sunset orange…

…that is the theme color of our new home.

our official move-in happened on the 6th of June and we spent the first week sitting on the bare floor asking each other what we were going to do, what we should eat, and making lists of things to buy.

that first week we didn’t even have a gas connection despite the presence of the stove, so we ate out, ordered in, and lived like college students again for a few days.

slowly we got everything in place, got a 12kg gas cylinder, gave-in and bought a refrigerator (in hopes of selling it when we leave), had beds and basic kitchen supplies lent to us by some generous colleagues, and found a few nearby shops for everything else we could possibly need for a small, Indian apartment.

now that we generally have the things we need, life has been fairly routine and unexciting as we typically come back from work and lay around trying to resolve the constant question of what we should cook and whether or not we need to walk all the way to the grocery store first. this is typically followed by NC’s adventurous and creative cooking, leaving me the task of washing dishes and countertops. not that i’m complaining! i’m more than happy to clean (most of the time) if someone else does the mentally taxing task of deciding what and how to cook.

this is from the front-door, our living area consists of two cotton mattresses arranged as a sitting area. you can see the kitchen in the back, and the open door is my room. just around the corner of the orange wall to the right is NC’s room.

an enlargement of our very nice kitchen. though this will seem very small to those Americans in the audience, it’s actually quite spacious by Indian standards, and I consider us lucky that it’s so open and breathable with room for the refrigerator!

my room!! small, but more than enough for me w/ a window and a nice shelving unit for all my STUFF (below)!

…and that concludes the brief tour of my new place. when i get the chance (and remember), i’ll try to post some photos of the outside. for now, this is your window into my very Indian life 🙂

sarah

shame…

…well i finally figured out what it’s been that’s kept me from updating my dedicated followers (i.e. the friends and family that monitor me to make sure i haven’t gone completely over the deep-end). shame.

yep, shame.

now don’t go getting all worried, not that scary wrist-cutting shame that causes so much grief you can’t even live with yourself. no, its that kind of shame you get when you put something off just long enough to feel bad about it. then you get to that point where you’re afraid that if you try to make it right you’ll just draw more attention to the irresponsible procrastination you let yourself fall into in the first place and the shame sets in again. you know, the paralyzing kind that makes you want to avoid attracting attention to yourself? (at least if you’re an ‘avoider’ like me) its like that.

i think what it boils down to is the fact that i’ve never been a particularly disciplined person. throughout my schooling, assignments always seemed to be a day late, and i think certain teachers came to expect my heart-wrenching pleads for just one more day and the concession of a few points so that i could “finish” it. which meant that at about 9pm that evening i would frantically begin the project and stay up all night brooding over it to come out with a fairly decent rendition of what it should have been had i planned out the whole 2 weeks i’d had to get it done, further reinforcing my tendency to do it again. that is my life. has been for as long as i can remember and, clearly, i’m not growing out of it any time soon.

so, long, drawn-out excuse over with, a LOT has happened since the last time many of you heard from me! here’s the short list:

1. i made the formal decision to finish out a second school year with CHI! so that means i’ll be here through April/May of 2013. luckily, NC and i made somewhat of a pact so that neither of us would be here alone, which leads to the next 2 points

2. i officially got my visa extension which will be good through July 2013! not that I need it that long, but I’m glad to have leeway and not have to worry about doing it again*

3. NC and i have officially moved out of our previous home-stay accommodations and gotten into a new two-bedroom abode about a 20-minute bus ride from work! (which cuts my commute time in half!) i’ll dedicate another post to this on its own.

4. i got to spend about a month in Indiana this past May and got to see a few of the people i had hoped to see. hopefully i’ll be able to plan out my next visit  a little better (mark your calendars for December, people!) and get more visits in!

5. my very brave father spent a week here with me on my way back and got a small taste of my life in India. i think there was a bit of shell-shock, but overall i think his experience was good. i enjoyed being able to finally show off how much i’ve learned about life here and prove to myself just how ‘indian’ my lifestyle has become!

6. we currently have the special ed coordinator from Indy here working with us at school which has been a HUGE help for getting ourselves better organized and focused for creating procedures in the school.

well, you’ve now got the abbreviated version of what’s happened in the past couple of months. overall, things are going well and i’ve etched out some sort of life here that i think i can manage for a while. i’ll update soon with pictures and details of the new living situation.

tata for now,
sarah

*= new & exciting info originally neglected, added 23/07/12