Why am I a poor blogger? + Jhanvi's solution

Since some people (ok, by some people, I really mean Jhanvi) have been bugging me to update my blog more often, I thought I should give an explanation for my bad blogging habits.

There are not enough hours in the day. I work for 8 hours a day, and then I have a Hindi lesson three evenings a week. If I don't have Hindi lessons, I have Hindi homework. And if I'm not doing Hindi homework, I'm running errands, hanging out with coworkers/friends, planning travel, reading books (that's new! haha), or looking up opportunities for next year. I don't ever sleep.

Blogging is hard. Have you ever tried to select approximately 10 pictures from 400? It's difficult, and extremely time-consuming. This is much harder than actually writing the text of a blog entry. Selecting pictures for my blog can sometimes take up to 5 hours.

Jhanvi suggested that I write brief tidbits rather than long posts like I've been doing, so here it goes:

The number of foreigners at TERI has doubled; we went from 3 to 6. Joel, my hero, left (so many tears), but Michael from the US, Sas (short for Sasanka) from Australia, and Mirjam (pronounced Miriam) from Germany joined us. Michael and Sas live in Jangpura, so I have new neighbors!

Katrina and her fiance Kris are leaving in three weeks. Katrina, don't leave me!! I honestly don't know what I'm going to do without her.

I switched Hindi tutors. My new tutor is able to meet me in the evenings, so no more early morning classes! Yay!

I went to my friend's wedding in Hyderabad. Angela, who is a friend from Pondicherry University, was a gorgeous bride. A few friends from Pondy Uni were there, and I hadn't seen them since leaving over two years ago. It was a nice little reunion. And I wore a sari! Hyderabad was a cool city, and as always, it was nice to be back in South India.

Alice's mom and aunt are in town, as are Sam's parents. Both sets of relatives brought bagels, so I'm pretty happy right now. I even found Philadelphia cream cheese (at The Cheese Ball) and Norwegian lox (in Khan Market)! Yummm. :)

On Saturday night, Alice's mom and aunt took a bunch of Alice's friends out for dinner at Chilli Seasons, a Southeast Asian restaurant in Defense Colony. I ate fish in Thai red curry. My first Southeast Asian meal since... Stanford?? Double Yummm.

For Sam's birthday this past Sunday, her parents took a bunch of her friends out for lunch at a restaurant called Gunpowder in Hauz Khas Village. It was impossible to find, but the food was soooo gooood. If you've never had pumpkin curry, you have to go here. Pumpkin curry is incredible. Triple Yummm.

After Sam's birthday party, I went to Safdarjung's Tomb and Lodi Gardens with Will. We lost my wallet in Lodi Gardens, and that was deeply upsetting. Good bye credit cards, ATM cards, driver's license, keys to my apartment, Stanford student ID, Buddha gift from the Bhutanese monks, and Rs 2000 ($43)! Ugh. Still unclear how this happened. I thought I gave my wallet to Will to hold while I took my camera out of my bag, but he claimed he never had it. I think there was some confusion in the exchange, and the wallet went missing. Then Will and I went to the Lodi Colony police station, but they told us to go to a different, farther station. Will and I wandered around Central Delhi for a really long time in search of this mysterious second station and eventually I filed a missing wallet report. I doubt I'll ever see it again. The only good thing to come out of this was that I learned some Hindi. The Hindi word for wallet is बटुआ/batuaa, which Will mispronounces as बटवा/batvaa (as an English/Konkani/Portuguese-speaking Goan, Hindi is not his native tongue, and I love to give him shit about his Hindi, even though it's infinitely better than mine). Also, I noticed that Will kept using the verb घूमना/ghoomna to mean "lost." This word actually means "to travel" or "to wander" (of course I know this word, haha), so I thought it was interesting that Will was literally saying "the wallet wandered." I asked my Hindi tutor about this the next day, and apparently this is a common way to say that something got lost.

Upcoming travel plans: This coming weekend is Holi and I have Monday off, so I'm going to Bikaner, Rajasthan. My parents are coming in March so I'm going to take two long weekends, one to Bhopal and the surrounding area (Bhimbetka, Sanchi, etc) and one to Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj (I know, I know, it's shameful that I haven't been there yet). I'm also considering going to Jaipur in March, mostly because I feel like I should explore more of Rajasthan before it gets too hot, but I haven't decided yet.

I have a 3-day weekend in April for Good Friday. This is my last 3-day weekend of the year. Where do you guys think I should go? I'm open to all suggestions.

I might write longer blog entries about some of the things listed in the previous entry, and I definitely intend to write about Angela's wedding. Sorry for neglecting my blog, but at least now you understand my negligence.

Jhanvi, I hope you are happy now. ;)

I am a poor blogger.

What I still need to blog about, in no particular order:

- Rest of Orissa trip
- Rest of Northeast trip/Ben's visit
- Delhi Sustainable Development Conference
- some daily life stuff

and from a SUPER long time ago:

- trip to Nepal
- holidays (Chanukah, Thanksgiving, Halloween)

And this weekend I'm going to Hyderabad for Angela's wedding. So I'm only going to be further behind. Eek. Maybe instead I should just post pictures on Picasa (still behind on that too).

In other news, Delhi is warm again! Amazing how it can go from 50 to 80 in a week.