Seattle Here We Come!

For those who haven't heard - Michael (my Michael, not the other student here) has signed on the dotted line. It is all official now. We are moving to Seattle next summer! You are all required to come visit. Michael will be working at Virginia Mason Medical Center which, though not a university, has its own residency program so he will be able to teach.

Hospitality

Mike left earlier this week for Delhi. He plans to travel around India a bit before meeting his family in Nepal for a one month trek. So, I was feeling a little blue- being the only American left here. I came down for lunch the next day and sat down at one of the tables with some of the other guests but then one of the servers starts insisting that I move. I got up and he directed me to this other empty table on the opposite side of the room. I was sitting there thinking how strange this was and eyeing the food on the other tables when they come out with this special lunch they had made just for me! It was my favorite- stuffed peppers, this cheesy hash brown sort of stuff, roasted tomatoes, and banana fritters for dessert. Yum, Yum. The guys in the dining hall speak almost no English, but such a simple act of kindness went such a long way in making me feel less alone.

There are a lot of people coming through here. We get a lot of recruiters visiting the campus hoping to hire soon to be graduating students, people attending conferences or giving guest lectures. There are some students here now to take exams for their distance ed program. I met them yesterday when I sat with them for lunch and they all seemed rather nice. Later in the day yesterday, one of them came into my room. He said he was sorry, that he was mistaken and thought it was his room because he room was next door. I said it was no problem and he asked if we could be friends. I said sure and then he said that is was customary for friends to kiss. I said this was not my custom. He said he was very offended and didn't I like Indians? He kept insisting that I kiss him and I said I really needed to get back to work. So he said to go ahead and he would watch me work. I said that I preferred to work alone so he said ok - we can just sit on the bed and talk. I told him I wanted him to leave so he did - though he came back later and asked if he could take me out to dinner. I think he is maybe a little slow. Anyway - I went to talk to my friend Mallika (I don't know if I have talked about her before - she is a superintendent in the women's dorm.) and asked her if I was right in thinking that this was not at all normal behavior in India. She was horrified and said there was no where in India where this would be acceptable behavior and insisted that I tell the front desk at the hostel. So, I told the guys at the front desk that I didn't think he was a nice man and that he had tried to get me to kiss him and sit on the bed with him. Well, apparently this news has spread all over the place now. This afternoon I was called into a meeting with a couple of the deans and there was this other guy taking minutes of the meeting and they had me tell the whole short story and showed me a photo-line up so I could identify him without having to go through the trauma of seeing him again. At the end they asked if I had anything else to say and I said - Well, he did leave when I asked him to... Anyway, I find it rather sweet how horrified everyone seems to be on my behalf and it is nice to know that so many people care that I am ok. I feel a little bad for having started all this fuss - after all, he is just a creepy jerk - hardly a unique characteristic.

Random Stories

Please forgive the long silence. The internet has been up an down here lately - well, mostly down. At first I thought it was because we were getting more rain, but now the rain has stopped and it has turned hot again, so I don't know what the problem is.

Anyway- here are a few random stories:

The other day the cleaning guy mopped the floor in my room and left the door open with the fan on so it would dry. A wasp decided to take the opportunity come in. Now, I'm generally hesitant to go around swatting at wasps because if you don't kill it right off - now you have an angry wasp in your room which is much worse. So, I thought I would attempt to encourage it to move on first. I opened my windows and hoped that it would decide that it looked nice outside. At first I thought it had worked because it flew over to the window. But instead of going out it just sat on one of the bars on the window. Now, the wasp isn't leaving and a bunch of other bugs are saying- gee, it looks nice in there. So, when the wasp flew back into the room, I just closed the windows and went in search of a fly swatter. I found the cleaning guy and asked if there was a fly swatter which, by the way, is REALLY hard to explain using sign language. So I motioned into my room and showed him the wasp who had moved back to one of the bars on the now closed windows. The the cleaning guy went and got a broom and I'm thinking- that is not going to work. So, out of wisdom or cowardice (you decide) I thought it would be a great time for me to go get some more water because boy was I thirsty. When I came back, he was leaving and explained that he had let the wasp out the window. Then he takes me over to my window and shows me how to open it. Once I had demonstrated mastery of this new skill, he left and I thanked him.

I have a new room now: 309 instead of 102. The move was precipitated by the painting they have been doing here. I think the original plan was just to move me next door while they painted my room, but I took the opportunity to explore the hostel (Most of the rooms were open with all the painting) and find my favorite room. So here are the things I like about my new room:
1 - I can see the sunset and just have a better view in general being higher up
2 - There is a big tree outside my window that the pigeons like to hang out in. (See Mike's blog for a good pigeon story.)
3 - It is quieter up here and I generally have more privacy
4 - It is in the far corner away fro the stairs so again - more privacy
5 - I now have easy access to the roof. When (if?) the weather turns nice I expect to be spending time out there.
6 - There is more light from the courtyard because I am up near the roof opening.

There is this odd thing they do here- in many places, they don't let grass grow. You will see the landscapers with hoes scraping at the grass to dig it up. It is so dry and dusty here that you would think grass would be nice so Mike and I didn't understand what was up with this. We wrote it off as Indian logic - which is our explanation for everything we don't understand. Well, I found out today that is is because insects like the grass so they keep grass away from the building. So pretty smart really.

PS Listening to Grisman's Dawgnation

PPS Do you like the peacock feather I found?

New Outfit

I got a new outfit so I thought I should show it off.

Does skipping in place count as dancing? - because it totally should. And for those who are wondering: Regina Spektor, Fidelity





If you liked the auto rickshaw ride- check out the sequel: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6929147207387298139

Christmas in September!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree... - sing with me now!

Earlier this week was Lord Krishna's birthday. (a.k.a. Janmastimi) He was an incarnation of Vishnu. Thousands of pilgrims came through Pilani on the way to some temple or another. (Sorry- I forget the name of the temple. I also forget how many pilgrims came through - but it was a lot so be very impressed.) People in the community got together and set up a rest stop for the pilgrims at a local park. Visiting I got an chance to get inside the park (which is usually locked for some reason) and check out the rainwater harvesting system they have there.

Janmastimi has quite the Christmas feel - what with celebrating the birth of the incarnate god and the midnight mass er... um... I mean temple service. To top it all off there are Christmas lights! - or that is colored lights.

Check out the pictures!
http://picasaweb.google.com/vickirwilliams/Janmastami

I'm just upset that Lord Krishna didn't bring me anything. I so wanted a pony.

Just a Note

Don't miss the "More Shopping" post. It sort of got skipped since I didn't post it right away. I was trying to figure out how to get the video to work inside blogger. I finally gave up. I think it is a problem related to my very old 64 MB of RAM Windows 98 computer. Anyway- keep an eye out for the open sewers!

Just for you Beth

So you want more crazy lady stories?

I bought a potted flowering plant the other day from a guy on the side of the road outside the campus gate. When I was coming back in, the security guard motioned me over and started asking me a lot of questions that I didn't understand, gesturing toward my plant. I finally caught "in room?" So I said yes and he said "tree in room?" I said yes and he and the other two guard bust out laughing, hooting "tree in room! ha ha! tree in room!" Since I bought the potted plant there- I hadn't expected this to be the cause of such hilarity, but it seems I was exhibiting yet more odd behavior.

One thing that is a bit frustrating is that the hotel staff hoard the toilet paper. They don't give you a spare roll and they only replace rolls that are totally gone. So you are always have to ask for toilet paper and sometimes they are busy and forget. Well- I have noticed a slightly better success rate on actually getting the toilet paper when I pair the request with a coffee request (which they get to charge me for.) So I often will go and ask for coffee and toilet paper. Well the other day, I went and asked for coffee and the guy at the front desk said, "And toilet paper?" I'm not really surprised that he has made this connection now that I think about it -- but it is still a bit embarrassing because I can only imagine what sort of underlying cause to the association he has surmised.

It has actually starting raining fairly often here now which means the long awaiting cooling off that is supposed to happen in monsoon season is starting as well. I've posted a few more pics to the Around BITS album. Also, coming soon (as soon as I get my pics sorted out) will be "Christmas in September."