Bulletin Post

It's a bit late, I'm tired and not in much of a writing mood, yet there are a few things I'd like to mention and apparently Blogger lets me generate bulleted lists:

• Went with my class of five to my Hindi teacher's house, allegedly for a make up class, but actually to eat her incredible cooking, play with her beautiful baby girl and see the inside of an Indian house. Mission accomplished, pictures en route.
• I finally finished and highly recommend Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. Now reading Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (my heavy read) and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon (my light read and the reason I'm being so matter-of-fact in this post - I just set it down moments ago).
• I've started to learn guitar with my friend Tyler's assistance. I'm going to teach him and some other friends a bit of capoeira in exchange.
• Yoga, frequent biking and going to the gym has me in a constant endorphin-soaked state, doing wonders for my productivity, mood and general outlook.
• I've made a conscious decision to become proficient in Hindi, after which I will return to French and do the same. This will probably take a few years but is infinitely more likely to happen with those goals in mind.
• I sat in on a fascinating lecture in the Philosophy department (where a three-day seminar is going on) concerning the validity of testimony as a legitimate source of knowledge. I'll elaborate later because I think it's well worth sharing.

I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did. Oh, the joys of novel formatting.

Getting settled

Tomorrow it will have been a month since I left for Hyderabad and I can feel myself settling in. The little things let me know I'm getting used to life here: rickshaw rides no longer scare the living hell out of me, the chaos of mid-day in the city doesn't phase me the way it did and I've come to expect the stares and extended hands that come with being a white American. The novelty is starting to wear off, but it's giving way to a new sense of home and normalcy. Through daily exploration, I'm coming to know the city. Ive learned the bus system, train system and the reasonable price for a rickshaw ride from point A to B. Walking through the city streets, I'm piecing together Hyderabad's geography and gaining a sense of where all the places I've been lie in relation to one another. It's a good feeling, this slow transformation from alien to familiar.

I came to India, in part, to fling myself into as different and foreign a place as possible (I'd figured it doesn't get much more different than India) and to make of it a home. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it and that human beings, anywhere in this world, share more than they endure alone. I'll save you, dear reader, the stereotypical, lengthy "People are just people" revelations. But it is a nice thing to see and confirm, I must say, especially on my first jaunt outside my own culture.

The prospect of being here for another four months is also starting to settle in as I slowly stop expecting to suddenly wake up back in Madison. It's a nice notion and makes me feel like I can take time to stop, breathe and reflect amid my travels, without fear of missing out on some crucial experience. So I think I'm striking a balance of ample exploration without forcing myself to be constantly, endlessly preoccupied. That said, I look forward to doing some traveling outside of Hyderabad over upcoming weekends. This process is somewhat difficult, as we have to submit all travel plans two weeks in advance, since the Mumbai incident. Train tickets also must be procured several weeks in advance as they inevitably sell out at the most inconvenient times. But I'm currently planning several weekend trips with friends, so I hope to get out into the unknown again sometime soon.

On that note, I've uploaded some pictures of my recent adventures and will be uploading more soon, including the ex-labor childrens' school, the French jazz concert, the Sankrati festival, the zoo, the flea-market-esque exposition grounds and Golcanda Fort.