July 2, 2010

Picture I colored for the 'rents. Love you! :)

Returning home from work.
Chandrakala: my wonderful workmate!

I am just thrilled that the weekend is here here here! Today is Friday, and I love it because especially on Friday, when I talk to people at home after work, I am just feeling great in that really exhausted and happy to be relaxing way. But whoever I am talking to (cough, Anna) is just beginning the day I have finished! It is interesting because at work I dress way more like the men than the women. The women all wear these beautiful outfits: they consist of loose pants with a long tunic-style shirt with slits in the sides on top. Then there is a pretty scarf that is draped around the neck and it runs down the side. These pieces are typically in the same color family and very pretty.

I keep thinking about how awesome my packing ended up to be. It just seems like I brought just the right clothes and a good amount of them too. Eventually I can do some laundry if I need to but I have not been needing to yet. There is a laundry service here for a low fee if we want to pay for that. So to work, I wear a lot of collared shirts and/or button-up ones. I think I have said that already, but I wanted to show you a typical getting home from work picture. It is funny though, because everyone is really nice and likes my Western clothes. Today this really bubbly and kind lady told me I looked like a doll today- I had never even met her before! There are just such nice people here.

I was having a great conversation today also with a person here doing post-doc. work. His name is Mao and he is from Africa. He is working with drought and is really nice. Today we were talking about our experiences here and I found out he has been here for a whole nine months! I asked him if he liked it though, and he had quite the response. He said something along the lines of, "If you come with a lot of ideas and preconceived notions in your head, you may not be happy. But if you instead just live, you can be anywhere." It was a great perspective and he has been to a bunch of different countries. I think that is a good philosophy for anytime in life, just live and let live. If you let lots of little things get you down, you will never really be as happy as you can be, but if you instead just accept it and move on, you walk above the struggles of life.

Today at work a man brought around this tray with a bunch of little baked goods on it and offered us all some. I took a couple and said thank you to him, not thinking much of it. Then, after my roommate, Chandrakala, got off the phone, she told me the whole story behind it. They were from Tirupati, which is a big, gold temple place in the Hindu faith. The concept of the whole treat revolves around, "prasada", which from my understanding, is some type of concept of both giving and receiving with the gods. The treat is called a "Laddu" and a man in the office made a visit to the temple and bought the "Laddu" there. He also has a shaved head now because if your prayers are answered, oftentimes the people (men) will shave their heads. The name of the god is Venkateshwar and that is who the man went to see. After learning allllll of that, I hoped I accepted the laddu ok and hoped that it was ok that I took two of them! (I think all was ok :))

Now I am just hanging out with my friends, Claire and Kristin, (the same ones as in the monsoon rain with me!). It is really nice to have this "Indian fam." to hang out with! Kristin is reading, Little Women, so tonight we were talking about which of the March sisters we would be! I would be Joe, but so would Claire, so I am Joe1 and she is Joe2!

Better be off to bed now, it has been a big week!