MS #2.5 sent off for internal review

Another month has gone by. Things are slowly settling down. TM loves preschool (hers is called a nursery, actually), which is a big relief for me. They have pony rides on Tuesdays, lucky kid, and she takes a van to get there, which she also loves since they ride through villages and sing all kinds of songs as they go. I wish I could go too so I could learn how in the world they keep those kids under control in the car. I’d go crazy!

I just sent a manuscript draft to my committee! I’ve been working on this one for at least 2 years, and intensively for about the last year. Talk about taking the turtle and not the hare philosophy. But when you only have 3-5hrs/day and about 1wk/mo is taken up with TM being sick, and when you’ve moved twice, slow and steady is the only way. Here’s hoping! Only two manuscripts to go, by my count. Can I do that in a year? Sure depends, doesn’t it?

We’re loving our apartment. So far we have furniture, we have a phone, we have internet, we have a car (!!!!) and a driver and a cook who comes and cooks dinner for us, and a 3hr/day cleaning lady, AND a dryer (hooray!). I think all we’re missing is some curtains, dresser-drawers, and time to go through the boxes of old papers in the guest bedroom, and time to organize and update our filing system (heavy sigh).

I’ve offered my services as a collector to various people, since I know how hard it is to get samples of things from overseas. So I’ve been hunting liverworts, which is lots of fun. I considered shipping things under pseudonyms (i.e. “art supplies”), but my conscience is awfully persistent (it’s not loud, but it doesn’t shut up, either), so now I’m going to see how easy it is to ship seeds and liverworts back to the US. The US-side of plant shipments is pretty easy. The real trick will be the cane rat… Hmm… I emailed a fellow in Oregon who’s supposed to do that sort of thing, but I haven’t heard from him, so I’ll have to try to call APHIS sometime during US daytime. And what about the India side of things? No idea. But it’s worth a try, right? If I can’t get anything through going the legal route, then I’ll see what alterations I can make to my plans. Sigh.

What else… one of our neighbors has a 3-yr old daughter who gets along with TM pretty well, which is lovely. They play almost every afternoon, hooray! And the neighbor is really nice to talk to. She’s from Belgium and did a Master’s thesis in business something-or-other, so has a little idea of the headaches of writing. Most other people haven’t a clue, they simply assume I’m unsocial (I think they assume that but they didn’t really TELL me that… heh heh heh). They don’t understand that when Maya goes to school, I hit the books like mad. Do I feel a little guilty for not doing the social thing? Yuppers, especially when it’s such a big thing to do, like it is here. But hey.

It’s late at night, so my brain’s not up to par, but at least I got another post written.

Our Own Apartment, Bangalore

We finally got internet! It's mid-July and we still don't have enough furniture, though our apartment is comfortable enough. We just need more bookcases. And a bigger kitchen table, and chairs, and some chests of drawers. But since we had little furniture in the US, now we have to get it all here, and shopping is not easy. I always wondered why my mother-in-law seemed a big possessive of the gifts she gave me since many of them were so inexpensive. Now I know. Just going out to find something you want can be an all-day expedition, unless you know what it is and you are sure that the store you are going to has it. Things may be materially inexpensive, but the work that goes into finding them, well...

Our apartment complex is very nice, though the road leading to it is full of potholes. At least you don't have to drive through a slum to get here, like another complex we visited. And a slum here is probably different than a slum in the US -- here the really poor people live in corrugated tin huts with no running water or toilets, with open sewer, packs of wild dogs, etc. My guess is that the slightly less poor live in the homemade brick huts I see sometimes. In some of the fields we drive by there are tents of tarps or plastic covered with palm leaves, obviously used as housing for either farm hands or construction workers.

Despite the often horrendously filthy living conditions, most people make a supreme effort to maintain bodily cleanliness. Even homeless people wash every morning and I've seen very few beards anywhere.

With the help of a neighbor, we found a wonderful cook who comes for about 2hrs/day and cooks up the most wonderful meals. Food is super cheap, by the way. And we have a girl who comes and cleans for about 3hrs/day doing sweeping, mopping, cleaning cleaning cleaning especially in the kitchen where I think the old tenants didn't do a great job of cleaning so we're doing double duty.

People say it's really dusty here, but I think it's just that the floors are tile and if there's any dirt at all, it shows. I prefer that, since with TM's asthma it's better to know when things are dirty. :).
We don't have curtains yet, either. I have some quick-n-dirty ones I'd made in Oregon that I hung up, but I need to buy new ones. I don't know when I'll find the time for that, but hopefully in the next couple months. We found a daycare for TM and she's currently getting used to it -- more on that later, I hope.

Meanwhile, airline prices have risen so much that I can't go to the conference I wanted to present at in August, so I need to put together a bunch of slides for my prof so he can take care of my presentation for me. Oh my, I forgot I need to cancel. And I still have bills that need paying...I thought I paid them, but my aunt in California just sent me some more, so I'll have to find out how to follow up on them.

Mosquitos... everyone closes their doors around dusk because it's mosquito time. Yup. Ick. And of course they carry all kinds of diseases. The apartment people spray for mosquitos every day or every other day, which I'm not super happy with, but I guess it's easier than dealing with hordes of hungry bugs. Ick. Luckily the apartments here all have screens on windows and porch doors. But the screens aren't tight, so mosquitos still get through, which makes me laugh since it seems like it would be a simple thing to put a brush on the screen that would make it tight against the frame... oh well.

TM will probably be getting up soon and all I'll have done is talk to the cook, figure out our insurance, and look for bills. Oh well. Things are slowly getting better, as I knew they would, but it'll still take another 6 months or so I imagine for us to be settled. We still need a car... okay, I'm done for now :).