I Got the Groove Now!

 So finally, after six weeks of being in India, I have begun to get into the swing of things.

Nearly Getting Hit by a Bus. A Daily Occurrence.

Through the bouts of homesickness, and especially the freaking out about the GREs, I have had a really tough time adjusting. Now, though, that the wretched exam is finally over (story to come) I can take a deep breath and finally start appreciating my time here abroad. So I suppose this post is going to be about the quirks I have been experiencing about life here, also my GRE experience, and then my time so far volunteering. Yes, that sounds like a good plan.


So first thing's first: little quirks about living here. Well for one, nothing is guaranteed. Whether it is getting a ride somewhere, knowing when you have class, or even what you are ordering, you never know if it is actually going to pan out like you hope it will. There is something here that we call running on "Indian Time," and everyone from here does it. It basically means that even if you need to be somewhere at, say 4pm, and you ask for a ride there, your ride might not even get to your house by 6pm. The trick here is to tell them at

Just Trying to Keep My Charger in the Wall

 LEAST two hours ahead of time you need to leave. Then you might actually have hope of making it. Of course, though, if it is urgent they will be on time, as any good friend would :) Things getting cancelled is another thing that I have learned to just take with a grain of salt. The most common occurrence I see this in is with classes. You will go to school expecting to have three or four too-long courses and then lo and behold! Two are cancelled for no reason! Well, there is a reason, but it usually isn't anything more than the professor having to proctor an exam or out sick. Regardless, classes are cancelled way more frequently than back home, but we have to make them up which is no fun. The private education system here, especially with higher ed, is crazy. They go to school six days a week, and their longest break is only about a month long. Also, they only go to college for three years. No wonder why everyone from here is so smart!!! Anyways, moral of the story is that class gets cancelled, but we have to make it up. Also, we only have to go to school Monday through Friday because we are American. Lame excuse, but it's the truth.


Now, ordering food should be a completely different blog post, but I will try to condense it in this one, although I feel like we may have to extend it a bit as time goes on. Alright, so we have gotten much
better at ordering ourselves food as time has passed, although usually the norm when we go to a restaurant, especially if it is sit down and we actually get a menu, is we just point to

Just Eating Some Massive Puri. No Big.

something random and hope for the best. 99% of the time this works in our favor, although we have gotten a few very interesting dishes since being here. We eat mainly veg foods, especially in smaller places where sanitation is questionable. I think I have only eaten chicken twice since being here; great for my cholesterol! SO the food here, if I haven't covered this already, is really, really, reallyyyy spicy. Usually this is fine with me, but eating spicy food three times a day for four months literally might kill me. I have found oatmeal (thank God), and cereal, and Silk soy milk (yay!!), so that's what I have in the morning, then usually Indian food for lunch, and I alternate Indian food for dinner and oatmeal, depending on how I'm feeling, how late it is, etc. The range of food here is incredible. You have your breads from northern India, like naan and puri, and you have your rice from southern India, and then you have about five million different types of curry, veg and non veg, thinner, thicker, etc. You get the point. And remember, none of this is in English on the menu, so basically whatever you point to will a) be delicious and b) be spicy, so you can't really go wrong.


So onto my GRE story, which is completely irrelevant to the photo in this section, but I will come to the photo in the volunteer section. So this morning I wake up and simply dread getting out of bed. i know that I still had tons of studying to do, and I was mega stressed out about this strike that was happening. Oh yes, the strike. So here in India, when a city decides to go on strike, it's not liek one or two groups of people or places of employment, it's the entire city. The entire city shuts down from 6am to 6pm. And I say "shut down" as in there are no busses, no rickshaws, no school, no gas stations, no restaurants, no shops, no street vendors, no one drives, no one walks. Nothing. It is super creepy and, especially us Americans, are advised to stay indoors all day in case of demonstrations that could be happening. So there has been one strike before today since we've been here, it was to counter the rising fuel prices, and the one today was to protest something to do with the water Bangalore is giving to a neighboring state. I'm not exactly sure on the issue, I had such a busy day I just skimmed through one article to gauge how dangerous it was going to be and sort of skipped over the details. So, this strike had protests all over the city, with only a few demonstrations. All day I was pacing, freaking out, attempting and failing to study, I watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy, did some FaceBook stalking, and then just pure procrastination by taking an unnecessary shower and things like that. My nerves would not calm down, and only part of it was about the exam. I obnoxiously

Volunteering at the Paper Recycling Plant, Gluing Folders

texted my friend who had promised to come get me at 3... I was so worried he was going to be running on Indian time I couldn't stop pestering him. So I get a call at 2:15 from my friend saying that he was outside my building waiting for me. My exam wasn't until 5, but I was not about to take the chance with the strike and also we didn't know how to get there. As we ventured out in the car for the 20 minute drive we only saw about ten bikes and three cars, which was super eerie because we have millions of people who live in Bangalore and usually it is hell to drive. We didn't see nay protesters, but we did see piles of burning trash and debris in the middle of the street every few hundred meters or so.  Apparently this was reminiscent of the rallies that had been there earlier, or just from angry citizens setting things ablaze. So we of course couldn't find the place, so we had to stop and ask directions quite a few times (men here, by the way, are MUCH better at asking directions, it's quite refreshing). We came across the building the exam was in and of course it looked terrifying because everything else was all boarded up and closed for the day, so I made my friend walk me up to the testing center. Since I got there two and a half hours early I just say in the stairwell and reviewed my math notes. I made a friend, of course, and his name I cannot pronounce for the life of me. He was nice, though, and told me he wanted to go to school in California or Florida. After two hours of "studying" my math notes my new friend and I decided to head in to register and get ready for the exam. I was totally internally freaking out at this point and felt like a robot getting the papers filled out because I couldn't function. So we got everything filled out, put our things in a locker, and headed in to face the dreaded exam. I won't go into detail, but it was brutal. Just BRUTAL. I never want to go through that again, nearly cried when I finished. I got out an entire hour earlier than I thought I would, so I called my brother (well, technically he's my friend Sandy, but he is basically my brother here we call each other family) to come get me and we headed off for a celebratory chicken dinner with ice cream to top it off. Never has chicken tasted so delicious and ice cream tasted so good. Literally feels like a hundred pounds have been lifted off my shoulder after finishing that exam, now I just have to keep my fingers crossed about actually getting accepted into Grad School!! So that was my adventure today. Skyped with a couple friends, FB chatted a few more to say that I survived not only the strike but the test also, and now I sit here at 2am still writing. I am thinking that I should probably save the latter portion of this post for tomorrow. Yes, I think I will do that. So until tomorrow then. Good night all my lovely readers.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Alright, that was a refreshing sleep... not. Apparently I was more jacked up about the day than I though, I had a hell of a time falling asleep. Oh well, today is Sunday so I can stay in bed all day if I

Mischievous Little Nuggets

please. And I will probably do just that. Alright, so about all of this volunteering I've been doing, and will continue doing. The first place I volunteer at is at a recycling place right on campus (see photo above). This organization hires eight women from the slum right outside our apartment and gives them the opportunity to have a steady income. Bangalore is number one in India for recycling, and it is apparently when we go to this place. What happens here is they take all the paper waste and food waste and they separate it. Food waste goes into the composting center while paper waste gets washed and shredded to go into the pulper, or whatever it's called. It gets crushed up and water is added, then we transfer it (yes, we has in the volunteers as well) into this tub of water with a mold in it. Then we swirl it around to make an even layer, lift the mold (it has a screen on the bottom), and flip the wet piece of paper onto a cloth so it can be pressed and then laid in the sun to dry. After that, depending on what the paper is

Hannah and I with Two of Our Favorites!

going to be used for, it goes through different processes to be sized, pressed, bound, etc. Also what we do there is glue things, or put "gum" on them as they say. That is monotonous, but can be relaxing if you are stressed. Basically we glue different things together like the pockets in a folder, sides on paper boxes, etc. We use our hands, of course, so it get's kind of messy, but it can be fun. It is also really interesting to hear the ladies talk. None of the speak English, maybe a few words here and there to tell us to put more or less glue on, or to pass them something, but for the most part we just talk to each other and they talk to each other and everyone is happy. They all speak Tamil, which is the language of the neighboring state, but will switch to Kannada sometimes and since we know a it, it's fun to pick out the words we know.


So not only do I volunteer at this recycling plant, but I also go to the slum after school program twice a
week, three times on a good week. This program is fantastic and I love every minute of it! Basically what we do is we catch a rickshaw to the slum from school at wish, then we walk the rest of the way into the slum to the actual building. The kids get there at 4:30 so we go hang out in the office until they get there with the coordinator, taking a few minutes to relax

How Could You Not Love These Faces?!

before the rush starts. We head across the street to the program "library" where all the younger kids, second to sixth grade, go to work on their homework, practice whatever they learned in class that day, study for exams, etc. Our job is basically to help them with anything they need, usually it is English practice, but sometimes they have math and science homework as well. When all the kiddos get there we can usually be productive for a solid half hour, forty five minutes before they get completely distracted. It is inevitable that they are going to lose interest in the work they have, they are stuck in school all day, then are expected to work more after school. Luckily the rules here are lenient, so we end up playing hangman, or reading books, or playing hand games, which is fun but I feel so old because it takes me forever to catch on! Most everyone speaks fairly good English, so that is a relief, and they are all so nice and just hilarious! I brought out the camera the other day and I knew it was going to be a big thing, because they had asked me to bring it, but MAN did they have a hay day with that thing! We had to take it away eventually because not everyone was getting a fair turn and it was getting brutal. This is the perfect place for me to be, it's basically what I want to do after Grad School, so I love every minute of it! We only have about six or seven weeks left that we can volunteer here, so I want to make the most of it.


This week should be pretty boring, well,  but I'm sure I can muster up something or other to write about later ;)

Today, my life is just Shelby.