And the beat goes on... and on.... and on...

We are almost to the end of the Ganesh festival, so hopefully this will be the end of the persistent drumming and booms of firecrackers outside my hostel. The loud booms though, certainly do remind me of the sounds of Aberdeen Proving Ground. But the drumming is starting to get old...

The monsoon started back up with a passion this week. It's almost the end of monsoon season (end of September, I seem to think that nature will agree to end the rains exactly on midnight of September 30th, I have a sneaking suspicion it doesn't work like this...) and I'm sure I would have been disappointed in my infamous rainboots didn't get a few more days to play in the flooded streets of Matunga. But the rain sure makes life pretty dreary here! I had started enjoying my daily walks to get some fresh air (well, as fresh as the air comes in Mumbai... which isn't very fresh at all), but haven't been able to in the rain.

Finals began on Wednesday of this week for the core courses. Before finals began, I enjoyed a lovely dinner out with three of the senior Indian girls living here at the hostel. It was nice to get to know some of the girls better, and this week we've been invited to two midnight birthday celebrations. I could get used to cake at midnight every night! I've had my accounting, economics, and marketing finals so far, and all have gone really well. I especially enjoyed my accounting final, but this is because I'm a big dork who enjoys math :-) I had to take a few career management tests earlier this week to prepare for the arrival of graduate career management from Temple in October, and the tests thought I should be an accountant or financial analyst, not too shabby.

I discovered a book haven this week called CrossWords! Carey and I ventured to find a good study spot, and traveled down to south Mumbai to CrossWords. It almost wanted to be Borders... it felt short, very short, but it gave a valiant effort. We sat in the cafe for a while, and I had a delicious tiny waffle. It was so good! I then spent a good time rummaging through books, and came out with quite a few books that I am very excited to read. I picked some books that are out of my usual repertoire, including a collection of essays on Indian culture, politics, and identity and a biography of a Muslim woman who broke out of an arranged marriage. I also got some humorous reads, one by Bill Bryson, and a few classics that I had never read, and figured I would conquer since I had time. The bookstore made me deliriously happy, once again proving the above statement that I'm a big nerd!

I got a hot pot this week and Mom sent some soup and oatmeal, so now I have some more variety to add to my diet of rice and tuna! Very exciting. I also found Frosted Shredded Wheat in Chedda one day, so that has been my dessert. Chedda gets a few select American products... and gets a quantity of one. They had one box of Frosted Shredded Wheat, and Stella bought the one box of Pop-Tarts. This would be a pretty humorous study in supply chain management and inventory control. I'm just glad I got to Chedda before the others discovered the Frosted Shredded Wheat so they didn't buy the box before I did :-)

I leave for Goa in 5 days, and I am really excited! I have coordinated a biking Goan village tour for the Friday after we arrive and I am looking forward to getting back on a bike (I biked a lot this summer, and have missed it). I just have to get through my Finance and Statistics Exam before then. Once I get to Goa I can catch up on some reading, as well as continue my career search efforts so I can start sending out some cover letters with my resume, and maybe line up some interviews for when I return back Stateside.

Today we met with a professor from Temple, and it was really nice to interact with someone from "home." He's the professor for our GET (Global Entrepreneurship and Technology) for our project this spring. It's an intensive, semester long consulting project with a company that is looking to expand globally. The project sounds like a lot of fun and really great way to gain some invaluable experience, but also sounds like a lot of work! Since I will be commuting to Philly this spring for classes, I'm pretty sure no one (but the school and train conductor) will see me until I come up to breathe in August (hopefully at a beach house in NC!). But it will be worth it. And the hope is that at the end of this year of stress and craziness, I have a job that I am excited and passionate about.

I'm enjoying a quiet evening in front of the television, because the sound of the downpour outside my leaking window, has made the decision to not leave the hostel this evening easy to make. The TV, I am pretty sure though, will drive me insane by this evening. There are two major players in the cell phone race here (think Verizon versus Cingular) one is called AirTel, the other Hutch. All the boys have Hutch, the girls have AirTel. I'm not sure why it worked out like this, but we both get pretty frustrated with our respective mobile companies because they are allowed to send spam text messages and there is no restriction on telemarketing. We often joke if our phone rings during class, it must be Hutch or AirTel, because the only people in the world that call us, are all in Room 504. Well Hutch just recently changed to Vodafone. And there is a commercial, with a dog that leaves its dog house, goes on a little adventure, and comes back to find his dog house changed. It has this annoying repetitive music in the background, and the tagline is "Change is Good. Hutch is now Vodafone." This commercial is the ONLY commercial playing on StarWorld right now. The ONLY one! I think I may go insane. It plays over and over and over again, and then there are banners that fly across the screen saying "Hutch is now Vodafone." I get it, enough!!! I will miss the hot pink Hutch banners on the highway though, because they were my landmark for getting back to the hostel the back roads... oh well, I'll adjust.

I am feeling quite lethargic these days, so I am hoping I can muddle through and then get some R&R down in Goa, so I am ready to face the next set of courses with energy and enthusiasm! Plus after I get back from Goa, only two weeks 'til Mom comes!! But for now, I think I'm going to adapt the Indian tradition of nap time....