Advertisement
Published: January 5th 2007
Folk Culture Bldg 1
Our orientation was in the folk culture building, which is circular with a nice courtyard in the middle where we had chai breaks in between presentations.I think I'm almost done catching up. I mean, all that's really left to talk about is the train ride, and my first few days in Hyderabad. And, well, a train ride's a train ride. It was long, very very long. I believe we were on the train for a little over 26 hours. Sleeping on the train is always nice though, I enjoy it quite a bit. About 3/4 of the way through our journey some of us began chatting with the guys who were sitting across from us. Apparently they're a part of the India Air Force. They were all very interested in what all of these Americans were doing in India, and they were also rather amazed by Ted, who has taken 5 semesters of Hindi and can speak it well.
A fun fact about Ted: he attends the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and after talking about our experiences in Hindi class, we realized that we have both had the same Hindi professor at some point. After she taught beginning Hindi at U of W Madison, she came to Indiana University, at which point I took her class.
Anyways, back to train rides and Hyderabad. The general
plot of this story is pretty simple--we made it to Hyderabad, and are now settled in to our respective housing assignments for the semester. The guest house, as I've mentioned before, is quite nice. The food has been pretty nice so far.
Two days ago, the morning after we arrived, we began our academic orientation. Various faculty members went over all the general, necessary information. Aparnaji, a sociology professor, was very straightforward but helpful. She was very blunt about letting us know what we can, can't, should, and shouldn't do while we're on campus and in the city. It was kind of refreshing actually, because just about every other part of the orientation was presented in a rather roundabout fashion that became a little tedious. After the presentations, we were given a lot of paperwork to fill out while we waited to meet one-on-one with directors of SIP where we would tell them what classes we wanted to take. Most of us were under the impression that these were pretty concrete and final decisions, which gave me rather high expectations for the meeting. It ended up being very brief and to the point. They asked what classes I wanted to
take, I told them, and then I left and sent the next person in. Turns out that right now, we're technically course "shopping," which is why I used the word "somewhat" earlier to explain how we "somewhat" started classes today. It's all very informal right now--I went to the Beginner Hindi class with hopes of taking an assessment exam, only to be told that the professor didn't have the exam with her at the moment, and that I could just wait until later. Since that was my only class for the day, I was done after that. Besides Hindi, I also opted to take Political Economy of Human Rights, India in World Affairs, and Cultural History of Modern India. I've heard that it's pretty much a hit or miss for most classes, so I guess we'll see what happens.
Filling out the paperwork took forever--everyone was ready to get back after we were done. I spent the evening trying to get my wireless internet to work, which eventually did, making me feel ridiculously elated. I mean, it's not like there isn't a computer lab with decent internet just down the hall that's open 24 hours. It's a little embarassing to
so clearly notice the luxuries that really do occupy a significant amount of my time and energy. I think I'll just blame it on my generation for now, until I have a better reason for being so attached to my laptop and internet.
OK, so I think I'm finally caught up, at least with the past week or so. Hopefully, from now on, there will be updates each day or every other day, or every week, or something like that. I just know I'm going to fall off the wagon with this thing at some point, seeing as journaling has never been a strength for me, but I will do my best to maintain this blog.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 5; qc: 60; dbt: 0.0539s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Liz
non-member comment
PRIYA! I love that you're doing this. You are so brave! The place looks pretty swanky. How are your roommates? Any favorites/worsts of the people you're with? Do you have a lot of free time? When do classes start? How's the daal? :) Keep it coming! I read every one! Lurve, Liz