City of Mangalore :)

So I’m in the city of Mangalore. Wow. I have officially signed up for all 3 of my classes nad I am taking: Indian Social Problems, Community Organization & Dev. and Weaker Sections of Indian Society. I’ve been to a few classes so far and they seem really interesting. In my weaker section class we are learning about the Indian Constitution which I never thought would interest me but we are talking about certain articles which pertain to social work such as one which says that untouchabiltiy is prohibited and one that says that child labour in hazardous places is not allowed for children under the age of 14 nad bonded labour is not allowed. Their semester started Decemeber first and so we have some catching up to do in all of our classes however Robert and Joselyn, the 2 main guys in charge of us, say that their semesters start out much slower since Christmas falls near the end of it. Somehow that is supposed to make sense. I don’t really understand because if I’d missed 2-3 weeks at the beginning of the semester and then 2 more weeks in January, I’d be a mess and it’d take me forever to catch up. These guys claim that we’re gonna be just fine. I’m taking their word on it. I know I have a presentation and paper to write for my Weaker Sections class and a paper for my Community class but other than that I think we mainly just have to catch up on lecture notes. That is what I plan on doing next. My field placement is still not finalized but I think I will be working at a school for at least part of my 15 hours/week but I’m not sure about the other half yet.
I am adjusting to everything fairly well thus far I think and I’m glad that by next week we should have some sort of schedule going. The food is not getting less spicy but my tongue is either losing taste buds, using ones that have not been used except to find out that I couldn’t handle spicy stuff before or both. Somehow though, the food is getting better and my mouth is getting more used to it all. Also living in a city is easier. The noise was never a problem because I can sleep through a lot. My housemates all talk about the yapping dogs in the night but I have yet to hear them. Also horns beep here more than any other place I’ve been too-all day and night long. It makes a nice melody. We are becoming regulars at a little shop across the street from us where we often go for tea, the Clay Oven, a nice restaurant near our house and Grace’s Ice Cream Shop, right near the school. We’ve decided we want to become regulars at a few places so that they can help us out if we ever need it and because it’s nice to have a place where they know you and whatnot. The shop across the street is funny though because it’s called a Juice nad Ice Cream parlour and so silly us ,went to get ice cream there the other night and they said they only have meals and tea. What?! Hahaha yeah, we asked a few times and we have yet to figure out if they actually have ice cream and just couldn’t understand us or if they really don’t have ice cream.
The city is smaller and so it’s easier for me to get around but it’s still a city and I’m still a country girl. Guys and girls as well, stare at us a lot because we are the only white people around here-I think I’ve seen maybe 10 other white people in this city besides us, in the last 10 days. Also the other part we’re getting used to is our electricity and water in our flat. They both go off alllllll the time at our house. Seriously, all the time. But I always feel very spoiled when I think about how inconvenient it is because there are a lot of people without it at all or who don’t have air conditioning at all. It puts things into perspective.
Anyways, tomorrow we have 1-2 classes and we are visiting one more school that I may go to for field placement and then I think we may also go to a nearby stadium by bus (first experience on a crazy Indian bus) and check out the track. Then Thursday is a holiday so no classes! We are going to the movies in the morning I think and then some cultural event at night that we are supposed to attend. Friday and Saturday might be field placement depending on whether or not I have finalized it yet. We’ll see. I hope you all are having beautiful snow-filled days….one of those sounds really good right now…today I had 2 chocolate milkshakes to help get cold….hahaha and maybe to get my chocolate and calcium fix :) Love you all!