terrorist attacks

I'm safe, but thinking of those caught in today's terrorist attacks as well as their loved ones. Truly reprehensible. Send your thoughts and prayers to those impacted.

banalities

really little of note has happened this week. most of my time has been spent in the office, attending meetings in order to familiarize us with different aspects of my company. it has been gratifying to learn more about my company, and to begin to get an idea of what my role might be. however, i've made big strides in terms of continuing the process of getting settled, which is significant for me, but not necessarily the most interesting source of anecdotes.

my roommates and i hired a housekeeper. he will come three times a week. i'd better not get used to it as i doubt i'll have one when i return to the united states. nonetheless, it is nice to not have to do dishes or clean the bathroom. one of the perks of living in india, i imagine.

today i went to a store called big bazaar. its kind of a department store, but with relatively low quality items. however, it's fairly inexpensive, and i needed to pick up a few more hangers, some food storage jars for lentils, other beans, rice, etc, and located not too far from my office. 4:00 pm on a thursday, and it was packed! in fact, it took about 45 minutes to check-out. sometimes things are less efficient here than in the united states, but i've learned from my time in senegal and drc that you can't worry about it and have to just let it go.

since i haven't begun any work projects yet, i have no responsibility after i leave the office. it's a really nice change of pace from school, where work never really ended and there were always tasks to do. i have taken advantage of having more free time to read (just finished tina fey's book, bossypants, which was not as good as I expected but still great) and get my money's worth out of my expensive gym membership. all in all, things have been really good so far, although i'm very much looking forward to and nervous about really beginning my job on monday

almost two weeks in

it's been a hectic few days. in the past week i've travelled to pune (a technology industry hub of a city about 2.5 hours outside bombay), chennai (a metropolis and hub for tamil nadu, the southernmost region of india and quite culturally distinct, and relaxed for a blissful 36 hours at a resort in pondicherry, about 4 hours south of chennai on the bay of bengal). i wish i could say it was great to see a large swath of india, but to be honest the main purpose of the trip was to visit various mahindra offices and attend meetings with managers. nonetheless, it was a great trip in terms of offering perspectives both on india and particularly on my company.

one observation, that may seem more minutiae that recount-worthy; on the flight from chennai to mumbai, each seat had an individual screen which was great. i'm a big fan of maps, so i basically just watched "flight map" the whole way. the bottom of the map had a disclaimer: "physical map only: no political boundaries." as i figure, this is because of ongoing borders disputes between india and pakistan that would make drawing national boundaries extremely contentious. a small thing that caught my attention.

since returning to mumbai, i've continued the process of settling in. today i joined a gym (actually a Gold's Gym franchise) that's down the street from my house. i'm really happy to have that outlet, and hope to make a solid routine. we also just got internet in our apartment; so far it's quite fast and wonderful, so knock on wood. for some things, especially technology like cell plans and internet, india for sure has a competitive edge. for unlimited internet at the fastest speed it cost less than 30 dollars a month, which comes out to ten bucks a person. likewise, my cell plan was about 17 dollars for data and calls and texting.

last night i went clubbing for the first time. it's quite difficult to gain entry into most places, so we had a few false starts especially as the male-female ratio was not great. however, by 11:30 or so we ended up in a great club inside this ridiculous hotel that looked like where the "galactic senate" is in the new star wars movies (NERD right? some things never change). it was really fun to just dance, although I wore heels and was in lots of pain.

this week will be a lot of meetings with various business heads. next monday, i'll begin my actual job. i'm not sure of my specific project, but i'm in the farm equipment division and more specifically with diesel generators. i think it has potential to be really cool because of connections to sustainable development and generally raising international standards of living, south to south trading networks (eg between india and african nations), and just all around being a great opportunity to learn.

it's for sure a major transition moving here, but so far it's been really engaging and manageable. i look forward to little by little getting a routine and figuring things out, and think this weekend was a great start to this lengthy process.

apologies for the lack of thematic unity in this post. soon will be the promised pictures of bandra west, where i live.

apartment photos

internet connection is quite slow, so more later
where i'll be living for at least a year. . .i think it's nice. some photos of the neighborhood to follow.