Featured image: The Taj Mahal Hello from Delhi, India! It’s been just over a week since I arrived in Delhi with 29 peers and 2 program coordinators, and I can’t believe how quickly the time is flying by! This is probably because of our hectic schedule, where we (my homestay roommate and I) leave the house around 8 AM, have class from 9-5:30, and return home around 7 PM each night before having to eat dinner, do homework, and…
Hello, everyone! I feel like I have to address the election, as it was quite a surreal experience hearing the news from so far away. The election results started coming in as we were having breakfast. We all sat around the table in our guest house in Varanasi messaging friends and family. We had an event scheduled right after breakfast—a retired professor was going to walk us around our little section of Varanasi and talk about all the religious sights…
Life just goes by so fast. I can’t believe we only have about a month left! I am trying my best to keep up with news at home. It is a strange way to experience the election from this far away. I am simultaneously sad and glad to be somewhat removed. I can’t imagine what it will be like to hear the results in a couple days time. Fingers crossed I cry tears of relief and not sadness. The week…
Hi, all! Here some snapshots from the past couple of weeks! The Taj Mahal: Six of us went on a trip to Agra to do some sight seeing,—the Taj included. We also visited a Mughal fort where Akbar lived. The architecture was beautiful, and there were little areas designed for each of his wives. He was very liberal in some ways: he had a Christian wife, a Muslim wife, and there was one more religion that I can’t remember, but…
Hello everyone! A few weeks ago we left New Delhi and started the next leg of our journey. We woke at 5 a.m. to catch the train to Mussoorie. The train was lovely, but once we got off it was stiflingly hot and crowded and smelled of car fumes. We took a wild ride up to 7,000 feet—I was exhausted afterwards from being so tense as we curved around cliffs and honking cars up and up narrow roads. Then we reached…
Hello everyone! I am studying as a student in the New York State Independent College Consortium for Study in India (they need to figure out a shorter name for sure). This is the first year Vassar has joined the program, but the program itself has been running for many years. Here is the story of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed California girl and Women’s Studies major spending the semester in India. I am with a small group of people—all girls, just by…
Coming Full Circle For the past three weeks I have lived in Mysore, India, studying yoga and comparing the philosophy and practice of Ashtanga Yoga to Zen meditation. While I had a wonderful time, I am quite happy to be back in my original study-abroad home of Bodh Gaya, Bihar—something I didn’t think that I would ever say. However, my time away from Bodh Gaya has allowed me to reflect upon the three months that I spent there. While it is a…
Battleground “One may conquer in battle A thousand times a thousand men, Yet he is the best of conquerors Who conquers himself.” ~Buddha, Dhammapada 103 I’ve noticed that I tend to identify with certain quotes at particular points in my life; the one above is a perfect summation of my first month in India. I handled the upbringing of my siblings after my parents’ divorce, worked my way to the top ten percent of my high school graduating class, and got…
Takeoff I honestly had not allowed myself to think about the fact that I would be a couple continents away from my family until the day before I actually got on my first plane to London on the way to India. I think that, deep down inside myself, I didn’t think I would actually go through with the trip. This mindset was reinforced throughout the duration of my twelve hour flight, during which I consistently cursed myself and underwent the inner…