If I were a better swimmer... I would head for home

Today is one of those days where I'd like to start swimming/walking back to Port Herman. I don't know what it is that makes some days worse than others, because it's rarely due to a change in external circumstance, but more a change in internal outlook. One of those days where the hassles I equate with living here on a daily basis, become more than I care to handle, and I would much rather throw the towel in and head home for a soft bed, good shower, and a full belly. Alas, I am here for 97 more days (at least I broke into double digits). It just seems like there is still a long way to go, and life isn't getting much easier as the days wear on. Many of been kind to send care packages, so this has made sure that I have at least one relatively well balanced meal a day... I still don't break 750 calories in a day unless I go out for Italian haha. I'm tired of thinking about food though... although I did torture myself the other day by playing around on the Food Network website... that was probably unnecessary pain for myself.

So there is a long way to go with nothing familiar to rest my eyes on (but Mom comes in less than a month!!!) or lay my body on. Another point of homesickness at this point, could be due to the fact that everyone will be at my house this weekend, and I won't be. That's rather unfortunate and disappointing... but like I said, I'm not the greatest swimmer, so I probably wouldn't last the trip back to the East Coast. I heard the Atlantic isn't the easiest body of water to swim ;-). Family means the world to me, and I hate the thought of missing out on any big gatherings. I guess that just means I'll have a lot more catching up to do in December and everyone will get Leah-Overload from me insisting on being with everyone 24/7. I think I may even let the dogs sleep with me for a few nights :-) But that's enough talk about homesickness, I still have another class to get through and don't want to be an emotional mess for statistics cause the probability of me going home is 0.

This morning I had a very interesting juxtaposed walk to school (is that grammatical correct? Oh well, why start worrying about it now... I know there are plenty of spelling and grammatical errors in this blog, no reason to make drastic changes now)... I passed two rats being eaten by crows (good thing I don't have much of an appetite in India... cause the sights would kill it anyway) and then passed a man peeing into the street... no, he wasn't peeing discretely into a push or the side of the building... but into the street. Eww. But then once I reached the main street, I saw lights and decorations going up for the upcoming Ganesh festival... so that was really cool. As tiring as some of the celebrations are to me (because they go on forever and ever... the school next to us has now been celebrating loudly for a week and it makes for a nuisance when you are in class trying to listen to a boring professor) they are so elaborate and nothing like I've ever seen before! Even birthdays are celebrated elaborated, as I learned last night.

At about 11:45 pm last night I heard a knock at our door. Stella and I had just turned the lights out... I had put "You've Got Mail" on and was just dozing off. My first thought was that one of us forgot to sign in. This happens pretty frequently. We have to sign in at night (we lose "privileges" if we are late) and I often forget because sometimes I come back in at 5:30 pm after class and don't leave again... so sometimes the guard has to come get me to have me sign in. But it wasn't the guard, it was one of the Indian girls in the hostel inviting us to a birthday party at midnight. We debated for a few minutes if we wanted to go... as we were both really tired and almost asleep, but thought it would be kind to stop in and just wish the birthday girl a Happy Birthday. We got upstairs to this mystery girl's room (I still don't know anyone name's in the hostel, they are hard to remember (because they pronounce them so quickly and if I looked at the spelling, I would pronounce them entirely differently) and we always meet them in "packs" so it's hard to place a face with a name). So the birthday tradition is to have cake at midnight. They sing a round of "Happy Birthday" and then something in Hindi (maybe the equivalent?) and then the Birthday girl cuts the cake and proceeds to share the slice with everyone. She takes a bite, her friend takes a bite, she takes another bite, another friend takes a bite... you get the idea. So usually it takes two slices to get around to everyone. Then all her friends rub her face in cake (they assured us this was traditional)... and then finally the cake is cut into slices and everyone gets their own slice. Then there is the "Birthday Bums" in which the Birthday girl (or boy I suppose) is lifted up by their arms and legs for the number of times that corresponds to their age... (I wonder if this stops once you reach a certain age). After this, the Birthday girl has to dance in front of everyone... this isn't necessarily choreographed and seemed to be a process much more for the amusement of all the girl's friends, rather than an opportunity for the Birthday girl to showcase her dance talent. I'm just glad that my birthday won't be celebrated while we are here! Rachel and Carey (and Stella last month) celebrate a birthday here in November, so maybe they have some festivities to look forward to. It was really nice to meet a bunch of the girls last night, although they were trying to insist we dance and after been asleep, we weren't too keen on dancing in front of a bunch of girls at 12:30 at night. We told them we would dance for them the last night we were here :-)

Needless to say, after my sleep being interrupted last night, I am exhausted today... as I have been for most of this week. Hopefully I can catch up on some sleep before the crunch of finals hits me. Cause being tired and hungry sure ain't going to help my homesickness ebb.