It all starts tomorrow! After a weekend off, the whole GSE crew is getting ready to head in to work for the first time in the morning. We spent the weekend sleeping in, doing some shopping (I have some Indian clothes now, so hopefully I won't sweat quite as much anymore...), doing some reading on our organizations, and learning our way around the kitchen!
We went on our shopping adventure yesterday, which was quite interesting. First we went to a mall, where there was one store that sold what we were looking for (women's clothes), and two of us had luck finding salwar suits, but the others didn't. Then we headed to Commercial Road, which is a major shopping hub. The streets are packed with people and there are tons of stores to look through. On our way there though, we walked through another shopping area (I'm not sure what it's called) that had all upper-end, western stores. It was fascinating to me to see the noticeable difference in the people that we saw in this western store-filled area: most of the women were in western clothes, not Indian, which is definitely not true when walking through most other streets (normally women are in saris or salwar suits). Also, just a side note because I don't think I've mentioned it up to this point, the "sidewalks" here make walking a lot more challenging than anywhere else I've ever been. Certain points of the sidewalk are fine- level pavement etc.- and then there will randomly be a 2 foot hole in the ground. So walking is tricky because you have to be paying attention to what is over your head (tree branches or electrical wires), below you (garbage, holes in the ground, big breaks in the sidewalk) and whatever you are looking for (a store, restaurant, auto, etc). Anyway, I was talking about shopping. Once we got to Commercial Road, most of us had good luck finding kurtas and salwar suits. I found a kurta I really like that needed to be altered a little, and the shopkeeper told me it would be an hour. Since we were actually wrapping up our shopping time, a few people in our group decided to head back home, and a few of us stayed to wait for my alterations. In the mean time, we went to the McDonalds down the street for some soda since it was pretty warm outside still. I think I laughed out loud when I saw the menu- everything is called a "McSpicy". Great. Anyway, after I picked up my lovely new purple kurta, we caught autos back to our apartments, and then began our first real cooking adventure.
Our whole GSE group has decided to create a cooking schedule where everybody that wants to have home-cooked meals on most days pitches in 500 rupees for the week, and then we have pairs that are cooking on each night. Last night was the trial run- we made pasta with home-made sauce. We are cooking for 10 people as a part of this rotation, so it is kind of humorous using the few pots and pans that we have to cook that much food. Also, we only have 6 plates, so people are eating out of pots and pans and sharing plates- but its cheaper than eating out every night, so we are all still happy campers!
Last night was a pretty early night, and then this morning no one was up and moving around too early- we are savoring our last day without the stress of work! Not much meaningful activity happened today- I did laundry this morning and went grocery shopping with Navee, Amanda, Kristen, and Kasie this afternoon, after which Navee and I made Vegetable Biryani for the group (which was a lot spicier than I expected, but still quite yummy!).
The most exciting part of the day came right after dinner, where all of us got emails detailing our projects for the summer. Up to this point, we had a general idea of what our projects might be, and we knew what our organizations were, but we didn't know who would be advising us or what exactly or tasks would be. But now we do! Professor Moledina is going to be the advisor for Hippocampus (my organization). Maria (my lovely partner) and I are going to be devising a social media fundraising strategy for Hippocampus, and assessing what capabilities and skills they have/need to make this possible. Seeing as all I know about social media is how to open my facebook, this should be interesting! The other team at Hippocampus, Yoshi and Amanda, are going to be working on an assessments project- trying to establish a qualitative assessments procedure for Hippocampus and refining the way they handle existing quantitative data.
So, tomorrow is the big day! If I am still semi-conscious by the time I get back, I will try and let you all know how it went!
We went on our shopping adventure yesterday, which was quite interesting. First we went to a mall, where there was one store that sold what we were looking for (women's clothes), and two of us had luck finding salwar suits, but the others didn't. Then we headed to Commercial Road, which is a major shopping hub. The streets are packed with people and there are tons of stores to look through. On our way there though, we walked through another shopping area (I'm not sure what it's called) that had all upper-end, western stores. It was fascinating to me to see the noticeable difference in the people that we saw in this western store-filled area: most of the women were in western clothes, not Indian, which is definitely not true when walking through most other streets (normally women are in saris or salwar suits). Also, just a side note because I don't think I've mentioned it up to this point, the "sidewalks" here make walking a lot more challenging than anywhere else I've ever been. Certain points of the sidewalk are fine- level pavement etc.- and then there will randomly be a 2 foot hole in the ground. So walking is tricky because you have to be paying attention to what is over your head (tree branches or electrical wires), below you (garbage, holes in the ground, big breaks in the sidewalk) and whatever you are looking for (a store, restaurant, auto, etc). Anyway, I was talking about shopping. Once we got to Commercial Road, most of us had good luck finding kurtas and salwar suits. I found a kurta I really like that needed to be altered a little, and the shopkeeper told me it would be an hour. Since we were actually wrapping up our shopping time, a few people in our group decided to head back home, and a few of us stayed to wait for my alterations. In the mean time, we went to the McDonalds down the street for some soda since it was pretty warm outside still. I think I laughed out loud when I saw the menu- everything is called a "McSpicy". Great. Anyway, after I picked up my lovely new purple kurta, we caught autos back to our apartments, and then began our first real cooking adventure.
Our whole GSE group has decided to create a cooking schedule where everybody that wants to have home-cooked meals on most days pitches in 500 rupees for the week, and then we have pairs that are cooking on each night. Last night was the trial run- we made pasta with home-made sauce. We are cooking for 10 people as a part of this rotation, so it is kind of humorous using the few pots and pans that we have to cook that much food. Also, we only have 6 plates, so people are eating out of pots and pans and sharing plates- but its cheaper than eating out every night, so we are all still happy campers!
Last night was a pretty early night, and then this morning no one was up and moving around too early- we are savoring our last day without the stress of work! Not much meaningful activity happened today- I did laundry this morning and went grocery shopping with Navee, Amanda, Kristen, and Kasie this afternoon, after which Navee and I made Vegetable Biryani for the group (which was a lot spicier than I expected, but still quite yummy!).
The most exciting part of the day came right after dinner, where all of us got emails detailing our projects for the summer. Up to this point, we had a general idea of what our projects might be, and we knew what our organizations were, but we didn't know who would be advising us or what exactly or tasks would be. But now we do! Professor Moledina is going to be the advisor for Hippocampus (my organization). Maria (my lovely partner) and I are going to be devising a social media fundraising strategy for Hippocampus, and assessing what capabilities and skills they have/need to make this possible. Seeing as all I know about social media is how to open my facebook, this should be interesting! The other team at Hippocampus, Yoshi and Amanda, are going to be working on an assessments project- trying to establish a qualitative assessments procedure for Hippocampus and refining the way they handle existing quantitative data.
So, tomorrow is the big day! If I am still semi-conscious by the time I get back, I will try and let you all know how it went!
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