The Habit of Blogging

The Kitchen Where Magic Happened Once
(Means there was ONE cooked meal)

These are the potatoes we bought for food. Which we never cooked and by the time of this photo still looks delectably available for cooking and consumption. This photo was taken 2 days ago.

This is my first attempt at washing my own underwear here. It was a phenomenal success which I am more than happy to report. It was embarrassing though, cause I hung them up without wringing them dry (I kinda am not used to this), and they were dripping all over the floor, and Leigh comes along to hang her stuff and she mentions it, and immediately I'm like: "Oh no, I'm just lazy to wring it... maybe I should ah..." It was so embarrassing.

As you might have read from my comrade Nuria's blog, that's Romain (pronounced by him as Ho-mar, but his compatriot Marine calls him Roma, so I don't know) the French exchange student who brought us to town the other day and opened our eyes to the International Language of Bargaining. Or more specifically, bargaining like an Indian. He showed me the shop with the SGD76 for 3 tailor-made shirts. He's hilarious when he's doing his impressions.

The Indian Kite festival of Makar Sankranti will happen on Monday, the 14th of January 2008. I have no idea what to expect, I have not googled it to learn more about it, I think I make a terrible world-traveller, I can't seem to find it in me to be keen on discovering someone else's culture with the hunger that others seem to have. I just go along with anything and if I learn something then it's all fine and good. I should be more proactive in seeking conversation with the people here to learn more.

What I love most about India? The Colours. I know everyone says that oh this place is nice, it's very colourful and what-not, and I never understood what's the fascination with colour, isn't colour just colour anywhere in the world? How can it be a reasonable remark to say that something is colourful? Isn't it just visuals you can get anywhere? But while taking photos at all the places I've been to since landing in India, I've come to learn the meaning of that statement. This is truly a colourful nation, the woman work the fields/construction sites in saris that are a palette of riot colours, the men sit on scooters of the brightest turquoise, or whatever colour, but everywhere you turn, you see something striking and yet naturally a part of the social landscape. It's a fantastical feeling to have your retinas constantly assailed by colour.

Silveroak Room 114 is HQ till June

This is Silveroak International Hostel on campus here at MICA. The exchange students live here, along with the Crafting Creative Communications' students - who are sorta like a different faculty of people here on MICA.

This is the interior of my room the one with the bags is The Sofa for people to sit on and for me to throw dirty clothes cause I'm lazy, the plastic bag contains the laundry.

The table with the computer is my workstation here, the other table is for papers and toiletries. The other bed is where I sleep. My windows overlook the cricket pitch, but I rarely open the windows now. Although I think I might do that more often soon.

This is how I hang the towel to dry in my room, that's the wardrobe, clothes on the top, underwear in the cupboards (why you need to know this I'll never know), socks in another drawer, and bags on the floor. Shoes are stored in the lowest drawer.

On the second evening here we discovered that there was a bell hung just above the door, and the inscriptions on the side seem to suggest that these are CHINESE bells. I have yet to check with the French students whether their rooms have been ethnically customised for them as well, or if this is a feature of all the rooms.

About 3 days ago we celebrated Melanie's 24th Birthday in her room and in typical MICA-style, with a bucket of cold water (no not ice from beer or anything alcoholic) and a creamy cake. There was music, there were drinks and there was good company.

Melanie (?) is one of the French exchange students. She was nice enough to invite us over, and we being Singaporean Chinese people just bunched up and stood in a corner politely waiting for the cake to be cut. Then we walked over to another hostel block to let them empty the bucket of water on her. On a bitterly cold night. We went back to her room, Bertrand (I have no idea how Bert-on is supposed to be spelt, so I'm making it up) brought over his laptop and speakers, and we had music in the room. He's into Daft Punk, RHCP and electro (their term, not ours).

Things to remember about that night:
1. Kash swigging from the bottle and thereafter getting a little tipsy (understatement)
2. Romain's ideas about getting me to date Leigh and vice versa
3. The French students' accounts of their perilous first 3 months

That's All For Now,
Erwin Nah