Republic Day Staff Dance

Here it is. For your viewing pleasure.

Happy Republic Day

Sorry it has been a bit since I posted. What a week! Busy busy. Lots of work stuff and some fun stuff but all in all I am keeping super occupied. We have the day off today for Republic Day (though we had an extensive cultural program this morning that I participated in. I will try to get the video to load on youtube) so I am taking the opportunity to chill and not work too hard. Without meaning to I find myself putting in long days during the week but on the weekend I have time to have fun if not necessarily relax. Here are some pictures from the past week.

Photos from market:

 My new sarees:

Photos from this week's hike to Elephant Valley (no elephants there unfortunately): 

the chai wallah at the tea house we stopped at

You can see all the way to the plains in this photo

Processing coffee (I bought some. Its tasty!)

Kodai Lake

Vegetarian dinner with the staff on Sunday night at Tavas.

Sandhya and I fooling around on Republic Day after our big dance.

Rocking a borrowed saree.

Kukkal Ridge Hike

And today we hiked...

Happy Pongal!

Hey all! Happy Pongal! This is the harvest festival here in Tamil Nadu and is celebrated by boiling milk over the fire until it runs over. Pongal means the running over and is meant to signify plenty and abundance. Here on campus it means that we get to eat tasty food and I tried sugar cane for the first time.

It got really busy here really fast. I have already taught my first lesson (on the cell) in 9th bio and continue with that tomorrow. I also pick up 11th grade bio tomorrow and will be covering the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. I have been observing 11th and 12th grade chemistry classes and am helping students a little bit with their extended projects that are required for the IB diploma. You can see a student's distillation apparatus below. We had to do some creative jury rigging to get it working but he was able to distill an ester, much to his delight!

My trip to the market last Sunday was a success and I was able to buy all of this produce. I think it looks so pretty laid out on my kitchen counter. And it tasted great too. So much tropical fruit available is a huge treat to someone coming from winter in Montana.

I have managed to quickly fill after school time with mentoring the 9th grade peer program, playing staff volleyball, dance and yoga clubs, and of course mandatory department and staff meetings. 

Its nice to be so thoroughly occupied. It makes me miss home a little bit less. 

This weekend I am going hiking with the high school kids on Saturday (I will hopefully be posting awesome photos from that soon) and Loey is in town so we will be doing dinner on Sunday. It will be nice to see a familiar face, though my fellow KISers are quickly becoming friends.

Well its late and chilly here in the computer lab so I am off to bed. All the best!

Daily Moods

I'm starting to feel that living here is making me a little bipolar. I start to feel moody or depressed or frustrated with some aspect of life in India and then the kids do something so hilarious and ridiculous that I can't help but feel better. Today we taught the reproductive system to the 11th graders. The questions were goofy and hysterical. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard while teaching. Thursday I take over the 9th grade science and 11th grade bio classes. I'm am excited and nervous and buried in lesson plans. Wish me luck!

The Weekend

Happy Saturday!

It is my first weekend here and I am getting out and about in town a bit more. Went to Spencers (a grocery store) this morning to get some cleaning supplies and the like for around the house.

My amma (maid)came for the first time to clean my house and do my laundry. I know this sounds decadent for a graduate student but here all washing is by hand and you clean with bound grass brooms. I'm very out of my element and more than a little out of my league with this style cleaning. Mary is my amma and she is a dream. My house looks so much better for her being here. (see below)

In the afternoon my friends Kate, Sandhya, and I took a trek around the lake. It was quite the adventure and very pretty but probably not something I will do all that often. I do feel good for the exercise though. I have been doing a pretty good job of working out in the mornings since I have been getting up so early and walking campus with Sandhya to build up our aerobic endurance before the first hike next weekend.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to take on the Sunday market. I would love to get some produce and even bought the potassium permanganate that I have been told you need to treat it with to make it safe. The papaya here is amazingly delicious so that may be the route I go. I have been told mango season in March will change your life. Looking forward to it!

First Day of School

Today was the first day of classes. I was able to sit in on classes with both of my cooperating teachers and see how they taught and managed their classrooms. The feel here is much more casual and friendly between teachers and students than what I have observed in schools back home. Here teachers and students see each other all of the time, including outside of school hours and around their homes. This contributes to a joking, friendly relationship. You can really tell that the teachers care about all aspects of their students' lives and the students love these teachers.

I will be teaching in a PHL (11th grade) biology class (2 sections) and a 9th grade science class, as well as a little work in a PHL chemistry class. This gives me a full and varied schedule that I can tell already will be tough but rewarding. I got copies of the students' textbooks to review and settled into my new office that I share with the department head. I'm already feeling like a full staff member here. Now I just need to get to work learning students' names and working on pronunciation.

I have already been prepared that I will be teaching the 9th grade class a unit on human impact on the environment, and the 11th grade bio class a unit on evolution. It is exciting to be given so much freedom to jump right in and start learning by doing.

Now here are a couple of random photos:

Paneer dosa in the Delhi airport. This is the first food I ate on the ground in India. I am posting this because Katie requested food pics.

Today's cafeteria menu. I don't know what most of it is but it all tastes good.

Poinsettias here grow as trees. Not the little potted plant for Christmas. 

Here At Last

 At last I have made it to the school and the work has begun already. I got here the evening of the 4th and found my apartment all ready for me and stocked with a welcome bag of food from HR. The drive up was beautiful but a little nausea inducing. I just have to thank Katie for giving me the motion sickness patch, otherwise it would have been less than pleasant. These pictures are from the drive up the hill.

 I got to my house and found that it has a great deck that I can sit on with a good view.

Here is what it looks like from the outside. I am right on the end of one of the girls dorms and am told that though my place is quiet now, once school starts on the 8th it will get noisy with all the rambunctious girls.

Now some pictures of the inside.

Sorry to not write more but I am still fighting the jet lag and we had an 8 hour long staff training today. Now I will hopefully zone out while reading about the IB program until it is time for dinner. 

Take care all!