring forlornly at the promised land that I shall never reach.

Okay, I really really really need to go to bed. I hope that something will be able to keep me in the game tomorrow, or else Thursday will be quite painful.

tell me i'm the only one, tell me there's no other one

I shall not write for long because it's already after one a.m. I was stupid and came home by seven, and then dinner wasn't ready until eight, and then I didn't start working again until ten, and so I didn't get everything done that absolutely *had* to be done until about three minutes ago. My to-do list is typically extremely long and has stars beside everything that really needs to get done; now, it's gotten to the point where there are too many stars, and so I've started making big, scary boxes over the stars to highlight the things that really should have been done yesterday. There were eleven things on my list with boxes when I came home, and I did four of them, leaving seven for tomorrow. Then I can move on to the starred things, and maybe after that start the rest of the list; but the stars will very soon graduate to boxes, and so the process continues unabated.

But, vacation is coming in two and a half weeks! My time here is absolutely flying by. I've already been here three months, and I really do think that I've accomplished a lot in that relatively short amount of time. Perhaps what I have accomplished is to decrease my own life expectancy, but I would like to believe that I have done some good things work-wise. I have probably done some damage to my relationships, since I am a lazy correspondent and usually can't talk for long on IM since I'm at work when I'm online, but I hope that they will recover during the 'reverse month of fun' that I have planned for my return. Before I left for India, I had a 'month of fun' in which I packed in all of the activities that I would have done over the summer (terrible movies, beach barbecues, clubbing, dinners, tea parties, lots of dim sum, etc.). When I come back from India, I'm going to have a reverse month of fun to reintroduce myself into my social circles; rather than April, when everything slowly built up and culminated in a great series of parties, November will begin with a great party and slowly die as people lose interest in welcoming me back, so that by Thanksgiving I will once again be complacently watching VH1 and the History Channel with my roommates. Yay.

I think my air conditioner is fixed; it's not leaking, which is great news. I don't expect it to stay fixed, but if I can sleep tonight with cool air and without the sound of water dripping into a bucket, I will be a very happy camper. But this is all you shall get out of me tonight; I absolutely must go to bed.

i bless the rains down in india

You get two posts from me tonight, because my brother wrote a song for me. It will make much more sense if you can listen to Toto's seminal song 'Africa' while reading the lyrics, since it is set to that tune. This is yet another volley in the siege against my desire to stay in California; since I nearly started crying from trying so hard not to laugh at work, I must grudgingly admit that my brother scored at least a fleeting victory before my heart hardened again. We may shoot the music video while he's visiting, if all y'all are lucky...
---------------------------------------------

I hear the bums heckling tonight
As she mumbles nonsense about her boring occupation.
Giving lonely women much delight
Her writing dreams are born from bad malaria medication.
I thought about it a lot today,
Trying to find a reason for my sister to write pornography.
Writing romance novels is the way, Redeploy! We're waiting here for you!


CHORUS:
What we want is to take Sara away from you,
Bring her home where she can eat lots of cows, that moo.
She can bring her bedding home from India.
And spend her time trying to hook up with a scurvy Lad!

The peacock yelps in great delight,
As you move into a place that smells of a very rich mahogany.
I know that everyone in this town is white,
But surely you've had your fill of an everyday life of friends with diversity.
I want you to be right by my side, to help you beat your addiction to Dim Sum!


CHORUS
What we want is to take Sara away from you,
Bring her home where she can eat lots of cows, that moo.
She can bring her bedding home from India.
And spend her time trying to hook up with a scurvy Lad!

(Instrumental break)

What we want is to take Sara away from you!


I don't know what it will take to convince you,
Don't forget about eating Iowa cows, that moo!
I'll get bedding when I visit India, I'll get diseases when I come to India.
I'll get bedding when I visit India, I'll get diseases when I come to India.
I'll get bedding when I visit India...

In time you'll see that Allerton's not so bad!

in the shape of things to come, too much poison come undone

I finished the sixth Harry Potter book tonight; it was quite good, although I was annoyed at one scene [extremely mild spoiler] in which J.K. Rowling shamelessly lifted the Dead Marshes from 'The Lord of the Rings'. I can't wait to see the movie, and see how they manage to make it not look exactly like 'The Two Towers'; maybe they can even get the same actors to play dead people, 'cause that would rock.[/extremely mild spoiler]

Anyway, I won't say anything else about the book since few people have read it yet. I was tired at work today; I do not remember my dreams from last night, but I did not sleep well. The lack of sleep was compounded by my broken air conditioner, since it was quite hot in my room. It's still leaking, but I found a bucket, so I'm using it, and damn the consequences.

A storm is beginning to rage outside, and the lightning is illuminating my room when the flickering power cannot. I am listening to 'Milan', a beautiful electronica song that Can Sar sent me, and dreaming, starry-eyed, of my upcoming trip to Italy. It is on nights like tonight when I wonder how I got here, how I am lounging in silken splendour, gazing out across the chilly marble of my room to watch the lashing rains of the monsoon wreaking havoc on the desolate fields outside my enclosed apartment complex. I wonder what step it was that got me here--for it was not enough to just say 'yes' when I was asked to move to India, but there was a whole series of crossroads that led to that fateful choice, that made the 'yes' not only possible, but inevitable. And that, invariably, leads to the question of what as-yet-unseen choice has been made possible, inevitable, by my time here. Unfortunately, there is no answer to that question; but even if there was, I doubt that it will come to me tonight. Therefore, it's time to sleep!

all of these things are written in the sand behind me

Today was great. I slept forever, and woke up in time to go to the Taj for brunch, where I had absolutely delicious linguine with a spicy tomato sauce. I came straight home after lunch, and I spent five hours immersed in the newest Harry Potter book; yes, it's ostensibly written for children, but the storyline is quite engrossing, and I'm a sucker for good-vs-evil epics. It came out yesterday, and I was quite surprised to find a copy of it here. Since I am a fast reader, I read over 400 pages this afternoon, and so am two-thirds of the way through it. This made it very tempting to skip dinner, but I had already made plans for it, and so I reluctantly went to Angeethi despite my desire to finish my book. The food was as tasty as always, and I drowned my quiet frustration in murgh makhni and garlic naan. When I came home, I was a good girl and called my parents rather than continuing to read; as the conversation lasted for approximately two hours, this may have been a mistake, but my soul is better for it. Now, unfortunately, I should go to bed and get some sleep before my malaria dreams shake me from my slumber.

Talking to my family is always fun, and I'm excited for them to come in September. I'm under siege in a hard-fought war to get me to move home, and so conversations have been extremely entertaining of late. Unfortunately for my family, there are no Starbucks back home, and the idea of writing without an endless stream of cafes au lait and mocha frappuccinos is slightly less appealing. But, it was pointed out to me that I could buy the local bar, thus establishing a 'steady stream of income'...but this dubious plan will have to wait for another day. Perhaps it will be included in my dreams of the end of the world tonight; serving Budweisers to my high school classmates while freezing to death under a mountain of snow seems like just the right finale to my otherwise bizarre and random life.

I shall leave you to debate whether or not I should move back to Iowa someday; for now, it is time for bed!

separate's always better when there's feelings involved

Kalanjali has replaced Crate and Barrel in my affections. Actually, that's not entirely true, but since Crate and Barrel is half a world away, while Kalanjali is only half an hour away, I am left with little choice in the matter. Also, Kalanjali cannot provide me with the sundry kitchen gadgets that Crate and Barrel has forced upon me over the years...but it does have a prodigious supply of bedding. They must love me there, as I acquired my third and fourth bedspreads there today; I delved into their supply of reds, and came away with a lovely red silk set, as well as a more fun dark-red cotton spread with interesting cut-outs filled with red organdy. The best part of the Kalanjali shopping experience is that they have possible the most inefficient check-out system known to man. After choosing the bedspreads (quite the task, requiring two men to unfurl half the bedspreads in the store in a successful attempt at temptation), they were rung up at the register nearest the bedding section. However, you cannot pay at that register; instead, they hand-carry the bedspreads to the checkout area so that shoppers can continue to search for merchandise unimpeded by previous purchases. I looked around and found nothing else to suit my fancy, and so proceeded to the checkout counter. The counter is v-shaped; one side is labeled 'payment', and the other side is labeled 'delivery'. You go to the payment side, hand the man your receipts from the first register, and he rings you up again and takes your payment. He then hands you your receipts, and you take four steps to the left so that you are in the delivery section. The man at the delivery counter, after having leisurely watched you pay for everything, proceeded to check all the receipts, matching them to your bags of merchandise, and rubber-stamping 'delivered' on all of the receipts. He then gives you your receipts, as well as some pink slips. You take ten steps to the exit, and at the exit, you have to present the pink slips to the security guard so that he knows that you have paid. This whole process required four different exchanges of receipts, the last three exchanges all occurring within ten feet of each other. Fascinating.

I was quite lazy today; I did a bit of work after breakfast, and then went to Kalanjali with Arod. This took awhile, since the traffic was bad; and, the salesmen sensed a willing victim and so spent prodigious amounts of time displaying their wares. We got home around 4:30, and I started reading 'Friday's Child' by Georgette Heyer. I finished it tonight, since I can't stand to put down a book once I've started it; that should explain to you why my language is even more stilted and Victorian than usual. While I was out, I picked up a copy of the newest Harry Potter book, but I did not start to read it yet as I was feeling more in need of a romance than a dark children's fantasy. I had a quiet dinner at home with Lauren, and took a break from the book to watch TV with her. We were going to watch the Tour, but it was interrupted for a cricket match (blasphemy! replacing one ridiculous sport for another!), and so we watched HBO India instead. While HBO in the States prides itself on running current movies, even if those movies are of dubious quality, HBO India runs movies that are at least five years old, and possibly up to twenty. We got sucked into 'Urban Legends', and it was terrible; it might even be capable of giving 'The Order' and 'Reign of Fire' a run for their collective money, although I doubt that anything can break my heart more than Heath Ledger's disastrous turn as a defrocked priest who becomes a Sin Eater (if you haven't seen it, you won't know what this means, but I encourage you to protect your innocence and remember Heath Ledger from better endeavors, such as 'Ten Things I Hate About You', 'A Knight's Tale', and 'The Patriot', dubious as even those movies are). 'Urban Legends' did have a Theoden-esque level of so much death--it seemed that someone died every five minutes or so, usually in an impossibly bloody way. So, it was entertaining in a completely mindless way, which was fun.

Since I did very little today, I have nothing to report, and so I should probably go to bed. My bedroom is rather uncomfortable, since the air conditioner started leaking on Thursday and only ceases its attempts to flood my room when I turn it off. It will supposedly be fixed on Monday, but until then I am left to the ineffective ministrations of the noisy ceiling fan. But, 'Hey Ya' just came up on my random iTunes playlist, which enthuses me to no end and gives me the strength and fortitude to conquer my overly-warm sleeping conditions. Goodnight everyone!

you're a pill to ease the pain of all the stupid things i do

I'm so tired; I have work that I should do, but I'm going to go to bed instead. Luckily for me, the twelve-hour time difference means that if something is needed in California by Friday night, I can get up and do it on Saturday morning. Yippee.

I went to work, of course, and did some stuff. I left around seven with Arod, Uma, and Ruksha to go shopping. Traffic was absolutely horrendous, because there was a lot of rain and lightning today, and consequently there was a lot of flooding and various roads were washing out. So, it took an hour and a half to get to Banjara Hills, which normally would take less than half an hour. By the time we got there, Uma had to leave (it took her another hour and a half to get home). Ruksha, Arod and I hung out for awhile at Cotton India; they sell the materials for various Indian outfits, and I got enough stuff for two complete outfits as well as two tops. I will endeavor to post pictures when I have the outfits, which should be by mid-week. After shopping, we took an autorickshaw (extremely wet!) to Ohri's, where we had tasty Indian food; the driver finally made it back from dropping off Uma, and Arod and I got home around midnight.

Tonight was quite entertaining, all in all, although there were prolonged bits of conversation that I couldn't understand since Ruksha and Arod were talking to the storekeepers and tailors mostly in Hindi. The shop was much different from the impersonal, polished splendor of Hyderabad Central; it was a tiny room lined with shelves piled high with fabrics, and the street-facing 'wall' was missing, thus exposing the store to the elements. After we chose fabrics, we took them to the next store/room over where the tailors were located, and they took our measurements and determined what necklines and shirt lengths we wanted. That type of shopping, compared with the autorickshaw ride and the fact that we actually crossed a busy street without being accompanied by one of the drivers, made me feel like we had won some precious moment of freedom. I am back in my gilded cage tonight, but for a couple of hours I almost felt like a real person again.

Ohri's was fun; we had murgh makhni (not as good as Angeethi's murgh makhni, but murgh is murgh and always tasty), and we were thoroughly harassed by the overly-attentive staff. Ohri's is like a very upscale food court; the top floor is the Far East (Chinese food--my favorite Chinese food in Hyderabad, I think, although Mainland China gives it a run for its money), the middle floor is upscale Indian, and the ground floor is sort of a cafe with baked goods and traditional Hyderabad biryani (a rice dish of sorts). We stopped on the ground floor to pick up some cake, and I was bemused to discover that all of the waiters were wearing 'flair' a la 'Office Space'. In other words, they were all wearing various buttons; one said 'I Survived The Titanic', which surely meant something of which I am unaware, but it was so strange that I stared at it for far too long and got caught in the staring. Not that that matters, since I get stared at all the time, but I wish I hadn't been caught. They were also wearing aprons with strategically-placed pockets to form smiley-faces, and every time a customer beat the gong to indicate that they were happy, the waiters all had to yelp in some sort of Pavlovian response. Very, very strange.

If I'm going to get up and work, I should really go to bed. I do want to pass on one strong recommendation to everyone reading this: pack up your bags, quit what you're doing, and move someplace completely random. It's an absolutely amazing experience, even if at times it is frustrating to deal with culture barriers, food misadventures, and general outsider status.

Oh, and if you're interested, I want to play Indian Cricket Mafia--if you don't know what mafia is, don't ask. If you do know what mafia is and you want to play, let me know. If I moderate you'll have to accept that I'll have to be asleep during part of the day, but surely you can handle that. Now, it's time for bed!

carve your name into my arm, instead of stressed i lie here charmed

I do not know what I would do without my laptop. I spend practically every waking moment with it; the only time today that I was awake and not using my laptop was a) taking a shower/getting dressed, b) in the car on the ten-minute drive to/from work, c) while making a peanut butter sandwich for lunch (which I ate at my desk), d) while eating dinner, e) while watching the Tour for half an hour, and f) while saying goodbye to Thomas. Combined, that's perhaps three hours of non-computer time. Sadness. The laptop has become an extension of my person; it's like having a second brain, and I am better able to control it than I am my own feet. I am essentially a prototype cyborg. The machine has become a part of me, so that I can no longer tell where my reality ends and the cyberworld begins. I start to get twitchy if I go more than an hour without checking my email. Europe will be interesting; it will be the longest that I have gone without near-continuous internet access since...well, probably the last time I went to Europe. I've had this laptop almost two years, and I have spent more time with it than all of my friends combined. How sad is that?

Work continues to work me, but that's okay because it ensures that I stay in constant contact with my laptop, which makes me feel safe and secure. I came home tonight and watched the last half-hour of the Tour; it was not a particularly exciting stage, and so I will not go into detail. We also had a brief farewell chat with Thomas after dinner, since he is going back to the States tonight. The office here is really great in the sense that everyone truly seems to care when people leave; there were several people who were openly sobbing when Thomas left the office for the last time. I don't think that I caused anyone to shed tears when I left California, particularly not at the office. So the atmosphere here is very friendly and warm, but it's also a little overwhelming for someone with my sarcastic sense of humor and jaded sensibilities.

Anyway, I came upstairs after the final farewell and caught the last part of tonight's 'Rock Star'. Then, I watched 'Arrested Development'; I'd never seen it in the States, but it was playing tonight on Star World. I *love* it. It stars Jason Bateman, who I fell in love with during 'Dodgeball' ('Pepper needs new shorts!'), and it is somewhat reminscent of 'Scrubs' and other completely absurd shows and movies. I love absurd things, and so 'Arrested Development' is right up my alley. Roommates, be forewarned that we're watching 'Arrested Development' this fall--you won't regret it. If you could handle watching such gems as 'High Hitler' (a History Channel documentary of Hitler's addiction to various medications and possible case of Parkinson's disease), 'Arrested Development' should be no problem for you.

I came upstairs to discover that my air conditioner is leaking, and so I had to shut it off. Luckily it probably only got up to 85 or 90 degrees today, and so the ceiling fan is quite sufficient. So, I shall go to bed, and hopefully I will dream of icestorms and the end of the world even though I am not under the immediate influence of my malaria pills.

i needed you more when you wanted us less

I came home and watched the Tour tonight, fueling up for some hardcore spectating by eating Ranjit's Mexican food. The stage was decent, but not as exciting as yesterday's; Alexandre Vinokurov from Khazakhstan won the stage, but Armstrong retained the yellow jersey. Hopefully I will get to watch again tomorrow, although I have quite a bit of work to do.

After the Tour, I came upstairs and caught up on some emails while watching TV. They're showing 'Rock Star' on the Star World channel; I'm super excited about this, because I read about it in the New York Times and was sad that I was missing out on what promises to be one of the better reality shows in recent memory. And by 'better' I mean 'actually decent', not 'fabulously terrible' like 'The Surreal Life' on VH1. If you haven't heard, the premise is that the band INXS is looking for a lead singer to replace the dude who died awhile back, and they're doing it with the help of Dave Navarro and an American Idol-style competition. Judging by the performances tonight, though, this is much better than 'American Idol', mostly because the performers are more hard-core rockers than whiny pop babies. I will have to make an effort to navigate the strange and constantly-changing world of Indian television stations and schedules so that I can see it again in the future.

During commercial breaks, I discovered that Star World is also airing 'Invasion Iowa', William Shatner's rather mean show about the town of Riverside, Iowa. Essentially, the town has built its entire tourism industry around the fact that Captain Kirk will be born there in the future, and so William Shatner comes to Riverside and tells the townspeople that he's going to film a movie and wants them to be extras. I read someplace that he ended up feeling horribly guilty about the whole deal because the townspeople were so friendly. But hey, Riverside got some major publicity out of the deal--if anyone wants to make a reality show about round barns, I have an ideal location for you. You can also stay in my brother's room while you're filming, I"m sure he wouldn't mind.

After 'Rock Star', the randomest of shows came on--'JAG'!! I would only have been happier if it had been 'Walker, Texas Ranger'. I hadn't seen this episode before (to be expected, since I stopped watching when I went to college, and so have only seen the Christmas episodes and anything playing during my infrequent summer visits home); it was the one where all of the actors are recast as characters on a hospital ship during the battle of Iwo Jima. I'm guessing that they did it because people were waiting forever for Rabb and Mackenzie to finally get together, and this was the only way they could do it without ruining the overall storyline. Of course, in this episode, they kiss, and five seconds later the Japanese attacked the ship and Mackenzie got killed. But, the kiss itself was v. satisfying. Maybe this betrays the depths of my middle-Americaness--but I can't help it. I like just about anything with hot people and explosions, and 'JAG' provides both of those key elements.

Okay, I should probably go to bed, since I have to be in the office at eight tomorrow morning. The weekend cannot come fast enough!

destroy the world that we took so long to make

I decided that I had to slack off today; and by slack off, I mean work for nine hours and then come home to watch the Tour de France before having a conference call at 9:30pm. Walter was giving me race updates over IM until around 6:15, at which point I threw in the towel and came home.

The stage today was *amazing*; Lance Armstrong retook the yellow jersey, and the guy who had it at the beginning of today's stage lost approximately twenty minutes. Twenty minutes is a lifetime; Armstrong and the Discovery Team were completely unstoppable. I will probably do exactly the same thing tomorrow, although I'll have to do some work while watching the stage since I do have some things piling up. I love the announcers, though--we get the same commentary that is played on the Outdoor Life Network in the States, and I adore their British accents and their ridiculous euphemisms. However, I do get frustrated when Zee Sports cuts away from their commentary to have two Indians who are watching exactly the same coverage that is being broadcast talk about their opinions on the race. They clearly don't know a lot about cycling (neither do I, but I can spot imposters pretty easily), and one commentator actually compared a mountain stage of the Tour de France to an ice cream cone. This was, quite frankly, completely absurd. However, I do appreciate that they are called Zee Sports; as some of you know, I like replacing 'the' with 'zee' in online conversations, and so Zee Sports is made for me. They have several other channels, such as Zee News and Zee Cafe (Zee Cafe plays syndicated US sitcoms, like 'Friends' and 'Will and Grace').

I don't get Zee Sports in my room for some reason, and so I had to watch the Tour downstairs; one other person here is really into it, but it's hard to hear the TV over the clamor of people eating dinner. I have come to the realization that I really am turning into my mother; she used to say that she didn't like any kids but her own, and I am discovering that I share that trait. We both love all the kids related to us, but I have a fairly small amount of tolerance for strangers' kids. That's actually not true--kids are adorable, and they're fun to have around. However, I do not like to have them around when I've been at the office for thirteen hours and just want to have a quiet dinner without watching some three year old smear pasta all over his face.

I mean, the kids are really cute, but I think that I'm annoyed because I'm seeing this as an ongoing problem, since they're visiting their father for a month and so will be at every dinner from now until August. I can handle a meal at a time, but the prospect of sharing every meal in perpetuity with children who are not my own is a little daunting.

And that, friends, is as close as I will come to blogging about anything resembling office conflict :) This isn't even really a conflict; in general it's great that the guy's family was able to come out, and it makes this feel more like a home than a dorm. Now I will stop this line of thought before the pendulum swings back to annoyance rather than acceptance.

My eyes were apparently super-green today; they usually go unremarked, but every once in awhile they're apparently eerily green and draw several comments. I'm sad that I never get to see them in that state, since it always makes me curious. I don't know what triggers it; I'm always wearing something different when it happens, and I'm not usually in the same light source (today I was in the cafe). I'd like to believe that the color intensifies and fades with my moods, since that's a very romance-novel trait, but it's probably something more mundane, like the amount of allergen deposits on my contacts. Sigh.

Despite all this, Gavin Rossdale will rock me to sleep tonight. It's only three and a half weeks until I go to Europe!! Let's hope I make it that long...

here comes a lie...we will always be true

In answer to my oldest niece's concern that my post titles are indicative of some deep-rooted mental illness...well, that may be true, but it's more like insanity than typical depression, and so there is no need to worry. Actually, virtually every title has nothing to do with the post itself (as you've probably already discovered), but is instead a lyric from the song of the moment.

Today's lyric, for instance, is from 'Little Things' by Bush. I'm pleased to hear that Gavin Rossdale is touring with his new band, Institute, this summer, and my friends are no doubt pleased to realize that I am in no position to force them to drive to LA and catch a concert with me. I have a Google News Alert set up to tell me every day whenever there are new stories about Gavin Rossdale, and it's great that I'm now getting actual news about him, rather than just mentions of him as a footnote to Gwen Stefani's meteoric rise to fame.

My residents from Mirlo will no doubt shudder in some sort of Pavlovian response to the mere thought of 'Little Things'; I was obsessed with Bush during my junior year, right after they released their final album. Shedletsky claims that he can recognize the bass lines of most Bush songs because they lulled him to sleep through our shared wall, but I am sure that he is exaggerating. By senior year I had moved on to Counting Crows, and so the Loroites will probably not have such a visceral reaction to my praise for Gavin Rossdale. Of course, I did have a large poster of Gavin Rossdale that served as the sole decoration on an entire wall of my overly-large single, so the obsession apparently still lingered. I used to turn on the lamp that was perfectly positioned to light up his poster whenever I wanted to look especially creepy, and I'm sure that it had the desired effect.

Regardless of the paths that my life takes, Bush will always be able to comfort me. The lyrics are in general very angry, but also completely nonsensical, and so at times they fit my mood perfectly. I'm usually completely nonsensical when I'm at my angriest, since my attempts to control my temper usually cause all rational thoughts to flee.

Anyway, I have nothing of substance to report. I went to work, came home, and ate dinner; Ranjit made this amazing pesto pasta, mostly as a result of his friendship with Fernando. Fernando is this Spanish dude who, for reasons that have never been clear to me, is hanging out in Hyderabad with some Speedo-wearing friend of his and sometimes cooking at the Taj. Fernando is very nice, however, and he is teaching Ranjit how to make Italian food in exchange for lessons in Indian cuisine. I had quite an amusing conversation with them tonight as Fernando and I were trying to explain to Ranjit what walnuts are; Fernando wanted pine nuts for the pesto sauce, which were not available, and so tried for walnuts without success. He ended up making the pesto with cashews, but it was still delicious. The Speedo-wearing friend does not come to our apartment; instead, he spends a significant amount of his life by the pool looking too European for words. Or I should say, too Mediterranean for words; the Europeans I know (namely Can Sar) typically do not spend the entire day in a Speedo unless things have changed drastically in my absence.

I had a conference call at 8:30, and then I should have done some work, but I was too tired for it and so am going to go to bed instead. I do not remember my malaria dreams from last night, although I do not think that blizzards played a role in them; I vaguely remember dreaming that I lost something, but now I cannot remember what I lost. But, I did not sleep well, and so it's Malaria Pills 13, Sara 0. Perhaps I should switch the night that I take them, since it is really annoying to start the week on a small amount of sleep.

I was sad today to verify that Eve 6 will not make another album. I saw them near the end of their career at a rather depressing concert; they played to fifty or a hundred Stanford students during a poorly-publicized event on Wilbur Field, and they seemed to be drunk and annoyed. I still love 'Think Twice' and 'Open Road Song', but I wish that they could have gone out without me happening to catch them as I was picking Claudia up on campus. But, the thought of Gavin Rossdale's upcoming album will keep me going. Now, it's time for bed!

loving would be easy if your colors were like my dream

I just took my malaria pill, and so I am excited to see what I dream about tonight. I also just wrote half a chapter of my romance novel; I'm through part of chapter seven, which is pretty good, although it's awful that it's been almost a month since I finished chapter six. When I sit down and write, it goes really quickly (I wrote ~1400 words today), but it's finding the time that is tricky.

Today was very lazy; I went to brunch at the Taj Krishna, and was happy to find that the Sri Lankan band was back after a month-long vacation, sporting new outfits but still singing the same songs (namely, 'Welcome to India' and a cover of 'Hotel California'). After brunch I came home and did nothing, although I did spend some time catching up with Walter; he's the only person I can talk to easily in the afternoon, since it's morning his time, rather than absurdly-early morning like it is in California. I worked on my romance novel, then went to dinner at Fusion 9 as a going-away thing for Ramsey. It was fun, and the food was really good; I had a salmon dish which may or may not have contributed to the intense stomach cramping that I felt when I got home. However, I ignored it and called my parents, and now I feel mostly okay. I'm hoping that it wasn't the salmon, because the salmon was delicious, but I don't think that salmon are native to India and so perhaps it was dangerous. Fusion 9 also serves beef, and is one of the only places that I know of in Hyderabad where you can get some kind of steak, but it seems questionable--it's not like there are ranches here to raise beef cattle, and so any beef is probably rubbish-fed and street-grown, rather than corn-fed and pastured like back home. That doesn't sound like my proverbial cup of tea.

India is really fun; I am no longer shocked by the insane things that I see outside my window, like dudes peeing on the sidewalk, or 'non-veg' dogs (non-veg dogs are the mean-looking ones that would probably take a bite out of your leg if given the opportunity; veg dogs eat garbage rather than people), or eight people in an autorickshaw, or the scary-looking electrical wires that are usually a mishmash of ten or twenty wires hanging from the same electrical poles. Despite the dreariness of the rain, the scariness of driving through puddles as deep as the underside of the car, and cleanliness that is generally lacking throughout the city, Hyderabad has a certain seductive charm that is only enhanced by the disappearance of the blistering heat. People-watching provides endless entertainment, with the amazingly colorful outfits, the interesting dental problems, and the strange ongoing clash between traditionally-conservative mores and the alcohol-fueled pub culture currently engulfing the younger generations.

I need to start taking more pictures of completely random stuff, but right now I need to sleep before my malaria dreams overtake me and the end of the world sucks me in.

imagine you're weightless in the middle of the ocean surrounded by tiny little seahorses

The monsoon is wreaking havoc on the city. Looking out over the barren fields beneath my window, I now see vast pools of water, and the overwhelming cacaphony of frogs reminds me of the deafening din near Lake Lagunita during the California rainy season. I did not go out today because I had work to do and was feeling too lazy to go shopping, but scouts report that many roads in the city are flooded.

I fulfilled my desire to sleep eleven hours last night, and it's a feat that I would like to repeat again tonight. I sat around most of the afternoon and did nothing. I did some work tonight while watching 'Napoleon Dynamite' and 'I Heart Huckabees'--there's nothing like watching a double feature alone while working on Saturday night to make one feel like a total loser. However, my time in India is moving rapidly; it's only a month until I go to Europe, then three weeks until my parents visit, and then five weeks until I go home! Shocking, eh?

I think that I am working too hard. If I was meant to come to India so that I could work myself to death in the pixel mines, as Shedletsky calls them, then I am fulfilling my destiny; but, if I was meant to have an experience that would change the course of my life, I cannot yet see what change has been wrought.

I watched the Tour de France tonight; it's so refreshing to be able to see it live from 4-9pm, rather than early in the morning in California. The photo finish today was quite exciting, and I'm looking forward to the major mountain stages. This is a much different experience from my previous two Tours; in previous years, I watched with Walter, and his excitement was so palpable that it made me more excited just watching him. The summer after I graduated, we watched the tour in the boys' attic in Los Altos Hills, and last summer we watched it in our dingy but charming apartment across from the mariachi car repair dudes in Mountain View. This year, I am watching it in the cool marble splendour of my apartment in Hyderabad, and Ranjit joins me when he is not cooking. It is quite ironic that I traded Walter (who has a prodigious vocabulary but does not like to talk) for Ranjit (who has no vocabulary but loves to talk). If I could combine them, they would embody human perfection. However, this could easily backfire, since the wrong genetic mutation would lead to someone with no vocabulary, no desire to talk, and no ability to cook. If I ended up with that, I might as well just live with a lifesize cut-out figure of David Hasselhof.

Please do not ask me why I came up with the idea of living with a lifesize cut-out figure of David Hasselhof, because I could not explain even if I knew why this image leapt into my brain. I think that I have been sitting in my room for too long. And with that, it's time for bed!

don't bend don't break baby don't back down

I'm so excited about sleeping. Tonight is great because a) I don't have work that has to be done before tomorrow and b) I don't have to set my alarm. Yay. I will have to work a lot over the weekend, but tonight is mine, and I intend to sleep at least eleven hours.

Work was hectic, as usual, and I was cranky for most of it; I had French toast for breakfast before leaving the apartment, but then just nibbled on some roti (not-as-tasty-as-naan bread product) for lunch, and so the overwhelming quantity of carbohydrates consumed did not really put me in a pleasant state. However, I left the office at five tonight for a going-away party for Thomas. The event was at Runway 9, a go-kart place a la Malibu Grand Prix in Redwood City. Unfortunately the monsoon is in full swing and it rained all day, so the track was really wet. Even more unfortunately, traffic is always bad in Hyderabad but it is even worse during rush hour, and absolutely unbearable when there is flooding. The whole city smells vaguely like raw sewage since there isn't a great drainage system, and many roads have barely-fordable miniature lakes. So, because of these factors, it took well over an hour to get from the office to the venue, since the venue was on the other side of the city. We actually skirted around the city by taking the Mumbai Highway; if we had gone in the other direction, we could have been in Mumbai in something like fifteen hours. If that doesn't sound like a fun car trip, I don't know what does.

Anyway, we sat around and drank beer for awhile, waiting for things to get started. The event itself was really nice; we had dinner at the go-kart place, and then several people had put a lot of effort into nice going-away things like singing Thomas a song, showing a slideshow, and doing a dance routine. All in all, the evening was quite a success. I left fairly early, however, because it was all I could do to keep my eyes open (and keep my mouth shut, since I tend to say inappropriate things when I'm tired and dwelling on other things).

Despite the traffic and the flooding, the Mumbai Highway was fun; we actually got up to a speed well over 70 (unfortunately 70km/hr, which is like 35mph), and we listened to music off of someone's iTrip, which was great. Gopal drove the car that I was in, and he's a great driver; he's the one that people have taught to say 'bling bling' and 'that's rad', and he has a disco ball hanging from his rearview mirror. Best of all, I saw a part of the city that I haven't seen before. We even drove past a huge herd of camels that were inexplicably stationed hundreds of miles from the desert. So, tonight was fun, although it will be hard to start saying goodbye to the expats who were here when I got here. All things come to an end, but it's hard to believe that anything will end here when it just feels like one extremely prolonged day in the office. Work/life balance is something that doesn't really exist here unless you force it to, and ironically I'm too lazy for that. Tonight, though, I shall curl up under my covers and pretend that I have no responsibilities.

someone help us understand who ordered this disgusting arrangement of time and the end

I think I am allergic to India. Throughout the day and night, wherever I am, regardless of what I am doing, strange welts appear and disappear on my skin. They migrate from my arms to my feet, down my hands and across my neck, appearing and disappearing seemingly at random. They never last for long, and while they are itchy while they last, they suddenly vanish as quickly as they arrived. This has been going on almost since the day I got here, so I'm used to it now, but I'm always fascinated when I look down at my skin and see a welt that wasn't there only moments before.

Today was really rough; I actually came home at 6:30 because I was so annoyed that I couldn't stay at the office any longer, but after dinner I worked until now. Sadness. It's one a.m., I have to go to work early tomorrow to prepare for the day, and I could just keep working forever but I have to sleep sometime. However, to keep myself awake, I threw 'Love Actually' into my DVD player. It is one of the most heartbreakingly happy movies ever made. It may not have been the *smartest* movie choice I have ever made, since it is replete with tales of requited and unrequited love and images of happy airport reunions--but luckily I am not one to succumb to homesickness, and so the airport reunions did not really bother me. But, I like every single storyline for different reasons, and the movie as a whole is wonderful. Not the best backdrop for working until one a.m., but satisfying nonetheless.

I was sad to hear about the London bombings; it was mid-afternoon here when it happened, so I knew about it before I even left the office. Of course, true to selfish form, I vaguely thought that it was a shame that I've already bought my tickets to London, since there's a chance that the prices will come down if the tourists are scared off. That was actually my third thought; my first thought was shock, and my second was 'at least it's not my birthday'. Seriously, though, you gotta love the British--they seem to keep a stiff upper lip through just about anything. By the time I watched CNN tonight, someone was reporting about how life already seemed to be getting back to normal on the London streets, and at that moment some guy walked behind her and waved excitedly to the camera. I'm excited to spend some time in London when I go in August, although I'm even more excited for Rome; I bought my plane ticket from London to Rome today, and after spending a few days in Rome we'll take trains back up through Italy and France. It should be a fantastic vacation, and exactly what I need after a month of insane work and stress.

love and death are always on my mind

I was in the office by 8:45 this morning, and didn't leave until 9:30. Yay. I came home and ate five tacos to make up for the fact that the only thing I ate at work was a peanut butter sandwich (and I didn't even have time to toast the bread), and by the end of dinner found myself clenching my knife in an unnecessarily-threatening manner. Thirteen hours in the office will do that to you, especially when you know that you have several more hours of work to do. I was only able to hack it for two more, though, and now it's time to throw in the proverbial towel.

I'm always disgusted by using the bathrooms in the office after the cleaning staff goes home for the day. There is a woman whose sole job is to maintain the ten or so women's stalls in the building; she is inevitably in the bathroom when I walk in, and as much as possible she flushes and cleans as soon as someone uses any toilet. It seems rather unnecessary--but I have come to realize that this has become a very necessary action solely because it is so taken for granted. Those of you who were my residents have often heard me rail against the tragedy of the commons, whereby people feel that they can ignore a problem or trash a place just because the blame cannot be assigned only to them, or because there isn't enough incentive for them to act in a community-minded manner. Walter and I experienced our own tragedy of the commons last summer, when we entered a cold war over who would be the one to break down and pick up the dead bee lying on the bathroom floor; we finally reached detente a week later and picked it up together. Anyway, the point is that now that people are used to having the bathroom cleaned as soon as they use it, they have become absolutely disgusting. People don't flush, or they urinate on the seat, and without someone there to pick up after them, most of the bathroom is rendered unusable. Ugh. Apparently the net result of having a country with a billion people is that 600,000,000 people rely on the 400,000,000 poorest people to pick up after them. Those four hundred million people also don't get anything that we take for granted, like latex gloves or disinfectant, which makes an already unpleasant job potentially dangerous as well.

VH1, though, continues to entertain; while I was working tonight, they played MC Hammer's 'U Can't Touch This' video. That reminded me of my fifth-grade science teacher, who wore purple hammer pants to school one day and was mocked relentlessly for it. Ah, fifth grade. That was when we were being bused 20 minutes north to have fifth and sixth grade in a nearly-condemned brick building with dangerous radiators and no playground. The building had a lot of history and character, much more so than the classrooms in the new addition to the high school. Of course, that character was partially defined by a grown man in hammer pants, so maybe it wasn't the kind of character that should be influencing our nation's youth.

Okay, much work awaits me, so it's time for bed!

just another heartache on my list

I received a report from my mother today that her sister (my Aunt Dee) was quite annoyed with my open letter to everyone a few weeks ago, since she got lumped into the 'generic relative' category. I profoundly and sincerely apologize; she has not been a 'generic' influence in my life, but instead has always been a very caring and supportive aunt even though she lives six hours away from us. Can I please be forgiven for using the phrase 'generic relative'? It was merely for humor value, not out of any attempt to cause hurt feelings.

I stayed home from work today, as I was feeling intensely nauseous this morning; I refuse to blame the chicken burgers or the bacon, since I want to eat them if Ranjit makes them again. This means that I will have an absolutely insane amount of work to do tomorrow; I didn't feel 100% by tonight, and so I didn't do any work at all. Oh, well, life goes on, and so all I can do is feign excitement about the possibility of working fifteen or sixteen hours tomorrow. Yay.

When one spends most of the day curled up in bed nursing stomach pains under the lazily-twirling ceiling fan and listening to the sounds of a movie shoot (the most discernable sound being someone yelling 'action!' in heavily-accented English through a bullhorn) taking place in the field below one's bedroom, thoughts of the future are best avoided but apparently impossible to ignore. I am becoming increasingly convinced that I will be single, at least for a significant period of time; and perhaps I deserve to be single, since I have one perfectly good stalker still calling me and I refuse to pick up the phone. But until I find him hiding in the trunk of my car, I will not consider his devotion to be worthy of my attention. I am not upset by my singleness, however, since this gives me the opportunity to find a path in life that is not dictated by someone else. It also gives me an incredible amount of freedom; whether I choose to go to business school, or grad school, or the school of tuberculosis-infected writers, that choice will not be influenced by boyfriends, husbands, or kids. And maybe I can't find the person who is right for me until I have a better idea of who 'me' is--and maybe when I have found 'me', I will realize that my passion for my chosen path would make romantic relationships a distraction rather than a goal. We shall see, we shall see.

In any event, I do not believe that I will find true love in India. I have already loved several Indians in the States, and they have all broken my heart; Adit refused to live with me (although he is happy to live in my apartment while I am gone), Vishal wanted to impregnate me (that's a joke, I think), Ritu moved to Chicago (good for her, bad for California), and Vidya...actually, Vidya hasn't broken my heart. Yet. But the point is that after the bitterness of my experience with Indian friends in the States, I think that I would be hard-pressed to get over my previous disappointments so that I could find new love with someone else. However, some of my coworkers have been threatening to write a profile of me and put it up on a matchmaking site; they think that I could do quite well, since I have a technical degree, am 'homely' (which here means 'able to do home tasks', not 'ugly'), and could provide a husband with a green card and eventual citizenship. I would prefer to leave arranged marriages to my romance novels, so I'm trying to scotch this idea while I still can.

Speaking of romance novels, I haven't written in awhile; perhaps I'll get a chance this weekend. Now, though, I need to sleep so that I can be prepared for some long, hard slogging tomorrow. Goodnight!

independence day, malaria dreams, and the end of the world

I have been relatively lucky with my malaria medication; most people have stopped taking theirs due to bad side effects, but I have experienced relatively few issues and so continue to use it. As you may know, this is because I am holding out for the bubonic plague and don't want to risk getting malaria first. However, I take my malaria pill Sunday night, and I always spend the wee hours of Monday morning in a half-awake, dreaming stupor. My malaria dreams are always about the end of the world; unlike Murakami, my end of the world does not involve reading dreams from unicorn horns, but it does involve an apocalyptic blizzard a la 'The Day After Tomorrow'. It is strange that the medicine I am taking for a tropical disease makes me dream of the world dying under the onslaught of a thousand blizzards. I wish that my dreams were more exciting (or at least unique), but perhaps my waking imagination is so fertile that it is uninterested in the paths that quinine can open. It makes for a bad start to the week, though--I go to the office on four hours of sleep and four hours of wandering in a catastrophic frozen wasteland.

Today when I got to the office, the staff had put red, white and blue balloons and signs that said 'Happy Independance Day' (sic) on the expats' cubes. It was a nice touch, and I took a picture even though I am too tired to show it now. After work, Ranjit and the other chefs made an all-American feast. They made chicken burgers, and they fixed sauteed onions and real bacon for toppings. I cannot even begin to describe how amazingly delicious this meal was. The chicken burger was huge, and I topped it with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes, bacon, sauteed onions, and cheese. It was one of the most satisfying things that I have had since arriving here. After finishing the burger, I ate a helping of bacon straight up, along with some more sauteed onions. Mmm.

The best was yet to come, however--we sent Ismail out with Rs10000 ($250), and he brought back a whole trunkload of fireworks. These fireworks were the real deal--they were on par with the fireworks that are usually used in the Fourth of July display back in Iowa, although we did not have any volunteer firefighters to light them for us. Instead, the braver souls went out into the field behind the swimming pool and set them off one by one, which was very reminiscent of the long pauses between fireworks at the Corydon reservoir. I hung out on the balcony off the fourth floor of the apartment building (which is more like the seventh floor, since every 'floor' is really a 2-story apartment), and so got a great view of both the fireworks and the chaos amongst the lighting crew. I was sure someone was going to die--I found a statistic today that said that 5.2 people die for every 100,000 pounds of fireworks consumed in the US. That worked out to around a 0.27% chance that one of us would die, if we assumed that it was as safe as fireworks in the US, which was definitely not true. 0.27% is small, but too sizable for my tastes, and so I stayed out of the way. It was all fun and games until they brought out the M80's--these things were like flashy little hand grenades, so they would light them and then throw them as quickly as possible. Inevitably they would get very close to someone else, and all of us watching from the balcony would gasp in unison.

The fireworks were great, though, and it's fun to celebrate the Fourth in a different country. This is my third Fourth outside the US (Ukraine in '94, London in '02, and now Hyderabad in '05), and it was definitely a good one. Now it is time for me to go to bed; my air conditioner still isn't working, so without the inducement of the malaria medicine I sincerely doubt that I will be dreaming of blizzards tonight.

i can feel an angel sliding up to me

While it is very gratifying to get multiple comments on inane posts, I know that I am playing a dangerous game, and that these comments will soon disappear as my fickle audience moves on to other pleasures. So, to reward you for your relative patience over the weekend, please allow me to regale you with tales of my recent exploits.

Friday, as you know, I indulged my love affair with murgh; specifically, I stuffed myself full of garlic naan and murgh makhni at Angeethi. We had gone out for a team dinner there, and I think I scared many people with my affinity for murgh; however, I got them to the point where several of them would say 'murgh' with me, long and low, like a cow mooing. This was quite gratifying, as I usually do not have any partners in insanity. As I have mentioned before, garlic naan is perhaps one of the best foods known to man, and I ate a ton of it. It is the perfect utensil for sopping up the tasty makhni sauce, and I can quite happily eat garlic naan and murgh makhni with my hands. This would not surprise those of you who saw me eating steak barely cooked and straight off the grill, although in that case I was eating it off the point of a knife. Speaking of steak, I would like to give a big thank-you to those of you who like telling me when you're enjoying steak; it really makes my exile much more comfortable.

After dinner, we went to a bar which was home to Retro Night; that is apparently an excuse to force the staff to wear absurdly mismatched outfits in an attempt to be 'retro'. I have only been there twice before, but the waiter remembered that I drink vodka cranberries, which was strange. It was extremely loud, particularly since our table was right beside a big bank of speakers, and so I couldn't hear anything and could only enjoy the sensation of having my breath forcibly drawn in time with the beat. We stayed there until they stopped playing music (which happened at 11:30, since everything closes early in a country that has a conservative culture; even the South 40 back home stays open later than that, and I'm from a red state). We were standing around outside waiting for the cars, when one of my coworkers ran into some people that he had met several months ago.

This is where the fun began. The people were very friendly, and quite insistent that we come home and party with them. Because I have been chafing at my self-imposed isolation and feel that I am not exploring enough, I readily acquiesced. Unfortunately, their place was in the middle of nowhere, quite literally--the street lights ended some ten or fifteen minutes before we got to the house, and there wasn't a soul to be seen, which was disconcerting in a country that seems to be drowning under the weight of a fast-growing populace. We had fun playing with the Magic 8-Ball, but that quickly grew old. There was this guy there who was like an archetype of everything that is wrong with today's youth; he insisted that we call him Z, and he was decked out in blinging gold chains that were just absurd. He talked a lot about how he has a knack for finding marijuana in the middle of nowhere, all about his past (in which he claimed to be a track athlete at some Midwestern university, although he did not have the build of a runner), and about other things mostly related to drugs. Needless to say, he did not quite fit in with my coworkers. Some of us left around 2, and I was so happy to get home.

There was one unexpected outcome of that night. As I was leaving, this guy asked me for my phone number. I couldn't not give it to him, so I gave it to him before leaving. He seemed nice enough, although he liked to punch my arm playfully while teasing me about being sixteen since I wasn't drinking; the punching kind of hurt, and now I'm creeped out that he was so insistent that I'm sixteen. The reason I'm creeped out is that he called me three times this morning before I'd even gotten out of bed, then sent me a text message saying that he guessed I was asleep, so sweet dreams, and he'd call me later. Weird. I forgot to take my phone to brunch, and he called two more times while I was out, then another time this afternoon. I haven't answered it and now don't intend to; I don't want to be mean, but it's kind of odd that he called so much today, and I'm afraid that if I answer, it will just turn into a complete fiasco.

I was also the recipient of some fun attention from some dude at the bazaar I went to this afternoon; there was a downpour for about five minutes, so I got stuck in the stall that I was in, and the guy there kept asking how he could go to America. I was like, 'dude, I don't know, can I pay for my stuff now', and he would ignore my desire to pay to ask again if I knew how he could go to America. He asked for my number as well, and I said that I didn't have my phone with me (which was a lie, and then I had to pray that Arod wouldn't call to find out where I was), and then he offered to give me his number but I declined, at which point he very sadly asked why I didn't want to be friends with him. The answer was that he was forty and creepy, and this was exacerbated by his next question, which was 'are you married?' I lied and said yes, although it was probably obvious that it was a lie, and then I fled into the storm. Yay. As I walked away, he yelled 'don't forget me!', which was just icing on the cake.

Anyway, back to Saturday. I had a great day--I went shopping *alone*, which was shocking, since usually I end up sharing a car very uncomfortably with three other people and the driver, and we all have to plan according to each others' needs, and so shopping is intensely unsatisfying. But I managed to secure a car for myself, and I went to Shoppers Stop and Hyderabad Central. Shoppers Stop sounds like a Target, but it's actually really upscale, and I got a pair of shoes there. Then I went to Hyderabad Central and got a salwar kameeze--they look and feel like pajamas, but they are quite fancy, and the de rigueur Indian outfit if you don't feel like wearing/can't wrap a sari. The pants are quite funny; they taper at the ankles, are really baggy in the legs and especially around the thighs, and then tie with a drawstring somewhere at or above the natural waist. But, the top is really a calf-length tunic thing, which covers most of the weirdness of the pants, and the outfit is super comfortable.

When I got home, I hadn't eaten yet, and I ran into Matt, who was also hungry and wanted to go shopping. We ended up going back to Hyderabad Central to eat in the Pizza Hut there. The waiter was way too attentive; he would come over and check on us every two minutes, which interrupted the flow of conversation but was quite entertaining. Then we did some desultory shopping; Hyderabad Central has a Shiseido makeup counter, which is extremely dangerous, and I walked away with what would become Lip Gloss #24. I took a nap in the afternoon, went to dinner at Owry's (tasty Chinese food), then out after to Dublin's, which is an Irish-style pub (sans Guinness) in the basement of the Kakatiya Sheraton. I bounced out of there early to avoid getting dragged back to the house party, and slept for an extremely long time.

Today was great as well; I had brunch, stopped at Himalaya bookstore to pick up a travel guide for Italy, and also stopped at the shoestore next door, where I procured three pairs of shoes. Ridiculous. Later, Arod and I went to this huge outdoor market; it was reminiscent of Rutledge (http://www.rutledgefleamarket.com/), which was where my family went to sell a bunch of turkeys during that halcyon summer when we raised over 2000 of the bastards. My father ended up trading a some of them for shepherds' crooks and other sundries, and I recall that there were lots of guns and dogs for sale. Anyway, there were no guns, dogs, or turkeys for sale here, so I suppose there aren't a lot of similarities, but it was very large, and there were a lot of vendors selling extremely cheap goods spread out over and under tarps. I got three more pairs of shoes (if you're counting, that's six pairs of shoes today, as well as a pair yesterday; this will hopefully be the high-water mark of my shoe-buying in India, although it's hard to stop, especially since the sandals I got at the bazaar were about US$3/pair), some bangles, and some gorgeous miniature drawings. It's apparently going for two more weeks, so I'll definitely have to go back. Shopping there was so much more fun than the sterile, western atmosphere of Shoppers Stop or Hyderabad Central, although since I was the only white person there I was attracting a lot of stares (and, apparently, desire for my green-card-providing skillz). It was also way way cheaper, and there was so much interesting stuff to see.

So that was my weekend. I did some shopping, did some stalker-avoiding, and did some sleeping. It was key. This week will be really hectic, but hopefully I'll get some sleep. Speaking of, it's time to go to bed!

continued lameness

I have much to share, but nothing of importance, and I'm extremely tired. So, I am going to go to bed instead of writing. I will write tomorrow, I promise. I apologize, and I look forward to many comments to this incredibly lame post when I wake up tomorrow.

murgh

Murgh means chicken, and is the codeword for tonight's activities. I cannot divulge more than that because I am too tired. However, I will write a double entry tomorrow to make up for the fact that this post contains nothing of interest. My apologies, and I appreciate your understanding.