good weekend

This is my last weekend in Sarnath, and I can honestly say that it's been one of the best weekends I've had since I've gotten here.

Saturday morning: John Dunne from Emory called to let me know that I had been accepted into their Ph.D. program in religion. Their offer: full tuition + 1/2 health insurance + $15,500 (+ lots of opportunities for summer funding and jobs) for 5 years. He said that the admissions committee wasn't too sure about letting me in, since they generally require applicants to have an MA beforehand, but once they read my writing sample, they changed their minds. I accepted the offer right then and there. So starting this fall, I'll be in Atlanta.
And my pal Jo got into Emory's anthropology program, so we're going to try to get an apartment together. I'm beginning to realize that Smith and Smithies will haunt me for the rest of my life. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though.

Saturday afternoon was basically spent lounging around inside watching movies, being out of the sun. I had a meeting with the director of the Institute, just to officially wrap things up here before I leave on Thursday. I told him about Emory, but since he's been pushing for me to go into a philosophy program all along, he didn't sound quite as thrilled as I was. All he said was, "Emory? So you're going to get a degree in religion?"

Saturday night: I went into Varanasi to spend the night with Jo. The program that she's here leading (Where There Be Dragons) was having a big dinner/classical Indian mucic concert at their program house. Ramu and Goswami, two excellent musicians in Banaras, gave a great concert on the roof that lasted for 2 or 3 hours, then we all had wonderful food. Jo and I had our picture taken (she was wearing a sari and i was wearing a chupa), and we're going to send it to the Smith Alumnae magazine to show everyone how awesome we are.

Sunday: I took a rickshaw back from Varanasi and realized that in spite of all of the obnoxious, disgusting, and just plain irritating things that a person can experience here, there are really a lot of amazing things in this city. I'm going to miss it when I leave.
I came back to Sarnath and went with my friends Yangri, Tsechu, and Ugyen to Tsechu's brother's house. (He's a teacher here and has an apartment right on campus.) Tsechu cooked an amazing farewell lunch for me. I don't think I'm going to have to eat another meal for a couple of days. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging/sleeping/drinking tea, while watching some of the best Bollywood films I've seen in a long time.


life is pretty good right now.