Allston

Hey all,

It has been a million years since I posted. It seemed since school got out for the summer I haven't been much in the mood for writing. I work two jobs over the summer and I'm actually taking a bartending class which is really fun so far.

It's been a while since I smoked any hookah, actually. I went on a health kick and actually started exercising and stuff (weird) but I did got to a hookah bar the other night with a few friends to my favorite hookah bar in Boston. It's hard to find good ones in this area for some reason, but the Sheesha Lounge in Allston, just outside Boston is by far my favorite. The hookah is always great, they have awesome combos, and the environment is great. I always love the people working there. The first time I went, there was a projector screen with planet earth playing and techno in the background. I knew I had found my place. I revisited the other night and had the "Boston Blaze" mixture which was really tasty. My other fave there is Headbuzz which really makes u dizzy. But it's a cute, comfortable place that I always love visiting. Anyone in the Boston area should check it out. Some other hookah bars are good too, but they don't have the same friendly and fun environment.

That's all for now, just felt like adding a quick post! I'll have more later :)

MIA

Wow it's been a while since I wrote anything. I can't believe I haven't written in this since September! Damn. Anyway.

I'm dying for the semester to be over. I've just about had it with Psychology. (Sorry if anyone out there is a psych major) I've become a master at CafeWorld on facebook, thanks to the class though.
I don't have much to report. I'll put up some of my other entries soon from India which are way more interesting than my current college life.

What is new is that I've now declared to minors in addition to my Journalism major: Photography and Anthropology. Why Anthropology, I have no idea. I haven't even taken a class in it yet. However, I had to declare a minor outside of the communications school in order to declare a photography minor, so I figured Anthropology seemed interesting enough. We'll see how that goes. I'm not even planning on taking an anthropology course this year.

Other than that I don't have anything to report. Later!

(This is pretty much where I've been since I last wrote)

PS. Kelsey got photoshop finally! Yay :)

Following Ducks

I did a photo shoot of these 2 ducks that always hang out by the communications school at Ithaca College. They are adorable and incredibly friendly. I took the photos for the Ithacan paper and hopefully they'll run the story, because I love the pics. Here are a few I took:

 

:)

Romman Nectarine

So I've been trying out Romman recently, and this is the second flavor I've tried from them. The first one Lemon Mint was good. However, I would not recommend the Nectarine. It was all around bad. My friend and I did a video review of it this time. It took us some time to figure out exactly how to put the flavor into words. Here's what we came up with: (The video quality is also terrible, by the way since we took footage in the dark)

Basically we thought it tasted like Orange Clorox. It was terrible and had a waxy taste to it. I would definitely not recommend the flavor. I was very disappointed since I hear so much positive feedback about Romman. I'll keep trying flavors though!

School: Day Two

July 28, 2007

Day 2

My host father was running late the second day and so he just drove me to college and I couldn't meet up with Shivani which was disappointing, and a little scary since I had to manage to find my classroom and get through the college on my own. But I managed fine. I got to the classroom that I remembered being told to go to yesterday. For some reason the sections can't be A and B, instead they are Q and R. How strange is that? Anyway I'm in R, so I went to LR6, my classroom and immediately was stared down by everyone in the class, except Madhav my host brother who pretends not to know me in school. By this point, I'm really not phased by people staring at me. I walked right past everyone and sat down somewhat in the middle. Immediately the girl in front of me turned around. I smiled and introduced myself. A simple smile works awesome in situations like this, because everyone thinks you're friendly if you do that. Now, Khushboo and I are friends. She introduced me to a bunch of other curious girls around me. (The girls and boys are separated so I was around all girls) I met almost all the girls. A few minutes after that, a girl sat next to me whose name is Apurva (Ah-poor-va with a roll of the tongue between the r and v. It's pretty hard to say, but I practice while she laughs and tries to pronounce my name.) usually, I end up writing my name down for people and giving them my information. I don't know what they do with information afterward, they always put it in their bag. So I met more girls through Apurva. She doesn't speak too much English, which proves pretty beneficial because it forces me to speak some Hindi and she teaches me common phrases that the teachers use and stuff. I'm so glad that she happened to sit next to me. I can also ask her all sorts of random questions.

Everyone likes that I'm not too shy, and when they see this come over and talk. But the second day I didn't talk to too many people because i had to pay attention to the teachers.

So I'll describe a little bit of how the school part, besides meeting people, went. The first teacher came in a few minutes late. There are about 80 students in my class. The desks are wooden, with two to a bench. Girls on one side and boys are on the other, like I said earlier. Girls and boys do not interact in school, which is strange to me. The boys, of course, claimed the side of the room with the windows. Most of the time the fan isn't on so it gets hot. So the teacher came in and introduced himself. He was a funny guy, but hard to understand. He would start out talking in good English, but with a slight lisp. Eventually the lisp would get stronger, the accent heavier, and he would slip into full Hindi. Then back into English again. Basically he just gave us our time table. So the time table is: Science Science Science (fifteen minutes for breathing) math science hindi. Okay it isn't exactly like that, but basically. The fifteen minute recess thing isn't so nice.

The next teacher came in, with a nice appearance. He, I learned, is the biology teacher and started the lessons that very day. He asked the definition of biology first and randomly called on people to answer. If they got the answer incorrect, which everyone did, you had to stand until it was answered correctly. Luckily I wasn't called on. Apparently, despite popular belief, the definition of biology is not the study of living organisms. It is the 'range' of study dealing with living organisms, including the main two fields zoology and botany. We wrote in-depth notes after that. It was in that class that I noticed the bars on the windows...

Math followed and that was uneventful. The work is mostly writing and very repetitive. I have no problems understanding the lessons. They are somewhat in English, but if the teacher doesn't know how to explain something properly, they will say it in Hindi, and sometimes accidentally just start talking in Hindi. I can understand Hindi well enough and so I really have no problem. Plus, Apurva helps me by teaching me the phrases that the teachers commonly use like "write this" or "Do you understand?" Hindi is actually a pretty simple language. There isn't much embellishing the words, like English does. There aren't a million different ways to say something and words sound exactly how they are spelled.

School Day One

July 28, 2007

This is a description of my first experiences at school in India. I attened Brijal Biyani Science College for one year. It's located in Amravati, India.

Day One

I was anxious to start school since I had been here over a month and hadn't done too much out of the house. Now I had the chance to make some new friends outside of family and meet different types of people. I didn't know what to expect at all. The college I'm attending is called Brijal Biyani Science College. I've known the courses I would be taking are English, Hindi, Math/Statistics, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Very sciencey. So the first day I went, really not with a clue what to expect.

My host father drove me by moped to this girl Shivani's house. Her family is friends with mine and so they figured it would be good if I had someone to accompany me my first day. So Shivani became my first friend outside of family. I got on her moped and we headed out towards college and met up with some other girls, whose names I can't remember yet. There were tons of people when we got to the college and a parking lot jammed full of bikes/mopeds facing in all directions. They appeared not to think about how they would possibly get out of the mess after school. So I hopped off before we entered the parking lot and met up with Shivani after, and met a bunch more people whose names I can't remember either. :P We went into the lecture hall, where all the 11th standard students were told to meet. All the shoes were piled up outside the door. I had worn strap-on sandals which was a mistake because I couldn't take them off real quick so ended up hopping/avoiding the mob of people. When I entered the room I was astounded by how different it was already. The boys were on one side of the room sitting and the girls on the other. Also, everyone was organized and sitting perfectly cross-legged, even though no teacher or anyone had instructed them how to sit. I wondered why it was that they sat so perfectly organized here, but discarded their shoes and bikes in the most unorganized way. Well I sat, feeling quite pale among all these people, and tried to imitate their posture of perfection.

Everyone was talking and I was meeting everyone around me. Then the principal walked in and everyone stood up instantly and said "Good morning sir" I was just barely able to keep up without falling on the person in front of me. Then we sat and he began to talk about dress code, basic rules, how the college is open and not strict. What I found amusing was when he asked what people planned to do after Biyani. First he asked how many would like to be engineers, all but about ten raised their hands, and those remaining ten wanted to be doctors. Here, there are very few options but medical and engineering fields. I am not shy and ask tons of questions, like whether or not they actually want to become engineers, and typically the answer is no. Its sad to see these people work so hard and spend so much time studying to go into a field they don't like. The principal also made quite a few science jokes, which I couldn't help but laugh along with. I think I laughed most because the rest of the students were cracking up. "Wouldn't you like to preserve your brain in formaldahyde so that all the information stays in, or maybe keep a magnetic field around." This one got a bunch of laughs.

When that was finally over and I could move my cramped legs, I went back with Shivani to her house, ate food, filled in some of her Slambook. (it's a type of book for friends to fill out to get to know them better) and then she had her art class, and I was invited to go as well, so I did. A couple of her friends were in that too. She was practicing calligraphy, her friend using watercolor. I met the man who ran the class. The class is located on the side of the road, it's just a small room in the open with canvas, paints, newspapers, and brushes everywhere. I got to sketch, because I had said that I had an interest in art, so he gave me a test. He handed me a magazine cover featuring a Bollywood actress (Aishwarya Rai) and told me to sketch it. I did, and surprsingly it came out alright. He even approved, after checking it with a ruler (There lips were actually about 1cm off) So I then signed up for the class. Now I have that everyday after college.

After that nothing too eventful happened. I went to the market, which is always fun, and bought a schoolbag and pencil case that is suitable for college for $4 US. I'm actually getting really cheap. I felt like I spent too much after buying the bag. :)

Hookah-Hookah

Here is my very simple Hookah-Hookah review:

Gross. I have tried a gazillion flavors, like I've said before, and they are simply awful. Don't be tempted by their unique flavors. I am usually optimistic and figure hey, Lemonade sucked, maybe Blueberry will be better. Nope. They taste unnatural. You get flavor for all of three and a half minutes and absolutely no buzz. The stuff might be good to get acquainted with hookah when you're first learning, but compared to all the other shisha's out there, it's not worth it. Here are some of the flavors I've tried:

Lemonade
Watermelon
Wintergreen
Double Apple
Blueberry
Mango
Fruit Punch
Chai

I kind of just gave up after a while. Not worth the money. Invest in some good stuff. My rating:

X

(yes that rating does exist)