The Three Acre Tree

I like a good chai every morning

Photos of week 1 in India are up!

http://picasaweb.google.com/debbie.thiegs/FirstWeekInIndia

Enjoy!

It's almost like I'm not in the U.S. anymore ...

Hi everyone!

Sorry it's taken me so long to write! It's been go go go since I got here at 5 am Saturday morning. But I am safe and well and loving it here!

The sequence of flights and buses was pretty rough. We boarded the plane about 45 minutes late in D.C., then sat on the runway for 2, count 'em, 2 hours before taking off. Seven hours later we landed in Frankfurt and I couldn't even find a pretzel to buy! Instead I ended up with some crappy fizzy stuff that cost me several Euro. Anyways... On the plane to Frankfurt I was surrounded by 50 teenagers who were all on a foreign exchange student scholarship. They were leaving their homes for 1 year and were on their way to be picked up by their host families in Germany, so you can imagine what they were like! We had about an hour before the flight to India, then the plane ride itself was nearly 9 hours. We got to India at midnight, went through customs and got our bags, hopped on buses and waited some more, then we drove the 2.5 hours to campus and were greeted with one of the most beautiful "resorts" I've ever seen! Since then we've been taking care of a lot of business, and yesterday we left campus to tour Mysore city.

I'll write about this more in my blog, but to sum up some of the more interesting bits:
-We had to walk barefoot through the palace, which is awkward, because basically it's like them making you take off your shoes and socks to tour the white house. Not only that, but the locals walk barefoot anyways, and through some pretty nasty stuff. I thoroughly washed my feet upon our return, and I have yet to venture back into those shoes.
-The poverty is pretty intense. There are hundreds of beggars missing a limb or two reaching out for you to give them money, and children and sometimes men will tag alongside you for up to about a quarter mile just trying to get you to buy a pencil or cheap gadget, or just begging for money. It sounds like it would be a difficult ordeal, but for some reason, at least so far, it hasn't been for me. I have not felt afraid or unsafe at all. Just dirty from the filth. Campus, however, is immaculate.
-The stories of cows everywhere are true. They're just like people in the street, and they walk where they may. They also make messes everywhere. There are also a lot of random horses hangin' out. And monkeys. Lots of monkeys! The babies are adorable and myself and a couple friends have discussed harboring one in our hostels, but maybe that will happen some other day.
-I have seen no elephants, although some guys tried to get us to pay them to ride one. It was out of sight, though.
-A young teenage boy with 2 monkeys on his shoulders (chained to him) pulled a yellow python out of a basket he was carrying. I don't think he was a charmer, he just wanted us to pay him to take his picture.
-Driving here is hilarious. There are sometimes lines on the roads, but they are rarely adhered to. At one point I noticed that cars coming in the opposite direction were passing us on both sides. The rules, as we were told today, are basic: 1)Always yield to the larger vehicle, and 2)The smaller vehicle has the right of way. Just try abiding by that.

I've got much more to say, but I think it will have to wait. Jet lag is still lingering and I need to get to sleep! Here are some pics of the trip so far!

The pool on campus. Beat that.

This is where I live. To clarify, this is on the campus on which I live. It's not Disney-related, but it does house our movie theater.

Also on campus, this glass building built to look like Japanese origami. Obviously.


Sarah and a cow in the street.

The best thing since sliced bread is the best thing FOR sliced bread.

I like how it's aptly deemed "stick type."

clipped from gadgetholic.blogspot.com

When Good Things Happen to Good People

Wow, it's been a while. I have so many pointless, random, and annoying things to say; I hardly know where to begin. Prepare yourself, this one might be a doozy. For organizational purposes, I have written a tabloid-style headline to go with each bit of nothing.

We'll kick this one off with shock value.
NUMBER OF EARLY MARRIAGES SHOCKS, FRIGHTENS GIRL
I'm no statistical analyst, but I did happen to go through my Facebook friend list counting how many of my friends are either engaged or married. You wanna know how many? Sure you do. 54. Did your jaw drop, too? 54!!!!! I am 23. If I were, you know, 30, that might seem more accurate. And it doesn't even include friends of mine who aren't on Facebook. I have nothing against getting married in your early 20s, if you're really ready for it -- and whether or not you're ready for it is a whole different issue than this. But what I'm getting at here, I guess, is that it doesn't seem all that long ago when us girls were like "OMG, let's ALL call Jimmy TOGETHER, because we all openly have a crush on the same guy and that's cool," and boys were like, "Hey, I'm gonna snap your bra strap because I don't understand this warm feeling creeping all over me."

Now, apparently, we have moved way past that. I hope. But sometimes it's not all that much better. The communal crushing on one boy at this age certainly does not result in a giddy group phone call, but rather backstabbing and mayhaps some hair pulling. And snap my bra? You might just get slapped.

Let's move on.

GHOST OF PETER PAN PAST REAPPEARS; FRIGHTENS GIRL
You may recall my entry about my brush with death via Peter Pan. I'll recap: I had not one, but two half eaten jars of the recalled, contaminated batch in my possession. I did not die, or even get sick, but I'm convinced that had I opened the THIRD one I found in the back of the cupboard recently, I would have bit the dust. Third time's a charm! Luckily, after I hid it in Ben's bed, he made sure to Sharpie the thing to death with warnings such as "(poison)", "120% more death", and, of course, a skull and cross-bones.

MUSIC BLASTS FROM BLOWN SPEAKERS IN DILAPIDATED 1995 TAURUS ONCE AGAIN
To know the long, depressing adolescence of my now 13-year-old car, Treasure, click here. I'm happy to announce that this is not a depressing story. My Treasure is alive again! After his CD player's faceplate was stolen last year, I found another exactly like it on E-Bay. I snapped it into place, only to find the volume didn't work. Correction: The volume-UP did not work. I could, however, turn it down. This, for those of you who are missing a few puzzle pieces, presents a problem, because when the volume can only go down, and you accidentally turn it down because someone calls you on your cellular telephone, you can never, ever turn it up again. That volume is lost forever.
4 months later...
After a long winter with no music in my car, I decided to stop denying that I'd yet again been screwed out of musical accompaniment to my daily cruisings. I went crawling back to E-Bay, Visa in hand. There it was, the JVC K-S260 (or something) CD player faceplate. I paid for it a third time and crossed my fingers that this one would work. Thank the Lord it did, or E-Bay may have witnessed its most outraged customer review yet. So now Treasure has music again. Life is much, much easier. The only thing I wish I could stop thinking about is the great possibility that I just gave $40 to the same prick who stole the faceplate to make a quick buck in the first place.

INSPIRATIONAL PANELS INSPIRE GIRL TO BE INSPIRED MORE OFTEN
Let's get the serious stuff out of the way. As of late I've felt really inspired (although not inspired in a way that motivates me to clean up all my crap around the apartment -- sorry, Ben! But I'm doing that this weekend, promise). What's been inspiring, you ask? Well, I recently wrote about GESET, which was very cool. Also happening that week, all week long, was the Conference on World Affairs (CWA), which up until I graduated I liked to refer to as "Conference on Ditch Whatever Classes I Don't Have to go to and Instead Attend Panels Because I'm a Huge Nerd and I Love It." I even take notes sometimes. Why would I love going to this type of grown-up crap? Because the other grown-up panelists are usually either just the type of grown-up I someday want to be, or they are the complete opposite. That makes for great discussion. Here are the panels I attended this year, which were much fewer than normal because part of that growing up process involves not ditching work:
-Mentoring
-Elevator to Space
-Entrepreneurship: No Guts, No Glory
-Entertainment Makes the World Go 'Round
-Female Entrepreneurs: You Go, Girls!
-China and India: Playing by Their Own Rules
-Infosnacking and Infobinging: A Guide to Being Well-Informed

Beyond The CWA and GESET, last week I found myself standing right next to none other than Kathy Sierra, who has recently splashed the blogosphere and national news mediums with her experience with blog harassment and victimization. A couple nights ago I saw Kofi Annan speak, and last weekend I hung out with the Unsinkable Molly Brown's great-granddaughter because she was staying at Andy's mom's house. Basically, I notice that I feel much more positive and full of potential when I'm surrounded by these opportunities and people. The question is, how do I maintain it once its gone? Or, how do we continually find and take these opportunities?

p.s. Alec Baldwin - what a jerk.