What do your parents think? Are you excited?

The idea of spending a year of my life in a far away country is one that my family probably ought to have predicted. And yet, my mother is the only member of my family that seems to regard this trip with optimism or excitement. Aside from brief moments of worry remedied by assurances of my handle on the situation, she has decided this will be an extraordinary adventure in personal development, and is eager to visit once I am settled.

My father, in my opinion, has adopted an attitude of resignation, understanding he has little power against my set will. His overt questioning of my decision has been limited to, “Are you sure you want to go for a whole year?” With my assurances, he has not raised concerns since, but has been very helpful with logistics and such. 

My step-father regards this whole idea as ludicrous, rather like counting to five when throwing the holy hand grenade of Antioch (Monty Python…). His comments, such as, “It's the only country that still has the plague!” come from a place of parental concern tinged with feelings of imminent doom, and Seinfeld.

My brother has expressed as much interest in this development as he would were I to tell him to say that we bought sponges at the grocery store.

The dogs remain in blissful oblivion.

My feelings towards the trip fluxuate from “nervous about insignificant hypothetical details” (such as, how will I order my first meal?) to “feeling this trip is very far away and nothing to be concerned about.” Sometimes it even stops on “excited to go and have fun!” I remain convinced that everything will work out due mostly to friends and strangers who, when I tell I’m going away to India for a year, respond with, “You are going to have so much fun!” with such conviction that I can not help but to believe it to be true. 

Welcome to my blog!

I am off to India this July 20th (and luckily will be able to see the last Harry Potter before I leave) to spend a year at Lady Shri Ram College for Women in New Delhi, India!

I have set up this blog to chronicle my greater and lesser adventures whilst abroad, and to counter a problem I predict would arise: the slow turn around time one may expect when attempting to communicate with me. With this fancy blog, I can share my stories, thoughts, etc., with lots of people at once! This way, perhaps my communications will be timelier and less superficial.

I hope to, in the time before I leave and have nothing much to write about, satisfy the basic questions that are asked when I say that I’m going to India for a year.

Why are you going to India?

I attribute the desire and decision to spend a year about as far away form home as possible to a strange pattern that seems to guide my life choices. Perhaps its less of a pattern, but more of a strange way in which things tend to work to lead me to new places, which, looking from the end point, seems all to make perfect sense. So when I come up with an idea, “I want to go to India,” I’ve realized the best thing to do is just throw it out to the universe and see what happens. At the point that something happens, it is easiest just to go with the flow.

Boarding school may be the best example of this. It was a decisions not long premeditated, followed by careful searching guided by a goal of getting into a good college or anything like that. My aunt, Jeanne, mentioned a small boarding school in New Hampshire one day. I inquired online. I applied. I was accepted. It was at this point that I realized this whole idea may not be a fantasy, and that I may have to make a decision. After visiting the school, my mother and I were sitting in my aunt and uncle’s house, when she said, “You have to do this.” Though uncharacteristic of my mother to say, we both felt that this was right, and I was happy, because it looked like a lot more fun than public school.

Looking back, the White Mountain School was very important in developing both my character and interests. Who, without backpacking Mahoosuc Notch in Maine, swimming in New Hampshire’s lakes and rivers, and carrying buckets of compost through the snow, could bear the disheartening learning of political and economic environmental issues with optimism?

And so this trip to India began in the same vein. For some reason, the idea of India stuck in my mind. Seeing events fall into place, I decided it was best just to go with it, happy the universe is conspiring something that sounded like fun. I am drawn to India for its rich spiritual history, its growing economy and environmental issues, but we’ll see in the end why the idea got into my head.