Journal 11-30-2010

Journal 11/30/2010

Today I got up, walked to work, did more DNA extractions, ate lunch outside by the river, then spent the rest of the day on the Internet trying to buy train tickets to Bangalore and Chennai.
Katie, Stephanie and I are all going to Bangalore this weekend to meet up with John and Matt. We are leaving on Thursday so that we get there on Friday morning! I am so excited to see people that I know! It will be great to recharge and spend time with friends. I will make it back to Kottayam on Monday morning at 9:00am just in time to go to work. Although the train will probably be late so I will most likely be late to work.
After this weekend I have about one more week alone and then John and Shosh are coming to visit! After that we get to go back home!!!!! The trip is coming to an end really quickly. But I am really excited to go back home and see my family!

Journal 11-29-2010

Journal 11-29-2010

Today I went back to work. I did more DNA extractions from whole Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. I have to wait until Dr. Paradeep Kumar gets back from Pondicherry before I can start doing the PCR reactions. I now have around 60-70 samples that were collected in four different districts of Kerala. Dr. Paradeep Kumar doesn’t get back until tomorrow evening so I probably won’t be able to get going on the PCR before Wed. After work I walked down to a shop/bakery and bought more bread, buns and peanut butter. I know this is sad… but I can’t wait to have bag lunches from the caf again! It is impossible to get a decent serving of meat here.

Journal 11-28-2010

Journal 11/28/2010

Today is Sunday and EVERYTHING is closed including all the restaurants! There is nowhere to eat and I have no way to cook the ramen that I have in the room. I walked around town for several hours before I managed to find a cool drinks shop that had a loaf of bread for sale. I made peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast lunch and dinner. I should have prepared a little better for Sunday, but I didn’t think that all the restaurants would close.

Journal 11-27-2010

Journal 11/27/2010

Today is my first Saturday alone in Kottayam. This morning I slept in really late. I had originally planned to go to Kumarakom today but I decided to put it off because it was raining and I didn’t feel like taking a bus anywhere. I spent the day walking around Kottayam and at an Internet closet. It was nice to relax and not have to go to work!

Journal 11-26-2010

Journal 11-26-2010

Quote of the day- John: Chicken-gun YAAAAA!!!!!!!
Quote received via Gmail chat.

Today I walked to work in the morning did more DNA extractions during the day and surfed the web during the incubation periods. I got done with all the work I could do at about 2:00 so then I sat on the Internet killing time waiting to leave until around 4:00. I got a ride back to the hotel in the truck, which was nice because it was raining. Then took a nap, which was GREAT, I was really tired. Went to dinner, got some ice cream and went to sleep.

I don’t know what I am going to do tomorrow. Maybe go to Kumarakom. There really isn’t anything to do in Kottayam. I haven’t really been able to ask many people about what to do because they don’t really understand the question. They usually recommend that I take busses or trains to other parts of Kerala and don’t tell me anything about Kottayam itself.

Journal 11-25-2010

Journal 11-25-2010

Today is Thanksgiving. It really doesn’t seem like it. I don’t have anyone to celebrate with so, sadly, I am choosing not to observe Thanksgiving this Holiday season. It is strange to think that when we go back we are going to be thrown into the thick of the holiday season. All the stores will be decked out with Christmas trees. There will be snow covering the ground. It will be absolutely freezing outside. People will be shopping like maniacs. It will be dark outside during dinnertime. All while we will be trying to get over jetlag and re-orient ourselves. The closer it gets to departure time, the more surreal going back sounds.
We skipped fall entirely and jumped right from the middle of summer into Christmas. It doesn’t sound bad… just awkward. We will have missed the proper run up to the holiday season. No football games on TV. No transitioning from T-shirts to Sweatshirts to winter jackets. We will have missed out on all the fall food comfort food like mashed potatoes, gravy smothered meat, squash, and pies. But most importantly we will have missed out on seeing our family and friends. Family and Friends are what really make the holiday season but I guess they will be there anyhow.
I am going to go have dinner and then finish writing today’s entry.
    I got to talk to Mom and Dad tonight while I ate thanksgiving dinner by myself.  It is great to talk to people from home, hopefully Maddie calls later when she wakes up.
   

Journal 11-24-2010

Journal 11-24-2010

I had a good day today. I started working in the lab. Although all I did was extract DNA from mosquitoes. Things moved pretty tediously slow because they only do 6 extractions at a time when they could be doing 24 or something like that (however many slots are in the centrifuge). Anyway it felt great to do some lab work again. I got in to work around 8:45 and didn’t leave until 7:00. But during the incubations I was able to work on my computer and use the Internet! Yay for wireless Internet! I put some pictures up on Facebook also.
After work I walked around town trying to find a grocery store! It was great to get out and see some of the town. I found a grocery store, a bakery and street side restaurant ( if you can call it that….) It consisted of 3 tables and three guys cooking paratha eggs, chicken and two types of gravy. The food was great! Best paratha ever! They seemed entertained by me, they obviously don’t get many tourists eating at their tables. Anyway I will keep going back there, I think those guys would be hilarious street friends (guys that always wave to you as you walk by).
I got back to my room with a bunch of groceries at about 8:20 then went to go get dinner. I went to the same restaurant as last night because it is really good. I ordered the “Chili Fish” It was GREAT !!!!! REALLY GOOD!!!! BEST CHILI FISH EVER!!!! It came in a spicy gravy and I mopped it up with Roti. Sooooooooo goood. Eating alone also didn’t seem as bad. There were three other people eating alone in the same side of the restaurant. The manager also likes me.
Good Day!
Now I am going to watch some 24 and go to bed.

Journal 11-23-2010

Journal 11-23-2010

Today was a very productive day. I have nailed down a topic for my project. I will be screening Aedes albopictus for Wolbachia bacteria using PCR. Wolbachia is a important bacterium because it plays a role in the ability of Aedes albopictus to act as a vector for the virus that causes Chikungunya. This study will provide relevant information because Chikungunya is a re-emerging disease. There was a recent outbreak in Kerala in 2007. Unfortunately the time constraints and cost of reagents prevents me from actually doing any sort of project on DNA bar-coding… which was the whole reason for me to come here by myself. Maybe if I finish my project early I can go stay at Mudamalai or Pondi.
I didn’t realize that I was supposed to bring lunch to work every day so I ended up eating out of a box of All-bran wheat flakes that I bought for breakfast. All the stores are closed already tonight so I will probably have to manage with the wheat flakes tomorrow as well. I don’t really have time to get groceries because I have been driven to and from work. The car picks me up at 8:30 and today it didn’t drop me back off until 6:30. As soon as I learn the way I will start walking to work. I was starving tonight so as soon as I got a room at the new hotel “the Homestead” I went to get some dinner. While I was sitting at dinner by myself, looking out the window and saw the all the shops closing.
On a positive note, dinner was really good. I had chicken 65, Mushroom Manchurian, Roti, and some chai. For about half an hour I was the only person in the restaurant. It is really lonely to eat at a restaurant all alone. The first two restaurants I have been to don’t have coke or any bottled beverages. This means that the only consistent thing in my life has been taken away : ( hahahaha This sounds super depressing. I am not depressed. I am lonely.
It is easier to keep up with the journaling when you don’t have anything else to do.

Journal 11-22-2010

Journal 11-22-2010

I was tired and out of it when I woke up in the top bunk of a train car this morning. I slept on and off until about 10:00am which was good! Sleeping in on trains helps to make the ride seem shorter. I chatted with a couple of different groups of Indian people for a while, and found a Munch bar in my bag, which I ate for Lunch. Then I finally made it to Kottayam at about 3:00. I was on my way walking out of the station when a man ran up to me and asked if I was going to VCRC. I said yes and got into the waiting vehicle. Kottayam is a very hilly city. Aside from the hills, Kottayam seems to be a little bit more wealthy than other Indian cities. There is less trash on the street, the buildings seem to be in better condition, and things don’t appear to be quite as crowded as in Tamil Nadu. The roads are also really narrow, some have stone walls on one or both sides.

A siren is going off right now… I have no clue what that means here… It sounds like a tornado siren.


Well I am still alive… and nothing seems to have happened.

I was a little bit crabby when I got picked up because I hadn’t had anything substantial to eat in almost 24 hours. I was taken directly to the YMCA where I was informed that rent would be 450 rupees per night. For 25 nights that amounts to about 250 US Dollars. This news kept me crabby. This is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE!!!!!!!! Katie and Leah are paying 250 rupees per month to rent an entire guesthouse at VCRC in Pondicherry. Later in the day I asked Dr. Paradeep Kumar about this and he suggested that I switch to a hotel nearby that is 376 rupees per night. This isn’t a huge decrease in price but it does help. So tomorrow I will be moving there.
I spent about an hour at the VCRC Kottayam office today. It is located in a suburban house in a gated community…. Odd isn’t it. The house is filled with desks, -80 freezers and an office. The upper floor is supposed to house a molecular biology lab but I haven’t seen it yet. I had absolutely nothing to do at the office today after I finished talking with Dr. Paradeep Kumar so around 5:30 I managed to get someone to drop me back off at the YMCA.
I bought some bread and cereal for tomorrow. Then went up to my room, only to be intercepted by “the room boy” A nice dude about my age who speaks very little English. I figured out that he wanted me to come down to the office where I sat awkwardly in a room with three men, one of whom must run the YMCA. They also spoke very poor English, and it was unclear why they wanted to see me. But this did provide an opportunity to ask them about checking out tomorrow morning. I made awkward small talk with them for about 20 minutes. It turns out that the YMCA in India has games like chess and billiards instead of athletic equipment and pools like they do in the USA.
I finally made it up to my room where I dropped my stuff and left to go find some food!!!! Finally!!! I was so hungry. I ate at a really bad restaurant downstairs called India coffee house. It was a really odd, really cheap place and the food was correspondingly bad. The waiters were also wearing ridiculous hats. Hahahaha
At least I got something to eat. Then I came back to the room and took a cold shower. Now I need to read some papers for tomorrow so that I can propose some project ideas.

Journal 11-21-2010

Journal 11-21-2010

Today started off well. I slept in and then Katie and I went to Coffee.com the Internet café to do some work and write a couple of emails. In the afternoon I made spaghetti… again, because I had to finish off all the sauce before I left. While I was packing up the rest of my stuff, Claire managed to get a Skype call through on the poor Internet connection she uses in Cairo. It was great to hear from her, I haven’t been able to talk to her on the phone for almost a month.
I was in high spirits as I said goodbye to the girls and got into the car to begin my trip to Kerala. Unfortunately the driver was a little bit to enthusiastic about driving in a car with a horn and AC. He was blasting on the horn so much that he may as well have just kept it honking continuously for the entire 4 hour drive. He also kept the AC on high for the entire trip, which was completely unnecessary because it was a chilly night outside the car. I should have said something about it but I didn’t.
The drive itself was really interesting. It was my first experience with Indian highways. It is pretty scary to be in the car when an Indian driver is going at highway speed. The same lack of traffic rules apply to the highway. Drivers force their way between cars to merge, they break at the last second, and pull out into oncoming highway traffic like it is no big deal. On Indian highways there are uncontrolled crosswalks, pedestrians, cows, dogs, bicycles, mopeds and severely underpowered motorcycles all traveling at less than ¼ of the speed of the cars. Busses and Lorries also add to the mess. They can’t go very fast and every car wants to pass them. But they also block the visibility of the road in front of the passing car. I can’t count the number of times we have pulled out into the opposite lane to try to pass only to be confronted by an oncoming buss or a group of cows. I am convinced that the Indian government should stick to building only smaller roads to prevent people from going fast.
I made it to the train station 4 hours early, as I had anticipated… the VCRC people had insisted I leave at 5:00 for a 11:30 train. So I sat down on the station floor with everyone else. This was a really interesting experience… Within minutes I was surrounded by families and groups who had taken up spots around me. After a couple of hours I became aware that I was one of about 3 single travelers in a group of hundreds of people. Nobody does anything alone in India. I am fairly certain that I looked a bit out of place sitting in this group of people because at one point an bummy looking black American dude came up to me and asked me “are you ok?”  I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary except sitting on the station floor but that has to be considered normal considering the other 100 or so people sitting around me. Later someone tried to hand me a baby. So I pretended that I only spoke Spanish. It is never a good idea to accept babies from strangers.
Finally my train showed up at platform 7. I walked over there and waited some more then finally got on. About an hour later the train left the station and around 2:00 I finally fell asleep. I had chips and water for dinner.

Journal 11-20-2010

Journal 11-20-2010

I really enjoyed sleeping in this morning and not having to sit at a microscope all day. We went into Pondicherry and hung out for most of the day and had dinner at a pretty good Chinese/Indian food place. Then at about 9:00 I made some late night spaghetti. Then stayed up till 12:00 doing laundry and packing stuff up for my trip to Kerala tomorrow.

Journal 11-19-2010

Journal 11-19-2010

Today was a Friday

I spent the entire day practicing the identification of mosquitoes. UGH… It is frustrating that I have wasted a whole week not making any progress on my project because I haven’t been able to make it to my project site yet. Both of the girls have their projects very clearly defined and are starting to work on them. That being said, It was a shame that I had to say goodbye to the people from the VCRC lab. They were all nice and generally a lot of fun to work with. After work we drove into Pondi and went out to dinner.

Journal 11-18-2010

Journal 11-18-2010

30 Days left in India.

Today, I worked from 9-5 in a mosquito lab at VCRC. The lab I was in is involved in the upkeep of the Mosquito museum at the VCRC. They collect, pin identify and preserve mosquito specimens from all over India. As a result VCRC has a very impressive collection of mosquito specimens. They have collected adults and the larval skins of each mosquito. This process is incredibly tedious but the people doing the work are great! They are all extremely knowledgeable and friendly! It was great to work in this lab. Although all I got to do was sit at a microscope and learn how to identify different genus and species types of mosquitoes using traditional taxonomy. It was difficult to stay enthusiastic about mosquitoes for that long.

Journal 11-17-2010

Journal 11-17-2010

Today was a Muslim holiday so we didn’t have to go to work! Instead we went into Pondi to the Coffee.com Internet café where I sent emails and downloaded papers until about 2:00. When we had all finished using the Internet we walked down to the beach. The Pondi beach is pretty nice, but nobody swims there because of strong undertow. It was a beautiful day to walk around. There were a lot of Indian locals and tourists just sitting on the rocks watching the waves come in. There were also a lot of beggars. One old woman in particular followed us for about 15 minutes trying to give us a piece of paper with Tamil writing on it. Then we had lunch at the Sea View restaurant. It served all veg Indian food and I ordered a gravy dish with mushrooms, which was delicious.
Later, the girls wanted to go shopping but Stephanie and I didn’t so instead we decided to take a drive down the ECR (east coast road). Later we came back and meet up with Katie and Leah for dinner. We eventually decided to go to a pizza place that had been mentioned in the blue pages of our India packet from Olaf. It was good but the prices were really high and I don’t think I have any desire to go back. During dinner we talked a lot about being ready to go home even though we still have four weeks left.
    We made it back to the guest house around 8 and then Katie Stephanie and I all watched Up In The Air, a movie with George Clooney then we went to bed. Good day!

Journal 11-16-2010

Journal 10-16-2011

Today I had a preliminary introduction to VCRC. I was got a full tour of the mosquito colony and the collection of mosquito specimens. I was also able to get a brief introduction to the topic of mosquito DNA barcoding. Later in the day Katie and I went into town to visit the coffee.com Internet café. We also picked up groceries to make spaghetti we used Prego sauce which was really expensive but we enhanced it with chicken mince mushrooms and onion. It was really good but we didn’t pay attention to the noodles so we ended up making noodles that were of oatmeal consistency. Oh well, at least the sauce was delicious. Tomorrow is a Muslim holiday so we get the day off!

Journal 11-15-2010

Journal 11-15-2010

Today I woke up just before 8:00 to the sounds of knocking. I assumed it was coming from next door and I had planned to get up at 8:00 and finish packing anyway so I got out of bed. About 10 minutes later I heard the knocking again but this time it was definitely coming from my door. When I opened the door Katie was standing there! What a great surprise. It is really nice to see Katie again especially now that John has taken off.
    Our main task for the day was to make it to VCRC in Pondicherry. To do this we had to get a bus at the Koyambadu bus station. That was easy enough, the bus ride was around 4 hours and I was really uncomfortable. I was crammed in a seat with my knees pressed painfully against the seat in front of me. I was also trapped in the window seat that was conveniently placed directly on top of the wheel well. Despite my discomfort we did in fact make it to Pondi : ).
    We took a rickshaw from the bus station to the hospital near VCRC we found our way pretty easily from there. When we got to VCRC they gave us room keys at the gate. We went to the rooms to set down our backpacks. The rooms were extremely nice and decorated with furnishings that must have been from the 70s. Then we met with Dr. S, the head honcho.
    We had the first meal of the day at 2:00 in Dr. S’s office, it consisted of a hand full of snack mix, a piece of Indian sweet and a cup of Chai. I was sooooooo hungry. This little snack definitely helped.
    Dr. S told us about what we were going to do and where we could stay. We eventually decided to move from the really nice rooms to the more modest guesthouse that is currently occupied by a girl named Stephanie from the USA. She is here doing a Fulbright scholarship project. The guesthouse has 5 or 6 rooms ( I cant tell if one of the locked rooms is a closet or a room). It is pretty nice and has a kitchen. It also costs 250 rupees per month, which is SUPER CHEAP. I am only staying here until Sunday then I will move on to the YMCA in Kottayam Kerala.    
    We went out for dinner with Stepahine tonight and she showed us around Pondicherry a little bit. We also got some groceries. Stephanie seems like she is a pretty nice girl and we all seem to get along so far.

Journal 11-14-2010

Journal 10-14-2010

Today was a serious travel day. We woke up on a train bound for Delhi. The train finally arrived at the Delhi station about 4 hours late. But thankfully we still had enough time to get to the airport and catch our flight. We found an unofficial taxi and took it to the airport. When we arrived we were excessively early because our plane had been delayed about three hours. At this point it was about 1:00 and we still hadn’t had anything to eat so we headed toward the terminal 1 food court where there was a KFC and  a Pizza Hut. I ordered some KFC then a little bit later a pizza. I also was able to get some free WIFI on my Ipod so that I could send an email to Claire. I was pretty stoked because WIFI in general,,, let alone Free WIFI, is a treasure in India.
Our flight on Spicejet was uneventful. The seats were extremely close together and there was a toddler that was punting the back of my seat. But other than that it was good. We were in high spirits when we reached Chennai. We got our bags then got in our first Indian Taxi to head to ICSA.
The Taxi was great! It was some old British car, the standard model used by most Indian taxi drivers. I really liked riding in it.
When we got to ICSA we repacked and got two rooms. Then I had to part with John. Hopefully I will see him again soon. It will be weird to travel without him. It is tough to learn how to travel really well with someone and then have to transition to a different travel situation. It is particularly difficult because when you are traveling like this, people are the only constant thing in your life.

Journal 11-13-2010

Journal 10-13-2010

Today we left our hotel in Mcloud ganj ( I am still not sure how this is spelled). I was finally able to send the package home. The post office makes you jump through all sorts of crazy hoops before they let you send a package in India. Then we said goodbye to a shop keeper that John and I had made friends with and headed toward the bus stop. We got on a bus stop bound for pathencott (again I don’t know the spelling of this). From there we got on an overnight train headed for Dehli. This journey was uneventful but really tiring and we didn’t get much to eat during the day and had junk food for dinner at the train station. I was exhausted but still found it hard to fall asleep on the middle bunk in a 3rd class sleeper car.

Journal 11-12-2010

Journal 11-12-2010

Today was our last full day in Mcloud ganj. After that john and I did some last minute shopping. He got some more gifts for his relatives at home and I didn’t buy anything of great significance except for a giant duffel bag that I can use for the flight home. This bag will fit my entire backpack and still has room for lots more stuff. I am really going to need all the extra space for all the gifts and other things that I have accumulated so far. Mcloud ganj continues to be a fun place to stay. John and I are now friends with several of the shop owners and have been invited to have tea on two separate occasions.

Journal 11-11-2010

Journal 11-11-2010

Today was a great day! We woke up at 7:00, had a quick breakfast at a café near to our hotel and then we started walking toward Triund. The path to Triund took us though mcloudganj and into another town in an adjoining valley. Once we were in the second town we spent about 45 minutes lost on the wrong trail because our map was very basic. We finally backtracked and found the correct trail coming out of a parking lot surrounded by shops. This trail took us up a riverbed through a town and finally up the side of a mountain. The hike up to Triund was very picturesque, the weather was great and we were all really happy to be up in the beautiful Himalayas! This mountain range is unlike any other one that I have seen. The mountains are steeper and rocks seem sharper. I have close to no knowledge about rocks but I will attempt to describe them anyway. The rocks in the Himalayas seems harder than the sandstone that I have observed in many parts of the USA. However after closer examination the Himalayan rock seems splits into leaves and flakes if you smash it up at the right angle. It also has a shiny quality a lot like malachite (I believe).
Enough about rocks. The hike was awesome the only downside was that Leah was going really slowly and complaining about various health problems. This got really annoying and john and I could barely handle it by the time we reached the top. (sorry to bash you Leah). The view at the top was so beautiful that we forgot all about Leah’s whining. There were three large peaks directly on the backside of the mountain we climbed. If you looked down in the direction we climbed you could barely see the towns because of the hazy mist that hangs in the valleys. 

It was a good day!

For dinner we went to an all vegetarian Japanese restaurant. I had miso soup, and vegetable tempura. It was good but I wish I could have had sushi also.
 

Journal 11-10-2010

Journal 11-10-2010

Today we didn’t take on anything too impressive because john and I were still feeling a bit under the weather. We did however do an impressive amount of Christmas shopping. I was able to get gifts for most of the people on my list. They have some really great tourist oriented shopping in Mclowdganj (I still don’t know the correct spelling).
John and I made several trips out of the room to go on long shopping trips. We also kept coming back to the room to take little relaxation breaks during which we would usually watch an episode of 24. We were still really tired and worn down from traveling and getting sick and we have some digestive issues that need to be handled with caution. Hahaha.
Later in the evening John Leah and I all went to Johnny’s Italian kitchen (the same resaraunt we went to on the 8th) I was really hungry from bolognaise but unfortunately the restaurant was out so I had to settle for some chicken pasta that was almost the exact same as the pasta I had had previously. Oh well.

Journal 11-8-2010

Journal 11-8-2010

Went to Italian restaurant with Leah

Proceeded to get sick at 11:30

John and Leah had both already gotten sick that day. We think that we all got food poisoning from food that we ate at a bus stop.

Journal 10-29-2010

Quote of the day:

Paul: “John! In true Indian fashion, I am going to need you to pour yourself a drink so that we can toast.”
John: “Well if that is the case, then in true Indian fashion let me wash this cockroach out of my glass.”

Journal 10-28-2010

Journal 10-28-2010

Today I worked on the Introduction of my paper. Gathering and reading journal articles to give substance to the introduction is the most time consuming part of the process. The most eventful part of the day was dinner. For dinner we decided to go meet up with Kanav and Shoebum then go to Bahari Dhaba, which is a chicken restaurant right across from VIT. Shoebum is good friends (brothers* not by blood) with the owner of the chicken restaurant. We had all sorts of different chicken dishes and a heaping pile of buttered Naan. It was amazing! John and I stuffed ourselves. Then Kanav went out and got us some ice cream cones for desert. I had a great time, and it was the last time we got to see Shoebum because he is going home to Rajasthan tomorrow.  

Journal 10-27-2010

Journal 10-27-2010

In the morning I realized that I really didn’t have enough background information to write a good introduction. So I went to the library and found, took pictures of and read as many more sources as I could. This really helped with the writing process. In the evening John, Leah and I went into town to go out for dinner. Before we went we stopped at Allmart to get some groceries. I finished checking out first and was waiting for John and Leah outside the store when a white girl with blonde curly hair walks right in front of me and stands, as if she is waiting for someone, a couple of meters away. You don’t just see a blonde girl here every day so I waved and said hello to her. She came over and we started talking. Her name is Stephanie and she is a German student doing a semester in India. Her program has her studying at VIT, which she is not too wild about. Anyway pretty soon John Leah and I were talking to the German girl, her boyfriend and another guy who were both French exchange students. They invited us to come with them and four Indian dudes for dinner at a hotel in Vellore where they serve beer (if you can call it that… King Fisher). The hotel did have great food though! I got to try some chicken lollypops, a BEEF steak, some chicken noodles and some chicken spring rolls. Mmmmmmmmmm. We all sat talked and kept ordering more and more food and drinks for several hours. Then the restaurant closed and we had to leave. It was really fun to hear about the experiences of the European exchange students. Their observations are so similar to ours. We got to gripe about the conservative society and lack of beef and beer. We aren’t really affected by the conservative practices that are common in south India but the European students have to deal with all kinds of crap because they are staying inside VIT. It was a fun night.

Journal 10-26-2010

Journal 10-26-2010

Song of the day: Shining Bright Despite the Plight by Pretty Lights

Quote of the day: “Its NBD” (Neuropathic Bone Disintigration)

Today I spent all morning on the Internet in the library. I had to pick out some classes for interim and second semester and send them to my new advisor so that I can get the blasted hold taken off my account. Then more time researching Kerala and Kottayam. After about an hour I decided that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I would regret later if I didn’t go. So I will now be going alone to Kottayam. I made it back to the room around lunchtime and had some noodles and worked on a really long email. Then I got restless and went into town to pick up some groceries, talk to Sanjay and send the really long email at an internet closet.

We had dinner at the guest house tonight, it was nice to have some real Indian food for a change, although the food wasn’t really all that great. 

Journal 10-25-2010

Journal 10-25-2010

Song of the day: “Another Day” by Air

Quote of the day: “the whole process of making and consuming pancakes took us five hours” – John

The room is a mess. John and I haven’t had our room cleaned for at least two weeks. We have also been eating groceries so we have accumulated an impressive amount of trash in the corner by the door.

            Today was a pretty relaxed day. I started writing the introduction of my paper. It was kind of tough to get going on the writing. I spent a long time thinking about how to incorporate background information but not be extremely broad. I think that I finally got off to a good start. Later in the day I got some egg rolls for lunch and brought some back for john. I was going to keep writing but then Leah came in and showed me an email that she had received from a doctor who seems to be organizing our stay at VCRC. In the email, which is addressed to Kathy Tuma it says that I am going to be sent alone to a location in the neighboring state of Karala (sorry about the spelling). They want to send me there because it is at that field station that VCRC is doing some genetic bar coding of insects. I mentioned on one of my sheets that I would like to potentially do a project on that sort of work.

            I had Leah forward me the email and then I went to the library and sent an email to the Olaf professors and Kathy Tuma to see if they could try to convince the doctor at VCRC to let me stay in Pondi. We will see what happens I guess. I think that it would be an interesting opportunity and a great topic to do a project on but I would be VERY lonely all by myself for a month. So I guess I will probably get a reply from the professors tomorrow sometime. It feels odd that the people at VCRC are so organized and that they have planned things out like this. So far in my experience nothing is this organized in India.

            The whole point of me going to VCRC in the first place was so that I didn’t have to be by myself at Auraville (spelling?). Auraville is right next to Pondicherry anyway so if they VCRC guys want to send me all the way to Karala I would much rather be by myself at Auraville. Anyway…. Hopefully this will work out. It isn’t hard to change plans in India. But I feel a little bit awkward about contacting this guy myself because none of the emails have been sent to me in any way. So I thought I would talk to the people running our program before I email him directly.

            I also have figured out my whole advisor hold situation. Charles Umbanhowar is now my advisor and can take the hold off. But he wants me to send him a list of classes that I want to take that fill out the rest of my GE and Major requirements before he will take the hold off. So tomorrow I need to go into town to use the Internet and get that done. It is always a huge hassle to get the advisor hold off of your account for registration. This is the last time I will have to deal with that!!!!!

           

In unrelated news

-          I finally got an email from Claire!

-          I got some pictures of mom and dad of their new porch and garden, but not of the house itself. (send me some pictures of the house please I want to see it)

-          I also decided that instead of doing skiing this year I am going to … not do skiing and have way more time.

-          This will also let me visit Mom and Dad and their new house over interim break! I was thinking about bringing Claire along also if that is cool…. I still have to ask you guys about it. But communicating is hard so it can wait. Florida is the perfect J term break place.

-          We are achieving celebrity status amongst the locals. People always wave and yell when we drive past. Hahahaha it is pretty silly. But we look pretty silly so I guess we deserve it.

-          My beard is coming along nicely.

-          I still enjoy curry smooth noodles.

-          We are going to Delhi over Duwali (spelling?) Kanav lives in Delhi so we will be celebrating Duwali in with locals! It should be awesome!

-          We won’t be seeing Katie and Matt over travel break. They are doing their own thing I guess.

-          We like it here! But we are also getting ready to move on. 

Journal 10-24-2010

Journal 10-24-2010

Song of the day “Homeward Bound” by Simon and Garfunkel

Quote of the day: “I think I can smell your towel” - John

This morning shortly after John and I woke up, we heard a loud BANG. We turned around and looked through the door of our sitting room and out of our “sitting room” window. There were two men standing in the open area behind the guesthouse. One of them was holding a really old gun that looked like a musket. About 5 minutes later we looked back to check on them again and they were both crouched in the ankle high weeds that cover the open space behind the guesthouse. I hope they were hunting stray dogs. They moved around in the area for a while, and after a while we heard two more shots. Dog hunting is the only explanation we could come up with.

It is 3:30 now and I just saw a TVS 50 moped thing drive off with a stiff dead dog behind it. They were shooting stray dogs. I asked Kanav about shooting dogs later and apparently it is illegal so maybe the dog was rabid… or something. Haha

            Later, John and I decided to go on a picture taking expedition around the hill. We haven’t taken very many pictures lately. In fact, I don’t think I have even taken out my camera in the past week. So here is some of what we got this morning.

At about 5:00 we went to Kanav’s house and sat around for a while then we embarked on an epic journey to make pancakes. “the whole process of making and consuming pancakes took us five hours”  -John (he didn’t actually say this until tomorrow the 25^th) We drove into Vellore to a grocery store and got all sorts of stuff. Then we went to Shoebums (spelled wrong) house to make the pancakes. John and Leah cooked while Kanav and I went back out to try and find buttermilk. We could not find buttermilk. I was not surprised. But we did stop to try India’s finest hot dog at the “burger man” stand. It was interesting but not bad. I might actually get another one someday. It was also very spicy which I liked.

After pancakes Leah wanted to go back, so john dropped her off. Then we hung out for the rest of the night. John and I ended up crashing at Kanav’s apartment in the air conditioning! 

Journal 10-23-2010

Journal 10-23-2010

Song of the day: “6 underground” by Sneaker Pimps

Not much happened today. Work and stuff as usual. John and I watched prince of Persia before we went to sleep. It was good. 

Journal 10-22-2010

Journal 10-22-2010

Song of the day: “Crystalised” by The XX

Most of the day was uneventful but at night Leah and I went into VIT and picked up some Big Chick fried chicken for dinner. Big Chick is like really bad KFC. I think Leah was craving American food or something. Anyway, this didn’t quite hit the spot for me. My spicy chicken sandwich seemed like it was 80% breading and 20% chicken. All was not lost however, I did have some delicious soymilk to go with my mediocre sandwich. We also had a fun visit to town. It is always nice to get out of the Karigiri campus and go anywhere more lively. Tonight was also a full moon. After dinner John and I ended up going out again to meet up with SK who had my USB drive. SK has been hooking us up with movies which we have been collecting 2 or 3 at a time on my small USB drive. This was great because when we got back we got to watch a pretty entertaining movie with tom cruise (I can’t remember the name of the movie) but I liked it and I am not a tom cruise fan.

Journal 10-21-2010

Journal 10-21-2010

Song of the day “In for the kill” by La Roux

John and I are trying to find the real version, but this is extremely difficult without access to the internet. It is stuck in my head and the only version I have is a bad remix by Skrillex… Actually the first half is really good but the second half is unbearable dub step.

I don’t remember exactly what we did on the 21^st but it wasn’t very interesting. John is busy working on his project all day. I have been avoiding going out to get more data from villagers and instead I have been working on the data analysis on my computer. But this is really boring because I just sit in the guest house and work on Excel during the day. But it also means I don’t get chased out of villages by packs of angry stray dogs. It is hard to tell if most of the dogs in India are strays or if villages collectively own them. Whatever the arrangement is… the dogs are extremely territorial and loud when you enter their “area”, which is usually the road. I have yet to actually have one attack me but they bark, drool and nip at your heels until you turn around and pretend to come after them. Unlike the dogs the villagers are really nice. 

Journal 10-20-2010

Journal 10-20-2010

Today I went to talk to the Bio statistician about the data I have collected. A couple of days ago he had given me a formula to determine the minimum sample size needed to achieve statistical significance. I had had some trouble with the formula because I didn’t understand what he wanted for a variable. Today I went in to talk to him in the morning and had a hurried confusing conversation with him. He had me write down one row of averages from one of my groups. Then he told me he would calculate the standard deviation for it. This is not what I needed help with at all. But he was in a hurry to make it to a meeting so I didn’t have time to clear up the misunderstanding. I have all my data in Excel and can type in STDEV( … and get the standard deviation in less than a minute. After having this conversation I went and sat at john’s physiotherapy padded table “desk” and worked out the equation. It turned out it wasn’t hard at all. But the results were a little bit startling. As it turns out I only need a sample size of 14 people for my study to be statistically significant. I had anticipated that I would need something like 50 people per group. So this was good news and means that I will be able to wrap up the data collection much earlier than I thought. I will of course get more than 14 people but I wont have to bust my butt forcing villagers to let me poke at their feet for another week (haha). I will also be able to do the data analysis and hopefully start writing before I leave Karigiri.

As far as data analysis goes, it is a HUGE help to have a computer with Excel along on the trip. It makes everything so much easier! Everyone on the trip is convinced that bringing a laptop is definitely the way to go.

When I met up with the Statistician again later in the day I was able to show him that I did in fact know how to calculate standard deviation and that I had figured things out on my own. After we talked about the small sample size (14), which turned out to be correct, I showed him the T test on groups 1 and 2. I think that he was genuinely interested in the results. When I get a couple more samples and am ready to finish up the data collection I am going to go back and talk to him again. 

Journal 10-19-2010

Journal 10-19-2010

This morning Leah called at 7:30 and told us that she had been able to book the tickets! She woke us up, but she also booked the tickets so it was ok.

Today I went to three different villages during the day to try to get data for my project. At the end of the day I had only had the opportunity to test two people. It was an unlucky day so I called it quits after lunch and instead of going back out to the villages I went into the physiotherapy department and spent the rest of the day looking at charts. Chart’s can’t refuse to be part of your study. In the end I was able to get a decent amount of work done despite the setbacks of the morning.

For dinner I had a box of chocolate soy milk, a peanut butter sandwich and some corn flakes. Then John and I went to VIT to buy toilet paper and more soymilk.

I will update the blog as soon as I get my USB drive back form S.K. Actually I was able to do it by using my camera as USB storage device. 

Journal 10-18-2010

Journal 10-18-2010

Monday was a Day filled with work. During the day the only progress I made on my project was testing the rest of the rickshaw drivers, probably about 7 more people. For dinner I went into town to get take out from Dhabba express restaurant. I brought the food back for John and Leah who were working hard trying to figure out how to book our travel break train tickets. Dhabba Express has very good north Indian food. The train ticket situation is a mess. I am really glad that I am not directly involved in planning it all out. Leah and John have it under control. Anyway, the tickets for the trains we need are going quickly and we have been waiting to buy our tickets to see what Katie and Matt decide to do. They decided today to get a travel agent to do their tickets and it sound like we might be going on a separate travel break from them. We might not get to see them at all. Anyway, today trying to buy tickets wasn’t working and several of the trains we needed had filled up. So the mood was tense as John and Leah stressed out trying to buy tickets. The online credit card ticket purchasing option wasn’t working either. So at about 8:30 they went into Sanjay’s shop (Sanjay, conveniently, is also some sort of travel agent who books flights and train tickets). They talked to him and he said he could pull some strings and get us tickets if we couldn’t get them by tomorrow.

Journal 10-17-2010

Journal 10-17-2010

Sunday was pretty low key. We were all tired from the night before. I did a significant amount of napping. At about 4:00 John and I went into VIT to get some Calcutta rolls. We invited Kanav to join us. After we finished our egg rolls we went back to Kanav’s apartment and used his Internet and hung out until around 7:00. I downloaded a bunch of music, and sent a couple of emails. It is AMAZING to have access to a broadband connection after going without decent Internet for 2 months. I want to sit in Kanav’s apartment for an entire day. I would be able to get so much stuff done!!!!

Sanjay, Shubham and some other guys all showed up at Kanav’s for various amounts of time. We were also able to watch some South Park!

When we got back to the guest house, John and I watched Cop Out and went to sleep.

Journal 10-16-2010

10-16-2010

In the morning on Saturday I went alone to a village called 66 Putter on the other side of the hill from Karigiri. I walked through the village hoping that people would talk to me. This part of the data collection process is a lot like fishing. I walk around hoping that the village people will show some interest and (nibble) or initiate some sort of interaction with me. Then I talk to them for a while, tell them where I am from, and answer any other questions they have. The conversation always reaches a point where they will ask why I am walking through their village. Then I whip out my testing notebook and show them the monofilaments, and ask if I can test their feet. This technique really works quite well. The test itself is kind of silly so once I get one person to participate the others in the group all want to go next.

I was able to test ten different people from 66 Putter before lunchtime on Saturday. Then I went back to Karigiri because we had planned to do something fun in the afternoon. We were originally going to go into Vellore to visit some tourist attractions like the golden temple and a fort. But we decided that the travel logistics were too complicated so instead we decided to climb up to the top of the hill again. The climb up is a little bit difficult because there is no path, and the decent is even harder for the same reason but it is really fun to walk around at the top. We sat on the top of the hill for about long time.

We made it back down to the guesthouse around 3 with minimal injuries from thorn sticks. When we got back we called up Kanav and Shubham and invited them to go out for pizza with us later.

At about 7:00 John, Leah and I went into VIT to get pizza with Kanav and Shubham. While we were at the restaurant Dad gave me a several calls, one of which I was finally able to answer. It was really great to talk to Dad, this is only the second time that I have talked to my parents while I have been in India. I have done a terrible job of keeping in touch with my family (sorry guys). But the lack of an Internet connection makes calling and emailing home a lot harder. Keep calling me!

After pizza we went over to Shubham’s house where we hung out all night. It was a blast. Regrettably I didn’t have my camera to capture Sanjay’s amazing dancing.

Journal 10-15-2010

Journal 10-15-2010

This morning John was waiting on some charts to be delivered to the physiotherapy dept. So in the morning he came out with me again to try to find people to test for my project. We stopped at the village that is immediately adjacent to the Karigiri hospital campus. When we started to walk around we found a man sitting next to a bright orange house that was being built. We started talking to him although he spoke no English. Eventually another small crowd gathered and we were able to communicate the idea that we wanted to test their feet. The people here scored very low on the foot test. They had very thickly calloused feet. One of them had clawing in his right hand and appeared to have some sort of mental handicap. When we were done testing the people in the group we walked across the street through a gate. We quickly realized that we had found the leprosy colony. People with disfigured faces and extremities waved hello to us and pressed their hands together in the Indian welcome. We smiled widely at everyone and walked slowly around the colony. The leprosy patients were extremely friendly. The people we saw seemed to be leprosy patients that had suffered sever permanent disfigurement, for the most part they appeared to be in good health otherwise. I think that they are probably former patients that choose not to re-enter into society because of the way that they have been disfigured. Later in the day I was able to test two of the rickshaw drivers that I have become buddies with, their names are Gopi and Loganathan. On Friday night John, Leah and I went into VIT to get pizza with Kanav and Shubham. I also got to talk to Dad which was really nice, I have done a terrible job of keeping in touch with my family (sorry guys). But the lack of an internet connection makes calling and emailing home a lot harder.

Journal 10-14-2010

Journal 10-14-2010

Today John and I drove into one of the nearby villages to attempt to take samples from rural village populations for my project. Whenever we drive by people tend to wave and stare. We drove through the village and stopped at a temple then walked back down the road to the point where some women had waved at us. The women were drying peanuts on the road outside their houses. The offered us some peanuts, which were really good. We then stood there talking with facial expressions and gestures for about 10 minutes. The women only spoke Tamil so it was pretty difficult to communicate. Eventually a crowd assembled. By this time John and I were sitting on the ground, attempting to demonstrate the monofilament test. The women in the crowd went to get a 21 year old woman named Surya from further down the road. Surya spoke some English and was able to help us tell the other women what we were trying to do. We demonstrated the test to the group with Surya as the first participant. Eventually Surya’s husband Muther walked up and with Surya’s help we convinced him to try the test too. After I finished testing Muther everyone else had left. Unfortunately we only were able to collect data from two people today.

After we started heading back we decided to walk up to a really cool temple on the top of a large hill, the same hill that is behind the Karigiri guesthouse. There was nobody up there so John and I were able to explore it quite thoroughly. It was beautiful John has the pictures on his camera.

Journal 10-13-2010

Journal 10-13-2010

Today I went to the Lab wing of the Hospital. I went to go talk to Dr. Lakshmi (spelling?), the head of the department, but she wasn’t there. Instead I talked to another woman in the office, who was able to arrange for me to test all of the different Laboratory students who were working in the various different labs. This was very helpful, but now I really need to diversify my sample. I need to test healthy men and women who are between the ages of 30 and 50. They should be fairly easy to find in the hospital although they might get annoyed that I am interrupting their work for what appears to be a really silly test.

Students are great test subjects! They all smile and seem really happy to have a distraction from work. After collecting data from the lab students I am done collecting data from the healthy group for the pilot study.

My next step, which I have saved for tomorrow, is to go into the villages around Karigiri and attempt to get agricultural workers to let me poke their feet. This is going to be a much more difficult task. I think that I will need some sort of “in”. I am going to try asking around for an interpreter at the hospital or otherwise just go into the village and wait until I run into someone that speaks English and is willing to help me. We will see what happens!!!!!

For dinner tonight John and I went into VIT and got some egg rolls. They were delicious as usual.

Journal 10-12-2010

Journal 10-12-2010

Today I got up fairly early and made it to David’s office in the Physiotherapy department at 8:00. I talked with him briefly about who I could easily sample and about getting access to some patient charts. He told me to go down and pay a visit to the students at the prosthetics shop. They were very friendly and it was fun to poke at their feet.

I spent a lot of time at the rickshaw stand sitting on a bench and trying to get the drivers to let me test them but through some combination of misunderstanding my English and lack of interest nobody would let me poke their feet. I will keep at it, as soon as one of them does it, the testing becomes like a game and it is really easy to get a group of people. It also didn’t help that Gopi our favorite rickshaw driver wasn’t there at the time. I think he could have helped me out.

I spent the second half of the day in a small room looking through patient charts and copying down information from ones that I could use in my study. This process was very time consuming and I only found 7 useable patients so far. However I know that many more exist. It is just a matter of getting the woman who works with the physiotherapy records to help me find them. It is a little bit crazy that I have access to any patient history that I want to see.

For dinner John, Leah and I took a rickshaw into VIT and ate at a non-veg northern Indian food place. It was really good, Leah’s prawns were the best dish that we ordered but they were too spicy for her and she spent the whole dinner trying to cool her mouth down. I want to go back and try the chicken tika masala. We made it back to Karigiri around bedtime. I had a really hard time sleeping because the whistle blowers kept biking around in a circle around the Karigiri campus blowing whistles to each other. I think they are some sort of security guards. Leah has seen them sleeping under trees for hours at a time. But I guess they are probably tired from staying up all night biking around blowing their stupid whistles.

At about 4 am a puppy managed to crawl onto the walkway in front of our room and sat there whining for at least an hour until john got up and went outside. The first time I think he just yelled at it. It stayed quiet for about 10 minutes then john got up again. I encouraged him to throw some water on it. He did this and the puppy stayed quiet for about 45 minutes. Then they VERY loud whining continued and John got up, left the room in his boxers, picked up the puppy by the scruff of its neck and carried it across the road and set it in some tall grass. I finally slipped into undisturbed sleep at about 6 and did not wake up until my parents started to call around 7:00. Normally I would have answered but I was in no mood to talk and I answering would mean that I would keep John up as well. So I rejected the call on my phone, which was by my bed. But they also tried my old phone several, which is now johns phone and he got up to check it. Anyway, it was a bad night for sleeping. (Sorry for not answering your call Mom and Dad).

Journal 10-11-2010

Journal 10-11-2010

            I basically worked on my project today. I had “Curry Smooth Noodles” for lunch, they continue to be delicious. The “Curry Smooth Noodles” are like ramen but with class… they cost 4 rupees more and are worth every rupee! I have also finished off my jar of peanut butter.

            Today finished up my interview sheet. It took about 45 minutes to get it printed off of the librarian’s antique computer. To make copies of it I have to go into town. So for tomorrow I think I will stick with writing up interview sheets in my lab book. I am excited to finally start getting data tomorrow.

Journal 10-10-2010

Journal 10-10-2010

Sunday was awesome!!!!!!!

We did a little bit of work in the morning. But it is hard to be productive on Sundays in India because everything is closed and nobody is working at all. We went to Kanav’s apartment at 12:00 to make Pav Baji. The power was off when we got there but soon enough it turned back on and we could tart cooking. We chopped tomatoes, diced onions and peeled potatoes for about an hour. Haha after reading over this it sounds like we were being forced to work. In India cooking is an extremely social so we were all having a blast talking and laughing while we got the basics ready to cook.

After a while everything went into a pan where it was stirred and broken down into a tomato, onion, potato sauce. It had the consistency of slightly chunky mashed potatoes and tasted great!!!! So the Baji in Pav Baji refers to the saucy potato part and the Pav refers to buttered and toasted buns that you use to eat it. There were some other ingredients like ginger garlic paste, and some type of Pav Baji seasoning. Anyway, lunch was delicious.

While we were at Kanavs we also started to watch Cop Out it was really good but we eventually got distracted by music and more food. They have a copy on a computer that they said they could send us. Getting a hold of some movies would be great! I have finished all my books and am really in need of something to do at night. Life at Karigiri gets pretty dull once the sun goes down.

We hung out at kanav’s apartment with Sanjay, Shobaum, S.K, and Kanav all day. I think we finally made it back to Karigiri around bedtime.

Journal 10-9-2010

Journal 10-9-2010

            Today is Saturday. This morning John got up fairly early and went to the library, about 45 minutes later I managed to drag myself out of bed and join him there. About 15 minutes after I made it to the Library the Librarian kicked us out so that she could go take her break. The Librarian is an extremely odd individual. She seems to take particular interest in John and I. She often asks about our meals and then seems put off and almost offended that we eat cereal in our rooms for breakfast or ramen for lunch. Her facial expression never indicates that she is interested but she continues to ask us personal questions. The most interesting thing about the librarian is that she always takes a midmorning break during which she kicks everyone out and closes the Library. 

            During the Librarian’s breaks we have started to go visit the Canteen for coffee. As we were walking away from the canteen this morning, we were surrounded by a swarm of children. I don’t have much else to say about this. I guess it happens at Karigiri too.

            Tonight the three of us decided to go to the Calcutta Roll place for dinner. After dinner we stopped by Sanjay’s place just to say hi. We try to say hi to Sanjay every day. We dropped Leah back at Karigiri then John and I went out to play Snooker with SK and Kanav. Kanav is fairly good but the rest of us play like trash. But because Snooker requires mostly luck I managed to win one game.

            We got back pretty late and crashed right away.

Journal 10-8-2010

Journal 10-8-2010

During the day on Friday I spent most of the day in the library reading more articles in Leprosy Review about soft touch sensation testing. It occurred to me that it would be really nice to have access to these articles during interim when we are trying to put together our papers. Unfortunately St. Olaf doesn’t seem to have a subscription to Leprosy Review or Indian Journal of Dermatology, which seem to contain most of articles relevant to my project. Someday I am going to bring my camera to the library and take pictures of the articles. 

Later in the afternoon John and I went into town (VIT) and got some egg rolls and the Roll Center. The egg rolls are soooooooooo good. We stopped by Sanjay’s shop for a while and talked with him but then decided that we should go back and hang out with Leah because we haven’t seen her very much in the past couple days.

Journal 10-7-2010

Journal 10-7-2010

The morning on Friday was pretty uneventful. I worked on revising my project in the morning and spent some time reading more articles in the library. At about 4 John and I drove into town. We got some Calcutta rolls (egg rolls) they are like egg and onion rolled up in a tortilla. They are extremely tasty and only cost 15 rupees a piece. Then John needed to use the Internet too search for some papers so we walked back toward Sanjay’s shop. Kanav and S.K were at Sanjay’s and they wanted us to come swimming at a pool in Vellore with them. John had to work but I decided to go. We went to Kanav’s and picked up swimsuits then drove to Vellore. The pool was called Oasis it was VERY nice! It is a very big and wide rectangular pool. The pool deck was lined with coconut palms and we were the only people there. It felt great to swim in such a relaxing environment. I wanted to take pictures but Kanav made a rule that I had to leave my camera in the locker because they felt like they are out of shape and therefore didn’t want pictures ending up on Facebook.

Quite a while later we made it back to Sanjay’s shop. Where we called john to see if he wanted to get some dinner with us. To our surprise John was sitting in the back room of Sanjay’s shop using the Internet. Hahaha. Apparently Sanjay was lonely working all day by himself and had refused to let john go next door and pay for internet when he could have it for free at the shop and keep Sanjay company. John and I both found this hilarious because a few days ago we would never have imagined using Internet for free in the back of one of the shops so we could hang out with the clerk/owner.

John, Kanav, S.K and I then called Leah to invite her to come to dinner with us. John and I both feel really bad that she has been spending a lot of time alone. But when we called her she declined our offer to come pick her up in S.K’s car. So we ended up having a dudes night dinner. First we went to a poolroom in the back of a mall that I didn’t even know existed. All the pool tables were taken so we played snooker which I had never played before. After a couple of games we went to a really good pizza place, I think it might be called Little Sicily. To my surprise the restaurant was very nicely furnished and very clean. To top it off they were playing Mouse Hunt on a 32 inch flat screen TV. We ordered a ton of pizzas (we wanted some for breakfast tomorrow) and watched the Movie. It is really strange to watch TV after not having access to it for so long. Then the Pizza came, it was VERY GOOD it tasted like authentic Italian pizza. They even had salami as a topping, although it wasn’t very good salami (it may have been made out of chicken or something silly).

After dinner S.K and Kanav dropped us back off at Karigiri. The light was off in Leah’s room so she must have been asleep. We were really tired, John fell asleep right away, but I had to stay up and do laundry in a bucket for about an hour. I was completely out of clothes.

Journal 10-6-2010

Journal 10-6-2010

In the morning on Wed I spent most of the day reading and trying to come up with a concrete project proposal to present to the research committee at 3:00. The presentation went well, the director made some suggestions that change the focus of my project from comparing a population in the US and in India to comparing two different groups within a Indian village population. As a result my project will now focus on two groups field workers / coolie (laborers) and desk job / shop keepers. After the research meeting John and I went into town where we meet up with Kanav and S.K at Sanjay’s shop. S.K has a car and we drove into Vellore. On the way back we stopped at Big Chick and picked up some chicken burgers and fried chicken for dinner. Then we went back to Kanav’s house and hung out until it was really late.

Sanjay and John

Kanav and Sanjay

                       

John, S.K and Me

eventually S.K and Kanav dropped us off at Karigiri.

We played a bunch of our favorite music and they really liked it. Now Kanav wants to download the contents of my Ipod.

Journal 10-5-2010

Journal 10-5-2010

Today was an incredibly productive day. I made it to the physiotherapy department by 8:00 where I meet David. I talked with David about my project for a while, we were able to more concretely define what I needed to do. David also demonstrated the testing technique the scoring method on a patient.

This patient had complete loss of sensation in his left foot. But only slight loss of sensation in his right.

I spent the rest of the morning in the library trying to locate studies that deal with sensory testing in rural Indian populations. I found two good studies that the hospital had in print in their archives of Leprosy Review.

Later in the afternoon John, Leah and I decided that we needed to go into town to get groceries and to meet up with Kanav our friend from VIT who was going to help me get internet on my laptop. It was also Leah’s birthday and we had planned on going to dinner at Darlings in Velore.

Unfortunately for Leah and John it took a little longer than expected for me to take care of my laptop situation. First I went to Sanje’s shop across the street from VIT. He called Kanav who walked over from his apartment a couple of minutes away. Kanav then told me that fiddling with the operating system software and then buying a usb modem wasn’t going to work because my Ibook doesn’t have an intel processor. Instead Kanav came up with an even better and more innovative plan. Kanav brought us back to his apartment where he installed a script or something on my computer.

Then he hooked it up to an old smart phone of his with a USB cabel. He had just gotten a new phone and wasn’t using this one anymore so he is lending it to me for until I leave Karigiri. This is what the setup looks like, it is painfully slow but it does get reception in our room, which is more than I can say for any of the USB modems.

At first I didn’t really know what to think about this guy helping me out like this. In the US nobody would just help someone they just met by lending them a smartphone and a simcard. But over the past couple of days we have hung out with Kanav a bit more and I can only conclude that he and his friends are just a bunch of unique and awesome dudes. They even had a talk with us about people who might try to take advantage of us to address any unspoken concerns. Meeting Sanje and Kanav has been a really great part of the trip because it has given us access to Indian college life, which until now this has been a very inaccessible part of India. It is great to talk with people from India that are our age. It has given me a totally different perspective about everything, especially the gender and relationship issues. Most of all it is great to be able to enlarge our friend group and have people to hang out with.

Journal 10-4-2010

Journal 10-4-2010

My main goal for today was to set up a research project with one of the departments at Karigiri. After we finished our various morning activities John and I set off to accomplish this mission. Our first stop was Dr. Samuel Solomon’s office. Dr. Sam is always extremely helpful and will set up meetings with people in any department if we mention anything about it. At one point, he was talking on two phones at once while his cell phone was ringing. Dr. Solomon suggested that we visit Dr. Raj Kumar in the Occupational Therapy department.

            We introduced ourselves and told Dr. Raj Kumar the type of projects that we were interested in doing. He mentioned that he might have something for John to do involving recovery time from foot ulcers. Dr. Raj Kumar also suggested that I go to the Physical Therapy department and talk to David (a physical therapist) about potential projects in that department.

            David from PT had a great project idea for me it involves sensory testing on hands and feet using monofilaments. The majority of sensory testing of this type has been done on western populations. Only a couple of studies have been published on the Indian population. The Indian population is unique for this type of testing because shoes are worn much less often. In rural populations in India footwear is worn for only a small portion of the day. I hypothesize that these differences in lifestyle and use of protective footwear contribute to higher thickness of skin on the foot. The prevalence of thick skin may contribute to a higher sensory threshold in the Indian population.

            That is the basic concept behind the study, I still need to do a lot more research on the subject. I feel good finally having topic to work on. I am supposed to report to the PT department tomorrow at 8:00 to learn how to do the monofilament tests and then start collecting data at the outpatient clinic.

            After we had our projects figured out John and I meet Leah at the Library. But they only have one computer that can surf the Internet so John and I decided to go into town to use the Internet at a shop across from VIT. We also went out for lunch at “the place with the egg rolls.” After lunch we stopped by the electronics store that one of our new friends works at. He let us try to install his MTS USB modem on my super old IBook G4. Unfortunately the old 10.4 operating system doesn’t support the MTS software. The friendly guy that works there called his buddy who is a tech guru. He told me that I couldn’t fix the problem by installing OSX Leopard (10.5) because my old ibook doesn’t pass the baseline requirement for 10.5. He did tell us that I would be able to run the MTS software by installing boot camp and Windows XP. He said he would get his hands on the appropriate software tonight and would meet us back at the shop tomorrow to install it on my laptop. Now the only remaining question is do I go with MTS or with Reliance. Reliance has a much better network and can actually support high speed broadband. But we know MTS has a faint signal at Karigiri because Leah has one.

            We eventually made it to the Internet café (closet). I downloaded some papers about Monofilament testing and did other Internet related stuff. Then we bought toilet paper, and tried to find a cash machine. We found 3 or 4 ATMs but they were all broken or out of cash. Our search did take us onto the VIT campus, which is really nice! But all the girls were laughing at John’s hair, it is startling how blatantly people stare, point and laugh in India.

            For dinner I had some peanut butter sandwiches, All-Bran flakes cereal, a bag of sour cream and onion lays (the best chips in India), and an entire box of soymilk.

Journal 10-3-2010

Journal 10-3-2010

I had planned to get up early and run this morning, but that didn’t happen. I woke up at 8:30 when someone was knocking on our door telling us that we needed to come eat breakfast. It was nice to sleep in.

            After breakfast we decided to climb the mountain/hill behind the guest house. We found a trail that lead to some water towers at the base of the hill. We climbed the ladder to the water tower building because… well why not.

            The view from the top showed us where the hill was. haha

The climb was slightly harder than it looked. The hill is covered in thorny bushes and armpit high tufts of lemon grass. We made it to the top without too many problems… Leah got stuck in at least one thorn bush. The view from the top was impressive.

I could see the village houses that I ran past yesterday. We could also see mountains in the distance that we would like to visit if we get a chance. After we got bored with the view we decided to go down a different side of the hill. The trip down proved to be much more difficult than the climb up. Nobody was seriously hurt but John and Leah both had thorns lodged in various different body parts. I fell over into a soft and itchy bed of lemon grass at one point.

After we made it back to the guesthouse I made a peanut butter sandwich and some ramen noodles for lunch. Then I fell asleep.

In the early afternoon John and I decided to go into town. We took the only rickshaw parked at the Hospital to VIT. We found an Internet café across from VIT where we spent a few hours. I set up a Blog by copying and pasting my journal entries. The only problem with this approach was that the images did not transfer. This means that I have to go back in and edit the posts and add the pictures in individually. This is a pain in the butt but apparently the easiest way to do it. 

            After we finished up at the Internet Café we got a Coke and a Fanta at the 7 eleven (hahahaha) and got a rickshaw for 50 rupees back to Karigiri.

Now we are making ramen and peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. “We should really look into the student cafeteria” (Quote from John).