A Sense of Spring

It's still a lot of snow here, and a slight risk of more of the stuff falling on our heads the next month or two, but toady there was a sense of spring (or just optimism?) in the air. The sun shone brightly, the snow was melting, most of the roads are bare of snow even if the ditches still seem to have inverted themselves lying belly-up and reflecting their white bellies of snow. It was a joy to be outdoors today. Beautiful light when I went home from work today. Took many nice pictures on my way home.

Other stuff: an update since last post seems to be in order...

I'm still job-hunting, but not as intensely as I did earlier now that schoolwork has caught up to me. 1-2 months until my final deadlines and then exams, and I have about 15-20 pages of Japanese writings to do (of various smaller stuff that is, a 15 page japanese sakubun would be a real nightmare!), a 10 page semesterassignment discussing the debate around R. Benedict's the Chrysanthemum and the Sword, and then 1500 pages of history curriculum to read, + general repetition of Japanese grammar, kanji and glossary which should be done continuously regularly...

In addition I've got a job; I'm temporarily working as an assistant (substituting a woman on extended sick leave) on a local shcool's after-class-club (or something, I have no idea how to say it in English really...).  It's not a full time position, but I having somehing to do outside the house, income, and still have time to study, it's almost perfect. I never thought I'd ever work with kids, but now I do..  And it is fun -most of the time. :)

Last week I even tried being a teacher! It's really nice to receive phone calls which go along the line of "Can you come tomorrow? We need you!" It was a different school that called me when one of their teachers was going away on a seminar, and they wanted me to fill in for him for a day. So now I've tried teaching Math, Norwegian, Religion (Buddhism) and elementary school biology to 12 year olds. I was given a prepared program for the day so I did OK even though I had no experience and I'm not majored in any of those subjects.

Now I'm off to bed, I've plenty of curriculum and fresh air waiting for me on the other side of sleep, so I'd rather get my share of it by then.;) 

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I'll add pictures tomorrow if I have time.

Cecily's February Winter Wonderland

 
When you put on wellingtons in order to reach the mail box nice and dry and you still get snow in your boots, then you know it's a lot of snow... 

 

Snow vs. Wellingtons

It started snowing before I went to Bergen for a couple of days, and it started snowing in Bergen before I returned home as well. Along the railway to Bergen there was one beautiful snowscape after another, and although it is quite a challenge to take nice pictures from a moving train with a lot of trees close along the railway, I got quite a collection of nice pictures. 

  

Prepared for travel

 

View: Snowscape 1

View: Snowscape 2

 

In Bergen I was lucky enough to only get snow during my last day, the first days being nice and dry. I enjoy seeing the gradual tranformation of 'Bustling Bubbling City' into 'Busy Snow-Clean City', but I don't like the opposite transformation of 'clean snow city' into 'grey sludge city', and I'm glad I left before the reversed transformation kicked in. (I had a blast in Bergen, loved being back, and for social reasons not that happy to leave so soon...)

I like snow, I really do, but it can be... inconvenient... at times...

Here at home again I find myself partially snowed in; there's a lot of snow making it difficult (though not impossible) to get out of the house, the household's car is out of town with my mother this weekend, and since it is weekend public transport is only accessible enough to make people exercice extreme patience in extremely boring places or cause immense frustration, or both, due to the extreme lack of correspondance between the different bus lines etc (it's so bad it feels like it has to be planned by somebody). Just as well I don't have any reason to leave the house until tomorrow.

"Snowed in"

 

For the record, it's four steps in the stairs to our front door, and the footprints/tracks to the mail box was largely snowed away 10 minutes after I took the picture.

Long time, few words.. first words of 2009

Belated welcome to 2009, Happy New Year, Happy Celebrations, and all that jazz! 

I see I haven't posted a word since late October '08, but I will try to remedy that by giving a brief update on happenings since then, and then try to update on a regular basis throughout 2009... 

2008:

My stay in India ended a week and a half after our group assignment was due. I had 4 days in Pondi before me and Lina travelled to Pune to visit a fried of Lina's. I stayed in Pune with Lina and her friends in Pune for a week before returning home to cold and snowy Norway to write my final assignment and celebrate Christmas and New Year with family and friends. 

Writing the assignment at home turned out to be quite a challenge as I had no proper workplace at home where I could concentrate. I still have to work with that, but now, 3 months later, I have adapted and adjusted potential workspaces to fit my needs a little better than they were back in November. 

In mid-December people started coming home for the holidays, Christmas and New Year came and went in a flurry of social arrangements and festivities, and then everyone left town again.

2009:

I stayed behind after the holidays, starting my jobhunting activities when everyday normalcy returned in the beginning of January. It also turned out that I lacked a course at the university to fill the requisites for my Bachelors' degree, so after some amount of bureaucracy I've acuired student status until the  end of the spring semester. Hopefully I've finished required amount of courses by the end of this semester's exams. 

And this is basically where I am now, in the middle of jobhunting and studies. As I expect the next months to be basically the same I expect to change some things in my blogging topics, rants, the nature of my writing, etc.

No way of knowing what it will turn out to become until it has become what it will be. 

Still wishing everyone a happy and prosperous 2009! 

Week 7 & 8: Cancelled/rescheduled

Last week's blogpost is (largely) cancelled due to sickness and dehydration, and this week's post will disappear in the amassed workload; the groupwork assignment took a new twist while I was sick so now I have to start all over on something I wasn't really prepared to write (that much) about. 

Um, yeah, to briefly explain last week:

I just had the time to be "well" again for about 2 days, and then I ate something that didn't agree with me. After a heavy nausea on Wednesday I've been dehydrated and feverish throughout the weekend, slowly rehydrating and getting gradually better closer to Monday (food helped a lot), and I was back at school today Tuesday...

But on a nicer note, the Monsoon is here and temperatures are getting comfortable! I love the heavy rains and thunderstorms, it gives me a good autumn feeling. I've started reading stories with a friend at the rooftop in the evenings to hold onto this atmosphere.

People are getting restless here. It's the ten-week-crisis looming I think, assignment stress, and travel giddity. A lot of people have started talking (increasingly) about their after-Pondi-travels or about the return home. My plans are still not fixed, I'm still checking out the options as they appear, I've had about 6-7 ideas I've decided and then decided against. This time I've started asking for possible dates and price options etc. Looks like it'll turn out nice in the end...:)

Week 6; behind on blogging again...

(Warning: Long post!)

Yeah, another 2-in-1 update, the post for week 5 is here. 

The last post weren't posted earlier due to illness; I haven't felt too good/borderline sick, and then finally giving in I redefined my 'cold' to 'having a small flu'. I missed out on a great workshop on the topic of the Kashmir issue because I didn't have the energy to benefit from being present. The workshop was held in Auroville, and though I tried to go the first day I decided not to go the second day. I felt dizzy and tired by lunchtime and decided to go home, and instead of going to Auroville the second day, a friend and I went out to the study center, ate proper food, relaxed, and talked to the staff. 

Towards the end of the week I felt better, stating that I'm getting better but still not 100% back to normal. I decided not to join in on the Children's Day (taking a bunch of village children to an amusement park for a day) even though it sounded fun; I knew it would've drained me for all remaining energy leaving me reduced for another week or so. Not worth it. I did go to the costume party Saturday night, dressed as a Colonial times British lady. (I'll try to see if anyone got a picture of me...)

Sunday, went out for brunch with a friend and afterwards we roamed the warm streets of Pondi, enjoying the bright sunshine and the nice temperatures (which has dropped to a mere +30 Celsius), and the sounds and life in the streets occupied by the Sunday market. 

Despite illnesses (not just me) our group assignment was in on time. I felt quite accomplished when I had sent it. Friday became much better after 5 pm (the deadline), and in the evening me and Lina went to Banana Café - one of our alternative regular spots, where we sat talking with the chef (whom is also working at our study center) for almost an hour after eating.  

As for regular spots/hang-outs; we're up to 4 regular spots now; 
* Surguru - the best restaurant in town, both for food and prices 
* Banana Café - the best western food in town, and the cleanest (or: only clean) kitchen in town 
* Rick's Café - the best ice coffee and chicken baguette
* Coffee.com - internet cafe with nice atmosphere, tasty food, and wonderful tea.

In the beginning I lamented my friend's lack of interest in trying out new places, but by now I've accepted that these are the places to go, and attempts at going other places has resulted in bad restaurant experiences, leading me to believe we're not going to find better places than we already have found. 

Me & Lina has been talking increasingly with the staff at the study center, always exchanging greetings with the chef, talking with the manager's assistant and always greeting the other staff members with a smile when we meet them. Apparently we're more sociable than earlier batches of students. Makes me wonder what kind of people that must have been... But looking around at school, there's not many of the students that actually talk with the staff, although there are a few more than Lina and I.

Point of pride, come Monday morning; make sure to talk to the staff I danced with on Saturday to prove I'm different from the earlier batches - that apparently became (stereotypically) social when drinking, and then reverting to Scandinavian arrogance the following monday... Heard it before? (I have at least; same, but different.) Lina also voiced her relief that the Indians we danced with danced at a comfortable distance - in contrast to previous experiences.

So, in a week where I didn't do much, even skipping significant event like the P&C workshop and the Children's Day, I ended up having quite a lot to say anyway... even after 5 weeks in little Pondi!


ADDITION:

I forgot to mention the trip to the Cinema!

We had spent a day talking to Kavitha at the study center, and Thursday she brought me and Lina along to the cinema when se was taking a group of school children! Watching a flim (yes, that is how they say it here...!) in an Indian theatre was Absolutely, Fabulously, Fantastic Fun! 

We had a small "box" in the theatre to ourselves in the back of the theatre hall itself, and it was me, Lina and Deborah, Kavitha and her daughter, and her 15-20 school kids (all girls, in the age range of 10-14 I guess) in the box. The music was loud, the hero was popular and the heroine was beautiful, the romantic scenes was vividly graphic for being that decent (I don't know if I managed to get the correct impression into words here...), the girls sang along to the love songs, *squealed* when there was a scene with the hero and heroine together, and a fountain of confetti flew around our ears after an especially climatic (romantic but not sexual) scene. Definitely an experience in it's own right...