Vishvavydyala.

That's the Hindi word for university.

I'm almost getting into a routine here, which is nice. My political theory teacher showed up to class on time today (first time for everything!), and he even managed to let us out relatively on time. Alas, yin and yang are always together, and the microeconomics teacher (whose class is two hours at the end of an already long day) kept us twenty minutes past when class was supposed to end. IST truly is more than Indian Standard Time; the common phrase "Indian Stretchable Time" is far more apt than I would have thought. India is an exercise in patience, most certainly.

One of the bright parts of my day, however, occurred in the middle of my commute from morning Ramjas College classes to afternoon IES classes. My roommate and I were hailing autorickshaws from the metro station to take us the rest of the way, and we stumbled upon a dream come true. First of all, the auto-wallah agreed to take us to Nizamuddin, which the previous two did not. Then, he VOLUNTEERed to have us pay by the meter (required by law but never enforced and rarely encountered). So far, this is just luck. The miracle was that additionally, his rickshaw was clean and not falling apart. He took us to our destination quickly AND directly. Auto-wallahs will often agree to price by meter and proceed to double the distance to your destination by driving around in circles so they make more money. This one, however, was a genuine, honest guy who was just doing his job the way it should be done. And he made my day. So we tipped him enough so that I hope we made his day, too.

Backtracking to what's happened since the last post.

I made it to my first day of classes by myself with no major catastrophes, successfully negotiating the various modes of transportation necessary to get me from A to B to C to A. 

The students are friendly at Ramjas, and one boy in particular, Anshul, has been talkative, informative, and inquisitive. He introduced me to all of the other people in my class and asked approximately 88 questions about universities in the U.S.

Classes at Ramjas don't start or end on time.

We went to the Qutb Minar last Friday as the first field trip for the Cities of Delhi class I'm taking (which is a wonderful class that teaches me more about Delhi than I could possibly learn on my own). The place is aesthetically and architecturally interesting: a conglomeration of various rulers and styles and materials. It's a mosque that stole different color sandstone from earlier Hindu temples along with the Hindu images of people and animals, and it has a big iron pillar randomly in the middle. Read the information on the link above - I don't feel like writing out all the history, but it's a really cool place.

Saturday morning was a service learning workshop in which we actually obtained information about volunteering opportunities. Only problem is between a lot of actual class time and my silly commutes, I'm not sure logistically how volunteering will work. Some places accept ad hoc volunteers, but a lot of them require big time commitments. And some of the ones I'm most interested in are just too far away. I'll work something out, but that's one part of my schedule I haven't nailed down yet.

On Sunday I did my laundry again. In a bucket. By hand. I still have mixed feelings about laundry here; I love having clean clothes, and I like that this hand-wash-air-dry style of laundry is eco-friendly, but there are some major drawbacks. First of all, it's time-consuming. My clothes get so dirty they don't get clean if I soak them in a bucket of water and then rinse; I have to soak them twice to feel like I'm getting all the dirt and dust out (particularly jeans and socks). Also, if they're not in direct sunlight, they take a REALLY long time to dry. Though I guess the heat that's already started to come will eliminate that problem soon. However, there's so much dust and dirt flying around in the air that I feel like by the time my clothes are dry, they're dirty again! It's a vicious cycle I'm sure I won't win. I can't wait to return to washing machines and much clearer air.

On Monday, Ramjas classes were cancelled due to the death of a faculty member. (As previously stated, nothing goes as planned.) So a few of us slept in a little, then went to Connaught Place to hunt for book stores. We ended up in the English Book Shop, which had books priced in USD, pounds, and rupees. It took a while to figure out how much things cost, and I may have been cheated since I have no idea what the pound-to-rupee exchange rate is. But regardless, it's much cheaper than what I would have paid in the States, and they're beautiful brand-new books.

Tuesday morning was back to Ramjas classes, where I encountered police barricades and the main road to Ramjas blocked off. From afar I couldn't figure out what was going on, but when I got close enough to determine whether I could get through or not, I discovered that it was a Peace and Harmony Run. I like India. It was really cool. I hope my commute continues to be exciting.

The political theory professor was 40 minutes late to class, so I had a lot of time to talk to other students. And some of the girls were having a photo shoot of each other on their camera phones, and inevitably, I ended up having my picture taken. They were nice about it though, not creepy or rude, and since they are people I'll be seeing on a daily basis, I didn't really mind. Also, one girl (who turned out not to actually be in the class...she was just hanging out?) began a conversation with me in this way: 

GIRL: Are you from the U.S.?

ME: Yes.

GIRL: Do you speak Spanish?

ME: I took it in high school, but haven't spoken it in a few years.

GIRL: ¿Como te llamas? ¿Dónde vives? [lots of babbling]

Turns out she has a certificate in Spanish and is studying for some sort of advanced/higher level degree or certificate. She wanted me to teach her about when to use reflexive verbs. That was an interesting time. She desperately wanted to chat with me in Spanish, and while I managed some of it, I couldn't remember a lot. Between not using Spanish often at all anymore, learning and becoming proficient in German since studying Spanish, and being in India learning Hindi, my Spanish skills were nowhere near where she apparently thought they were. But it was good fun nonetheless.

Later in the afternoon, I figured out how to buy stamps at the post office, which is literally next door to the YMCA. Convenient, since no one seems to know how often the public mailboxes on the street are emptied of their contents, or how safe they are from petty thieves.

Daily life is exhausting here. But we now have a coffee maker the student kitchenette in the residence (instead of relying on nasty NesCafé from the YMCA), and I've been trying to go to bed early and be outside during my few breaks in the day. All in all, life's pretty good, though I certainly miss home and all of you.

I'll make a conscious effort to record something here more often than once a week so I don't have to keep doing these long posts and forgetting half of what's happened.

Namaste.