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.