Excuse Me, Madam

Hi everyone!

I think I’m going to go in reverse order of what happened this past week and conclude with my trip to Mahabalipuram on Sunday where I saw some sweet ancient temples and ruins. I also named this post "excuse me, madam" because everyone calls women here madam which I think is funny but I can get use to.

Thursday

Today was the first day I had (kind of but not really) a lot of stuff to get accomplished and I actually got everything accomplished…as long as I don’t fall asleep while typing this blog post, haha. We had to get to the lab by 10:00 a.m., which was the first time we were on time for reasons I’ll mention later, to finish our training for the machine that will fatigue our samples and then finished our training which was simple.

Once the training was over, we went to the place where they have a juice stand and few other stores to grab some lunch. I intended to just order chicken nuggets because I knew it would’ve been a safe call but stupid me decided to try one of the daily specials, (very spicy) veggie pasta, that wasn’t that good but luckily my mango milkshake was buy one get one free where the little one in the picture was free of course.

I then had to add minutes and text messages to my phone so I went to this weird little shop to do this. I tried asking the worker how much it was to do what I needed and there was a language barrier even though we both spoke English. Luckily there were two students there to help me out so then I was able to tell the worker what I needed and he gave me a receipt for the cost. I then had to take three steps in the other direction to pay what I owed and walk three steps back to the original guy for him to add the stuff to my phone. It didn’t work at first and was taking a long time but soon enough it worked and I checked another thing off my mental checklist.

Morgan and I then walked to where she parked her bike that the university let her borrow to fill up the tires but we couldn’t loosen the nuts on the tires and we gave up. Luckily this wasn’t on my checklist for the day so I was still in a good mood.

We continued to walk and I continued to get my shirt and backpack straps sweaty on our way to Dr. Krishnan’s office where we left our passports for safe-keeping temporarily. We needed them for our flight to Hyderabad tomorrow. We only had to wait for about 5 minutes or so which is our record in that office. Soon enough we had to be back by 2:30 so we could start impacting our samples.

A graduate student not under Dr. Krishnan, Kavitha, and another new master student helped us with the impacting machine and Shiva and Renil helped with the inferred. I really appreciate the help these four people gave us because Morgan and I really didn’t have to do much to impact our samples. I think at home it would have been more like these people would be there to tell us what to do but they did most of the stuff for us with no problem. We first practiced with some practice samples and then impacted the three samples we had to do at 40 J and the damage is shown below…exciting stuff. Next week we’ll pull and release these samples for 1000 cycles and then see how the damage increases.

 The group that helped



Side 1 of damage

Side 2 of damage

Shiva with my umbrella

Then after trying to wait out the heavy down pour of rain we decided to head to the bus and had to walk through some rather deep puddles, the worst of which was ankle-high on the dirt road by our hotel.

Soon enough we eventually got a cab to go and visit Tim’s friend Srinidhi (Nidhi) and had Chinese food at a beer and Chinese food at the restaurant. Oh, but the traffic on the way there was terrible where our car was turned off for at least 10 minutes and at a standstill for another 10 minutes most likely due to aftermath of the flooding and the increased traffic problems during rush hour.

All in all it was a good day and I mostly feel good about accomplishing the stuff mentioned, getting my emails caught up, and feeling progressive with our research project.

Wednesday

Not too much happened on Wednesday. We got to the lab only a little late for boring training in the morning then Morgan and I walked to the food court outside the campus to get Subway. It was only semi-satisfying because the worker drenched my sub in dressing. But then we had to walk all the way back which produced probably a bucket of sweat and then got trained some more. We then waited to work with Kavitha because she said she’d be available but we couldn’t get a hold of her so then we just went home.

Later at 10:00 or so we went to a nearby movie theater that our auto driver told us only showed Tamil-language movies and saw Man of Steel in English (that silly liar). The tickets were very cheap, around $2.25, and then we even got pop and a popcorn for a little less than $5 or so I think. I found out today there’s a ban on an increase in movie ticket prices because they want to make sure people outside the city with lower income can still afford to see the movies.

We had to reserve our seating when we bought our tickets and the theater played the movie very loudly. But don’t worry, we could still hear the crying babies and a few phones going off. I was just most confused why people would bring their baby to a very loud theater at 10 PM but whatever I guess.

Tuesday

Tuesday was the day we were told we would start training for the machine we needed so we were supposed to get there by 10:00. We thought we left enough time to catch the right bus but there must have been some bus issue somewhere because we had to wait at the bus stop for one hour. I’m sure we could have walked to our building in that time but it was too hot and we were too lazy to do so. We didn’t actually get there until maybe 10:50 and then we were told that training was postponed until after lunch at 2:30. So we waited some more and planned stuff for our trip to New Delhi.

We had lunch at Café Coffee Day on campus, which doesn’t really serve lunch meals except weird sandwiches, to relax with our American group. Soon enough we had to return and we finally began training. Our lunch didn’t do much for Morgan and I and we both ended up feeling like shit after standing for a long time during the training.

Soon enough training was over, Kavitha wasn’t answering so then we went home to eat dinner and relax. We chose to have dinner in the restaurant downstairs and I really just wanted a plain omelet. Stubborn me though decided to order egg noodles to challenge the worker there because on Sunday he had the nerve to tell me that they only serve noodles on Fridays. Then I got my noodles, I said Happy Friday to my friends, and then I barely ate them because I wasn’t hungry for them.

Monday

We didn’t do much on Monday except find out we weren’t having training that day as we planned and then Morgan and I got to see the impact machine. We opted for a late lunch in hopes after we could just go home. We got our late lunch but then decided it was too late because we had to return to campus to meet with Aarabhi and Anu regarding the other project we picked up. Eventually though we got home and played Euchre I think. It was Bob’s first real time playing Eucher and I stole the deal from him once and told him which card he should play three times because his cards were practically horizontal. What a newb. But at least he had a good spirit about it and then he taught us how to play Nerts after.

Sunday

We decided to go to Mahabalipuram which is only about an hour south of us because our friends recommended it. We were able to go with three Indian guys, two of which work in our lab and one who works in Bob, Mike, and Evan’s building. We took the bus there and I slept nearly the whole way there.

At the first location in the town we got a tour guide which I found to be helpful because he explained the three main different gods of Hinduism and repeated their purpose with the G.O.D. acronym: Brahma is the generator, Vishnu is the operator, and Shiva is the destroyer. As long as we knew this he could explain the story of the gods carved into the temples. For example, the first one is Krishnan, who was a ladies man, is holding up a large rock or mountain to protect the people from the rain. There were also many other stories but I can’t remember them all.

I found it crazy how everything we saw was created around 600 AD or so which kept me thinking about the other stuff I learned from this time period, but never Indian history. I know this was about the time of the Byzantine Empire and I’m sure I learned about the Chinese dynasty of this time but never anything about Indian or even South American, Middle Eastern, African or Australian culture. The way in which they carved out the granite or basaltic rock must have taken a very long time as well and I’m curious who at the time had to do that job. Were they forced to do so? Or was it an honor?

Later in the day we visited another area of ruins that were in a plot of sand. By this time by fee were really blistered but I pushed through. This is also the place where my profile picture with me on the cow was taken. After this, Tim and I had coconut milk for this first time and this lady wacked of the top, cut a small hole then threw a straw in it. It then tasted like nothing I imagined but could have been worse. I’m just glad to say I’ve drank coconut milk straight from a coconut.

Lastly we saw the Shore temple right off the water and then walked to the beach where there were many people. My feet hurt from the blisters so I didn’t really go in the water but I enjoyed my time observing my surroundings.

Soon enough, the six of us left to go home, we thanked our friends for coming with us because it was really helpful and then we went back to the hotel to eat dinner. This is where the worker told me that they only served noodles on Fridays and I was quite peeved after a long, hot day in the sun.

 

That's all for now, I'll update you on my Hyderabad weekend sometime next week. 

50/50

I’ll first update you on the stuff I did this past week briefly but I later want to tell you about the differences I’ve noticed here compared to Western culture.

This past week

We found a food court near our hotel and I had the best Subway sandwich I’ve had in a long time. Not because it was of good quality, but because it was a sandwich and tasted like home. We also met up with our German friends from Pondicherry at a nice restaurant and had some dinner and a few drinks and later went to a club. I couldn’t believe there was a club in Chennai and we found it to be kind of awkward but still nice to go to. There were plenty of brown-girl-wasted girls there after experiencing ladies night at the club so it was funny to see them not really dance and guys somewhat chase after them. Us white folks didn’t really get a chance to mingle with the locals because it didn’t really seem like they wanted to, which was okay with me.

Thursday we grabbed snacks at a grocery store after work and then Friday four of us went to the Hilton to the roof where they had a bar and a ladies night. This one was extra weird/cool because the girls could go behind this little bar and make your own drinks. The view was pretty cool but the crowd wasn’t exactly my style. Maybe it was this Indian guy, Ram, with a British accent who kind of ruined the vibe for me because I guess he comes out all the time and hits on all of the girls because he thinks he’s the shit. He ended up talking to me and by the end of the conversation I was probably the first honest person he’s heard from in a while when I told him that he has a big ego and is very close-minded

Oh, and our research is going well for the most part. Morgan and I created a procedures list for everything we need to test and how to go about it. Now we’re waiting to get trained on a certain machine which we thought we could have started today but we’ll have to wait for tomorrow. We’re also waiting to impact our samples which requires much coordination between people and labs but realistically I hope to get this done at the end of tomorrow or Wednesday.

In the meantime Morgan and I have come up with four ideas that can possibly help the severely disabled people (ages 18-21) at the local school for disabled children. The goal of the project is to create a very simple device where the student can either stamp paper using a pully device or cut paper using a push die cut device. The things they create will then be passed on to other students in the school to make folders, envelopes or cups and then will be sold to the public. By these severely disable people working on the first step of the process, they will earn a small salary and will for the first time, feel like a valuable and contributing member of society.

 

Differences I’ve noticed comparing Indian culture with Western culture

As I think I’ve mentioned before, the processes here seem to work in general but seemingly always have some sort of tweak that we’re unaware of. For this reason, we joke that there’s a 50/50 chance that anything we want to happen will happen. This 50/50 joke mostly applies when we’re ordering food.

Food

Even though a full menu is always offered it is very rare that every menu item is actually available. For this reason, we have learned to choose our top three choices from the menu before we order in hopes we can at least get our third choice when our first two are shot down. Sometimes it seems like the workers tell us they don’t have something just to make us frustrated because they sometimes smile as they deny our order.

The food itself though is very spicy. So much so that it’s almost painful to eat and my appetite drops. I’ve done my best to try new Indian food and to be open minded but at the same time it’s difficult to do so for this reason. This makes noodles and pizza sound appetizing for us, even it’s still a little spicy, because it’s at least familiar.

Nodding of the head – saying yes and no

First off, I don’t think I’ve heard an Indian say “no” straight up. I kind of think it’s because they probably weren’t allowed to say no to their parents growing up because respect of elders is huge here. It could also just be a culture thing in general. But this gets a little frustrating when we ask a simple question about India in general and if they disagree with what we say they’ll either not answer or give a round-about answer that we just get confused by

No one here shakes their head vertically up and down to say yes here. They will however move their head side to side and draw a small figure 8 with the crown of their head while you talk to them. By them doing this they are not only say “yes” but also that they understand/agree. This was quite confusing for us when we ordered omelets in the morning and the shook their head at us, left and didn’t say anything. That’s when the 50/50 comes back into play.

Education

Education is huge here and is a main topic in the newspaper. Just recently there was a big story that two girl students ranked in the top ten for the IIT entrance exam – the first time it’s ever happened. Not only that though, rankings of the engineering school are commonly posted in the newspaper and is a topic of discussion here. I knew that Indian parents really only encouraged their kids to be either engineers or doctors but seeing the hype about it here makes sense.

Even when I was looking at some children’s games in a store here they only showed math or puzzle games where the adult had to be involved to quiz the kid. There weren’t any silly games like the ones I had fun with as a kid.

Traffic

I would say traffic is more diverse and more crowded than it is at home. There are no large vehicles such as semis or even SUVs. The largest sized vehicle on the road is a bus, then maybe a truck that carries dirt, then next largest is a car that’s slightly bigger than an SUV. The ambulances are also small here because large cars are more difficult to maneuver on the road. Then you have a few mini vans, compact cars, then you get to the three-wheelers, auto-rickshaws. As I’ve mentioned before, auto-rickshaws are my favorite to ride because they can swerve in and out of places and are rather cheap. Last to squeeze in on the road are the two-wheelers, motorcycles (call bikes) and bicycles (called cycles here). Then there are people walking on the side of the road with the occasional stray dog and cow or goat.

In general, they drive on the left here because that’s what the British did which has made it difficult to cross a road sometimes. I feel accomplished when I cross half of the extremely busy road and then I have a habit of looking to the right to see if cars are coming when really I should be looking to the left. This has only put me in a close call once though so it’s okay. But it’s difficult to keep track of the traffic because everyone swerves in and out as much as possible. Thankfully though I did get a taste of this when I went to Turkey and learned at some points you just have to go without worrying about the others following you.

Trash

Finding a trash can here sometimes feels like hitting the lottery here. And don’t even think about asking me about recycling. But throughout the streets on campus there are a few animal shaped trash cans saying “use me” which I didn’t understand at first but maybe they’re shaped this way to encourage more people to use them. Otherwise trash gets thrown on the street often. This is still a bit uncomfortable for us because we don’t want to be a part of the problem by also throwing our trash on the road but at the same time we don’t want to carry our banana peel all the way home.

They do however have sweeper ladies who have small brooms that brush off the trash on the side of the road and garbage trucks at night to help clean up. On campus there are also women cleaning up the streets but there isn’t much, if any trash, they’re brushing off the leaves and sticks off the road which is a big jobs since the campus is pretty much in a jungle.

Clothes

Most all of the older women wear saris and the girls on campus will sometimes wear saris but most wear tunics with either loose-ish pants or leggings. I think leggings may be the more “edgey” look or something. Of course both of these options are incredibly colorful and have beautiful patterns. I really want a sari of my own but I’ve been told it would be really weird for me to wear a sari unless I was going to a wedding or a very fancy occasion. Hopefully I actually buy one before I leave.

I have bought one outfit (that I found out I paid too much for later) and actually brought some tunics over that my friend from home’s family gave me for this trip (thank you Mr. Srivastava!). My goal sometime soon though is to get fabric from a shopping center nearby and then bring it to a tailor to get some nice, comfy pants made that I can wear here and at home. I’m told that the tailors here are outstanding and can make most anything as long as you bring them a picture.

I’m kind of bummed though because I wish I would have brought more of my “normal clothes” because I only brought plain stuff that would be more conservative. But when I see other white people here, or even some fashionable Indian girls, they’re wearing clothes from back home which makes me feel like a bum in the clothes I have. At the same time I already get stared at by people on the streets as it is so I really don’t want to push the envelope too much.

Oh, and of course guys wear whatever they want. Mostly jeans and a t-shirt or button-up shirt. They’ll only wear shorts if they’re relaxing/hanging with friends or are boys but other than this they wear pants.

Censorship

Considering they played Django Unchained in the Open Air Theater and other intense movies on TV, they seemingly don’t sensor too many things. However, on TV they will block words such as ass, bastard, etc. We’ve also found it weird that every time smoking is mentioned in a TV show or movie, even in the movie theaters, they’ll show something like “smoking kills, don’t do it” on the screen.

Toilets

I’d say all but one toilet I’ve come across has been a Western style with the seat and everything but toilet paper will only be in the upper-scale places. We have to bring our own and normally these toilets smell terrible. Most also have like a showerhead next to the toilet to wipe their butt I guess but sometimes I’m curious what happens when I walk into a stall that is soaking wet.

 

I’m sure there’s way more I could write but I can’t really think of it now. I think for the most part I got the main differences I’ve noticed here. Look out for my next blog post hopefully sometime soon where I’ll talk about our trip to a local site with ancient ruins and temples which was pretty cool.

And now I’ll end the blog post how our chatty security guard friend, Lakshman (sp?), ends a conversation with us quickly and walks off:

Okay bye.

My Evolving Views of India and my Pondicherry Weekend

This blog is mostly about how at the beginning of the weekend I was not a fan of India but by the end my views changed. If you want to skip to the part where I start talking about why my views change look for the heading "the seed of my evolving opinion of India." Also, as you'll notice I didn't care to put much effort in formatting this blog so it looks kind of ugly. It's this way because I used the notes app on my phone for part of the blog, Word on my computer for the other part, and this blog site to upload pictures. Hope you enjoy any way though...
 

I went to bed Friday night almost wishing I would've stayed back in Michigan this summer. I knew deep down that this is a good and interesting experience but I was getting very frustrated with my unfamiliar surroundings.

 

My most uncomfortable bus ride

The frustration began to elevate when we walked to the bus station to catch our bus to Pondicherry but no one was helpful with telling which bus we had to get on. We were told it would have closed windows and say "to Pondicherry." We saw one with closed windows pull up and Evan ran up to ask if it was going to Pondicherry. It was but there were no seats, only standing available. So we just got on because we were told by a friend that it only gets more crowded as the day goes on.

 

We awkwardly stood in the aisle towards the front, confused what to do with our big back packs. After a while most of us were able to lean against some sort of edge and I sat on a ledge up to seats where a mom, a baby and a toddler sat. This was quite uncomfortable with my boney butt but standing would've been more uncomfortable.

 

The swerving was also uncomfortable but the continual honking of the horn was even more annoying. It just makes no sense to me how often every driver, especially bus drivers, use their horns. I understand warning that they're entering a blind spot but continually honking the horn for a solid 2 minutes or so is another thing. Luckily I had my music so I tried my best to ignore that and enjoy my music.

 

No hostel reservations after all

Once we got to the bus station we wanted to order bus tickets on the way back but were pushed around between various counters and then found out we couldn't order them until the next day.

 

Then we didn't know how to get to our hostel really and walked quite a while to our hostel. Once we got there we found out they never received our reservation through hostelworld.com so they had no room for us. After much convincing, we had them call another hostel for us to stay at and it wasn't the best but it had AC and the bathrooms didn't look too bad. We did see some small bugs in Morgan's bed that probably would've been fine but then Morgan got moved to what we called the "Love Suite" because it was the room with just one single full bed that we shared.

 

Our relief for the night - western food

Then we were quite hungry, roamed for a restaurant and luckily got to this very nice, small restaurant with western food and a cocktail menu. We ended up talking to the owner who went to Penn State for his undergrad and gave us a few recommendations. Once we left we felt good that we had at least one friend in Pondicherry, Upendra. 

 

Later we sat on the rocks if the water for a bit which was very relaxing and soon walked back through the seemingly ghost town to the hostel. It was very quiet with only auto-rickshaws (autos), dogs and cows roaming the streets. Soon enough we arrived to our hostel and returned to our very firm beds.

 

Beach Day

Saturday began as a very hot and sunny day. We found a breakfast place that serves an "English breakfast" with a lot of stuff. We then made a quick stop at the tourist office because half of us were interested in a tour and the other half visiting the beach. I chose the beach because I had a hunch the tour of the city would involve much aimless walking in the sun which I did not want to do.

 

Evan, Mike and I then grabbed an auto to the beach because the boys wanted to rent surf boards and after we got dropped off we found out we had to walk 2 km south...on the very hot beach. We then got there to find that the surf school wasn't open yet so we waited on some rocks against the beach to chill.

 

This was the day that I discovered one of the things I appreciate most in India when it happens - a nice breeze. The humidity and high temperatures can be quite tough on my sweaty, white self so a nice breeze, especially when my hands are on my hips so a breeze can get to my sweaty pits, is an incredibly nice feeling.

 

I continued to sit on the beach watching the guys kind of fail at surfing for 2 to 3 hours, a few small crabs move on the beach, fishermen coming in and out of shore and I loved every moment of it. I even spent some time trying to form the shape of India with shells and spent nearly an hour making a weird design in the sand and at one point and old Indian women came up to me to see what I was doing and smiled, seemingly enjoying my artwork.

 

The seed of my evolving opinion of India

When we left the beach we picked up a friend who has been in India for nine months and as nine weeks or so left. Her name is Paula and she’s been teaching English in a town basically in Chennai during this time. She chose to do this as her gap year between high school and college and will return to her home in Germany for college. Evan, Mike and I began to ask her about Chennai and we explained how we had a difficult time adjusting during our first week and were not super pleased with Chennai. She had a very different opinion about India and the culture which we found quite enlightening. She mentioned how she’s found everyone to be friendly and a unique community. She later explained how she can’t believe she’ll be back in Germany in nine weeks and will miss the business of the streets of Chennai. This confused us at first but she continued by saying she’s going to feel so alone as she walks in cities in Germany compared to the very populated city of Chennai.

I think this comment stuck with all of us and made us realize there is no reason to keep complaining about the culture and systems of India and comparing it to American culture. It has a very long history and with it a very rich culture of ideas and ways of doing things. For this reason, it will never be like America, nor any other Western country. I think the confusing part about this fact though is that it seems like India is trying to become Westernized in a few ways but I am positive the Indian roots will always stick no matter how modern the country becomes.

I’m jumping around here a bit, but I’d like to bring up another discussion I had today with a friend Tim made at a hostel in Prague two years ago who we met today. His name is Ram and we asked him many questions around the way the Indian government works. He explained first how India is very unique because of its large range of diversity and also the language barriers that exist within the country. The northern countries mostly speak Hindi but southern countries mostly speak Tamil which makes even natives of the country have a difficult traveling. Each state and community however does have their own variety of the language which makes it more difficult to work with others in some instances. Luckily (or not), English is considered a national language and is understood and spoken across basically the entire country which helps Indians communicate across state lines.

With these various states comes varying political views which makes their government unique for providing a variety of ideas but of course makes it quite difficult to make things actually happen. From what I understand there’s a bunch of parties in India but there are pretty much just five coalitions. To make things happen within and between these coalitions there are many bargains and deals made in the way of “I’ll support your party/ideas if you support this specific value of mine” which also happens in the US of course but at least there are only two parties.

For the prime minister vote, that will happen next year, they don’t necessarily vote for the person himself but one of the five parties and then the party will choose their candidate. The party with the majority vote will then have their candidate as prime minister. This system seems quite interesting to me but I suppose it works for the largest democracy in the world for 1.3 billion people.

Back to Pondicherry though… 

Saturday we walked in the rain to a certain restaurant, decided we didn’t like the menu nor pricing of the place, left, and then returned to the place we had dinner the night before. Dinner was good once again and we then used the restaurant’s phone to call our German friend, Paula. She happened to be above us at the bar/restaurant there with two other girl friends, Marie and Lara, and one guy friend, Michael. It was a nice evening and a cool venue but soon enough we had to leave by the 11:30 PM curfew.

Sunday - witnessing the the process of setting up street shops

Tim, Morgan and Bob chose to wake up early to see the sunrise but I really didn’t want to wake up that early to see one of a million sun rises I’ll see in my lifetime. It kind of would have been cool to go though because I guess the street along where they sat on the rocks to watch the sun rise over the water had many people walking in the road that was closed in the morning.

Eventually I woke up, didn’t know where Evan and Mike were, and decided I wanted to go outside and get street breakfast food. I then wanted to compare the breakfast food by walking down for a bit but then found myself walking more than expected because I enjoyed watching many people set up their little shopping stand of sorts all along Mahatma Ghandi Road (MGR). Basically everything that was set up in the booth was of very low quality to American standards (like a dollar store or something) but I was most intrigued by the process of setting up the shop/booth.

Each person carefully placed each item in its place in order to make it look like as attractive of a booth as possible. Most used foldable tables to set their stuff on but some would simply lay a tarp on the ground and lay out their items. What caught my eye the most was one table that had a bunch of books on it but then I looked closely and saw there were mostly engineering, science or math text books. Maybe that’s why they’re much better at technical stuff than America….

Boat ride

Soon enough Evan left to go back and take a surf lesson but the rest of us wanted to take a boat ride. We later found out that the boat ride took us to Paradise beach and had a mini carnival setting just before the boat house. The boat ride was rather nice and of course had beautiful scenery. We only stayed at the beach for about one hour because there wasn’t too much to do on the hot beach and we had to get back to our autos waiting for us.

Next we got to the botanical garden which was actually mentioned at the start of the Life of Pi book. We were kind of disappointed by the garden because none of the waterfalls worked, there was trash around, and didn’t seem very well manicured. However, later I read one of the posters about the garden and found out there was a cyclone in late December of 2011 that destroyed the garden which is probably one of the largest reasons for the not too awesome garden.

Then the five of us grabbed lunch which took forever, we shopped for a bit where I got some really awesome loose pants that I’ve been wanting since I got here, and we waited to take the cab that was arranged by our friend, Upendra. The 2.5 hour ride back was much more comfortable on the way there because I was able to read for a bit, take a nap and then I tried to read more but I found it difficult because I kept wanting to look out the window and look at unfamiliar and fascinating parts of India. I wish I could describe it but at this point, there’s no use trying. You just have to go on a car ride yourself in India and see what I’m talking about.

The mango I bought earlier today was good but kind of difficult to eat with Mike's Swiss Army Knife

 

My awesome new pants

 

My new shoes I actually bought in Chennai right before Pondicherry

 

By the end of this car ride my outlook on the unique, yet beautiful country blossomed and has continued to grow since.

 

Day 2, 3, & 4 plus a birthday celebration

Three blog posts in one day? Can your life get any better? ...eh, probably.

As I said earlier, I didn’t update my blog as I expected on day 2, 3 and 4 because I wasn’t feeling too hot and was still out of it due to jet lag…and probably the heat…and maybe the food also. And to make it even better, I think I have allergies due to pollen or something here. But it’s okay because I’m feeling fine, my nose is just going to get torn to shreds due to the continuous snot and the rough toilet paper I use to blow my nose into.

Okay, enough of the gross stuff. The five other Americans I’m with are pretty cool which has made this trip better. It sure is different though than my Turkey group when I was with thirteen crazy guys and a roommate from China and Lithuania but it’s nice being in a smaller group. And I’m extra happy I’m not the group leader. I’ll give you a short synopsis of the people I’m with to give you an idea:

Morgan: the other girl in the group also in civil engineering. It’s nice having her as a roommate because we are both equally confused as to what we should wear in public and can stick together in ways like that. She’s also my partner for my research stuff.

Evan: flew with Morgan and I and is pretty laid back. He has blond-ish hair and is all about being on the beach and wishing for a place to rent/borrow a surf board. Oh, and he’s a biosystems engineer

Mike: is an electrical engineer and loves basketball. He’s a goofy guy as well and spills corny comebacks without noticing all the time. For example, if you say, “this is super spicy” he’ll respond with, “you’re supper spicy.” He’s also recently very into his new mustache that he’s had for a whopping two days, a record for him.

Tim: just graduated from undergrad as a mechanical engineer and can be very charismatic with his reactions to things. He’s probably the most productive out of all of us when it comes to our research and was designated as the group leader unwillingly. But he’s been super helpful with taking initiatives to plan and find things so that’s been very nice. Oh, and I think his laugh is awesome and odd at the same time and he’s the one with glasses in the pictures.

Bob: is the only non-undergrad person and is not from MSU. He did his undergrad at Purdue and is now at Iowa State studying NDE stuff. He’s a quite chill guy and I’m always curious if he gets tired of hanging with undergrads just like I can get tired of hanging with high schoolers. But he’s cool and is fun to joke with. Oh, and he’s the tallest one in the pictures.

So that’s my group, one of these days I’ll tell you about the Indian friends we’ve met but I don’t want to overload you with this kind of stuff.

 

Highlights of the past couple days are as follows:

Saturday: went to the mall and I didn’t expect it to be so western and especially for there to be so many western clothes. Especially because women rarely wear even jeans and a t-shirt. The top floor however had the clothes for Indian women but we later found out that it was all overpriced. In the moment though Morgan and I didn’t know any better and we wanted to get one outfit so we chose a place to go to and they helped us out a lot. Soon enough though they kept throwing stuff in our room and you could tell they were trying to force us to buy more.

Sunday: We went to Fisherman’s Cove private beach. We were thinking about going to a public beach but we thought we would probably be an attraction there, the beach would be crowded, and we knew the resort had a place to eat. We took our first taxi ride out there and that sure was an adventure but we got there safe. Once we got there we couldn’t believe how nice it was, how friendly the lifeguards were to help us out and talk with us, and how large the waves were. I’ve never been to Cali and I was told Cali has big waves but Evan said the waves off the coast there were larger. So the waves were fun to float on and Morgan, Bob, and I only got plowed by a wave once. Bob has the battle wound to prove it.

Monday: was the first day of work. We showed up at 10 a.m. as they told us and no one showed up until 10:30. They then spread us out throughout the lab to work on stuff but none of us had a clue as to what we should have done. So then after lunch half of us went back to the hotel while the other half stayed there and talked with our Indian friends. They were able to get two cycles (bikes) with flat tires and asked stuff at the international office. Then when they went to fill the tires up at a nearby hostel (dorm) Morgan set down her backpack briefly and a monkey came up and stole her water bottle from her outside pocket, uncapped it, and chugged it. Then more monkeys came out, they felt uncomfortable and left for lunch from the hostel who’s bike pump was broken.

Tuesday: We didn’t show up until 10:45, fussed with the internet for too long and then half went to lunch early and then Tim, Morgan and I went later. We tried this place called Café Coffee Day that was air conditioned, had toilet paper, and sandwiches. I ordered a sandwich of course but I really didn’t like it and wish I would have gone to Tifanys. We were just chilling for a while though so then I got a frappe sort of thing because I felt like having some coffee and something sweet but it was a bit too much towards the end of the drink.

We then went back for one of the lab member’s son’s first birthday party. It was a big deal and everyone in the lab stopped what they were doing to be there which was really nice. They had a giant butterscotch cake, three different types of food, and some pop. We just ate though so I couldn’t really eat much even though it was all tasty. Then we talked for a bit and then left the lab to go home but got stopped because we had to be in pictures. Then they took pictures for what seemed like an hour which really didn’t bother me but it was interesting how they kept passing the baby around so people could get pictures taken with Raskrishnan (the baby boy). Soon enough we left and even were able to get SIM cards from Dr. Krishnan and went back. Then we wanted to go to a specific place for dinner and it started to pour so we turned back and had dinner at our place.

Oh, best part of my day though was being able to talk to Dr. Krishnan’s wife about doing some volunteer work with a local school that helps mentally-challenged kids. I sent an email to Dr. Udpa a while ago and then also to Dr. Krishnan if I could do some volunteer work of some kind when I was not working but there was no response which I wasn’t worried about. Then today I found out from Dr. Krsihnan’s wife that this school is looking for engineers to help build small things that can improve the kid’s motor skills. I imagine they’re looking for something along the same lines as a Rubicks cube but we’ll see. We also found out she’s a dance teacher and asked if we could see some performances and she said she could help us out. I’m really looking forward to both of these things.

 

So once again, I have another long blog post but hopefully it wasn’t too bad. You all are probably snuggling up with hot cocoa next to a fire inside your house right now though because I see it’s a chilling 72 ᵒF or so there. Nothing compared to 95 or so with humidity. But I’m getting used to it and I still like it better than the cold.

TTFN though, I’m guessing I won’t post again until after our trip this weekend to Pondicherry…unless something crazy happens before then. Night night.

Just pictures 2

I kept waking up to sunshine at 6 a.m.

My swim suit for the day. I didn't even bring one because I figured Morgan and I wouldn't be swimming

Car ride on the way there

Walk to the private beach at Fisherman's Cove Resort

The waves were bigger than on the American coast but you can't tell from the pictures

We sat under these tree things for free

The pool only resort guests could swim in

These were real flowers, I couldn't believe it.

View from lunch

Crackers they served us

Morgan and I just shared ravioli and French fries because we didn't have that much money on us.

Then they served us this thing to wash our hands in at the end.

Go green!

I sat in the front on the way back and they had an interesting way of lowering speeds

We got back and wanted pizza. It then took us two hours to order for many frustrating reasons. Finally our pizza showed up a half hour late and then the power went out for a little bit...

The male version of the deer on campus with crazy antlers