Queen of the space cadets.

So, there's this problem I've struggled with for most of my life; maybe it's because I'm indecisive, maybe it's because I'm an only child.  I don't know, but the issue is: being really excited about something for a period of time, and then getting bored and dropping it.  Or doing it less frequently.  Since I was 4 years old, I've been involved in each of the following for about a year or less: figure skating (both ice and on roller skates), ballet, tap-dancing, basketball, cheer leading, track and gymnastics.  Rollerblading, swimming and instrument playing have managed to be the only things I continued to do after a period of lesson-taking.  Oh, and writing, but even that comes and goes.  That being said, I feel this blog has fallen into the former category. 

I really like writing about what I'm doing here, but at the same time, my social life is soaring.  Surprised? Ha, probably not.  Part of moving to a new place is making new friends and striving to form new bonds.  To do so requires a great deal of present-mindedness.  I'm currently struggling with finding some sort of balance between making time for myself to be blogging, journaling and keeping up with emails while at the same time be present in my time here in India and hang out with people and learn about their lives and try and experience new things.  Ahh.  Living in community is awesome, but finding time to be alone is pretty hard. 

Even when you go to the bathroom, there is likely someone in the next stall doing the same thing.  Booyah.  As of late I haven't actually even been sleeping in my own hut.  The ants have officially driven me crazy!  There's this woman here who returned to be a long-termer after a brief hiatus named Jaspreet who is totally amazing; she's my brown other half!  Last week I was telling her about how stressed I was about the ants in my clothes and the ants on my bed and she's just like "Why don't you move?" Her place seemed so cozy and lovely in regards to the stress that I felt when I went to my own hut.  So I stayed in the extra bed in her hut for a  night. Which turned into many nights, until...

Jamey, the guy who used to run the show here at SF, left yesterday to take a vacation, then head to help with the SF Haiti project for a year.  I jumped right on the opportunity to have an ant-free hut and I moved into his old hut this morning.  It's really nice and has an outdoor shower downstairs, along with a double-wide hammock and hammock chair: amazing!  I love it!  It already feels more home-like than my last hut and I haven't seen a single red/black ant yet.  Though I did see a black ant (they're harmless) carrying a red/black ant, hopefully off to eat him and show him who's boss.  I think the black ants are on my side at my new pad.

Aside from that, things have pretty laid back: I haven’t worn a bra in days.  Maybe even weeks.  I don't know how I'm ever going to get another job. I can roll in early in the morning with nappy hair, pajama shorts and a tank top, sans bra, and nobody even flinches. Even bathing is optional. I washed my hair for the first time in 3 weeks. Eww. I was even starting to get grossed out about that one.  I would get it wet by swimming or going to the mud pool, even showering.  Washing my body isn't a problem, but there are no eco-friendly, biodegradable conditioners available around these parts, so I shouldn't even bother washing it or it'll be like Don King hair.  Seriously.  It is now. LOL.

At the end of last week I was really feeling like I needed some sort of change in my life here. I think washing my hair was a good change to help me feel like less of a scrub. But it was hardly what I really needed.  I've been struggling with boredom of the same old thing, already.  I miss all the action of Chicago.  As nice as Auroville is, it's pretty small.  

I'm even getting quite bored with the food.  Despite being a travel blog, the only traveling I'm actually doing these days is in pursuit of  food.  Typical.  I’m trying to only eat one meal away from SF per day.  I get free food here, there shouldn’t be any reason to leave, right? 

Wrong.  Some days the kitchen is on it and some days the kitchen is flipped over on the side of the road, smoking.  Since the shifts change each week for sous chef (the meal planner/organizer/preparer), so does the food and how well it’s put together.  Right now, we have a former vegan raw-food chef staying here, so each meal she’s in charge of is ON.  I always look forward to seeing her smiling face in the kitchen because we’re guaranteed something pretty tasty.  Like beet salad with peanuts, or rice with vanilla and cinnamon, or pumpkin soup with cumin and other tasty spices.  That was last night. Meow.

Also, I've eaten like, too much ice cream and pizza.  I'm over Western food.  This week I made it a priority to eat just Indian food.  It's working pretty well, and it's so much cheaper!  Even cheaper, rather.

Some other priorities this week: starting to more consistently do my yoga self-practice, challenging myself to be in the company of women more often and trying to spend more time with people that are challenging to interact with.  Making these things priorities has really helped me to feel less bored this week. Oh, and I checked the local Auroville newsletter that goes out once a week to see what things are going on in town this weekend.  E.T. is playing tomorrow at 2pm: we're totally going! 

Jaspreet and I are super stoked!  She's also been feeling the bored blues.  Not bored with each other, just Sadhana and Auroville.  The two of us are actually super lucky to have found each other here.  We get along like a house on fire.  I think we burned it down, lol. She's from Texas, yeehaw!  We already finish each other's sentences... And we work in the office together.  It's to the point where we are called "Danpreet." Emails for us aer labeled this way, Aviram addresses things for us to work on this way, people walking past our huts at night holler for us this way; it's rather comical.  Or if we're with Diva: Danpreeva.  It's good to have friends:)

Don't worry friends back home, I miss you plenty.  Each day I set aside time to think about home and what foods I plan to eat and what I'm excited to do with whom when I return.  Anyone want to take a road-trip across the country for a few weeks?  I've actually never gone west in a car further than Chicago, so I think it might be something a few of you should think about.  Get back to me on that.

For further excitement here this week, we had some gnarly thunderstorms last weekend and we spent half the week without power because lightning struck our power inverter.  They were literally some of the scariest of my life, but that might solely be because they were at night (3 nights in a row) and I live in an extremely flammable structure without a real roof.  I actually convinced myself that it might blow over with us in it.  Thunder is much louder and lightning seems more powerful when you're outside with it; I could feel the lightning, the storms seemed so close, and moved so slowly!  Each storm lasted like 10 hours, it was so wild!  It normally is dry here from January through July, thus these were unanticipated, severe storms.  There was probably a tornado watch.  Speaking of tornadoes, I heard there were some pretty deadly ones that moved across the southeast this week: scary and devastating :( 

For happier news, we had a dance party in honor of Jamey's leaving and afterwards we walked through the forest to the mudpool, in the mud, for some moonlight swimming to cool down and rinse off all the sweat. The mudpool has been shrinking away for the past few months, but now it's back to being really deep, you can actually swim in it, not just lay around in the mud with a little water covering you.  It was pretty magical.  Except I blew out my flip-flop.  Yeah, bummer!  I only have one pair, so I have been wearing my sneakers every day since. Eh. Or finding some around the main hut and wearing them to the bathroom, hehe, shhhh.

I want to say so much, but I feel like "blogging" tends to have a shorter length attached with it.  What I want to do now is more related to "noveling" haha.  Once I start, I get into it and don't want to stop.  Alas, "I have promises to keep..." In the meantime, enjoy some photos of Sadhana that I've been meaning to post for some time, think of it as a walking tour of some of the highlights here on the compound:

 This is the area where all the long-timer huts are, fondly referred to as "The Ewok Village."

 This is Paramol, our nighttime security guard.  We are buds.  He always tries to get into pictures with me.

 This is the main hut.  We spend lots of time here.  See that top area?  That's where the office is...

 This is a sign for the toilet, the other kind of office.

 This is the toilet: the long skinny part is where you pee, the big round part is where you poo.

 "Poo here." Self-explanatory.

 A nice, green walkway.  There are hundreds of these here at Sadhana.

 The Healing Hut, a place I grew very fond of in my first days at SF.

 Here's a bed in the Healing Hut, complete with a bed-side sick bin. Definitely used that when I was there.

 

 A simple hand-washing station.  We have no running water so this is cheap technology to use less water: yayy!

 The solar garden.

My new favorite fruit: the jack-fruit.  These things are bigger than basketballs and aren't even ripe yet.  I love them!

 I had no idea this is how pineapples grow.  Each plant only produces one fruit.  We are growing many here.

 Our super-snazzy above ground swimming pool.  It's about 3 feet deep. Fun fun fun.

Diva and I on a tour-bus to the MatriMandir.  We are happy:)