Ok friends,

(the common greeting to address you, plural. synonym of "y'all")

I realize I haven't posted anything in over a month. Well that's because the last month has been crezzy hectic--traveling to Kerala, finishing up classes and writing final exams and papers the following two weeks, then running off to Karnataka for another tour. Now it's IS - Independent Study - period and so there's a little more free time but a lot more managing of that time required. (You'll have to forgive potential errors from here; some of the keys on this keyboard get stuck so I'm slam-typing this here. If any i's are mssing or some letters are not captalized when they should be or commas are mssing please forgive me as those are the most-prone-to-get-stuck keys.)

I joined a gym yesterday. t's super nce but is quite expensive so it ooks lke 'll need to make t worth the monay. Ali showed me and Elif this crezzy ab workout yesterday and it totally kicked my butt and gave me a little something called Sivananda elbow, which s basically when exercsing on a bamboo mat chafes your skin and causes callouses to form. right now i'm supposed to be settng up ntervews and thngs for IS at ths pont but i need a queston! oh, some thngs never do change. i have my topc: orphans. But what to do wth that (them), enakku teriyaatu. I do miss Tamil cass though maybe because I lked the structure it gave to the day. But then agan I started comng n qute late for a few weeks. Indeed, some thngs never change.

I spent my brthday in karnataka in a city called mysore. I was pleasantly surprised by the crew wth dinner at a fancy restaurant called Tiger somethng or other (it's now makng me thnk of tiger prawns, so dstractng but very delicious) whch was at a primo uber fancy hotel. There were 1. lots of other foreigners and 2. two other birthdays there! so after the first bunch broke out into "Happy Birthday" and yay, clap clap clap from the other guests at the restaurant, there was another little Indian family that also sang for a newly 13 year old grl, and then our table. afterwards the 13 year old grl's lttle sister came up to our table and wanted to "wish me" and stuck out her hand for a handshake. I guess she knew that i was the birthday person because of the happy brthday tiara (or royal turbany hat, can't remember whch) i was wearng...

've also started several books, none of whch i've fnshed yet. so we'll see how all of ths wors out. the palmistry/astrology/numerology guy that came and gave a guest lecture a while back did say i'm enthusastc about thngs for moments at a tme but rarely follow through. let's prove hm wrong.