As you all know my friend James and his friend Adi came to India to visit me and for us to play white imperialist tourist through the countrie. I've been unable to comment on the trip since we've been on the road, but James has been pretty good. While I gather my thoughts and get back into the swing of things you can read Jame's version of the story at:
http://dcjay.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Cathc up with y'all soon.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Friday, February 17, 2006
I am greatness personified
I was recently asked why I blog. And I had to pause and think. Because I never really thought about it. It originally started as a way to keep my family and friends up to date on my life. A way of sharing my experiences in India. But to me, now, it has become a whole lot more. It's a way of sharing, venting, and analyzing my existence and its environment. And let's face it, I'm pretty funny and you love to read my ramblings. Now if I could only string together a complete sentence. And maybe use spell check more often this could be THE BEST BLOG IN EXISTENCE!! I could win awards, maybe even get a small kingdom named after me...but I digress.The whole point of today's ramble is that in my never ending quest to live above my means I will be gone for another 2 weeks. My friend James will be coming to India on his first visit to the subcontinent so I'm meeting up with him and I get to finally play tourist! Yey!! We are doing the whole Delhi, Agra (Taj Mahal), Rajasthan thing. Then I go to Bombay for the weekend to meet up with some friends (Ameet of Hong Kong infamy is the initiator - I at least don't have a real job I don't know how HE does it) for a little social reunion.
So to all my fans. Try not to miss me too much. I will think of you fondly as I meander through the back alleys of Jaipur.
Cheers!
Thursday, February 16, 2006
On breeding
So back in December my friend Andy and his crazy enough to marry him wife gave birth to a girl. Congratulations go to them in this totally new chapter in their lives.I admit that I am a bit jealous (I love babies) and relieved (thank god it wasn't me!). The thought of breeding both fascinates and terrifies me. I don't know if I will ever have children of my own, but my heart goes out to those that do.
The scariest thing about kids is all the unknown (does that make me a control freak!?). If abortion was legal till say their 10th birthday, then you would have something to fall back on if something goes wrong. But no, once birthed you are stuck with them. And what if they are ugly or stupid. And they are SO expensive!! My ex-BF Ricky once said, we could have a kid or we could take a yearly vacation to some part of the world. We never did either, but still he had a point. The amount of money I spend on holidays would be sucked up by the needs of the child.
Still whenever i see a baby or hear a kid laughing my ovaries churn. I want a kid of my own. It doesn't have to be genetically mine (though let's admit it I have good genes and it would be a shame to deprive the world of them), but I want that unconditional love. I want the chance to contribute towards our future. I want someone who will bring me water, mow the lawn and wash the car and good help is so hard to find these days, so might as well just grow your own.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Birthday Shout-Outs!!
To All My Peeps Born in the Month of Love:
Lorenzo Amato (my homeboy in GA)
Dave Gleave (words cannot describe our realitionship)
Melba Melendez (my dear sis)
Harish Murthy (my favorite FOB)
Much love to you and many happy returns.
Lorenzo Amato (my homeboy in GA)
Dave Gleave (words cannot describe our realitionship)
Melba Melendez (my dear sis)
Harish Murthy (my favorite FOB)
Much love to you and many happy returns.
Monday, February 13, 2006
A visit to God's own country*
* Kerala's Tourism Slogan
(this goes out to my malayalee peeps - Sonia, Ashish, Ratesh)
Kerala is a very beautiful state, truly worthy of all the praise it gets. Granted I was only able to spend a week there and most of it in a crappy down, but I was able to get some sense of what it has to offer. Kottayam is a sleepy little town in-land in the countryside. There is crap to do, save for looking at palm trees and eating many permutations of coconut dishes (who knew coconut oil had so many uses!). Thank god the meeting was good and I had good company or I probably would have spent most of the week drunk.
During the meeting we were able to do the famous back water tours of Kerala. Kerala's back waters are basically small river systems which act like canals through parts of southern Kerala. They really are picturesque and drifting along the calm waters towards sunset does have a slight magical effect. After a couple of hours of being stuck in a small boat my ADD kicked in was ready to get out. Luckily we were treated to a fancy shmantzy dinner at a local resort that more than made up for the dull moments.
After the meeting was over some friends and I headed down to the beach for a couple of days to chill before going back to work. My incident with Frankie the Nose Worm aside the beach was pretty neat. Alapuzha is a crap town. But Kovalam had an amazing beach with white sand and crystal clear water and just the right amount of surf.
On the downside was the sea of old, white, hairy foreigners that tainted the pristine scenery and forced restaurant's to cater to their sensitive taste buds by serving bland food. And the fact that everything closed at 10pm!! Ugh!!
The upside was the relaxed atmosphere, the fabulous sun, and the fact that I got to walk around in a veshti/dhoti for a few days (for the uninitiated - a veshti is similar to a lungi or a sarong, it is a piece of cotton fabric that is wrapped around the waist almost like a skirt. It is traditional to many parts of Indian and very commonly seen in Kerala. On a personal fun, I now know why women wear skirts. They are so freeing, and refreshing, you get a nice breeze, and just a slight naughty feeling.)
Something that I have come to realize is that I love being in new places, but I hate getting there. Can one say the love traveling if the hate the journey? Someday I may bitch about the 3 day train ride down to Kerala or the 12 hour flight back. Honestly. With SO many engineers and physicists that the world produces why can't someone invent teleportation already!? Ugh!!
Final comment:
Kerala is pretty. Malayalee sounds like Oompa-Loompa language (it sounds just like its script all curly-cue and bubbles). And I left my camera in a friends bag so it will be a while before I can post pictures.
(this goes out to my malayalee peeps - Sonia, Ashish, Ratesh)
Kerala is a very beautiful state, truly worthy of all the praise it gets. Granted I was only able to spend a week there and most of it in a crappy down, but I was able to get some sense of what it has to offer. Kottayam is a sleepy little town in-land in the countryside. There is crap to do, save for looking at palm trees and eating many permutations of coconut dishes (who knew coconut oil had so many uses!). Thank god the meeting was good and I had good company or I probably would have spent most of the week drunk.
During the meeting we were able to do the famous back water tours of Kerala. Kerala's back waters are basically small river systems which act like canals through parts of southern Kerala. They really are picturesque and drifting along the calm waters towards sunset does have a slight magical effect. After a couple of hours of being stuck in a small boat my ADD kicked in was ready to get out. Luckily we were treated to a fancy shmantzy dinner at a local resort that more than made up for the dull moments.
After the meeting was over some friends and I headed down to the beach for a couple of days to chill before going back to work. My incident with Frankie the Nose Worm aside the beach was pretty neat. Alapuzha is a crap town. But Kovalam had an amazing beach with white sand and crystal clear water and just the right amount of surf.
On the downside was the sea of old, white, hairy foreigners that tainted the pristine scenery and forced restaurant's to cater to their sensitive taste buds by serving bland food. And the fact that everything closed at 10pm!! Ugh!!
The upside was the relaxed atmosphere, the fabulous sun, and the fact that I got to walk around in a veshti/dhoti for a few days (for the uninitiated - a veshti is similar to a lungi or a sarong, it is a piece of cotton fabric that is wrapped around the waist almost like a skirt. It is traditional to many parts of Indian and very commonly seen in Kerala. On a personal fun, I now know why women wear skirts. They are so freeing, and refreshing, you get a nice breeze, and just a slight naughty feeling.)
Something that I have come to realize is that I love being in new places, but I hate getting there. Can one say the love traveling if the hate the journey? Someday I may bitch about the 3 day train ride down to Kerala or the 12 hour flight back. Honestly. With SO many engineers and physicists that the world produces why can't someone invent teleportation already!? Ugh!!
Final comment:
Kerala is pretty. Malayalee sounds like Oompa-Loompa language (it sounds just like its script all curly-cue and bubbles). And I left my camera in a friends bag so it will be a while before I can post pictures.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
One of the most disturbing things to ever happen to me
(I'm still in Kerala, I fly back to Kolkata tomorrow, but this is was so upsetting that I had to find a net cafe to share with y'all now)
So my meeting ended and some of the other Fellows and I decided to head to Alappuzha and then make our way down to Kovalam to chill on the beach for 2 days before heading back to our respective work sites. It all seemed good until yesterday morning.
Before I continue I need to give you some background into my morning bathing habits. I suffer from pretty bad allergies and every morning I wake pretty congested. Sop while I shower I blow my nose and hack up as much mucous as I can to try and clear up some air passages so I don't suffocate.
Back to the story. So Friday morning I'm showering and I blow my nose as usual. After I blew I'm about to wash my hands in the running water when I look down and see something wiggling in my hand. Upon further inspection I see a worm!! A tiny, red, parasitic worm thing!! I scream, wrapped a towel around my waste and ran outside to show the peeps I was sharing a room with. They all agreed that indeed it was a worm, but that I should not worry too much, maybe it came from the water.
IT DID NOT COME FROM THE WATER! I HAD A WORM UP MY NOSE!! :-(
Trying not to cry, they help me put it in something to maybe show a doctor or something later so that I can go finish showering. I decided to wait to see if a second worm came out before going to see anyone. (none have come out yet) But I am convinced that I have a worm colony living in my lower right sinus cavity and that they are going to eat my brain while I sleep. :-(
I've been afraid of blowing my nose since, and everything my nose itches I'm convinced that it is the worms moving offices. :-(
So to all my friends out there (and this question goes out mostly to those of you who are medically inclined - Mother, Prasad!!) please tell me that either a) there are no such things as head worms or b) that head ones live alone and not in groups and since Franky (that's what I decided to call him) fell out I have nothing to worry about.
Why does shit like this happen to me!? I hate worms!! They are SO gross!!
So my meeting ended and some of the other Fellows and I decided to head to Alappuzha and then make our way down to Kovalam to chill on the beach for 2 days before heading back to our respective work sites. It all seemed good until yesterday morning.
Before I continue I need to give you some background into my morning bathing habits. I suffer from pretty bad allergies and every morning I wake pretty congested. Sop while I shower I blow my nose and hack up as much mucous as I can to try and clear up some air passages so I don't suffocate.
Back to the story. So Friday morning I'm showering and I blow my nose as usual. After I blew I'm about to wash my hands in the running water when I look down and see something wiggling in my hand. Upon further inspection I see a worm!! A tiny, red, parasitic worm thing!! I scream, wrapped a towel around my waste and ran outside to show the peeps I was sharing a room with. They all agreed that indeed it was a worm, but that I should not worry too much, maybe it came from the water.
IT DID NOT COME FROM THE WATER! I HAD A WORM UP MY NOSE!! :-(
Trying not to cry, they help me put it in something to maybe show a doctor or something later so that I can go finish showering. I decided to wait to see if a second worm came out before going to see anyone. (none have come out yet) But I am convinced that I have a worm colony living in my lower right sinus cavity and that they are going to eat my brain while I sleep. :-(
I've been afraid of blowing my nose since, and everything my nose itches I'm convinced that it is the worms moving offices. :-(
So to all my friends out there (and this question goes out mostly to those of you who are medically inclined - Mother, Prasad!!) please tell me that either a) there are no such things as head worms or b) that head ones live alone and not in groups and since Franky (that's what I decided to call him) fell out I have nothing to worry about.
Why does shit like this happen to me!? I hate worms!! They are SO gross!!
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