Hello again!

Hello everybody!

Sorry for my long absence. I’m just back from a trip to Chennai and Mysore and, having finished an exercise in Chemistry to inaugurate the five-month study marathon that I’ve launched for myself, I decided to post (finally) something on my blog.

I was in Chennai mainly to spend time with my grandfather, who is in hospital there. He broke his hip a while ago, and went into coma while in treatment. It just went downhill from there. His lungs failed, he caught an infection in the blood, and all sorts of other things. Anyway, he’s on his way to recovering fully. I’d like to think it has something to do with our presence.

I also had the opportunity to catch up with some of my Lawrence friends, which was super fun! There’s a really nice shop in Chennai called Amethyst, and they have an equally pleasant café. There we discussed all the old gossip, all the old people and all the memorable times we’d shared over steaming lattes!

Christmas was also spent in Chennai, with Christian friends of ours. It was great! We had carol singing, a lovely tree, presents, and an amazing Christmas dinner.

But the weather in Chennai is so damn uncooperative! It was blazingly hot and I was just wilting with lethargy. I got no work done despite powerful spasms of tension. Mysore was better that way. Our house there is one that I’m very fond of, and peace combined with the cooler clime made working easier. The most important thing is that I managed to get all my applications out on time! I took much longer than I anticipated. I was working on them for three consecutive days, literally from morning to evening, before I thought them fit to send of. It would have looked like quite a charade to any outside observer! There was no Internet at home, so I used to go to my dad’s office, and all the employees would be working voluntary overtime because the boss’s son just wouldn’t go home! It was terribly embarrassing, but there was nothing that I could do. My college counsellor was holidaying in Tuscany, and given the time difference, all my frantic calls had to be made in the late afternoon/ evening…

However, I was able to do my French at my own pace, and thoroughly enjoyed learning two new tenses and new vocabulary. I also spent some fun time going through my Chemistry book.

Now I need to get down to doing English, Business, Physics and Math, subjects that I have a somewhat diminutive tolerance for. I know, I know, you’re wondering why English…it’s just that my new English teacher is so infuriatingly knowledgeable that discussion during English class is virtually non-existent, his responses to arguments and so intimidatingly condescending, and the grades that he gives people are so crushingly discouraging that one ends up very forlorn.

But needs must be met! To work.