I was looking forward to Indian Society (anthropology class) today, kindof because of the material, but mostly because I was excited to see everone in it. Although I'm having a difficult time memorizing everyone's name (Golind, Srivinar, Womshe, Nagaraju, Sneha, Meeshra), we've already all become good friends; after class we went to the canteen to have chai. Sneha called it a "party." They also call the weekends "holidays." After discussing where we've all come from and laughing at Amanda and I trying to speak Hindi (they love it when we try), we decided to meet at the library later to look for our books.

Although we do have a list of books to read, finding them is an entirely different and difficult matter. (Getting a book list may or may not be easy...in one class the professor gave a student in the front one syllibus; we were to photocopy it if we wanted it). You can get call numbers off of the library website by inputing book information, but the book list information is not always complete and sometimes the first and last names are reversed. Even if you have the right information, the library may or may not have it. If you're able to get a call number and find the section of library where it is supposed to be located, the book may or may not be there. If it is, you may or may not want to photocopy it. I don't really know yet if you can check books out...even if you can there are other students who need to use it. I'm really going to have to get over my fear of libraries if I'm to work this system.

So I went to the library but could only find Meshra. I asked him if he knew where any of the others were. *Emmits* "What?" *Emmits! You remember from class?* "...um...Em-iss?" *Yes, Emmits, girl, you know* "...what?" *EMMITS* "...Amanda?" *YES, Emmits!* "Oh, yeah, Amanda" *Emmits* "Am-an-da" *Yes, Emmits, you know?* "Do I know where she is?" *Yes, you know?* "No, do you know where anyone else is?" *No* "Oh, ok." I guess I'm not the only one having trouble pronouncing people's names.

We then started talking about Hindi. I had asked him how to say a word with a "d" sound like 'Duh.' "So how do you say this?" *It begins with duh, you know, like in the word 'duh'* He wrote the word 'the' on a piece of paper. *Duh* "The?" *Yes, duh* "Duh?" *Yes, like in 'dair', how you say 'dair'* He wrote the word 'there' on the paper. *dair* "there?" *Yes, dair* "dair." *yes, good.*

As a side topic, there have been recent terrorist attacks on two Indian cities. On Saturday, Bangalore suffered several deaths; the next day in Ahmenabad, 49 people were killed in a series of 13 bomb blasts in public areas. I'm not quite sure what the whole story is, although I heard from a student that he thought conservative party members were responsible because they wanted to destablilize the current situation to gain popularity in upcoming elections. Whether or not this is true, all accounts I've heard have claimed that Hindus are the logical targets of these attacks. Although Westerners are not the aim here, that doesn't mean that anyone isn't at risk especially in public areas, so CIEE cancelled the excursions we had planned for the weekend and advised that we stay on campus.

Oh lunch was so good today. There was this delicious eggplant dish that was perfect for scooping with naan. Also there was guava fruit and daal, and to top it all off, those fried balls of dough soaked in honey. Eventually I'll stop eating at the guest house and start eating on campus like the rest of the students at the university, but it's times like these that I'm glad I'm still eating with the other SIP students :)