how high are a hundred boxes?

I have been a very negligent blogger, as you can see. I haven't forgotten though. There's more than enough news to fill at least five independent entries. The problem is that I desperately want to get my apartment unpacked and take pictures before I tell you all about it.

There's a trip home to Colorado, a terrible sunburn, a two day drive to the Capital City and a whole mess else to tell you about. I'm sorry I've been a bum, but I'll get there. I promise.

Got to keep the loonies on the path...

I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere, but looking for an Apartment in DC was ridiculous. Tim and I had to restructure our game plan once or twice a day (a discouraging amount of strategery in what we expected to be a fairly straight-forward process). In the end, we only filled out one application-to-rent because we only found one place that wasn't remarkably silly.

If all goes as planned, we'll be moving into Carmel Plaza apartments in mid-August. I'm so excited about being able to eat anything in the kitchen, wall-to-wall carpet and a view of the Capital Building. And about being 4 blocks from Chinatown, which means about 6 blocks from the National Portrait Gallery and a Chipotle, two things which Shreveport sorely lacks.

I think Tim and I may have been the only two people who didn't fly into the city to see parades and fireworks. But see parades we did. After seeing a New Orleans Parade and a Crawford Parade, nothing in the middle will ever really be as exciting. But someone in the Capital really knows how to put on a fireworks show.

I can't watch Fireworks without crying. I don't know what it is. Something about the sound and the power and the pure humanity of it. What other creature would go to such cost and risk just to see the stars explode on earth? I love it. (That's the Washington Monument in the middle of the picture--again, what other creature...)

In other news, I have a new cousin, which makes me officially 24 years older than the youngest of my 12 first cousins. I don't know how long it will be before I get to meet this new little girl since I don't see my uncle Miles much (I've never met his wife), but it's exciting nonetheless.

This is my favorite picture from DC. It's a truck from Pakistan, and the coolest vehicle I've ever seen. Be careful before you talk shit about Pakistan, is all I can say.

Hi, I'm Larry. This is my brother Deryl and this is my other brother Deryl.

Not having an occupation for the first time in five years is interesting. I know that only boring people get bored, but I am, in fact bored. Or maybe I'm not bored, I just feel guilty for not having any projects or pressing deadlines. Which is stupid because I have a stack of book to read that's taller than I am.

There are plenty of things I could be doing; like packing; finishing (i.e. starting) my resume, sending postcards to famous people; improving my standing on Wii Tiger Woods golf; thinking of new Tim recipes that use only bread, chicken cheese, chocolate, barbeque sauce and beer; making handicrafts from unused things around the house, prank calling people I knew in high school, finishing the scarf I started knitting for Ashlie Daigle two years ago, watering my carrots, scrapbooking, jump-roping, or writing a novel and starting a cult.

Or I could try to find a job that will take me for the three weeks this summer when I'll actually be in Shreveport.

Ugh. Or I could just keep whining about my boredom.

Tim and I are going to DC to look for apartments on Tuesday--our hotel is directly across the street from the White House, which means the fireworks will be directly over our heads. I only hope our potential apartments are open for viewing the day after the fourth (known, in some circles, as "the fifth").

The fact that we really are moving is all the more real now that Mikey has moved out and the house is so empty. I should use all this free time to paint a mural in Mikey's old room and not tell anyone. Except I already told you.

Tashi Delek

I read a quotation in some book... it said something to the effect that every Westerner, upon coming to India, thinks that she could write a book about the place. But by the time she leaves, finds that she can't write one sentence.

I assume that whomever said that meant something much more deeply philosophical than that said Westerner can't write a sentence because she has contracted leprosy and lost her fingers. See, there you are, one sentence and it already seems like I've made a terrible ungenerous judgment about India.

That's the thing though... India (what small part of it I saw) is more than I could hope to describe. If I had the eloquence of Nabokov I couldn't do it.

Of course, jumping right into India means I have to skip writing about Graduation (seems like something worth noting, eh?), how Tim and I got majorly robbed with my Mom in New Orleans, how my book arrived from the publisher (and the stupid error inside it), and how amazing the last week of school was. I think it will be ok. You can ask me about it.

I have nearly a thousand photos, and I'm trying to determine the most economical way to post them without spending 24 hours in front of my computer. Until then, I've painstakingly picked just one (ahem, or two or three) photo (s) from each city:

Our second day in Paharganj, a market section of Delhi, we woke up early and went to get a chai on the street. When we got there, the shopkeeper was still in his underwear. He made our tea and while we were drinking it, he put on a nice shirt and fixed his hair. He let me take a picture and for some reason, every time I look at it, it makes me happy. All of the packets hanging behind him are chewing tobacco. We didn't see many smokers in India...



This is the group, minus Dr. Otto and Neil (and the random tag-alongs we picked up--and, I suspect, paid for--along the way). From left to right: Karma, Kari, Caleb, Jeny, Yours Truly, Madison, Steen, Tessy, Lucy; and in front: tiny chilrens. This was our first day in Delhi. This was out first small temple, outside of Hotel Relax on the very first day, before we got to know each other and realized that our group was AWESOME. Also, before stomach illness.



The Golden Temple, in Amritsar, is the most holy place in the Sikh religion. It's also absolutely stunning, inside and out. Inside, the Sikh holy book, Guru Granth Sahib, "lives"-- it's treated like a living teacher, fed, bathed, put to bed and awakened every day. The Sikhs give free food and shelter to anyone who needs it, every single day of the year, in every Sikh temple we saw. I've never seen anything like it.




In Dharamsala, I spent the first five days in the room, sick, staring out the window and wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into. This is what I looked at for five days: not too bad, but not nearly as amazing as the stuff outside the hotel. Luckily, I got well in time to see the Dalai Lama, though, I think I would have fought any sickness for that.







Norbulingka is an art institute for Tibetan refugees to learn Tibetan traditional art, such as making appliqué thangkas like this one. Each tiny piece is cut and stitched by hand. It's a peaceful deity and his consort. They also make furniture, silk, carved and decorated wood, painted thangkas, and gifts. The art is so distinctive and it's amazing to see people working towards the preservation of their culture when it's been effectively wiped out in Tibet. Check the institute out here.



I think Bir was my favorite place in India. It's about the size of Crawford, surrounded by monasteries. I think the rest of the group started to go a little stir crazy, but I loved walking around in the rice fields, laying on the roof and looking at the stars, and the homemade fries at the Friends Tea Stall. We got to see monk debating and have a teaching on Om Mani Padme Hung from the Dalai Lama's highest teacher. I really didn't want to leave.



I'm also cheating, and putting up three pictures from Bir, because the whole place made a huge impression on me. There are people all over northern India who carve mantras on stones every day of their lives. Some are as tall as buildings, some are small enough to fit three or four in your hand. This monastery had thousands.







Tashi, one of our guides, told me that this glass is meant to keep drunks from jumping off the bridge. I'm glad to see that's a universal problem. Really though, I feel like this is India. It's both utilitarian and innovative, reusing the glass for something useful, the way their shopping bags are made of discarded Christmas paper, and the fruits and vegetables are wrapped in newsprint. But it's also kind of scary and somehow sad in its own jagged, dirty, violent sort of way. Part of being in India is being surrounded by what has been discarded: sometimes it finds a new use and sometimes the refuse--trash and filth, invisible people with leprosy, mangy unloved dogs--just gets swept back and forth.


Tso Pema, called Rewalsar by Indians, also had way too many amazing things to choose just one picture... so I chose this one and the next one. These children from the Tibetan Children's Garden (get it? Kindergarten?) sang and danced for us , traditional Tibetan songs and English ones that I forgot I knew the words to. We gave them each two pencils to thank them for singing to us. Of course, the pencils immediately became drumsticks. The boys in red are micro-monks. The little girl in bright blue lived across the street with her family in their restaurant. I saw her every day that we were in Tso Pema.

Tso Pema is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs because it is built around a sacred lake (with more sacred lakes surrounding it). Each religion has its own legend about why the lake is sacred and they all live together around the lake amazingly well. I think they all see the significance of each other's traditions. One way or another, these fish ended up in the lake artificially and they became sacred too. So there are probably millions of these black carp in the lake, and they come out of the water to eat balls of dough and other things that people give them to eat. I get kind of gleeful when I see things like this.

This is not the best picture of the finery we acquired in Mandi. However, the picture does have the king of Mandi, who dined with us while we were there. We really only went to Mandi to stay in a nice hotel, eat nice food, buy nice clothes, and relax away from the generally filthy places we'd been for the first part of the trip. Granted, there are plenty of really old, impressive stupas in Mandi... but come on. We stayed in a former colonial palace. And it was wonderful.



This part of India was decidedly not wonderful. I really had a hard time dealing with the horribly diseased feral dogs. One of the women we met in Bir spent, the owner of Friends, spent a lot of her time and money trying to help the local dogs. But there's not a lot that can be done across the whole country. Everywhere we went there were dogs like this. I can't imagine how my veterinarian grandfather would have reacted.




Back in Dharamsala... the Himalayas are definitely as amazing as you might think they would be. Imagine this is every direction. The weird thing about Dharamasala is how much is resembles Boulder. The same kinds of shops (Buddhist stuff, cafés, hiking and camping gear, weird bookstores), the same kinds of people (lots of westerners with dredlocks, except more monks) and talking about buddhist philosophy over a nice chai on the rooftop, mountains (though, even though I'm biased to love the Rockies, I'll admit that these were truly something to behold). Except there were also lots of cows, lots of filth, one-lane roads, no chain stores, and--of course--the Dalai Lama. Just as many "save tibet" bumper stickers though.

This is us, sick, hot and cranky in the train station in Pathankot which is a literal stone's throw from Pakistan. It was extremely dirty, militaristic-feeling, and hot. Jeny got some very disturbing stares from this man who kept lifting up his shirt and rubbing his chest. The sleeper train had cockroaches and one of the scariest bathrooms I've ever seen. Half of us were having stomach problems and we were tired of carrying everything. As you can see, we acquired a lot of stuff. Still, the train was kind of fun for its own sake. I gave it an A- as a life experience, and a solid C as far as quality of sleep.

Ha! Ha! Jeny's holding the Taj Mahal! That's silly!
What can I say? We drove ten hours to see a big empty tomb? It was cool. Cross that one off the list. I'm glad we went to the Taj. I'm not as glad that we went to McDonald's afterwards... but it was an educational experience to order a McChicken Burger instead of Paneer Veg Pizza Puff. Oh McDonalds, how I hate you. I think it's interesting that a country where it's illegal to kill cows would allow McDonalds to do business there at all, just because of the sheer volume of beef they slaughter elsewhere... hmmmmm.

Understandably, we weren't able to take pictures at Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying and Destitute. Instead, here's a chipmunk. I do wish, however that we had been able to take pictures of the children at Mother Teresa's, because these kids broke everyone's heart. I can't really describe what it's like to have a little girl in your lap who has only one finger out of ten, and only part of one leg and who still laughs when you find her belly button. It really is easier to tell yourself that all these kids will be adopted someday.


In order not to end on that note, our last hotel was in a Tibetan settlement. Out front were tiny alleys, a million people and Tibetan shops. Out back was the Yamuna river, a tributary of the Ganges. Our last day I woke up at about six-thirty and took pictures of the day starting down by the river. It was probably one the prettiest things I saw in all of India. Everything is more photogenic in the morning, I think.





After India, (and eating at the Chili's in the Bahrain airport) we spent about 26 hours in Dublin. Clearly, there was only one logical way to spend the day. 'Nough said.

As soon as I find photo hosting that will allow me to publish 1000 pictures, I'll get back to you with more photos and stories. There really aren't enough words for it.

HINDUSTAN

In bad blogging form I have had a world of adventures and not written about any of it. Once again it proves true that when you have the most to do and the most to write about, you have the least time to write about it.

We're in Bir for one more day, and tomorrow we leave for Tso Pema to meet the monks and nuns who live in caves and recieve blessings and teachings from Karma's aunt. Karma is our guide and because of him we got to see the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala last week. When I say, I really mean that we got to see him as he passed by us and then again as he sat on his throne and prepaired to give a teaching at the monestary where he presides.

The past two weeks have been filled with amazing things of this sort and I am so excited to be able to write about them all... but later. Right now, I'm going to go eat a local mango on the Balcony and enjoy the peace and quiet of the monestary.

I'll post pictures when I can. You really have to see this place to believe it. And even then it's unbelievable.

Mittwoch

I'm done.

Being in College anyway.

For right now.

Grades are in. My family gets here Friday. We're having a massive family-oriented cookout Saturday. You should come. Bring a bag of chips... or just yourself.

I got my A's.

I'm sleepy like mad. And my brain is so fried that all I can think about is...

I'm done.

T-minus 11 days and counting

To say that I learned a lot last week would be a gross understatement. Besides all of the collegey, highfalutin stuff I learned in the paper-writing, research-presenting, textbook-reading process of trying to complete my degrees, I also observed myself in rare form.

Exhibit A: I essentially gave up all semblances of a social life or a functional relationship to compose piles and piles of... stuff. I see evidence that other people do that every once in a while, but--as Kacie so gently reminds me--I am a raging nerd. It's sort of become my life. So instead of wiiing, corn-holing or otherwise involving myself with my friends, I wrote. But what I learned was that I love writing about poetry. I could write volumes about poetry and never get tired. Same goes for art. I could write a manifesto on the need for art and poetry without blinking an eye. The same does not apply to Jesus. Not that Jesus can't write about poetry, but that I don't want to spend the rest of my life writing about Jesus.

In the quest to decide what I want to study in grad school, that's a major revelation. Je ne pense pas que je voudrais étudier le Français, donc... that leaves gender studies, English, and professional writing.

On the other side of a very difficult week, I feel completely honored and utterly flabbergasted to report that I won four awards this week.

First, the Zeak Monroe Buckner Creative Writing Award, which I won for a non-fiction essay called "Upon Encountering the Sabine Women." I have three people to thank immediately for that. The first is Mary Sue Rix for sending me to France on a reasonable budget so that I had an experience to write about. The second is Jenn Strange for always saying "enter yo' shit" (except, of course, without any profanity and with impeccable grammar), and for writing helpful comments like "is this nonsense?" instead of just copping out of the editing process by saying, "yeah, that was a good essay." The third is actually a conglomeration of about four other people who critiqued my essay in class with great temerity and viciousness. It's a good feeling.

The second was the M. T. Brewerton Award for English, which I got (with two other people) for being a good kid and trying real hard. It's for high GPA and general awesomeness. It mostly just makes me feel warm and fuzzy and I kind of want to hug all of my English professors.

Third and fourth, I placed first in the Humanities portion of the Student Research Forum, largely through Dr. Kim's persistence and interest in my topic. (There were only four presenters so I'm not going to pretend that I beat back a throng of PhD candidates, only a small throng of other swamped, trying-to-graduate types.) And the French Department (AKA Dr. Kress) gave me a sizable award for completing my book, which ships on May 7th, and will be BEAUTIFUL.

Mostly, I'm just so thankful for all the opportunities at this school. (Yes Kacie, more ammunition for your anti-nerd mockery). I'm glad I've gone here. I'm glad it took me five years and that I came in with the class of people I did. I occasionally marvel at the general insanity that is Centenary, but it seems to suit me.

All of this was topped with an RCB cherry. It's a marvel how a hotel can book a bunch of Fraternity boys (ahem, men) and their dates--half of whom showed up in sombreros--and not expect a loud, unruly party. This isn't the Texarkana Disgruntled Podiatrists' Association (though I hear they tear it up at dance parties).

Anyway, it's been a long week, and I suspect there's more to come. Directly after finals my family arrives. Directly after that I'm going to New Orleans with my mom and Jed. And the day after, at 9:15 a.m., I leave for India. If I expected a second to gasp for air...

At least it's never boring.