I’m not feeling 100% today, so I figure I might take a
minute to write in my blog. One of
the other students, Stefanie, is a serious inspiration to me because she’s
taken on the challenge of writing her blog every
day which is no easy task.
It’s really interesting if you wanna check it out: http://off-to-byu.blogspot.com/
Some stomach-unhappiness has been going around so I woke up
at three in the morning and was unable to sleep for a while. It’s kindof funny when I think about it
now—because I kept rolling different ways to try and decrease the pain—though
I’m not sure now why I was thinking that would help?—maybe it’s because
sometimes we roll around after Thanksgiving meals or something. But it definitely doesn’t do anything
for this kind of stomach pain…
When I told Dad last night I wasn’t feeling to well he said,
“Don’t you have a stomach of steel?”
Yes. I usually do! This doesn’t happen very
often. But I’m now able to put my
pepto-bismal tablets to good use since I finally read the two sentences of
directions on the back…
Which reminds me I’m going to try and learn all the names of
the foods. I’ve been collecting
pictures, I’m going to have Sailu help me name them all some day soon. Too much effort for right now… I don’t
really want to think about food… I’m just drinking water today I think. Maybe I’ll get some crackers.
I’ve been learning some pretty interesting things by talking
to people. Sudha, who has been my
main translator, is especially interesting to talk to. There’s good reason that the other
students have named her “Sudha, the queen,” because she’s practically perfect
in every way.
But she definitely thinks differently than I do. I’m actually really surprised by how
differently people seem to think here.
Sudha, who is the definition of hard-worker, asked me what the main
differences I noticed between the States and India.
That’s a good question.
I just said some good things about India, I can’t remember
what I said. But she said, “I
think the people there work very hard, harder than here. That is what I was thinking.”
Yeah… I don’t know.
Because there are people like Sudha, I think, who reads something
informative every spare instant she gets and says she never has time for
entertainment—and then there are people who watch shows and “serials” every moment
they get. And sometimes shops are
close 2-4 or 2-5 for “lunch break.”
That’s a lunch break!? Do
you know how much dead work time that is?
Sudha says there are people who sleep every moment they can
find, whether they are tired or not.
Kindof funny. I think there
are both extremes here, because there are also about as many middle-aged women
as men working in construction carrying big heavy baskets of rocks on their
heads every day—and then those who meander around the streets and talk to each
other and do a few days of work in a week it seems like…
I’ve been doing yoga.
No, seriously.
I have!
If you’re in India might as well. And it looks like I won’t be able to end up doing dance
lessons because there aren’t enough girls who want to do it, so… might as well do some yoga.
I wish I had done yoga in the states so I could compare the
differences more—but I’m pretty sure there are a lot of differences… apparently there are lots of different
kinds of yogas as well—but I don’t know anything about that, so—end of topic.
Pretty much, yoga seems to me to be doing a lot of weird
things that stretch you out and make you stronger and lots of practice
relaxing. We keep doing different
things—yesterday we did some figure-ice-skating poses.
I must say—it’s a good thing I never went into
figure-ice-skating like I wanted to because I probably would’ve cut up my legs
with my skates because I can’t even do what they do on ice—on the ground. :/
We also went to the zoo on Tuesday. I will show you some pictures though
most of them are no good. It was
fun and interesting—and poor Sarah almost passed out from dehydration because
it was so hot and so big.
After that, we went to Gitam University to see Rajasthani
dancers. I’m glad we sat in the
back at first because the guys were a CRAZY audience. They shouted and clapped and got SO excited about
everything—they even jumped up out of their seats at parts to see better.
I think they let the women sit in the front at shows,
because one of the army guards there asked us to come up front since some seats
had opened up and then we knew for sure that we had been in the boy section
because all the people in the front were women—and though they were enthusiastic—they
weren’t as crazy as the boys.
I will probably add some videos though they're not very good--this is the most similar one I found on youtube, though the girls who danced at this performance didn't have the fires at the top. The pots aren't glued together btw.
No comments:
Post a Comment