Tea, Envelopes, and Pan Pizzas.

TODAY! Today, my friends, has been amazing! AMAZING!

1) Woke up to go for a morning run at 6am with BCA friend Hannah! It has been so great to run 3 days a week in the early am here. I run so early here, because it would just be unbearable to run any other time of the day. Also, it gets dark here at 6:30pm, so night runs are out. 

2) SCHOOL! I had Development Economics today!!

3) So, today we learned that the College Calendars that we have been waiting to get for 2 weeks are here! We’re able to pick them up at the Dean’s Office. Good News! We go there and ask for them. We ask one person. Confusion. They ask someone else. Confusion. They ask someone else. Confusion. Phone Call to our On-site coordinator. Confusion. We can’t pick up our calendars until Visanthi is there to sign them out to us and we need to have our student IDs, because technically anyone could walk and claim to be a student. She’s currently off campus. We leave empty-handed. 3 people and a phone call! No lie! For student calendars!

4) Then Bethany, who is my roommate, and I went to the post office. Everything in India is an adventure. I want to mail some postcards to the USA, right? The girl behind the counter says I can’t…that my postcard needs to be in an envelope. But I don’t want an envelope. Argue for a bit. She’ll give me 5 Rs off for the envelope. I. Do. Not. WANT. An envelope for my POSTCARD. Then she has to figure out the number of stamps I need. Do I need international stamps for the postcard to get out of the country? We shall see. I probably will not be mailing home very many things besides letters…that go in envelopes.

E) At lunch, I learned that I need to have my hair pulled back during meals and it’s not allowed to roam free.

6) Then we ventured into town and finished up our work with the Immigration Office. NOW we’re legal student immigrants!

When we come back we promised our friend, Anu, that we would go see her play at 4pm. We said we’d come even if we got back late and it’s not 4:30pm so we head over to try and find the auditorium. Anu’s “play” turned out to be a College Union Society Inaugural Function. Uh, yeah. The auditorium is PACKED. We ask if this is “Anderson Hall” – Yes, yes! Please come in! Come in! So, we’re ushered in and stand in the back. I pray to myself that someone will let us just stand in the back. Of course not! Indians are too hospitable! We are ushered to THE FRONT of the auditorium, while the MC is speaking. The function was to honor the College Union Society and the distinguished guests, who were both graduates from MCC. One of the speeches was in Tamil. Didn’t understand a word, not a word. After a couple of speeches and the loud speaker blaring, you know…since we’re in the front row. There is a transition to a cultural presentation! The distinguished row of guests move and take our seats! We were sitting where the distinguished guests were sitting, so we moved to the 2^nd row.

Then each of the halls, minus Margaret Hall, performed a special performance – it was performed and organized by all freshers! There was a mesmerizing traditional dance and awful garbage band “gospel” rap song. Then our lovely Martin Hall girls did a Human Video to a mash of songs – it was about good and evil in dream form.  Then Heber finished with “Hallelujiah” and “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” ALL of this just blew my mind. What had we stumbled open? I was pretty much overjoyed the whole time this whole cultural presentation was going on. No. Lie.

All of THIS was followed by tea. TEA.

7) Then we all went back to our room and made plans to order pizza. We had decided to have an American Night with our BCA gang. JJ found the number, we decided on our order, then I volunteered to call. Could not understand a word the man on the other end said. He hung up on me! Someone else tried. Fail. We ventured to find Indian friends. Pizza Ordered. We settled in to watch the office while we waited for the pizza to get delivered. We ordered 4 pizzas, an extra to share with friends who helped us order, and two orders of bread sticks, and 4 drinks. The total was 800 Rs, which is about $16.00. Then our friends went to meet the deliveryman and came back with 4 personal pan pizzas, when we were expecting Mediums at least. I could not help laughing. I mean seriously. How funny is that!

We dined on our pan pizzas, breadsticks, and shared oreos and peanut butter while we guffawed at the Office.

It was a great day. 

GREAT. DAY.