It's Getting Hot in Here

Either you all failed at leaving comments on the last post or no one reads this blog. Either way is mildly damaging to my self esteem, but I won't hold it against you.

I don't have any big adventures to report on so I thought I would take the opportunity to talk about a lot of little things.

The weather has gone from hot to HOT in the last few days. For most of January I would wake up before sunrise to go to yoga and it would be legitimately fleece-jacket-cold outside, then between noon and three it would be unbearably hot, but then pleasant again by the evening. Yesterday was pretty unbearable all day long. This morning when I woke up for yoga it was only a little chilly outside and I understood this to be a huge warning sign and I haven't ventured outside all day (I don't have any classes on Friday, so that's an option). But I hear you're all freezing in the USA so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Electricity comes and goes...daily...hourly...you just never know when you can count on power.

I never knew so many things could be wrong with a single bicycle. They gave us all bikes to get around campus and, due to my own laziness and disorganization, on the day of bike distribution I was one of the last people to receive one. While some people's bikes still have pieces of cardboard from the original packaging clinging to the shiny, aerodynamic frames, mine is rusty, squeaky, and only somewhat functional. It is periwinkle blue and in sparkly green letters it reads "HERO," which couldn't be a more ironic title. The zebra striped seat is stylish, and fits my personal taste, but slowly tips backwards as I ride it and has usually reached a vertical position by the time I dismount. As my peers happily whiz past me I count ever ride as penance for my sins.

Classes are going well, but it's hard to bring myself to want to focus when A) the professor's accent is sometimes unintelligible B) there are adventures to be had outside the classroom C) residual yoga-fatigue begins to take it's toll. All of my classes are taught in English but in varying levels of fluency. Across the board, my name has proven to be a challenge for any Indian professor to pronounce. In my Hindi class I discovered that Indian languages don't have any equivalent to the "ah" sound, the "th" sound, the short "e" sound, or the short "i" sound, so the name "Katherine" is completely unpronounceable for everyone here. It usually comes out sounding like "Kaaa-tuh-rrreen" but my favorite variation so far was the very robotic and futuristic sounding "Ka-tron." Though Hindi is missing all of the necessary sounds to speak my first name, there are literally four different ways to pronounce the letter "D," so there are plenty of options for Davis.

Language has proven to be quite a barrier in the two dance classes that I am taking. In my Khatak dance class the teacher seems like a nice enough man, but without the necessary vocabulary to sugar-coat each criticism, he comes off as very blunt. "That's wrong" is his only instructional phrase and I have to keep myself from getting defensive. I've also had to keep myself from getting too "Irish" in these dance classes. Both Khatak and Kuchipudi involve a lot of stomping of the feet. This immediately puts my brain into Irish dance mode and renders my arms immovable and my feet extra fluttery. Needless to say, I am not yet a great Indian dancer.

I'm beginning to sweat profusely so I may go lie down near a fan. Later today we're being taken on some kind of field trip to learn about some kind of Green-energy company...maybe we'll learn some coping skills for power-outages.