so

next week i think that jojo and i are going to head up to darjeeling. we have 5 of 6 days off of school for durga puja (a hindu festival), and since most of our teachers are skipping out a little early, i think that we might do the same. the weather up there will be much more tolerable than here (55-65F as opposed to 85-90F), and there are all kinds of gompas (tibetan monasteries) scattered around the hills. but really, the one reason why i REALLY want to go to darjeeling, is for the tea. some of my favorite tea in the world comes from tiger hill, and right now is apparently the best time to go take a tour of the plantations. if we have time, we're going to try to get permits to go up into sikkim for a day or two as well. from some of the towns in sikkim, you can see mt. everest.

in other news, i spent an hour and a half in my philosophy class yesterday discussing the different ways that you can interpret the tibetan terms "nyon sgrib" and "shes sgrib." i think it's kind of awesome that people want to talk about that sort of thing with me.

par-tay

so.
last night the tibetans had a party. it was kind of ridiculous, but in an awesome sort of way. the night started as traditional tibetan parties go, with lots of food and people taking turns singing songs and telling jokes and stories. then, the next 3 hours turned into a weird combination between a middle school dance and a smith quad party. they played everything from mid-90's dance music, to bad hip-hop, to hindi film music, to bob marley. the evening started off with the girls awkwardly standing on one side of the floor, while the boys tried to look too cool on the other side (as per middle school dances); but as the night progressed and people started dancing, it turned into something like a smith quad party (minus the alcohol and scantily-clad women), with loud popular music that i hate and random sketchy boys trying to dance with groups of girls.
it was actually a LOT of fun though, and it was nice to get to spend time with some of the students when i didn't have to worry about talking to them too much. one thing that i learned last night though: tibetans can't dance. not a single one. it was pretty awesome.

school

classes started on monday.
on the one hand i'm excited because i'm learning a ton and have lots of things to do.
on the other hand i'm exhausted because i'm learning a ton and have lots of things to do.

hindi has gotten off to a slow start, but i'm in that class with jojo and a girl from russia who is doing a preperatory year at the institute before she takes her entrance exams to become a regular student.

tibetan is fine, albeit frustrating. i just wish that i had studied harder before i got here so that i could have an actual conversation. BUT, my teacher is this guy who just graduated from CIHTS last year. he's sticking around to do a post-grad year, working on western idealism. it's great to talk to him, because right now he's reading hume (one of the central figures in my honors thesis). yesterday we talked about hume and candrakirti and their notions of identity.... ahh, it's great to be around folks who like philosophy.

and my philosophy class is wonderful. my teacher gave me a copy of the tibetan edition of the madhyamakavatara, and we're going through it bit by bit and picking it apart.

it's great, but i'm spending all my time studying. i'm worried that if i keep going at this pace, i'm going to burn out in a couple of months. it's great to be busy with schoolwork again though.

around the hostel

i don't know which photos are which as i'm uploading these images, but here are some images of the girls' hostel. (my room is on the ground floor.) the nun with the shaved head is my pal shanti, the white girl with the glasses is jojo, and the tibetan girl with the long hair is my pal lhamo.

finally, some photos

old delhi:

the red fort


chandi chowk


jama masjid (the biggest mosque in delhi)


aaaaand ridiculous indian english.

sunday

yesterday i had my first bout with culture shock since arriving in india. just a combination of being exhausted and frustrated with not knowing enough tibetan/hindi/etc., made me lock myself in my room and sleep for most of the day. everyone says it takes 3 months before you feel really comfortable with a language, and i know that it'll take time, but it's upsetting to get so frustrated sometimes.

things are going well, though. i'm in a much better mood today, and classes start tomorrow. i'm looking forward to having a routine. i'll pick up my chupa (tibetan dress) from the tailor tomorrow, then i'll be all set. all of the girls wear chupas to class... mine is navy blue with a yellow blouse, and jojo's is grey with a red blouse - michigan and ohio state!

so i'm having a rough time uploading pictures, but i'll do that soon. apparently there's wi-fi in the library on campus, but i don't know how i'm supposed to use it, because we're not allowed to bring personal belongings into the library...

yesterday i visited a school for poor kids from surrounding villages. it's run by a woman named raj, whose husband owns the restaurant where i always eat. raj took me around and introduced me to some of her kids - it was amazing. she has six tiny classrooms and over 200 kids, between the ages of about 4 and 12. they all come from poor or low-caste families, and they're learning hindi, english, math, and social studies. she runs the school completely on grants and donations, because the families that send their kids there can barely afford food, let alone education. i met one seven-year-old boy, who lives with his mom and two younger siblings. when he realized that they had no money for food, he decided that he would lie down in the middle of the road until a car ran him over. he told his mother that once he was killed, his family would finally have something to eat. and now, two years later, he can read english and hindi, and he loves school. it's just amazing. nearly every kid had a story like that. it's a level of poverty that i honestly just can't wrap my head around. it makes me feel incredibly fortunate (and incredibly guilty) to be an american.

in other news, i finally met my teachers. i start classes on monday. hindi, tibetan, and madhyamaka and cittamatra philosophy. it's so amazing to be at a school where everyone knows buddhist philosophy. when students in the hostel have asked me what i studied at smith and i tell them philosophy, they nod and smile. then they ask, "western philosophy?" and i tell them that i focused on madhyamaka, and they get excited. it's wonderful. yesterday at lunch i talked with my pal shanti about svatantrika and prasangika, a distinction between the madhyamaka school... no one who's reading my blog right now cares about the details, but it was just really exciting to be able to chat about this sort of stuff with people my age. it makes me wish that i was more fluent in tibetan - it's hard to talk philosophy in another language.

success

yesterday i had my first entirely hindi conversation! it was pretty exciting. i bought bananas from the fruit-wallah. FYI, they cost Rs12 (approx. $0.25) for a dozen.

i just figured out how to load my thumb drive on these computers here, so i can post some pictures soon.

i didn't realize how horrible the damage from hurricane katrina really was. all this running around has really cut me off from the outside world. now that i'm getting settled though, hopefully i'll have time to keep up with the news. sukdev, the owner of the restaurant where jojo and i eat most of our meals, has arranged for his paper boy to deliver an english-language paper to the restaurant every morning. this morning jojo and i read the Times of India and drank crappy instant coffee. i think that might become my morning routine.

hmm

not much to say today. after nearly a week of dealing with indian paperwork, jojo and i finally registered as foreigners in varanasi yesterday. we had a little time to kill in the city in the afternoon, so i bought the soundtrack to "bunty aur babli," one of the new hindi films. it's basically a remake of bonnie and clyde. but it's three hours long. and a musical. there's one song that EVERYONE in india knows, and it's on the radio ALL THE TIME. it's kind of annoyingly catchy.

my room is all set up now. yesterday afternoon some folks were sitting in my room, and we were sitting on my bed, listening to american music on my laptop and drinking some tea that i had brought from home. it felt like i was back at smith again.

funny

yesterday i was taking a cycle-rickshaw back from the store, and i went past a chai stall. there were several old men sitting on the benches, talking and sipping chai. the oldest man had his back to me and was wearing a green t-shirt. as my rickshaw approached the stall, i read the back of his shirt. it said: JOHN CARROLL INDOOR TRACK CHAMPIONSHIP 1996

how a t-shirt from JCU made it all the way to sarnath, i have no idea.

hot hot hot

it's hot in sarnath. i'm glad that i didn't come here before september. everyone assures me that it'll cool off soon, but MAN, i would love to have some air conditioning right now. or a fan. there is a ceiling fan in my room that works really well, but the power always goes out during the hottest part of the day.

aside from that, though, things are good. jojo and i shared some of our inji (tibetan slang for white folks) music with our friends last night. they were big fans.

after a week in delhi, i finally made it to sarnath. everything is basically the same as i remember it, except there are a few more internet cafes, and a lot more people have mobile phones. (i just hooked myself up with a mobile, so if you want the number, send me an email... i don't want to post my number on the internet for anybody to see.)

delhi was fantastic. jojo and i spent our first two nights in a tibetan colony on the outskirts of the city, then we spent a night in a seedy little guest house in the middle of new delhi. the fourth night, we relocated to a guest house in old delhi, which was AMAZING. delhi has been rebuilt something like 15 times, the most recent of which was when the british came and relocated the capital to the southern part of the city. as a result, new delhi is super-westernized, with pizza hut, t.g.i. fridays, levi's stores, and coffee shops on every other corner. many of the folks there wear western clothes, and the streets are all paved. old delhi, on the other hand, is congested, dirty, full of bicycles and cycle-rickshaws. there aren't any internet cafes, and no one wears western clothes. the two delhis are like completely different worlds! after our old delhi excursion, we went back into new delhi to stay with the aunt and uncle of a friend of ours. the uncle, ashok, is some high ranking officer in the indian army, so he and his wife, anita, live in the defense colony. they had their driver come and pick us up from our hotel, and they had servants around the house to cook and clean. it was fantastic to spend some time in a house with a family, though. anita and ashok have a son and a daughter who is close to my age, and jojo and i had a great time with them.

on sept. 2 we took an overnight train into varanasi, and two girls from the institute met us at the train station. the girls' hostel reminds me of smith houses in a lot of ways... people study a lot and drink tea, and sometimes they play loud obnoxious music. but i already know a few of the students from the last time that i was here, and everyone has been incredibly friendly and helpful.

the power just went out in the internet cafe, and i'm not sure how much longer my computer will stay on, so i'll end my post here. hopefully i can update more frequently once classes start.