Coming Attractions

I really want to blog about my time here in detail, and do it right with photos and everything, which means I probably won't get to do so until I get home (which is approximately five weeks [OMG five more weeks] from now). So that I don't forget the things I wanted to write about, and so that I actually write about this trip instead of just posting pictures on Facebook, here's a list of topics I want to cover in future blogs:

1. Mahaballipuram (really amazing historical city on the coast of the Bay of Bengal in Tamil Nadu)
2. A Primer on South Indian Temples (because I've visited so many while here, and have been taking pictures as well)
3. What Once Was and What Might Have Been (my parents' history here and musings upon the life I might have had had my father not been recruited by an American company--and thank goodness he was)
4. The Ugly Truth (about the unpleasantnesses of India as I experience it, encompassing things as specific as my family here and general as the widespread lack of soap in public restrooms, a state of affairs that makes me want to use this smiley: -__-. What's the point of washing your hands without soap?!)
5. Narayana Tirtha Aarathanai (this is the weekend music festival, held in the village [and I mean village] where my mother grew up, that I attended this past weekend. It's one of the main reasons I left for India as early as I did and am staying for as long as I am.)
6. The beauty of the Indian countryside

Those are the only posts I've thought of so far, but I'm sure I'll come up with more as time goes on, and that miscellaneous items will begin to coalesce as my trip continues. I've been in Thanjavur, the town where I was born, for 8 days now, and I'm leaving with my family for Bangalore via train tomorrow night. From Bangalore, I'm heading back to Chennai on March 2, and the night of March 17 will see me on a plane to Singapore!

And There'll Be Sun Sun Sun...

I feel almost guilty [almost, but not quite] that I'm enjoying temperate, sunny weather in Chennai, India while my friends back home shiver in 40-degree weather. Then I remember that I'm covered in mosquito bites (and getting more by the minute) and I don't feel so guilty anymore. This, my friends, has been the [happy] refrain (happy refrain, that's from some song I think...anyone know which? "And we will sing this happy refrain..." something like that) of nearly all the postcards I've written so far--and I've only written ten out of the 28 or so I'm to write from India. Funny story: the postcards, which feature scenes only from South India (in fact, I think, only from Tamil Nadu--which makes me happy because yay South India!) cost 6 rupees each. Postage for each one to America costs 15 rupees each. To be expected, but it's still pretty funny.

Other news:

1. My cousin who picked me up at the airport is a pretty darn good driver, which is saying something because driving in India is insane.
2. I made enchiladas for my two cousins here in Chennai for tiffin yesterday. (I love the word tiffin. Tiffin tiffin tiffin.) They rather enjoyed them, but now I have lots of refried beans and tortillas and enchilada sauce left in the refrigerator. I'll have to get my aunt and uncle to eat an enchilada or two later today.
3. Yesterday I showed my cousins (Abhi and Akhil, so I can stop writing "my cousins" all the time) the video for "Down" by Jay Sean on my iPod Touch (yay iPod which has proven so useful on this journey so far!). It was rather an interesting moment, just because there I was, Indian by birth but thoroughly American, showing my Indian-Indian cousins an r&b song by a British-Indian guy. They didn't really say whether they liked the song.
4. I bought myself Indian shampoo on the first day I got here. I'm really fascinated by the concept of beauty products and cosmetics made solely for Indian women. Foundation that's actually brown? Yes, please! (Okay fine, you can get brown foundation in the States, too, but it's different here. It just is. Plus, cosmetics are a bit cheaper here.
5. I won't be leaving India for another five weeks, but when I do, I'm going to go crazy buying Indian packaged food. We've been to the grocery store twice already to buy enchilada supplies, and I've begun to scope out all the types of noodles and sauce mixes and soups I can buy to fill up my soon-to-be-emptied suitcases. Yay empty suitcases! Speaking of which, when I was unpacking the things my parents had bought for our extended family here in Chennai, I found that it brought me great joy to begin clearing out my suitcases. It generally bring me joy to throw things out or get rid of things: papers, old ticket stubs, and so on. This is not really a very good thing, I'm afraid, because it's nice to hold onto objects that carry sentimental value. But I've never been very good at that.
6. There's a store near my uncle's flat that sells fresh chips. Kind of like a donut or bagel shop, except with chips. There are chips made of all sorts of vegetables and tubers: plantains and potatoes and lots of other Indian vegetables that I don't know the English names for (or the Tamil names, come to think of it...). I need to hit that place up soon because chips in India (even regular potato chips) are FTW.
7. I'm planning to get my nose pierced this Saturday. I'm pretty nervous about it, not so much for the impending pain, but because I really don't know how I'll look with my nose pierced. Truth: it could turn out really terribly. Also truth: I don't really care that much. I've wanted to have my nose pierced ever since I was a little girl. My mother has her nose pierced, like my grandmothers and most of my aunts. It's just something Indian women do. So hopefully the next time I blog I'll be able to tell you what it's like to get one's nose pierced in India. Let's cross our fingers for a no-harrowing experience!

All in all: I haven't had coconut water or roasted corn or mangoes or palm fruit (my mom says it's probably out of season, which breaks my heart a little) yet, nor have I gone to any temples, but I'm having rather a good time here so far. It's nice to be here A) in February, when the weather doesn't have me sweating constantly; and B) alone. I'm not being dragged around by the whims of my parents (my dad is usually fun when we're in India, but my mom goes insane, talking incessantly about how there's not enough time to do all the things she needs to do). Being here alone makes me feel grown-up, in a good way, and truly participatory in my experience here. I get to suggest what I'd like to do or where I'd like to go. Accordingly, Abhi and Akhil are supposed to take me to a coffee shop today, which should be a trip.

Being here is nice. I just hate that I'm missing such a big chunk of my life back home (seven weeks is a long time!) while I'm away.

Note: Entry title comes from "5 Years Time" by Noah and the Whale, which is a fantastic and fun song.

Fear of Flying [Things]

Seeing as how I'm leaving on a long international flight tomorrow afternoon, it's pretty darn good that I don't have a fear of flying. I associate a certain level of discomfort with flying, (I have gotten airsick once or twice, and being in the air for that long does weird things to my body) but I rather enjoy the important and excited feeling I get when I'm wheeling bags through an airport. Flying, therefore, doesn't really bother me.

Flying things, on the other hand, are a different story altogether. I've known for as long as I can remember (or as long as I've been articulating fears) that I'm afraid of moths and butterflies. They're so fluttery and fragile and you can just run into them at any given time. Something about those creatures really freaks me out. I didn't realize until I was about ten or eleven years old that the same kind of fear translates to birds. Again, something about their fragility and the fluttery way they move. I don't really think they'll harm me. I just don't like them near me, and I think it's because I'm afraid I'll hurt them. Anyway, I've recently begun to wonder if I'm as afraid of birds as I once was. I mean, I'll admire the occasional bird when I'm out running, and tropical birds are rather beautiful in pictures. And I've been wondering lately, in general, if the things we call our personalities aren't just cleverly constructed versions of ourselves that rigidify with time simply because we like the way they look and sound. By which I mean maybe I just think I'm afraid of birds, when really I'm not anymore. This morning, though, that theory was proven wrong. There was an unusually large contingent of blackbirds in the parking lot when I drove onto campus, and I only noticed them once I had already stepped out of my car. I walked around to the passenger side door to grab my backpack and purse, and was horrified to discover one of the birds sitting on the roof of my car once I looked up. As it flew away, I definitely shuddered and said "Oh my God" at least once or twice. So the answer is clear: I'm still afraid of birds. And probably always will be.

In other news:

1. I'm officially going to be a medical student at Baylor next year. I've broken the other medical schools' hearts by withdrawing my applications to them, and I've put down my deposit. I couldn't resist the siren song of the Texas Medical Center, even though I'd love to get out of Houston for the next four years. I keep telling myself that I'll leave for residency. I will. I will.
2. I'm leaving for India tomorrow afternoon, and will be carrying quite possibly the heaviest purse known to mankind (containing 2-3 books, a journal, a portable DVD player, two MP3 players, and my wallet, passport, ticket, etc...since when did I become such a wired, pampered American?) cleverly disguised within a backpack. I hope the airline will allow me to carry it on along with my rolling carry-on. I think I should be okay.
3. I'm having breakfast at EIGHT AM tomorrow with a friend who used to live in Houston but moved to Tennessee last fall and is in town for the weekend. I'm really excited about the seeing her part, but rather horrified at the fact that this makes two weeks during which I've had to be somewhere at 8 AM on Saturday. What's up with that?

Here's to a wonderful trip and blogging from Asia!

A New Beginning

I've officially defected from Xanga and come over here. I've been thinking about doing this for quite some time, (a bit idly, I'll admit) but I was hesitating because I always develop attachments to the things I use often--cameras, computers, glasses, cars, and also blogging sites, apparently. I felt a bit like I would be betraying my little ol' Xanga were I to start a new blog here. But since I haven't posted regularly in my little ol' Xanga for ages, I don't feel so guilty anymore. Besides, the Xanga had too much of my teenybopper past attached to it; perhaps that's why I haven't blogged much recently: it was slightly buried in the remnants of the past. Anyway, though, here I am!

Having graduated a semester early, I'm spending this spring semester working in my lovely plant genetics lab on campus (You're sure to hear more about it as time wears on. Lots of fun stuff happens in lab.) and going to India (to visit family) and Singapore (to visit a friend) for seven weeks! Which is a long time. Which brings me to the reason I felt like posting in the first place. I know the trip could be really good, if I went at it with the right attitude. I'm sure there will be many memories to be made, lots of fun to be had, much soul-searching to be accomplished [check it out--countable and uncountable nouns in that list, woot!] in both India and Singapore. Yet I kind of don't want to leave home. I feel like being gone for such a huge chunk of the semester will lose me the opportunity to watch my friends do a lot of interesting things--not to mention to do a lot of interesting things (i.e. go to Chicago over spring break, do random stuff in lab that both annoys and entertains the postdocs, linger obnoxiously long over lunch in South Servery, do movie nights and celebrate 21st birthdays and on and on) with my friends here at home. And I know I'll get homesick in India; I always do. Plus I've never actually gone there by myself before, so I'm slightly nervous about lugging around my bags and making my way through the airport and actually knowing what I'm doing.

All that being said, though, if this trip isn't going to suck, I need to get myself excited for it. So to that end, here is a list of things I am looking forward to doing during my trip to Asia:

1. Drinking fresh coconut water (eleneer; how the heck do you transliterate that?)
2. Eating palm fruit (or so I think it is; all I know is it's called nungu--again, how do you transliterate that?--in Tamil)
3. Eating roasted corn (suttu solam!)
4. Seeing Singapore for the first time!
5. Visiting the temples I love
6. Writing lots of postcards to friends back home
7. Getting to know my cousins better
8. Going to Pizza Hut in India; yay for paneer on pizza!
9. Making enchiladas for my cousin in Chennai
10. Buying clothes and shoes and earrings and other nonsense in Pondy Bazaar and elsewhere
11. Seeing parts of Chennai I've never seen before (hopefully this will happen)
12. Writing in my little green journal and maybe even conceptualizing a new piece!
13. Reading lots of books in my spare time

Right, that's a pretty good start, I'm thinking. But if I want to actually get on the plane, I need to pack, which means I need to get off the computer and get my day started, which I am loath to do, but I guess I should just suck it up. Hopefully I'll be able to update this once or twice while I'm in Asia so that I can show you guys what I'm doing over there. Here's to happy blogging!