When Monkeys Attack!

This was written on the first day (Friday) of my recent trip to Yercaud, India. We had a youth camp up there in the mountains and I thought I would keep track of my experiences over the weekend. Unfortunately, I only wrote about one of the days, but it was the most interesting, so think of it as me sparing you from the rest of the details.

After waiting for the bus for 2 1/2 hours, it finally showed up so that we could start our adventure. Apparently it was a government bus and government workers here typically are not very conscientious about their work. We were supposed to leave at 6 a.m. which is when I showed up at the Division office, ready to go (to my surprise I was the only one there). After five minutes of looking around, wondering if I had been left, the leaders of the group showed up and the rest of the people filtered in over the next hour. To summarize, we had finally decided to skip the idea of breakfast on the bus and began to eat when the bus pulled in.

It was a 5 hour drive to Yercaud (our destination). The ride was not uneventful - one highlight was a bunch of us guys walking out into a field to relieve ourselves only to be chased off by the gentleman who apparently farmed it. Other than that, the climb up the mountain was the only point of interest. One event that occurred during the climb was that I finally obtained photographic proof that there are monkeys in India! We must have seen at least 5 groups of monkeys on our way up the mountain. We would pass them sitting on the wall and they would chase the bus. I'm not sure if this was because some of the guys were leaning out the windows holding banana peels or if they just enjoy chasing large vehicles.

Another interesting note about the climb involved the road. It was very narrow and had 20 tight, hairpin turns (I didn't count them, they had signs that would say "hairpin n/20"). To get an idea of how tight the turns were, know that the bus actually did not make one of them - it had to stop and perform a 3-point maneuver in order to continue climbing the mountain.

Now that we're at our quarters we have had a chance to see just how nice they are. We're staying at a Catholic institution called the "House of Peace." We saw some nuns when we were pulling into the driveway. The only issue I foresee is that the beds are ridiculously hard. I would be worried about toilet paper, but I was smart this time and brought my own. The next thing will be to see what the afternoon hike has in store.

Later Friday evening...

Well I definitely have some even more convincing proof of monkeys' existence in India now. This afternoon after a short devotional talk we went on a "nature walk." This basically consisted of walking through the town (or hill station as the Indians call it) of Yercaud. The town is actually quite sizable and it is an interesting one too because there are Catholic schools and churches everywhere (at least I think that's interesting). After walking through the town we finally reached our destination - a stunning viewpoint which looked down on the plains below.
While our group was there, taking pictures and goofing off, a couple of guys started attempting to talk to me in broken English. They asked me, "Who are you?"

To which I replied, "Uhhh, my name is Steve." Then they asked me what was in my water bottle. I told them it was water.

"Hot water?" they asked.

"No, cold water," I replied. At this point, their friend joined the fun. Next they asked me to take their picture. I complied and showed it to them. Then, after some talking amongst themselves and laughing, I think they asked for me to have a picture taken with them. So I had someone from our group snap the picture.After that they left me alone for a while, but later they came up and started to talk to me again, but this time I could not understand them. One of the group (Mary) translated and apparently they thought I was alone and were trying to get me to go to the garden they worked at nearby. When they found out I was with the group and did not want to go to the garden they pretty much left me alone.

Shortly after this stimulating conversational experience is when the real magic happened: A monkey jumped up on the railing of the observation deck!I was quite excited and quickly snapped a picture. Then Athul went over to stand next to the monkey and I was preparing myself to take a picture of that, but just as I was about to hit the shutter-button, James lunged at the monkey. To my surprise, the monkey lunged back, and this is the moment that I hit the button and took the picture.Next the monkey (who was now joined by his buddy) jumped down from the railing and started towards the people. In the panic that ensued I side-stepped the monkey (with at least three people behind me using me as a human shield (I felt like I was tanking - that's for you, Rob)) all the while holding my camera up, trying to set up another good picture. I did manage to get another one, but not until both monkeys had crossed the observation deck.Then they disappeared over the railing, emerging only once more to quickly nab some chips off the railing.

So that was Friday. As I said, the rest of the weekend wouldn't make nearly as exciting of a story. It can be summed up as thus: we had a number of spiritual talks, I got "the trots" and was out of commission for Saturday night (I suspect the beet salad), and we went on a couple of other hikes around the Yercaud area. All said, it was a pretty fun excursion and I definitely got to see and experience some new things. If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from the weekend (including a few more shots of monkeys!) you can check out my Picasa Web Album.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving! I didn't get the day off from work, but one of the American workers here (Brenda Robinson) invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner! I can't wait. :P

The Crayon Chronicles

It all started when I received a gift package from Andrews University (the school that I attend for those who do not know - haha, I crack myself up pretending people I don't talk to regularly or am not related to read this). This gift package contained several things which I was quite happy to see - namely peanut butter, a pretty nice water bottle, a shirt, and some other snacks. However, on the bottom of the package, much to my surprise, lay a broken-open box of crayons and what used to be its contents strewn about in various states of disrepair. I thought to myself, "Crayons? What do they think I am, a fourth grader?" Because, to the best of my remembrance, that was the last grade that I had used crayons.

I didn't think much of it and stowed the crayons back in the box. Then, later that day, I was chatting with Ashley (a student missionary in Thailand whom I met while visiting Mike) online and she said that she was sending me a letter. I thought to myself, "A letter? What does she think this is, 1885?" but responded, "Oh... cool," or something like that. Then, later, as I was walking back to my abode, I was thinking that I would have to send her something back (she mentioned that one of the reasons she was sending me a letter is because she knew how much she liked receiving letters). Then, the crayons popped into my mind. "Hmm..." I thought, "I could write a letter in crayon." Then I had another thought. As those who have been around me on Sunday morning know, I love comics. As those of you who've seen my sister's last Christmas present to me know, I really like comics (The Complete Calvin and Hobbes Collection, aw yeah). What a lot of people don't know is that I've always wanted to draw a good comic, but haven't really wanted to spend too much effort on the drawing and haven't wanted to copy the likes of xkcd (which I love). So, I thought that drawing a comic in the theme of a childish drawing in crayon would be perfect. So, that's what I did. I drew a couple of comics, took pictures of them, and sent them to Ashley. And now I will release The Crayon Chronicles upon the world!

(I suggest viewing them as a slide show)

New website!

For everyone who has requested it (Mom and Dad) here is the link to one of the websites I'm working on: http://www.adventist.org.in. Feel free to make suggestions and check back often as it will hopefully be evolving over my time here in India.

Diwali

Today, the 27th of October, 2008 is the Hindu festival of lights known simply as Diwali (insert shameless link to "The Office" here). Apparently, the big thing to do to celebrate is to get a bunch of firecrackers, fireworks, and other explosives and set them off (much like Independence Day in America). There is one slight difference, however: whereas, in America, we tend to wait until night time on the 4th of July, the people here start the day before the actual holiday and then continue setting off the fireworks pretty much non-stop until who knows when (it still hasn't ended). They go all through the night, too. At least I think so -- I can't vouch for the hours 12, 1, 2, and 3 in the morning since I was out cold at said times, but I know that at 4 a.m. the fireworks were going strong, at 5 they were still going and it has sounded like a war zone all morning. One of my friends here stated very accurately that Diwali would be a great time for the terrorists to make their move. I think I'll try to stay inside today. . .

Unfortunately, since Diwali is a Hindu holiday, the Adventists here at the Division office don't get a day off, *sigh*. Ah well, I guess I'll have something to do while I'm doing my best to avoid any explosions in my proximity.

Speaking of explosions, I heard my second major car accident last night. I say "heard" because I've never seen a real, car-crushing accident, but I have heard two. Last night I was just about to head home from my friend's house and I had stepped outside the door and was saying my goodbyes when we both heard a loud screeching followed by a sickening, explosive crunching noise. We hurried out to the gate because we could tell that it was quite close. Apparently, what happened was (I'm not sure exactly how) a large truck hit a small car. When we got there, the car was still there (and did not look to be in very good shape), but the truck had sped off. The driver of the car was obviously not very happy about this, but there was little that he could do (I don't think he got the truck license number).

Well, it's barely even Monday and this is shaping up to be quite an eventful week.

New Essay/The Search for Food

Well, I have another essay for everyone to look over (if they feel so inclined). I actually think I like this one better than the other one. It seemed easier to write and I think it is still funny while not being quite as over-the-top (although not too far off). Feel free to criticize and please tell me which one you like better.

Picture this: a scientific experiment gone wrong. Having defeated earth, aliens control everything. Mankind struggles to survive, but only a few are strong enough to mount any resistance. One man rises above the other resistance fighters to distinguish himself as the one to whom mankind must trust its survival – a physicist. He was there when the portal to the alien dimension was opened. He was there when the aliens tried to call reinforcements from their home world. He was there at every pivotal moment when mankind's fate hung in the balance, and at every one of these moments, it can be seen that he was the turning point on which the human race's existence hinged. What most people do not see is that throughout each of his heroic exploits there was always someone else there, supporting him. Whether it be hacking into the alien security systems or simply short-circuiting some alien technology, she was helping him.

Another scenario: the sun is dying out. Humans do not have much longer to call the earth their own unless something can be done about the cooling sun. Fortunately, there is one device, developed by a physicist, which may be able to give the sun the energy it needs to burn as brightly as it used to. An atomic bomb roughly the size of Manhattan. As one would expect, there are many complications with flying a bomb into the sun. Extensive shielding, complicated life support systems, and immensely powerful engines are all necessary. Eventually, against all odds, the physicist, with the help of the crew, is able to complete the mission and “restart” the sun – at the expense of his own life as well as the rest of the crews'. What most people did not think about when reflecting on this physicist's heroism was that there was always someone there supporting him – she guided the ship, controlled the life support systems, and did a great deal to keep him alive until he reached his mission's destination.

If either of these scenarios sound familiar, it is because they are both from popular media. The first is the plot to a very popular computer game franchise that goes by the name of Half-life. The second is the story of a movie released in 2007 called Sunshine. If there is anything that we can learn from these stories, it is this: a physicist, one day, will save the world. It is inevitable. Some day the world will be threatened by some sort of abnormal disaster – such as an asteroid, a dying sun, or aliens – and it will be left up to one, heroic physicist to save the day (probably via an atomic bomb).

When this physicist saves the world, he (or she) will no doubt get all the glory, but recall that there was an entity supporting each of the physicists in the scenarios. In Half-life her name is Alyx Vance; she is what I would call a hacker. Whenever Gordon Freeman (the protagonist of Half-life) needs to get through some security system or simply needs to get control of a nuclear reactor, he turns to Alyx. She has impressive computer skills and there is no way that Gordon would accomplish half of the feats he does without her.

In Sunshine, the supporting entity goes by Icarus. She is not a hacker, but very closely related. She is a computer program herself. As was mentioned in the scenario, she has complete control of the ship and is the main reason that the sun-bombing mission is successful. Of course, since she is a computer program, someone had to develop her. Behind her artificial intelligence there was some programmer, sitting at his desk, plugging away at her source code.

So we see, there is another lesson to be learned from these two scenarios: no matter how much glory and praise the physicist who saves the world gets, there will be a programmer who was just as responsible for man-kind's existence. I will be that programmer, if it would have me. In order to pursue such a path, I will need an education. In order to pursue my education, I will need money. In order to get money, I will need scholarships. I deserve the “mental_floss Tuition Giveaway” money more than anyone else in the world because without me, there will be no world.

Now, back to real life: for those of you who do not already know, I have been cooking for myself this week. It's been going pretty well (lots of oats and noodles), and last night I went to Hosur to get some more food items (the Division Office has free transportation to Hosur every Thursday night). What I really wanted to get were some vegetables and potatoes. At the first place the people from the office directed me to, I could only find spices and some flower, so I went to where they said I could get some fruit. At the second roadside stand I came to, I was elated to see that he had potatoes - I got 1 kg for Rs.45. Then I went on some other adventures to see what else I could find and ended up acquiring some onions, apples, and oranges (never did find any vegetables besides the onions).

After shopping, on the way back to the office, some of the people in the bus were asking how much I paid for the stuff I got. When I told them I paid Rs.45 for 1 kg of potatoes, they shook their heads and said that it was waay to much for potatoes. I shrugged and figured I had just learned a lesson and that next time I would know that potatoes should be cheaper.

This morning, I decided I would try my hand at frying some potatoes. I picked a couple out of the bag and thought, "Hmmm, these seem awfully squishy." Then, as I began to attack them with my knife, to my surprise, it popped open and a large black seed popped out. "This isn't a potato at all, I thought to myself." Turns out they were chikoos. Fortunately, they taste really good, but I didn't get to try frying anything. Ah, well, maybe next time.

Moved In

Well, I finally moved into my apartment. It's pretty exciting having the whole deal to myself, with the kitchen and everything. One of the first things I did after getting my stuff moved in was to go to get some groceries. I was at the office and saw my friend Eben, and said, "Hey, you wouldn't happen to want to go to the station, would you?" He agreed pretty quickly and we headed for the station (the supermarket is right by the train station). He had his motorcycle, so I got on the back of that and we rode to the station. I think it was probably the most dangerous thing I've ever done. Riding in that traffic in a car is bad enough, but on a motorcycle with the only thing between my melon and an oncoming bus being my friend in front of me is quite an experience. That's how the great majority of people around here get around, though, so who am I to judge. It was actually pretty fun.

An a very different note, my mom directed my attention to this contest. I think I'll give it a try. I'll probably end up going through a few ideas in search for the perfect essay to submit, but I already have my first iteration. I will post it here and let you all tear it apart.

I deserve to receive your scholarship because I am a vegetarian. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, “Ah, a vegetarian – finally, someone actually worthy to receive our scholarship. ” Of course, it is only natural that you would entertain such thoughts, but I am afraid you may not be acquainted with all of the many reasons that a vegetarian should receive your scholarship. Therefore, I will proceed by explaining the many benefits you will experience from choosing a vegetarian (me) to receive your scholarship.

Vegetarians are not cannibals. Because it is common knowledge, I fear that this fact is often overlooked. You can rest assured that if you bestow this scholarship money upon me, I will not simply use it to get into the more educated circles so that I can feast on tastier brains (I hear from some of my non-vegetarian friends that smarter brains are tastier).

Now that you are not afraid I might eat you, I would like to turn your attention to the fact that, since I am a vegetarian, my brain is actually tastier (better developed). It has long been established that eating vegetables makes one's brain work better (at least that is what parents have been telling their children for the last few centuries). Therefore, since I do not eat animals, I eat almost solely vegetables (with some fruits, legumes, and grains thrown in from time to time). It stands to reason, then, that my brain would be better developed than the average non-vegetarian. This hypothesis has been partially confirmed by my academic record, but that is bordering on being outside of this essay's scope.

Another reason that I, as a vegetarian, should receive your scholarship stems from the motive behind my vegetarianism. I am not a vegetarian to save animals from a brutal death. Neither am I a vegetarian because I dislike certain animals – such as beef-cattle – and want to see less of them in the world. I am a vegetarian because I have always been a vegetarian. I believe I can count the number of times I have eaten meat on one hand. “So what that I have rarely eaten meat? Why does that matter?” I'll tell you why that matters; I am consistent. Once I start something, I tend to stick with it. “Oh big deal – how hard is it to stick with what you've grown up with? That may be consistency, but it's the easiest kind.” To the people who would propose that I say: Do you know how many times I've turned down a seemingly delicious dish whose only flaw was that it contained meat? Do you know how many times I was ridiculed in High School by the other kids, always inquiring how my “lettuce sandwich” tasted? Do you know how much more difficult it is to order a cheesy beef and potato burrito “with beans instead of meat” than to just go with the default option? Do you know how annoying it is to return to the counter because they got your order wrong AGAIN (actually, I think that one is universal)? I hope that I have made it clear that it takes consistency to be a vegetarian. I will be consistent.

There is another secondary, yet still important, reason that I am a vegetarian – I believe that it helps keep me healthy. My commitment to health is yet another reason that I am worthy to receive your scholarship. While the other candidates acquire heart disease, have strokes, mentally decay, and break their hips while crossing the street and get hit by trucks, I will be in good physical condition. I am a worthwhile investment. I will do my very best to outlive my peers in an attempt to get you the best return from your money – the longer I live, the longer your money will be at work.

I believe that I have made it quite clear that I, as a vegetarian, am clearly worthy and deserving of any scholarship money that you impart upon me. I have shown that, due to my vegetarianism, I will provide the best return on your investment possible by outliving the other candidates, being more consistent in my use of the money than the other candidates, and having a more highly developed brain than the other candidates. Also, on top of that, I can assure you that I will eat neither you, nor your friends, nor your family members, which I cannot say about the other candidates.

They say that the essays should match the "mental_floss style of writing." Unfortunately, I don't really know what that is at this point (I plan on doing a little research), but I'm afraid this one might be a bit too over the top. Nevertheless, I would welcome any grammatical/spelling/organization corrections or suggestions.

The Apartment and other Monkey Business

I finally got the key to my apartment!!!

Before anyone asks, no, I haven't moved in yet, but I could if I really feel like it because I have the key! The only reasons I haven't moved in yet is that there is no stove or refrigerator, which wouldn't be the end of the world since I can still eat at the cafeteria, but I don't have any sheets either. I think that this lack could be a bit of a problem. Aside from the moving in technicalities, the big news about my apartment is: it's huge! I was very much surprised at the size of the apartment. I think this calls for a picture tour.

The apartment has several rooms. Two bedrooms. One which I will probably leave mostly empty unless I think of something cool to do with it and another one to actually sleep in.

There's a shower room and a bathroom, which is good since both of these things are pretty high on my list of requirements for places that I inhabit. The toilet will probably take getting used to. I had purposely avoided these types of toilets in the past (I saw a couple in Hyderabad), but it looks like they have finally caught up to me...

Then there is a kitchen, an entry way, a room connecting the kitchen and the entry way, and another multi-purpose room which currently has a desk and some chairs in it.

Finally, the most exciting room is not even really a room at all - I've got a balcony! Score! Not much of a view, but I can hang up clothes and stuff if they need to dry.

So that's it for the news about the apartment. On to the monkey business. I have seen several more monkeys since the first sighting, but I hadn't been near my camera until today. In fact I saw a rather large monkey climbing the tree right outside my office window one day, but I had left my camera in my room. Regardless, today I was going up to my room when I saw a monkey sitting right in the middle of the road. I muttered, "Monkey!" under my breath and rushed to my room to grab my camera. Of course, the key didn't seem to want to unlock the door because I was in a hurry and when I got back the monkey had moved. It didn't take me long, however, to spot him at the other side of the tennis court from where he had been previously sitting under one of the trees. I calmly walked down the stairs and started around the tennis court (I didn't want to bother with any pictures through the fence of the tennis court). Unfortunately, as I came to the end of the tennis court and started around the corner, he spotted me and started climbing up the tree he had been sitting under. Undaunted, I walked over to the bottom of the tree hoping to get a picture of him in the tree. He would have none of it. He very quickly climbed to the top of the tree (it was no short tree) and started jumping between the trees away from me. I calmly followed him on the ground, but after he had crossed all the way to the other side of the grove of trees and started back the other way, I gave up. I could catch glimpses of him from time to time, but I usually just knew where he was because of the branches shaking and the weird noises he would make in his throat (it sounded almost like he was trying to clear it) so I wasn't able to get any pictures. One day I will have proof that there are monkeys here in picture form (unless, of course, I've been imagining them this whole time - if this is the case just smile and nod when I show you a picture of a tree and tell you there's a monkey in it).

Now that the monkey business is concluded, I would like to present some miscellaneous pictures I've taken. The first set is from Deepak's birthday. Deepak is the two-year-old son of one of the employees here at the division office. He had quite a get together planned which involved most (if not all) of the employees from the office. It almost reminded me of a dedication ceremony - only longer.

It all started with some singing.

The birthday boy.


As I said, there was quite a crowd.

Of course, the best part was that afterward we got food.

Ah, almost forgot the proof that I was there. Naphi was messing with my camera.

The other set of pictures which I have taken which need explanation come from the realm of my guest room. For a couple of Sabbaths, the kids from the Tamil church which meets right near my room would entertain themselves while their parents talked after church by breaking into my room. Actually, technically I let them in the first time, but since then they think that they can come and go as they please. I'm fine with it, it's just that one particular time I was *ahem* using the facilities and I have taken to not shutting the door since I'm the only one in the room, but this particular time I was not the only one in the room. Needless to say, I was a bit surprised when I walked out of the bathroom and found a couple of kids standing there. Another peculiar thing is that one of the kids keeps asking me for foreign chocolate, so I have to tell him I don't have any. Anyway, one of the days they asked me what was in my camera bag so I showed them the camera and, of course, they wanted me to take pictures of them. I don't think I'll bother including them here, but you can check them out at my picasa web-album.

Hopefully I'll be able to move into the apartment this week. Unfortunately, when I do I'll have to start cooking for myself so pray for me, just pray...

Tiger Mountain

For those of you who don't know, Justin Chen is one of the awesomest people I know. He's been at camp the last couple of years that I've been at camp and we always have a good time. He was my computer buddy in the staff lounge more often than not (he was always in there writing for his blog which you can find here) and we both share a passionate love for mountain biking.

We went mountain biking quite a number of times around camp and, one fateful, beautiful day, we both got the same day off and went on a little expedition to Tiger Mountain.

It was quite the adventure - I had a guide that outlined a trail to take, but we also did one shorter trail (about 4 miles) at the bottom of the mountain beforehand and went up to the east summit (about 3 miles round trip). I believe it was about a 20 mile ride altogether - and it was completely awesome.

Tiger Mountain is definitely in my top three favorite trails. It's maintained by the Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club and anyone who rides it can definitely tell that it is built and kept up by mountain-bikers. The lines (while often littered with roots and bumps) are absolutely amazing. There are log rides, small berms, and all kinds of other stuff.

If the reader is wondering why I brought all this up a couple of months after it happened it's because Justin just sent me the pictures he took from the day off. So here they are. All of the action shots are quite blurry, but it's just because I was going so fast. Enjoy them. I did.

Happy Birthday Gandhi!

So, apparently it's Gandhi's birthday today... Oh! - and I forgot my sister's birthday a little over a week ago until after the fact (sorry Sissy) (although to be fair I was in Hyderabad and couldn't have done anything about it anyway - no internet and all). But yeah, back to Gandhi - I was not aware that it was his birthday today, and was calmly making my way to work when Gerald Christo popped his head out the door of his house and yelled, "Steve!" I turned, and he said, "You know it's a holiday today?"

"No way, are you serious?" I replied.

"Yeah, it's Gandhi's birthday." I was quite pleasantly surprised to find out that I don't have to work today - so I celebrated by hanging out at the Christo's all morning, and making a trip to Hosur with them. We went to a grocery store that had a bunch of products that I would normally use in America. There were several breakfast cereals that I got pretty excited about - such as fruit loops and, get this, POST HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS!!! I was quite excited at this point, but then Gerald had to be the voice of depression by pointing out that it costs 240 rupees (about $6). So yeah, probably won't be getting that very often - oh well. They also had one of those little boxes (as in the sub-juice-box sized ones) of silk chocolate soy milk - that's right, just one, at least it's the only one I saw. Again, this costs almost a dollar (which I guess isn't that bad, but I think it's more than usual).

Then, to top off the celebration we had pizza and ice cream for lunch! I had butterscotch ice cream and it was amazing. During the meal, however, I couldn't help but observe that it seemed a little inappropriate to be eating on Gandhi's birthday... Oh well, I don't feel too guilty about it.

Another interesting note - on the way back from Hosur, Dr. Christo and Naphi (Gerald's wife) were telling me about the culture in Naphi's home state (I think she's from Manipur - one of the far Northeastern states anyway). Apparently, they have a matrilineal society - in other words, the family name is passed down through the females. Also, the inheritance is passed down through the females (the youngest female usually gets the most - imagine that). This type of society is distinguished from matriarchal by the fact that the males are still kind of head of the family - although this is a little strange too in this particular culture because the uncles apparently run the show - not the fathers - I think they said it was the uncles of the mother of the household in fact. I actually think the whole inheritance passing to the youngest female makes perfect sense - she is the one who is most likely to need it. The males can go out and make money for themselves, but since the females typically take care of the children in this culture (just like mine), the females are more likely to need the support of an inheritance. The problem is that the males, since they do not see the benefit in working hard when the name they build for themselves will not be carried on, do not work hard and tend to be the hang out, play the guitar, and sing type (Dr. Christo's words, not mine). The punch line of all this is that the males feel wronged and have started a men's liberation movement. When I heard this, I started laughing uproariously - at first because I thought he was joking, but then when I found out he was serious I continued to laugh because this family organization is almost exactly the opposite of the American organization in almost every way. I thought you all might appreciate that.

So, in conclusion, don't punch, kick, elbow, or think evil thoughts about anyone today - it's Gandhi's birthday for goodness' sake!

The Last Day

Well, I've made it back safely from Hyderabad now and I am definitely glad to be back, although I did enjoy the trip quite a bit. Even though I did have quite a bit of fun on the trip I also experienced some of the most culture shock I have experienced since I have been here (well, I guess ever, actually). The two main things that will take some getting used to while I'm here in India (which I probably only have to worry about on trips) are the lack of toilet paper and the Indian concept of lines.

First of all, the toilet paper - I did not see a single roll of toilet paper the whole time we were in Hyderabad (4 days). Fortunately, I was half expecting this, so I took to collecting napkins at meal times (although those weren't available at most meals because when one uses his hands to eat, he doesn't usually seem to care too much about napkins).

Second of all, the lines - there is no real concept of a line. I had heard that this was true of different places in the world, but I was kind of hoping India was not one of them. Basically, if a person wants to get somewhere, he has to stick his elbows out, put his head down, and go head first into the crowd. This would not be much of a problem except that I usually don't have a problem with letting other people go first. Therefore, I will let other people go first, but then different Indian people in our group will say stuff like, "Come on Steve, get on the bus - what are you waiting for?" I just generally have a problem with fighting to get in somewhere. Ever since I was a little kid I've been taught to not be the "me-first, me-first" type of person so I guess it just goes against my nature.

Regardless of the culture shock I experience, I was still quite able to thoroughly enjoy my last day in Hyderabad. In the morning we headed first for Charminar which is a structure in the center of Hyderabad which apparently was erected to celebrate the eradication of the plague in Hyderabad. It was really cool and made for some great pictures. After that we headed for Snow World :O . We were originally going to go to the Hyderabad zoo, but apparently people around here don't see snow very often so they wanted to go to this place. As I expected, it was kind of lame. It was a room that was much smaller than I had imagined, which was, indeed, very cold, and had nasty looking snow lying on the floor. It also had some slides with really bumpy ice on them, which were used with toboggans (it was as painful as it looked). So we spent about an hour at this Snow World, which was alright - the cold actually got me thinking about winters back in Michigan.

After we headed for lunch at the Seventh-day Adventist Union office in Hyderabad there were two options - a waterpark or shopping. I decided to go shopping (because I've been to a waterpark before and I didn't have my swimming trunks). Shopping turned out to be a lot of fun. We went to a very crowded street market. I decided to go looking for books in book shops. First, I had to find the book shops so I asked someone in our group where the book shops were and he directed me to the next intersection and to the right where he said the whole street was all book shops. I went to where he pointed out and sure enough, there were all the book shops. I started exploring, but quickly found out that almost every book shop consisted mostly of textbooks (physics, computer science, business, etc.). I was looking for some computer books so this wasn't all bad, but I had little success finding what I was looking for at first. At one point, I was walking between shops when a kid came up to me and said, "Are you looking for books?"

"Yes, I'm looking for books."

"Come here, follow me, book shop." And he pointed across the street.

Needless to say, I was skeptical, but I saw a sign for a bookshop across the street, so I decided to follow him. I was actually glad to have him for crossing the street because he would step out in front of the cars and auto rickshaws and then I would follow. When we got across the street, we went down a short drive and came to a large building which said something about books on it. I followed him in and he took me to a particular stall (I'm sure he was paid to do this). They asked me what books I wanted, I told them, and it took a while but they finally decided that they did not have them. They then asked me where I was from, what I was doing in India, etc. After that, I went back across the street, which was a much scarier experience than the first time (I got honked at a lot). After looking at bookshops for quite a while, I finally found a book I wanted. I told the owner that I wanted it and the bartering started. He said, looking at the price tag, "The price is 399, but you can have for 350."

"200?" I said. Just like that I said it, no "I think it's only worth 200" or anything like that. I really wasn't too confident about how this worked, but I was going to try it.

"200?" the shopkeeper said, "no no, we don't give 50% discounts, this is a new book."

Suddenly I had an inspiration, "This isn't a new book," I said, "it doesn't look new." Then a little while later after examining the book further, "Yeah, see, look, it's been covered." All of this was true - there's no way it was new and it had been covered with a clear cover.

"Well, we can get you a fresh copy."

"OK," I said. If I was going to pay 350 for this book, I would much rather it be a new copy. So I was waiting for one of the assistants to get a fresh copy when...

"Or you can have this copy for 300," the shopkeeper said. Oh snap, this whole bartering thing is kind of cool I was thinking, but then I thought that I had better jump on this price (I don't know why I though this, I guess because the whole bartering thing was kind of stressful).

"OK," I said.

"OK?"

"OK," I repeated, and reached for my wallet. The shopkeeper yelled something at his assistant and accepted my payment. I was pretty happy with myself. It was a rather good deal actually - $6.50 for a book that's over $20.00 on Amazon.

After shopping, we packed up our stuff and headed for home via the train. Altogether, the trip was a great deal of fun. If all of the choices of the places we visited would have been up to me, I would have gone to many more historical sites and skipped stuff like Ramoji Film City and Snow World, but hey, that's just because it's the type of stuff I could do if I were in America. All things considered, it was a great trip and I'm looking forward to my next outing.

Ramoji Film City unt NTR Gardens

Today was destined to be another eventful day in my Indian saga. We went to visit Ramoji film city. It tried its very hardest to be a westernized type theme-park, but there were a few things that I had a bit of a laugh at and a few things that I thought were just weird. The day actually started on a couple of weird notes. When we first got there, we went through what I thought was the entrance to the park, but it wasn't. It was the entrance to the studio property I guess, but then we had to take a bus from that gate to the actual park itself. That wasn't incredibly odd in itself, but the thing that was odd was that we passed through a small village on the way to the park (I am rather certain it was an actual village and not a film set or anything like that). The next weird thing was that once we got to the entrance to the park we had to wait another 45 minutes or so before it officially opened. After that, one of the amusing things happened. They had their whole opening ceremony with lots of dancing and stuff, and then they introduced the different themes of the park. They had their normal Indian stuff, and then the amusing part - when they announced the western theme, a bunch of teenagers came out dressed in pretty normal-looking clothes except for fake-looking vests and cowboy hats and they were all, ALL, sauntering along spinning a fake gun on their index fingers. It was quite amusing to watch. Especially after seeing all of this Indian stuff which was much better done because they know the Indian stuff better.

Shortly after the opening ceremony, the next amusing thing happened - I saw someone dressed up as batman. There were several things that made this particular batman character comical. First of all, he was the smallest, scrawniest batman I have ever seen. Then, there was his costume. It seemed to consist of black trash bags, and to top the whole thing off (or bottom it off I guess) he was wearing rubber muck-boots which looked much to large for him. It took me a couple seconds after I walked past him to register all the things which were hilarious about him, and then a couple more seconds to realize I had to get a picture with him. By that time he had walked off, but fortunately I tracked him down later in the day and got a couple of shots with him. This provided for further amusement because I was going to try to put my arm around him to take the picture, but as I reached for his opposite shoulder, he pushed me away with one hand and then posed like he was about to punch me for the picture. I could hardly contain my laughter, it was great. You can see the pictures here.

Shortly after my first batman sighting, I realized that almost completely everyone was going to one small area of the park so I decided to go check out some other stuff. Seriously, the rest of the park was pretty much completely empty - the funny thing I found out about Indian theme parks, however, is that even though the attractions do not have advertised times that they are closed or open, they almost all have only certain times that they are open. This particular day, I guess just about everything was closed in the morning except for a couple of rides (which was where everyone had congregated) and a tour of the 'film city' (the film city consists of a bunch of sets, gardens, and stuff spread out over a large land area and then there is the more parkish type area which is where a lot of the theme park attractions are). Because of this unadvertised timing stuff, I got to wander the empty streets of the park.

I think one of the best examples of the level of quality of this park was the fact that I was one of the attractions. I got asked at least twice if people could take their picture with me. Of course, I had no problem with it, but I did find it quite amusing. One of these times was when I was wandering the streets alone. I saw a group of fellow crowd-avoiders and they immediately came up to me and asked if they could get one picture with me - this was actually the second time, the first being just before the opening ceremony.

Fortunately, I didn't really miss anything due to my wandering, but I did learn a great deal that even simple things like how a theme park runs can be vastly different from country to country. As it turns out the ride that everyone was thronging to immediately after the opening ceremonies was a roller-coaster simulator. It was pretty cool, but I've always thought of roller coasters as a sort of simulator of airplanes themselves, so I found it quite amusing that one of the main attractions would be a simulation of what, in my mind, was already a simulation. I mean seriously, what's next? A simulation of a person experiencing a simulation of a roller-coaster?

After spending almost all day at the theme park, we headed to NTR Gardens. This was quite refreshing after the hectic day at the film city. I suppose I have been mostly desensitized to 'modern attractions' such as theme parks and shows and the like, but I do enjoy walking quietly and appreciating God's creation. Even at NTR gardens, to my dismay, there was still the fair-type rides and a haunted house, but there was also a 'desert garden' and a collection of bonzai trees which caught my interest. I think it must be my personality-type that mostly leads me to appreciate peace and quiet. Never before had I been reminded so strongly of Tolkien's words when speaking of hobbits, "Their heart really lay in peace, quiet, and the joy of fresh, tilled earth" (I'm sure I completely slaughtered that, but it gets the basic idea across (Edit: this is the original quote: "But where our hearts truly lie is in peace and quiet, and good tilled earth; for all Hobbits share a love of things that grow." - wow, I was really close :P)). While I was at the gardens I decided that if I ever have a library or a home office or something, I want a bonzai tree in it, so I decided to take pictures of some of my favorites (for those of the readership who look at my pictures and think, 'What's up with all the trees?'). After the gardens, we headed home for a spicy supper and bed. I felt like I should've gotten a round of applause when I finished my plate of food (except for some curd and chilis), oh well, I guess I'll just have to pat myself on the back...

Hyderabad

One of the most anticipated trips of my life and it all started with a stomach ache. When I woke up from my nap on Saturday afternoon, I was feeling a wee bit under the weather in the gutular region. I lay there on my stomach thinking, 'Ugh, not this again.' For the reader to understand this exclamation, he must first know the circumstances of my last couple of trips (OK, technically it has only been two of the last three trips, but that is not the point). I have a tendency to get sick just before I leave on a trip. This first started when I headed out from Michigan for Montana, Oregon, and finally Washington. Just a day or two before I was supposed to leave, my stomach became quite upset. I felt pretty terrible. I think I actually just sat around watching TV the last couple of days at home as a matter of fact. The problem was that I really didn't do anything to counteract the sickness, I just kind of accepted it. I was sick for probably the first half of the trip or so (due to the fact that I just kept on eating like I had been). The next time I got sick was a day or two before I was to leave for India. It was the same type of stomach ailment, but this time I decided to starve it. I didn't eat anything for a day, and then when I did start eating again it was strictly rice, honey, soy milk, and bananas. This seemed to work because I was pretty much at 100% when I set foot on the plane.

So, again the stomach ailment was upon me. This time a trip to Hyderabad, India loomed in the very near future. I decided to starve it again (after eating supper Saturday night, which turned out to be a bad idea as it made the whole condition worse). So, the next day I ate nothing - this was also the day that we were to leave at 2:30 p.m. In the morning I had to pack, but I was feeling bad enough that I would get up from bed, pack for 5-10 minutes, and then have to lie down for 10 minutes. There was no way I was going to miss this trip, though, and, fortunately, by the time we were ready to leave, I was already feeling a great deal better. We all mounted up in the bus and headed for Bangalore train station, which would be where we would catch our train to Hyderabad. This was going to be my first trip by train in India and, needless to say, I was quite excited. When we got to the train station, I found out that we had an hour and a half to wait for the train to leave, so we all found our seats and I started into my book (The Princess Bride - William Goldman abridgement, which, although I am thankful for some of the stuff he cuts out (from his explanations these particular parts sound quite boring) whenever he comes to a suspenseful part, he always, without fail, spoils it for the reader by telling him what is going to happen next - it is quite frustrating and in order to understand fully, one would probably have to read it for himself (Edit: since I wrote this, I have learned a great deal about William Goldman and S. Morgenstern that has completely changed my views of William Goldman - if you know what I'm talking about, go ahead, laugh at me - if you don't, read The Princess Bride and then come talk to me about it)).

Shortly after finding out that we had to wait for an hour and a half for the train, I found out that once we were done waiting for the train, we would be waiting to arrive in Hyderabad until 5:30 a.m. the next morning! I had looked at a map and seen how far away Hyderabad is from Hosur, but I hadn't thought it would take anywhere near that long to get there by train. Now it all makes sense, since the train probably travels 40 mph tops and it stops at every station for a few minutes (I'm still not sure exactly what the mileage (or kilometerage) is, but I maintain that it doesn't look that far on a map). Fortunately, the train is not a very unpleasant way to travel. The main two complaints that can be had with it are that it smells like body odor (this is mitigated by familiarity) and that one is cooped up in it for however long the journey is (which is true of any mode of transportation). Unfortunately for me, the whole body odor smell was a little more difficult due to current affairs in my gut's realm, but it was by no means unbearable. After the train ride (most of which I slept through), we arrived in Hyderabad and headed to our quarters for this 4-day trip.

We reached our residence around 6 a.m. or so and began to settle in. Our residence for this trip was a Catholic dormitory. I was hoping to take a shower when we got there (because I was rather certain I had begun to contribute to the overall body-odor smell of the train towards the end of the trip), but to my dismay I found out they did not have showers, but rather taps and buckets (which are the traditional Indian implements of bathing, I believe). So, instead of completely foregoing all hygiene, I decided to rinse down my upper body and put on a new shirt. This accomplished, I headed for breakfast. Breakfast this first morning at our new place of living was dosas and coconut chutney (dosas are fermented rice tortillas and I'm not sure what coconut chutney is exactly but I'm guessing it has coconut in it, it looks kind of like baby vomit, and it is a tad bit spicy). This certainly wouldn't have been my first choice for my first meal after attempting to cure my stomach ailment, but it had to do - fortunately, it did not seem to have a negative effect as I felt quite a bit better most of the day.

After breaking the fast, we headed out for what turned out to be the highlight of my day that particularly fine Monday. We headed for Golkonda fort. At this point I was planning on writing about some of the historical background of the fort, but upon thinking about it and realizing that the data I actually remembered was spotty to the point that it would be almost incoherent and furthermore realizing that since the reader is reading this blog on the internet, he must have access to the internet so therefore he should be able to easily look up information about the fort on wikipedia or some such site (which would probably be much more accurate than anything I would write) I decided to forego any explanation of the fort and simply say that it was the awesomest fort I've ever been in. Of course, topping the list of cool forts Steven Oxley has been in is not difficult considering it is about two items long now (the other one being the fort at Camp Au Sable). However, I will direct the reader to the many pictures I took at the fort to help convince him that it is rather awe-inspiring.

I would also like to mention that our guide who took us through the fort was quite comical. He spoke very broken English (which the Indian kids were actually making fun of him for - repeating some of the stuff he would say and laughing). He also took up an amusing habit of repeating everything directly to me after he had given his little presentation to the rest of the group. It was amusing because he would say, "You understand?" and before I could say "Yes," which would have been my answer in every case, he would repeat, verbatim, what he had just said to the rest of the group. Also, at the end of the tour, he mentioned something about "If you enjoy, than maybe you give tips," or something like that, and, of course, he singled me out since I was the only white person in the group and I just happened to have a nice looking camera hanging around my neck (which little did he know I acquired for free). The second time he came up to me specifically, I felt bad, so I gave him the change in my pocket and mumbled something about being the poorest person in the group - I guess I know now what it feels like to be stereotyped.

This brings up another interesting thought. While I've been in India (especially while we've been sight-seeing in Hyderabad) random people will come up to me and ask me where I'm from. I think the most amusing example of this would have to be after the laser show we went to (which I should relate later), I was sitting in the bus with the window open and a guy in a bus next to us leaned out the and window and said, "Excuse me, where is it you are from."

"United States of America," I replied.

"Ah, United States, did you enjoy the show?" he asked.

I gave him a thumbs-up and said, "Yeah, it was great." Not much of a conversation, but when I think about what an American would do if he saw an Indian in an adjoining bus it becomes rather amusing.

After we left the fort, I experienced some real Indian food at the Seventh-day Adventist Union office in Hyderabad. This was the food I had been expecting when I found out I was coming to India. The menu consisted of fried rice, white rice, dahl, chicken, fish, curd, bananas, cake, and vegetable chutney (I passed on the fish and chicken). It is the vegetable chutney I wish to dwell on. In complete honesty, I'm not sure if this was, indeed, vegetable chutney. That is what the lady serving the food told me it was. Furthermore, if I had asked her where it was brewed, she probably would have pointed me to the person who made it and even showed me the ingredients, but I don't think I trust her. If you ask me, the only explanation for the nature of this particular chutney was that it was stewed in the boiling cauldron of the Devil's kitchen, heated by the fiery fires of the deepest depths of the furnace that is hell. It should not have been called vegetable chutney, it should have been called napalm chutney or atomic chutney or sear-the-skin-off-your-tongue chutney, but not vegetable chutney. Needless to say, I found this chutney to be just a tad bit spicy. Even the Indians around me were blowing their noses throughout the meal, so I didn't feel so bad, but this was definitely the spiciest meal I've had while in India. I even had to start scraping the food off my spoon with my teeth so that my lips wouldn't touch the spiciness (and for those of you who know about how I have to eat sandwiches you know what desperate straights I must have been in to attempt to do anything useful with my teeth). I was actually pretty proud of myself because I almost finished the chutney. The ironic part was that the other part of my meal that I didn't finish was the curd, which is supposed to have a tremendous cooling effect. The problem with curd is that I find it to be absolutely disgusting to the point that it almost makes me sick (especially on a weakened stomach), but I am trying to get used to it so I ate a bit here and there.

After lunch, we headed out for Salar Jun museum. This museum is the collection of one man (well, started by one man anyway) and I easily could have spent an entire day there, but we only had a couple of hours, so I only got to see a fraction of it. Fortunately, I believe I did see the most impressive piece in there (I am rather confident since I think it is the most impressive sculpture I've ever seen). This particular sculpture is called Veiled Rebecca I believe and I am completely blanking on the name of the artist, but I definitely suggest the reader check it out on the internet (I may give a link once I get a connection myself - I'm writing this offline (Edit: apparently there are a few different copies of the sculpture, all done by Benzoni - you can see a picture of one of the other ones here).

After the museum, we headed for a laser show. Before the laser show started, there was a park nearby which is on a lake. We went into the park (which had a small admission fee) and hung out there for a while. I went out on the lake on a speedboat with one of the guys from our group and two girls we met there (the speedboats take groups of four or less at a flat rate so this was the most economical). The speedboat (outboard) was quite small so we had to sit as close to the front as possible to reduce drag. It was still pretty fun and we got to see the standing buddha in the middle of the lake close up, which was definitely worth the boat ride price of Rs. 180 (total, for all 4 of us). After the boat ride, we headed over to the laser show, which was quite impressive and intriguing since it featured some information about Hyderabad's history (Golkonda fort even made an appearance). After the laser show, we headed back to the dormitory for food and bed (oh, and I took a manual shower - by manual I mean pouring the water over my head myself). And now we have reached the present time in which I am lying in bed, sleepily trying to summarize the last of my day (if you didn't notice, I lost a little inspiration after the chutney description).

The Price of Wandering

I saw a guy on a motorcycle get hit by a BUS!! It was pretty much amazing and the only actual accident I've witnessed. Before anyone gets all worked up - no one was hurt. It was actually quite amusing. I'll start the story from the beginning.

I needed soap. It seems like such a natural and easy thing to come by (which turns out to be true, but I'll get to that later), but when the only place that you know you can buy soap is over a mile away and you don't have a car things become a little more difficult. I knew that this store which I had gotten soap at before was no more than a mile and a half away because I had ran to it in a little over ten minutes on one of my morning runs. I decided that I would take off from work a little early and walk to the store. So, I grabbed my wallet and headed for the door.

As I was walking along the road, listening to my iPod, I saw a motorcycle with two Indian men on it pull out into traffic. At this particular time there was a bus approaching, going the same direction that the motorcyclist intended to go. Fortunately, both of them were moving very slowly, but as I watched I thought to myself, "I wonder if that guy even sees that the bus is there." I don't know how a gigantic vehicle like a bus can sneak up on someone, but that's exactly what was happening. As the motorcyclist finally pulled into the lane, the bus hit him and he and his passenger fell over onto the ground - the motorcycle was pushed a couple of feet after it hit the ground and left white marks on the asphalt from where the pegs had dragged. I couldn't believe it.

In the aftermath of the accident, a crowd started to gather around and the owner of the motorcycle checked himself and his bike out to make sure it was ok. The bus was empty except for the driver and one other guy, but neither of them came out for quite a while. Finally, they both came out and the driver started talking rather heatedly in Tamil. I couldn't tell what he was saying, but I like to think it was something like, "Hey Bill, how are the wife and kids? It's kind of sad that I have to hit you with a bus in order for us to have a good talk nowadays." Actually, I think the bus driver thought it was not his fault because he was going so slow (seriously crawling) although he did just keep on going even though he could clearly see that the motorcyclist was pulling out. I also believe the motorcyclist thought the bus was stopped. Regardless, after the driver came out, a crowd really started to develop (people coming from across the street and whatnot), but I wanted to get my soap before supper so I sneaked away.

When I finally arrived at the store, it was closed. I knew it was usually open later because I went there after dark once, so I figured I'd stay until around 6 to see if it opened then. The train station is right nearby so I figured I'd take a look around. Turns out the train here is really cheap - you can take a ride from Hosur (where I am) to Bangalore for only about Rs10 ($0.25). It is kind of funny because Gerald (Dr. Christo's son) said he had to pay more for the auto-rickshaw from the train station to the compound (Rs40 and a little over a mile) than from Bangalore to Hosur (Rs10 and 60 miles I think). So yeah, I'll have to go to Bangalore one of these days.

After I explored the train station, I headed back towards the store, but it was still closed. I figured I'd just head home. As I started to get near to the compound, I started checking out all the little shops beside the road. As I got to the last couple of stands, I found soap! I bought 2 bars (one was the same brand as the kind I got at the other store previously). So the irony of the story is that I walked three miles only to find out that there was soap probably less than 100 yards from the compound... *sigh* oh well - I got to see a guy get hit by a bus!

Churchill and Fleming

Have you heard the story of Alexander Fleming twice saving Winston Churchill's life (in some variations Fleming's father saves him the first time)? Apparently it's a rather popular e-mail forward because I've heard it several times. After hearing the third variation of it in worship the other day (this particular version involved a pool instead of a lake or swamp which I had heard before) I figured there was something fishy about it. As I suspected, the story turns out to be entirely false. I checked it with a couple of different internet sources, but I believe the Churchill Centre website is the most authoritative. You can see the explanation for yourself here.

It makes me a little upset about what can get out there and be accepted as truth. I guess it is just a lesson to us all to always check your sources. And to think, I have even talked about this myth in the past, as if it were truth...

Oh yeah, and e-mail forwards are teh gayzorzz.

MOUTH OF STEEL! raaaaaaargh!

I ate (almost) an entire chili pepper!! I didn't cry, my head didn't explode, and fire didn't emit from any of my orifices. Granted, I ate it a little bit at a time, and with other food, but other than my nose running a bit and my mouth still feeling a bit warm 15 minutes later, I think it went pretty well. In fact, I even enjoyed the taste some. I figure, at this rate, I'll be able to eat all of the chilis that are served with my dal within the next decade or so. I just need to keep training...

The walk to work

I've put up a new album on my Picasa page. You can check it out here. It's basically a little slide show of my walk from my guest room (still haven't moved into my apartment yet) to work at the division office building.

I went to Hosur the other day. It's a really crowded town. It also did not help that a festival was going on at the time we were there. Basically all we did was go to a grocery, an ATM, and a fruit stand. I didn't really need anything, I just went along for the ride (the auditors who are here from America needed to pick up some stuff). I really saw how crowded it was when we were in the grocery store. It was very difficult to navigate because the store was so small and there were so many people. The traffic here in India is also much worse than in Bangkok. At least in Bangkok people will slow down for you when you cross the road. Here, it was quite scary crossing the road because the lanes don't really tell you anything about whether people will be coming from the left or right and once when we were crossing a moped came tearing down the road and went right in between two parts of our group, laying on the horn the whole time. It was quite an experience. I think it would probably take me a little while to get adjusted to driving here :P I was glad I got to see part of the town that we're so close to. It's like a different world living on the division campus.

Storytime!

So, as promised, here is the "manuscript" for the children's story I did yesterday:

I was SO EXCITED! We were going to Canada! I had never been to Canada before and our whole family was going to be going. I had been looking forward to it for weeks. I told all of my friends about all the different places we were going to go and things we were going to see. And then the day finally came. I had all of my stuff packed up and was ready to go. The only thing that still needed to be done was to fill up the van with gas - then we would be on our way.

While my dad went to fill up the van, my grandpa watched my brother and me. We had just found a new climbing tree and we wanted our grandpa to watch us climb it. "Papa, papa," we called him. "Watch us climb this tree." My brother and I were very safety conscious (either that or we thought we looked cool with helmets on), so we put our helmets on and buckled them up nice and tight. Then I watched as Rob climbed the tree first. Higher and higher he went, climbing up into the tree, "Wow, that's cool," I thought to myself as I watched him. So, of course I wanted to show my grandpa my awesome climbing skills, and I started climbing. Now, the trick with this tree was that there was only one branch that could be reached from the ground, and this particular branch just so happened to be dead. I wasn't worried at all, though, because I had climbed the tree many times before. So I hoisted myself up on the branch. Then I brought my foot up and put it on the branch, and "SNAP!!" The branch which had held me so many times before broke! As I fell, I put my hand out to catch myself and "SNAP!!" As my arm hit the ground, it broke.

As soon as my dad got back, he rushed me to the hospital. The doctors put a cast on my arm and said that I couldn't travel until it healed. I wasn't going to be able to go to Canada! I was devastated. "Why? Why can't I go?" I cried. But you know what? A few months later, after my arm had healed, I did get to go to Canada. And that trip was even better than the other would have been because I got to go to the Canadian expo (a huge fair that has rides and food and all kinds of other attractions).

Moses was SO EXCITED! He was going to Canaan, the land promised by God! He had been looking forward to it for years. Moses and the children of Israel were getting very close to the Promised Land. Unfortunately, the children of Israel liked to complain a lot, and one day they all started complaining because they didn't have any water. "Why did you bring us all the way out of Egypt just to die of thirst in the desert?" they said to Moses. In response to the Israelites complaints, God spoke to Moses and told him to speak to a rock and then water would flow out of the rock for the Israelites.

Moses gathered all the children of Israel together to the rock, but, instead of speaking to the rock as God had commanded him, Moses started speaking angrily to the people. "Why do you always gripe and complain?" Moses said. "I brought you out of slavery to take you to the promised land and all you can do is whine!" and with that, "SNAP!!" Moses struck the rock with his staff.

Just as God had said, water did pour forth from the rock. However, because Moses had disobeyed God by striking the rock and taking credit for bringing the people out of Egypt, God told Moses that he would not be able to enter Canaan. Moses was devastated. "Why God? Why can't I enter with the people?" Moses cried. God never did let Moses enter the Promised Land, but you know what? After Moses died, God did something much better for Moses. God came down and rose Moses from the grave and took Moses to heaven to be with Him.

Things don't always turn out they way we think they should. In my case, I was not able to go to Canada because my arm was broken. In Moses's case, he was not able to enter the Promised Land because he messed up and disobeyed God. Sometimes we may even pray for something and the prayer may not be answered the way we think it should have been. But you know what? God always has a plan. In my case and in Moses's case, God's plan was even better than we could have foreseen. Sometimes the plan that God has is better and sometimes it's just different, but the important thing to remember is that it is always for our good.

So yeah, that was the story I told for Sabbath School (with many alterations of course due to the spontaneous nature of story telling). I felt pretty good about it - it seemed that at least the kids in the center of the front row were paying attention, so that's a start. In other news, there are some auditors here from the U.S. One of them just so happens to be Robin Willis who apparently grew up with my mom (whom she says "hi" to). Talk about a small world (especially in Adventist circles).

MONKEEEEEEYS!!!1!!111!! :O

I was sitting there, in Sabbath School, staring out the window and not paying as much attention as I should have been, when suddenly I saw a monkey scurry accross the grass between the fence and a garden and start getting some of the fruit from the garden! I couldn't believe it. I even pointed it out to the guy sitting beside me who half-smiled at me and then showed very clearly that he was completely disinterested by turning back to the Sabbath School leader (who happened to be Dr. Christo). I continued to watch the monkey eat the fruit, fighting the urge to pull my camera out of my backpack, walk over to the window and start snapping pictures in the middle of Sabbath School. As I continued to watch, several other monkeys climbed over the wall (which actually has some nasty looking barbed wire at the top). There were probably 4 or 5 adult monkeys and 1 or 2 baby monkeys. One of the baby monkeys rode on its mothers back while she climbed down the wall (which looked rather difficult considering it was a stone wall). Then I watched as the other baby monkey leaped from the top of the wall and plummeted downwards. I thought at the time that it leaped all the way to the ground, but I lost sight of it behind some plants. I think now that it must have grabbed hold of one of the branches of the palm tree by the garden before it reached the ground. Whatever it did, it certainly looked quite comical. I couldn't believe that I got to see the monkeys so soon - I had been told that there were monkeys around, but I thought that they came by rarely. Hopefully I will get to take some pictures of them sometime. Apparently there is also some other interesting animal life in the area, including cobras. I kind of hope I get to see one, but at a safe distance of course. Another interesting note is that there are many bird calls that I have never heard before, but yet I have not seen any particularly interesting-looking birds. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

Before the adult Sabbath School where I saw the monkeys I told a story for kindergarten Sabbath School. It was pretty fun. I'll get a "manuscript" of the story up when I get a chance (I though it was pretty creative). The interesting thing about telling the story was that, before I actually got up to do it, the girl who had asked me to tell the story said, "When you get up there, make sure you talk nice and loud because you have a really heavy accent and they might have trouble understanding you otherwise." I guess I've just never thought about me having an accent before. When I thought about it a little more, though, I realized she had a very valid point. I am most definitely a minority here. I am one of three white people in a church whose membership is probably at least 300 (I've never been very good with crowd size estimations). Looking around and seeing that everyone looks very much different than me is a very good way to remind myself that I am not at home anymore :P It's actually kind of cool, I guess.

One thing that I don't think I have related in my blog yet is that there are scheduled power cuts here. Every day at noon, 8 p.m. and some other times that I don't remember, the power is shut down from the electricity provider. Fortunately, the school has generators which they fire up every time the power is cut (well, when it's scheduled to be cut anyway), but they usually take a couple of minutes before the electricity comes back on line so everyone will be without electricity for a couple of minutes. Last night at vespers, a group of ladies was right in the middle of one of the special musics when suddenly the lights went out and the power to the mics was cut. I found this quite comical and I'm glad it was pitch black because I was sitting there in the dark stifling laughter. Apparently the keyboard had battery power because the keyboardist kept on playing. Which brings me to another point which I find quite comical. You know those cheesy, synthesized drum beat/bass tracks that come on most keyboards? Well, they use those here - A LOT - for every special music I've heard, in fact (except for when our choir sang - we had the piano for accompaniment).

Well, that's all I can think that I wanted to relate in this post (except for the "manuscript" - I think I'll get that out tomorrow). I'm getting involved in some stuff which makes things more fun and everyone is still extremely friendly. I feel kind of bad because everyone knows my name and I don't know most people's names, but I guess that should change down the road.

The Beginning

I got through my first day. Everyone is very nice and the food so far has been great. They have me put up in a guest room at the campus, but apparently I will be getting my own apartment in a week or so (they haven't gotten everything prepared for it yet). The website I'll be working on looks like a pretty interesting project. I haven't been able to look at any of the code or anything, but I can already tell it could use some work (it's very much not finished, but I do not agree with some of the design choices that have already been made). You can take a look at it here if you wish.

Dr. Christo, his family, and I went to one of the supermarkets in the town here to pick up some stuff (I needed toiletries). On the way we saw quite a few people out on the streets. Apparently it is the last day of the festival worshiping their elephant god (Vishnu? - I'll have to look that up). He said something about them taking their gods to the river. We could see a couple of their gods from the road - they looked really elaborate (not to mention large).

I am not sure exactly what I will be doing over the next couple of days since they have not gotten a place set up for me to do anything and they do not have the information I need to administrate the website, but I am rather eager to find out. I have already been asked to tell a story for Kindergarten sabbath school and to join the choir so I can see that I will be involved with church stuff. Altogether, I would have to say that I am quite excited.

As I suspected, it's not at all like I expected. I landed in Bangalore, got off the airplane, and got through the passport check and customs with no problems. Then I spent a good 40 minutes to an hour waiting for someone to pick me up. When the clock struck 12:00 a.m. I decided to give Dr. Christo (my contact in India) a call. It took me a little while to be able to use the pay phone since I had to get change and have the lady at the information desk tell me how to dial phone numbers in India (apparently you have to dial 0 when there is a +91 in front of the number? - still doesn't make any sense to me). Once I finally did get the call through, however, Dr. Christo picked up and said in what I now realize was probably a sleepy voice, "Hello?"

"Hi, is this Dr. Christo?" I replied.

"Yes."

"Hey, this is Steven Oxley, I'm at the airport."

"Has the driver picked you up?"

"No."

"OK, if you go outside there will be a person standing there with your name on a sign."

Outside - of course, it was so simple; why hadn't I thought of it before instead of deciding to call up someone who was obviously enjoying sleeping at this late hour? "Oh great, thanks, bye," I said to the sound of the click on the other end of the line.

So, now that I had completely humiliated myself, I stepped outside and about the third sign I saw had my name on it. The driver (Joyle - spelling? (edit: I think it's actually Joel now, he just pronounced it weird)) packed up my stuff and then I found out that there was supposed to be one Dr. Bob Robinson coming in as well who we were supposed to pick up when his plane came in at 12:40 a.m. So, we waited outside the airport. When 2:40 a.m. rolled around and there was still no Bob Robinson, I said to Joyle, "I don't think he's coming." To which Joyle replied by insisting that I go to sleep in the vehicle. I'm not sure exactly what happened after that as I was in and out of slumber, but I don't think we stayed at the airport for too much longer before we headed out to the Division office. This was probably the main surprise for me: the division office isn't in Bangalore. It is not even in the same state as Bangalore. It is a good one and a half hour drive to get to the division office in Hosur from the airport.

On the way to the division office I got my first taste of Indian road etiquette - the main principle I believe must be called "beep it and blast it" or something similar because the horn is a very highly used driving tool in this country. It is used for passing, for going around blind corners, for telling pedestrians to get out of the way - even in place of stop signs. Oh, and there are also speed bumps everywhere - which may or may not be slowed down for (depending on whether or not a pass is in the process). Two of the scariest experiences were when we threaded the needle between two large trucks (one was about to pass the other, but before it could pull up alongside the other one we squeezed through) and when we blasted through an intersection after blasting the horn, cutting off a very large truck. Another peculiar road habit is that apparently any driver can act as a taxi. We picked up some random guy who was walking along the road and when we dropped him off, he reached into his pocket and pulled out some rupees to give to Doyle (I didn't see how much). I thought this was quite interesting indeed.

Fortunately, I escaped the hands of certain doom which gripped the steering wheel of the vehicle and made it to the division office at about 6:30 a.m. I was quite tired as I had not slept very much (we stopped for tea at one point so that could have something to do with it - also, tea with milk and sugar is pretty rockin'). I was really expecting to be in the city, but I guess that's not what is going down (although I still haven't talked to anyone to find out exactly what is happening). The division office campus looks really nice and the guest room they put me up in is decent as well. I guess I will find out more today.

Bangkok State of Emergency

Yeah, so, THIS is kind of scary. Apparently the Thai schools are being closed down because of this and the water is going to be shut down so everyone here is supposed to stock up... Apparently everything is happening to the northwest of here. I'm supposed to fly out tonight - I hope I don't have any trouble...

Compute This!

Today was a great day for computers. Went to the school with Mike after eating a light breakfast. Spent most of the morning and a bit of the afternoon on the computer. Did a lot of organizing e-mail and whatnot and worked on a programming project which I started helping out with this summer. I probably spent about an hour writing some new code and when I proceeded to try it out, I of course ran into some problems. As always, it turned out to be something completely simple and stupid. In my code I had called a function that set a couple of variables to what I wanted them to be, then, like the idiot that I am, I had placed my initializers after the function so that the variables I needed were empty. So, instead of this:

$this->helps = array();
$this->numHelps = 0;
$this->load($filename); //Sets $this->helps and $this->numHelps to useful values

I had this:

$this->load($filename); //Sets $this->helps and $this->numHelps to useful values
$this->helps = array();
$this->numHelps = 0;

It took me a while to figure out why the variables I needed were empty...

So, fortunately, I figured all that out just in time for going to Pantip. Pantip, as I am sure most if not all of the readers of this fantastic blog will not know, is one of the awesomest places in Bangkok. It is a 6-story building packed full of computer hardware, computer software, mp3 players and accessories, and any other sort of electronic item one could possibly want. Also, since it is in Thailand, the prices are good as marked and on top of that, if the price doesn't seem right, it's always an option to barter. Also, since it is a huge conglomerate of little shops there is plenty of competition and selection at the different shops. In summary, it is pretty much a computer-geek's heaven, but I am getting ahead of myself.

To get to Pantip we took a songtaew to the river taxi. While we were waiting on the dock for the river taxi, we decided to get drinks from a street vendor there (which were very well priced at 10 baht for about a 20oz glass bottle of Fanta). Mike got his and the vendor put it in a bag with ice (as in poured the bottle into a plastic bag with ice). This is a popular way to drink stuff in Bangkok apparently. When I was about to pay for mine, the river taxi pulled up so I wanted to hurry and tried to communicate to her (the vendor) that I did not want it in a bag with ice - I would simply drink it out of the bottle. She seemed to understand at first, but then kept saying something in Thai and gesturing at the bags and the ice. I had no idea what she was saying and both Mike and I tried to get her to understand that I just wanted the bottle. Finally, after some laughter on both sides and still having no idea why she wanted to pour my drink into a bag so badly, I gave in and let her do it. However, she did not put any ice in the bag which left me completely confused... After this whole ordeal we had missed the river taxi, but at least I had something cool and refreshing to sip on while we waited for the next one.

When we got to the stop that people at the school had told Mike to get off at, we were fortunate to find Pantip with almost no difficulty at all (since neither of us really knew where we were going). The main reason we were going there is that Mike's laptop power supply completely died yesterday and he needed a new one. We were doubtful whether or not we would be able to find a replacement, but in the second shop we walked into we found some power supplies, so that upped our spirits. When the shopkeeper came up, trying to help us, I told her we needed a 19.5V power supply and she just said "950 baht." I thought she was talking about the ones that we were looking at and had not understood me at all, but a little while later she handed Mike a 19.5V Dell power supply which had 950 baht written on the wrapping. She even let him try it out with his computer right there in the shop before he bought it. We found out later that the current was different than his old one, but looking online, the power supply he got is listed as being compatible with his computer. Also, he was able to get the shop keeper to sell it to him for 900 baht (I think he could've gotten it for less but there was some confusion because of the language barrier). After that, we simply looked around for a while - I was pretty much geeking out. I'm hoping there are some plazas like this one in Bangalore.

After returning from our journey to electronics paradise, we got together with some of the teachers and went to an awesome soup place called MK's (awesome name, I know - it's a chain). The format for food is that each table gets a pot with broth and then different things are ordered to go into the broth (we got vegetables, tofu, and an egg). Then, you put the ingredients in the soup yourself, cook it, and serve. It was pretty tasty indeed.

For a complete gallery of pictures from this episode, simply check out my picasa web album.

Inner City Pressure

Disclaimer: this all actually took place on 8-28-08, but I'm posting this on 8-31-08 because it's the first day I've had internet. If you would like to see the pictures from the events described below, check them out at: my Picasa web-album. Also, to understand the title of this blog post, watch this video and know that Mike has taken to singing this song as we travel around Bangkok. Now, on with the blog post...

Today was quite eventful. After a rather relaxing morning which involved collecting breakfast from street vendors and 7-11, spending some time on the internet, and watching some Flight of the Conchords Mike, Stephanie, Ashley, Tatiana, and I headed out to see the Grand Palace in Bangkok. It all started with a taxi ride. After piling all five of us into the taxi (4 in the back seat), we headed out toward what we thought would be our destination, but shortly after pulling out onto the street the taxi driver stopped and ordered us all out. He had been talking on his cell phone and Mike thinks that he figured out that he would not have enough gas to get us to the grand palace (apparently he had to call someone to find out what this "grand palace" we were talking about was). So, while we were sorting out what had happened and what to do next Mike and Stephanie got the bright idea to take the BTS (sky train) to the river and take a river boat to the grand palace. So, we flagged another taxi down and headed for the BTS.

I was wearing my Lake Michigan College baseball camp shirt (the reason for this sentence will become clear in the next sentence). While we were standing there, waiting for the train at Siam, a short, plump Thai man asked me if I was from Michigan. It turned out that he went to high school in Traverse City and has family there. Mike, him, and I talked all the way to the river (well, mostly Mike and him). When he found out that we were going to the grand palace, he said he would show us the cheap way to get there (by boat). He helped us buy the tickets for the right boat and even waited with us for the boat (which was a great help because we didn't even know exactly what boat to take or where we wanted to get off).

When we got to our destination, we wandered through the market right by the dock and headed in what we thought was the direction of the Grand Palace. On our way in that direction, a Thai man stopped us and told us that the Grand Palace was closed. He also gave us a bunch of other information about some other Wats (temples) that were open for free that day and he introduced us to a tuk-tuk driver who he said would take us to all the places we wanted to go and drop us off at another boat-taxi that would take us home. He said the tuk-tuk would only cost 40 baht for all of us. Of course, we thought this sounded great, so all five of us squeezed into the back of what I thought looked like a space fit for two people and we were on our way.

After a short ride we reached our first destination - a pretty cool Wat with both a sitting and a lying down Buddha. It did not take us long to look around that place and we headed out for our next destination. Then started a sequence of events that was quite confusing for all of us. Our driver took us to a place that we did not want to go - it was a western fashion shop where they sold tailor-made suits, soap, and other things of that nature. So, we rather confusedly went in at the insistence of our driver and were pressured by a man inside to look at and smell luffa soap. When our driver was explaining why we needed to go into this store he had mentioned something about gasoline and a coupon so our best guess was that he got free gasoline or something for taking us to this shop. On our way to what we thought was another Wat he stopped again at a traveler information center which did not have any information at all unless we booked a trip or something. At this stop, Mike actually told the driver, "No, no, we don't need this." To which the driver responded, very pitifully, "But it's free to look around." Again, we all suspect it was because he got some kind of kick-back for taking us there. After that, we really thought we were going to get to see the other Wat since we had clearly showed him on the map where we wanted to go. Apparently he thought it was time for us to go home, though, because we ended up at the boat-taxi and made it rather clear that this was the end of the line.

So, after a walk down a street that consisted completely of shops that sold building supplies (lumber, doors, tools, you name it) in search of food we decided to get on the boat and head for home. The boat ride was quite a cool experience and when we got off that we went in another type of taxi/bus/truck type thing called a songthaew. On the return journey there was much joking about how we traveled all over the city just to see the smallest Wat in Bangkok. It was quite amusing when we thought of it that way, but I actually had a fun time traveling around the city - experiencing the different modes of transportation and seeing the different parts of the city. I really would like to see the Grand Palace someday though - the tops of the buildings that we could see over the walls looked pretty impressive anyway...