Time for Tulips

Bloom outside school

April has been wonderful weather-wise. The sun has been out most days; on others, the rain has been delightful. This is a (welcome) contrast from last year, when it was still snowing (perhaps good for water levels, but definitely disappointing for the soul). But the sun is not much good if you can't be outdoors and there is only so much work that you can do outside. I've been trying to go for a walk everyday, to soak up the sun and take a break. It is almost the end of this (final) semester and I am excited about finishing! The sum of two years of coursework and assignments and groups and (artificial-seeming) deadlines and readings and etc etc feels like a lot. I am sad about some things coming to an end (including my student-life, which I know has given me a lot of opportunities and allowed me live in a sort of a bubble).

Blue Stockings

It has been a while since I saw any plays. Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis had a good thing going for a while, where they gave students discounted tickets but alas no more. They have something for under-30s but I haven't really checked it out although I should probably take advantage of offers like that while I can. I've seen some interesting plays for really cheap tickets and once even for free right in front of the stage for a phenomenal play whose name I don't remember now. I recently had the chance to watch Blue Stockings at Guthrie for a Gender and Policy class I am in. We decided to go a few weeks ago and at that time it had seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do. 

The Last Lap

This is it. It is the last lap of my Master's degree, of my time in graduate school (or so it seems at the moment). It is impossible to believe that in May I will graduate. the years have both ambled along and whooshed by. Some days, I remember in great detail. Others, they have sped by, leaving no memory but a blur of faces and voices and places over weeks and months and seasons. Hurtling towards graduation is my stock answer to every time someone asks how things are going. Hurtling is an appropriate word; it captures the speed and intensity of the feeling of this semester.

February!

The semester is in full swing. Travels (unexpected mostly) are coming up. Somewhere between the flurry of classes and assignments, I make it to a class or two of Pilates, and enjoy the slow pain of my body uncurling from its long lapse into laziness. The weekends are a time of pause and books surround me.

This is a recent poem I found:

'My shortest days end,

My lengthening days begin.

What matters more or less sun in the sky,

When all is sun within?'

Christina G Rossetti

Views of Downtown Minneapolis in the distance
from across the bridge

Homecoming 2014

Among other things, this week involved a tailgate before the Homecoming 2014 event. This was organized by the College of Education and Human Development, and they very graciously allowed Council of International Graduate Students (of which I am a board member), to invite students as well. The week has been lovely, full of Fall sun and leaves but Friday was a little chilly. The turnout was still fabulous as was the food, the hot cider and brownies and of course, the photo booth. I hadn't intended to walk in the Homecoming parade (I wasn't sure what it would involve), but I eventually I did do that and it was quite the experience. More in pictures: 

Toys and fun stuff at tables inside the tent

Goldy the Gopher

Fall @ Twin Cities

Fall is beautiful here. I step out, I see the leaves changing color, I breathe in the crisp air. Mundane, daily tasks such as a walk to the bus stop, heading across campus, all of these have more beauty in them. I am trying several, small, new things in my life this year and one of them is to pause in the moment, because as I remind myself, this is my life. There is no waiting for life for when it will start. This is it, here and now.

Saturday mornings as I walk for a meeting for Council of International
Graduate Students (an organization I am really happy to be involved with)

A view of Coffman Memorial Union while waiting for the Campus Connector to
head to West Bank (our campus is divided into East and West Bank)

By the bus stop near my house. It is very close to the St. Paul
campus, which has a distinct layout and charm.

What I Wish I Had Known When I Started Grad School

I had two reactions when invited to be on a panel about what I wish I had known when I started graduate school - one of the sessions at the Welcome Week for new graduate students. First, why would anyone ask me and I probably shouldn’t go and next, I have enough material to write a book. Luckily (for everyone involved) I did not follow through on either impulse. On a more serious note, there are a lot of things I wish I had know when I started grad school. They would have made my personal life easier, my professional development process faster and my academic career more fulfilling at the very least. While answering questions on the panel, it seemed to me that it wasn’t very fair to the students who were on a waitlist for the orientation or couldn’t make it for a host of other reasons, to not have access to this information. I also thought having this online would allow more people to share their tips and tricks and more people to access these. Elise Madden who was also on the panel helped put this together. It is deliberately brief and concise, to make it useful and not overwhelming. I would love to add to this list - feel free to comment here or shoot me an email.

Settling in

I finally dropped one class and am a little short of full credit. Waking up in the mornings is making my days much better, even though I'd much rather sleep. I still don't have a functional desk at school and that is a whole story in itself. One of the key lessons I am implementing this semester: learning to say no or leave things with grace. I look forward to time, the occasional cup of tea, the fragrance of incense from far away, the not-so-gentle sounds of Netflix in the background, just life which is not a blur. I talk about the future with everyone but who knows what is coming. Only the winters are certain. Here is some bric-a-brac from across the world.

Dragonflies from Vietnam

Back (to the real world)

I am back in Minneapolis. Nowhere close to being settled, still have to shift houses and giant mattress that is the stuff my nightmares are made of. But I am back. It was a long, arduous journey, with stopovers at Frankfurt (reasonable) and Newark (delayed by 2-3 hours in addition to the 3 hour wait time. I had no watch or access to time and couldn't really tell. Which I think was for the best). It was a miserable trip, full of being sick and itchy-twitchy, hacking my lungs out and sneezing, and hallucinating. But who wants to hear about that. Or the fact that I love the world a little less after being in transit for 40 hours. Let me tell you about some of the other fun highlights:

Scored lots of free Internet at the Delhi airport by using sibling and sibling's friends phone numbers. Feel little guilty about extra customer representative calls they will get but since I was checked-in 3 hours in advance, needed some entertainment.

***

Leaving and arriving

This one is about 'feelings' so you are warned in advance! Specifically about home and homesickness. I wrote this a while back and while I am right now in Vietnam, it still holds true!

There is nothing new or unique about the loss and longing associated with leaving home. It has existed since forever and has been captured in beautiful words and images by authors and artists alike. Some of my favorite books are those about the experiences of those who left or were immigrants (one that just popped into my head was The Prayer Room). If you are reading this, you perhaps already know that I left (a suburb of) Delhi to move to Minneapolis to study last year. It wasn't the first time I was traveling, it wasn't the first time I was going to the States but it was the first time I was going to live away from home and in the Midwest. I think I was as prepared as I could be but it was still a hard, tough first semester in so many ways. I have spent the months after thinking about it, wondering what I could have done to make it better for myself and can I make it better for someone else. I have tried to decode how much of my experience was because of who I am, in terms of character traits, being an international student, being brown (:)) and my gender and how much of it just a rite of passage that any move will always involve. It interests me tremendously and is one of my favorite topics to talk (ad nauseam).

3, 2, 1..

I am three days away from leaving and it has been an intense week. The last of the papers and projects have been submitted and the semester is finally over! I am not quite packed yet but I will get there (because I have faith in my packing list, I do). I do feel sad that just as it is turning sunny in Minneapolis, I am leaving, but oh well.

I wish I had a nice paperback to read along the way. I will be carrying my Kindle and plan to download ebooks (especially books by Scott Fitzgerald which I had been reading before the semester got a little crazy). I also don't have a Lonely Planet Vietnam - perhaps I should get one. I do have a few magazines, including ones in Spanish that friends have lent me (the Spanish ones for me to improve my very poor Spanish beyond quiero hablar Espanol :)). 

I will have two days in Ho Chi Minh city and I am excited about that. I also feel lucky to have met or spoken with people (many students on campus) who are from Vietnam or have lived there for a while and have given us lots of tips. 

From what I have been told about Hue, where we are going, was the old capital of the kingdom, it is famous for its food and it is a popular tourist destination. I think where we are staying is in the old kingdom/palace area and I am looking forward to exploring. I am also getting more and more excited about the work we are going to do: this is going to be a new experience for me!

On that note, I am going to head out to enjoy my last days in Minneapolis for the summer!

Start!

I leave for Vietnam in less than a week; I will be there for two and a half months. I really should start packing. I have no local currency but I have an emergency jar of Nutella. This is going to be a hell of an experience and I can feel the excitement building!