My life in some pictures

An Extra Fancy Washington Apple from Safeway. One of the best apples I've ever tasted!

After finals, I spent about a week tying up my year as an RA. This involved checking residents' rooms to record any damages or cleanliness issues, filling up a lot of paperwork, and taking pictures of the damages. Some examples:

On the upside, at least I don't have to clean these rooms!

Flew to Seattle to hang out with Dan on Tuesday. Dan lives in a house with 12 other people. This is what Dan's house looks like from the back, which is the entrance that I use most of the time:I've been staying in the girls' side of the house with the 7 other girls who stay here, three of which are Suzy, Kaitlyn and Marah. Today is Saturday, and they've spent the day chilling out in the house:

Above: Suzy in her bedroom showing off what she was doing before I interrupted her: fiddling with her Blackberry. Below: Kaitlyn and Marah in the kitchen. They're looking for apartments.
Before last night, I slept on a couch in the living room, but last night I got a bed because one of the girls, Kathleen, went to California for the weekend! It was a good sleep.

This trip to Seattle is very different from my previous visits because I get to be around Dan's friends more often than usual. The community that Dan lives with is very friendly and I'm glad that he gets to hang out with more people now that he's living with them. Most of his housemates go to his church, and most are part of the same small group (which is held in the house). It's a nice support network.

I haven't been resting as much as I wanted to because every day there's something to do. I've also been getting pretty irregular sleeps and meals since finals ended, which has been rather bad for my mood. Those closing duties for my RA job can be a drag, and I felt lonely because I was stuck working instead of enjoying the sun and playing with friends after finals. This carried over into Seattle as I had to get used to the 3-hour time difference and live in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. Today, after a 9-hour night's rest, I finally feel awake and alive and happy.

Things I have been doing in Seattle:
1. Went to Vancouver and Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, yesterday with Dan and his two friends, Philip and Shawn. We ate our way through the city--dim sum, Greek food, Transylvanian desserts, Asian pastries. Too much food in too little time but thankful for the opportunity to get to know Philip and Shawn better. And see the beautiful snow-capped mountains loom over concrete cities under the vast blue sky.

2. Somehow managed to wrangle a visit to an intermediate ballet and advanced modern dance class at the University of Washington, where Dan studies. I emailed the undergraduate programme director and fully disclosed that I'm a college student from Emory who's just interested in seeing what the UW dance programme is like. And she was nice enough to let me take class! I'll be taking them back-to-back on Monday and since I don't have any ballet shoes with me in the US I have to buy them tomorrow.

3. Made Indonesian curry from a packet with Dan a few days ago. Mmmm.

4. Danced on the green lawns of the UW quad on Wednesday while waiting for Dan to get out of class. Because I needed to move, and it was warm and sunny outside. Practised hand stands, barrel turns, axels and cartwheels, and relished the feeling of pretending I was invisible because no one knew who I was.

5. Sat on the garage in the warm sun reading.

6. Exchanged emails with my brother about life and college. They were unusually honest and long emails, and I'm thankful that we are able to communicate in this way.

7. Ate wonderful sashimi as Musashi's in Wallingford. Going to Musashi's and ordering their Chirashi sushi is pretty much a tradition for me and Dan. Yaozhang introduced it to us the first night I landed in Seattle for my first visit and it's become the place we go to for good, relatively cheap sashimi. As a semi-food snob (because I'm too cheap to pay big bucks for really good food, but I can't stand sub-par food), I refuse to eat any sort of sashimi unless it meets a certain standard. So I don't touch sashimi in Atlanta as I fear being disappointed. The sensation of cold, firm, subtly-flavoured sashimi on my tongue after at least three months of abstinence was therefore wonderful.

8. Learning to commit, to love, and to accept unconditionally.

Other news:

1. I am working on a post about education in reference to two articles from The American Scholar: Solitude and Leadership, and The Disadvantages of an Elite Education. It will appear soon.

2. I just received news on what I will be doing in India. I indicated that I'd like to work in a microfinance bank, and the Jodhpur FSD team told me about an organisation that they were trying to connect me with. I guess that didn't work out, because they ended up posting me to Marwar Seva Sanstha (MSS), a women's rights organisation, instead. MSS provides vocational training and general support to equip women and girls. Currently it focuses on migrants and the dalit (lowest caste) populations. Although I'm slightly disappointed that I won't be doing microfinance, I'm excited to see how I can contribute to this organisation. I think FSD and MSS want me to do programme evaluation for them, which is what I indicated I was interested in doing. There are also opportunities to teach English, Art & Craft, and other subjects--like maybe dance :)

3. I finally received my passport and my 6 month entry visa to India!

4. Last Monday I went to Emory's Student Health Clinic to get four vaccinations for my trip to India: two on each arm, one each for polio, tentanus, Hep A, and typhoid. When I return, I'll be getting my last one for Japanese Encephalitis. The injections weren't too bad; I'm not scared of needles and I just looked away as they were being done. I also have prescriptions for Malaria pills and diarrhoea pills. So I'm just about good to go!