Update from India...

I now officially am obsessed with India. Over the last 4 days, I have been in Calcutta (ok, so it was just the airport), Mumbai (did you all know that Mumbai and Bombay are the same thing?) and now Kozhikode, Kerala. I am making myself a goal to save up enough money to do a 2 month tour of this country before I die.

I'm still at the conference. There is a boring panel discussion going on now, so I snuck out and came to the computer lab. Besides this one boring panel, I am having such a wonderful time. It's been really invigorating to see what all the other Fulbrighters are doing. Sometimes it gets overwhelming to be in the midst of such poverty, and it's easy to feel like my little research project is meaningless. But in the context of the Fulbright program, I really feel like I'm a part of something that's very important.

The other Fulbrighters are amazing. I just had a long talk with a woman who is working on her dissertation...for HARVARD. Gulp. And there is another woman who is studying the block printing in India, and I'm incredibly jealous. The range of projects and the sheer brain power of this group is so overwhelming, and somewhat intimidating!

I'm also having a BLAST with the two Fulbrighters to Bangladesh, K. and Tanya. We get along so well that it's almost scary. I told them both that if they didn't keep in touch with me after this experience that I'd have to kill them. I mean it, T and K, no matter what far-off land you end up in, I will find you! Wait, do I sound codependent?

I better sneak back in now, but check back soon for some amazing photographs. This is a beautiful place, thus the nickname "God's Own Country".