There are some good days... and some bad

So I didn't sleep again last night. This is getting old, because I think it's affecting my attitude as well as, of course, my body. I am dragging butt. Totally exhausted. To add insult to injury of not sleeping last night, this morning was our earliest "call time" of the year. Class began at 8 am this morning, instead of the usual 10 am. I begrudgingly got out of bed in time to make it over to campus to see some of the festivities held in honor of Indian Independence Day.

The flag raising occured at about 7:45 am, and all the students sang the Indian National Anthem (well this is what I assumed, obviously it was not in english) and then I headed up the five flights of stairs to our classroom (Room 504- My Home Away from Home). I love walking the stairs since sometimes I feel like it's the only true exercise I get during the day. There is a gym at Welingkar complete with one treadmill and a set of weights... but there's no AC and it's in the basement with no ventilation (no thank you). I figure with not eating, it's probably best that I haven't kept up my exercise regiment. I have purchased a yoga mat and plan to start stretching in an effort to rescue my back from the hard mattress. But back to school. So we had to bring our laptops so that we could work on statistics in excel (funny side note: the wireless network at Welingkar is called Tsunami... somehow I just don't trust it). So statistics was super boring... and just drug on and on and on and on. We only had a brief 20 minute lunch as opposed to our hour long lunch... so I didn't make the trip down the stairs to the canteen to get my customary piece of toast or plain rice. I think the workers in the canteen know me, and I'm sure they chuckle at me behind my back because of my bland taste buds... but it's not my fault that the Indians have killed their taste buds so they need to load half a kilo of spice into everything.

So after statistics, we had marketing. The beginning of marketing was spent working on the company list for the rest of our time here for corporate visits, and then some discussions on possible travel plans for some of our class holidays. We also learned that we will probably have the opportunity to learn Hindi Saturday afternoons, so I am pretty excited about that. The rest of marketing was a complex marginal pricing problem for which you either got 0 or 10 points for... luckliy I got 10, but the problem made a lot of people made in class because they didn't understand why we were doing accounting in marketing, but there's no use arguing. We got out of class early becuase they decided to shut the electricity off at Welingkar from 1-10 pm. We didn't actually get out of class until 1:30, and it was funny because the instant we walked outside, the electricity of the building was shut off... good thing I take the stairs anyway.

After an unsuccessful attempt to find construction paper and a headset with a microphone so people stop complaining that they can't hear me very well on skype/msn... I headed back to the hostel to nap. The nap did not happen, but two loads of laundry did, so yay for clean clothes! (even though they don't smell laundry fresh like I am used to... at least they don't smell :-)) I am currently surrounded by hanging clothes, and I almost feel as if I am camping on my bed, it sort of looks like the dobi kots I took pictures of on my tour of Mumbai... I'll have to take a picture and post it as Leah's Dobi Kot.

While watching my laundry dry, I did some catching up online, watched three episodes of Will & Grace (I have the first 5 seasons on DVD with me!) and helped the girls upstairs with a Finance problem... but it's been a long afternoon since we got out of class so early and since my nap was so unsuccessful. I did have one meal today though (I know many of you are keeping close track of my eating habits these days)... I had subway. But before you get excited, it was pretty unfortunate since you can't have any vegetables on it (not safe because of being washed in local water) and their cheese here is very processed, almost creamy cheese... But hey, it had turkey on it (and that's protein, right?) and a nice big roll. So there you go, between my PediaSures Bar (don't laugh, Mom is making me :-)) and three pieces of turkey, slice of cheese and a roll... that's about, what, 600 calories today... I am on a roll...

I still haven't made it to the post office as promised (I thought it would be closed for Independence Day, as many of the shops were), but I hope to do that before the end of the week because I want to drop off a shirt at the fabric shop I found to see about having a few blouses made so I can limit my laundry. For those of you who know my closet, you know I don't often repeat outfits (in fact I worked a 90-day legislative session in Annapolis with no repeats of exact outfits!)... but I think here I am going to go to a system where you will be able to tell the day of the week based on my outfit. It will make life easier, and laundry even easier.

I am off to pretend to do some school work and maybe snack on some raisins and pita before bed! Soon I hope to be posting more pictures, for those who haven't seen them yet:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lbarteld

I have some ideas for some really fun "feature" albums... like "Signs of India" and my favorite pet project idea which will remain a secret until I can see if I can accomplish it. So stay tuned!