Sorry to be so out of touch. I've sort of lost my drive to blog..I don't think it is really for me, although I'm very happy I chose to make one for this season.
Right now, I'm sitting in my room. It's just after 5 so the sun is starting to set and it's not yet dark. This afternoon I stayed home because I was feeling out of sorts- I slept all afternoon and I'm feeling much better. The only thing is I've had this cold for quite a while and I'm pretty sure it should be over by now! Hopefully soon. Hopefully before I catch my next one! I imagine with the colder weather (still above 0 at night but below 5, and about 15 during the day) I'll be catching colds every time I wash my hair.
So I have been working on a long, long reading that we all have to do for our class. While we are here we have 5 modules to work on that include a set of lecture slides, some readings, the task of creating a group case study demonstrating the topics as we have seen them here in reality, and a personal reflection. We do our group case studies once every two weeks and tomorrow is our 3rd meeting, so we are all rushing to finish the readings. This one is 40 pages and it's pretty dull. The topic is reproductive and sexual health though which is definitely interesting (all of the modules are on women's health).
So mostly tonight my housemates and I are reading and taking showers. I cooked up the last of our tofu for everyone because it was going to go bad and our cook (!!! I have a cook!) doesn't really know how to make tofu. Our greatest success has been to ask her to cook it like paneer is cooked, but I think she is avoiding it because it had been sitting in the fridge all week. It's really amazing we were able to hire someone to cook and do laundry. The cooking is so great because it saves A LOT of time and also our kitchen is tiny tiny and it is always difficult even just for all of us to heat up dinner. It's only really big enough for one person. The laundry is wonderful also because it saves EVEN MORE time and now that it's cold it's nice to keep your hands dry. I feel so spoiled. I wonder if it will ever happen to me again!
Work is going well. Things have picked up again after a slow return from our 3 days off to go to Manali. Ceinwen and I finished our nutrition curriculum and now we are working on getting it translated. This is really difficult because only one of our co-workers is really available to translate, but he doesn't really have the time required to do it. Especially because all of the projects any of us have been working on need to be translated. It's difficult also because we can't be sure the translations are done correctly- it seems that things that we heavily researched are easily getting changed to what an individual thinks is correct. So we will have to work on finding more translators and communicating the importance of maintaining integrity in the translations. It would be sad to lose the accuracy after so much hard work.
Green Leaf market opens on Nov 3 which means we will be even more busy! It all seems to be confused right now but hopefully things come together as the pressure builds. And last week of November there is a big campaign to stop violence against women so we will all be working on that for our last week here. It is part of "One Billion Rising" which will happen on Feb 14 2013. Look that up!
Some kids from downstairs (I think our landlady's grandchildren who are visiting) are in Esaba and Christina's room watching the Little Mermaid. Very cute. They love Esaba because she can speak to them in Hindi and she's great hanging out with them.
All for now
Right now, I'm sitting in my room. It's just after 5 so the sun is starting to set and it's not yet dark. This afternoon I stayed home because I was feeling out of sorts- I slept all afternoon and I'm feeling much better. The only thing is I've had this cold for quite a while and I'm pretty sure it should be over by now! Hopefully soon. Hopefully before I catch my next one! I imagine with the colder weather (still above 0 at night but below 5, and about 15 during the day) I'll be catching colds every time I wash my hair.
So I have been working on a long, long reading that we all have to do for our class. While we are here we have 5 modules to work on that include a set of lecture slides, some readings, the task of creating a group case study demonstrating the topics as we have seen them here in reality, and a personal reflection. We do our group case studies once every two weeks and tomorrow is our 3rd meeting, so we are all rushing to finish the readings. This one is 40 pages and it's pretty dull. The topic is reproductive and sexual health though which is definitely interesting (all of the modules are on women's health).
So mostly tonight my housemates and I are reading and taking showers. I cooked up the last of our tofu for everyone because it was going to go bad and our cook (!!! I have a cook!) doesn't really know how to make tofu. Our greatest success has been to ask her to cook it like paneer is cooked, but I think she is avoiding it because it had been sitting in the fridge all week. It's really amazing we were able to hire someone to cook and do laundry. The cooking is so great because it saves A LOT of time and also our kitchen is tiny tiny and it is always difficult even just for all of us to heat up dinner. It's only really big enough for one person. The laundry is wonderful also because it saves EVEN MORE time and now that it's cold it's nice to keep your hands dry. I feel so spoiled. I wonder if it will ever happen to me again!
Work is going well. Things have picked up again after a slow return from our 3 days off to go to Manali. Ceinwen and I finished our nutrition curriculum and now we are working on getting it translated. This is really difficult because only one of our co-workers is really available to translate, but he doesn't really have the time required to do it. Especially because all of the projects any of us have been working on need to be translated. It's difficult also because we can't be sure the translations are done correctly- it seems that things that we heavily researched are easily getting changed to what an individual thinks is correct. So we will have to work on finding more translators and communicating the importance of maintaining integrity in the translations. It would be sad to lose the accuracy after so much hard work.
Green Leaf market opens on Nov 3 which means we will be even more busy! It all seems to be confused right now but hopefully things come together as the pressure builds. And last week of November there is a big campaign to stop violence against women so we will all be working on that for our last week here. It is part of "One Billion Rising" which will happen on Feb 14 2013. Look that up!
Some kids from downstairs (I think our landlady's grandchildren who are visiting) are in Esaba and Christina's room watching the Little Mermaid. Very cute. They love Esaba because she can speak to them in Hindi and she's great hanging out with them.
All for now
