the benefits of staying in

i SO should be outside right now. but i am stuck inside, writing about terrorists in Bangladesh. To make myself feel better, here are the benefits of staying indoors:

• no exposure to pollen
• no exposure to harmful UV rays
• no chance of getting hit by a car
• um... that's about all i can come up with unfortunately.

i can't stomach cable tv

i feel so nauseaus. in the past 24 hours i have seen the following on cable TV:

• a man trying (and failing) for a few minutes to pierce his own cheek
• a half white/ half black hermaphrodite baby
• an african man with a tumor in his cheek the size of a basketball
• a punctured silicone implant
• indian children with a rare premature aging disease

if i stay up a little later, i can see the man whose arms exploded.

are these reality TV shows better than america's next top model, date my mom, etc?

Huge Hike in Zimbabwe Hospital Fees

Hospital fees in Zimbabwe have increased by 333,200%!!! What does that even look like??? The fees were originally Z$300, and now top Z$1,ooo,ooo. so one million zimbabwe dollars is only ten US dollars, but I am sure the impact is being felt there!

can you imagine if the gas price went up by 333,200%??? instead of $3 per gallon as now, it would be $30,000 per gallon? what would happen? we'd all telecommute or walk or bike to work... public transport would have to be heavily subsidized, everything not local would be outrageously expensive, no more visiting family members outside of richmond (forget about india)...

The Bed

2005_0520Image0021
Originally uploaded by kms7z.

some things will never change about ghaziabad. even though this is the THIRD flat in ghaziabad, we never stop spending most of the time lounging on the bed.

the bed has seen an amazing amount of wear and tear over the years-- napping, sleeping, bouts of possesion by ghosts, arguing, debating, the charting of major life decisions (who to marry? which school to go to? to sell or not to sell the property?), snacking, chai-sipping, sweating, clothes storage, eating, mosquito-smacking, tv-watching, card playing, lena-dena, joke-making, and 4 weddings and a funeral.

i miss you ghaziabd bed and your dirty bed sheet and musty hard mattress that retains heat in the summer and never is warm in the winter and attracts all sorts of mosquitoes and bugs, but comfortably holds 4 sleeping or 15 sitting (excluding infants).

shoutout

i'd like to give a shoutout to guddu. he has helped me de-stress by cleaning the house today. he has swept, vacummed, and dusted.

i have been at the computer all day trying to get some research together on terrorist groups in Bangladesh. it is slow going-- i am trying to decipher a network of overlapping groups, all with very similar names and abbreviations: JMB, JUM, JUMB, HUJI, HUJI-BD...

bites per hour

coming home i heard an excerpt from elizabeth gilbert's "eat, pray, love" book on NPR (click link in title to hear it). in short, this lady decided to practice vipassana yoga at dusk in india... and got attacked by mosquitoes.

here's what i thought was amusing-- she only had 20 bites in one hour!!! lady has apparently NOT spent time in Guddu's house in Bihar (next to a bamboo forest cum marsh cum monkey haven cum mosquito breeding ground) or in ghaziabad (next to drainage ditch cum buffalo bath house cum trash bin cum mass toilet cum mosquito breeding ground). 20 bites in an hour?! that's nothing!

this is the last week of law class. and also ethics class (i am foregoing ethics class next week for a sojourn at the comfort inn in NOVA). woohoo. end is in sight!

tonsilloliths

it is so hard to concentrate with this white spot stuck in my throat. i can feel it every time i swallow.

tonsil stones are like pearls. food particles and bacteria get trapped in tonsil crypts and mucous coats and recoats and forms a pearl. tonsils themselves are incredible-- a selfless part of the body whose main function is to trap infections before they can enter our lungs or stomachs or elsewhere...

syriana

Guddu, Dad and I saw Syriana at the Byrd Sunday afternoon. I really enjoyed it, especially since there was so much Hindi/Urdu. (I get excited when I see Hindi/Urdu in the media-- a la Homer getting outsourced to India.)

I was amazed guddu understood the movie. "12 monkeys," "7," and any movies containing elements of science fiction, divorce or animated characters are usually beyond his comprehension (unless it stars Bernie Mac, Ice Cube, Chris Rock, Chapelle... you get the picture). yet give him a layered story of the interesection of espionage/business/politics/oil/legal mumbo jumbo occuring simultaneously on multiple continents in multiple languages and he perfectly understands.

did you know matt damon is in syriana? i didn't. and you rarely see george clooney. the big fancy parties at arab estates remind me too much of the past summer in delhi-- i could have been surrounded by agents all the time. that kind of creeps me out.

i found an entertaining blog in the midst of all of this... Sepia Mutiny (there's a play on the word "sepoy" for all you non-AMELC-ers).

FSWE: a decent performance

yesterday i spent five hours at VCU taking the Foreign Service Written Exam. I have been warned many times that I will, as most people do, probably fail the first few times. I had little hopes, but regained some confidence after seeing the other test-takers: many undergrad-looking students and a few middle-aged guys who probably take the exam every year. one of them really looked like a wreck-- very dweebish, and he arrived late, sweaty and out of breath. so no wonder the state dept puts us through so many steps to get close to a job with them-- gotta weed out many people. i think i did ok on the exam and believe i have a chance at passing, but i am not keeping my hopes up.

i'm also trying not to keep my hopes up about a few interviews i have coming up. i think i found a wonderful job, that pays very well, and allows guddu and i to run off to omaha (nebraska, not japan). but i won't jinx it by saying anything more.

there are only two weeks of law class left. then i will almost stop coming to williamsburg, except for mondays.

guddu and i also have a hippie wedding to go to. the bad part is that it is graduation weekend, but i think, with a lot of driving back and forth on 64, i can do it all: 5K race for the cure, department brunch-pics-diploma, hippie campout wedding on farm in c'ville, back to williamsburg to march and watch desmond tutu speak. then, if i am feeling very ambitious, take my mom out for mother's day dinner. i might as well run myself into the ground that week becuase school will be over. no cares, unless we have to pack up to move to OMAHA the next week...

10K: a decent performance

yesterday i ran with 21,000 others down Monument Ave and back for 6.2 miles. I finished with a decent time-- 54 minutes. Maybe next year I can get under 50 minutes.

I ran alone most of this race, except for the last mile. Around Mile 5, i was tired and heard someone yell "hey judson!" how many judsons are there? i thought maybe it was the judson i know, and sure enough-- it was tall red-headed judson. so judson and i ran the last mile or so together. having someone running with me really makes me push myself-- competition is the ultimate motivator.

i lost judson shortly after crossing the finish, though. i quickly exited the area becuase i felt like i had to pee, vomit, and collapse uncontrollably all at once. luckily none of that happened.

i did walk away with a free case of "Rock Star" and "Full Throttle" diet energy drinks. Unlike red bull, these did not make me shake, but i couldn't fall asleep until 2:30pm. we stayed up so late because we were watching one of the best hindi movies of 2005, bunty aur babli.