OLD MAN

Friday the 29th is Matt's birthday. He'll be 38. Happy Birthday CF.

yep, he definitely looks old

India

Here are some more photos. Sorry, I've been a bit lazy with those promised emails--a girl gets busy! Well, for a brief details to go with the pics; These are just some shots of the kids at the school. There is a small admin building, recreational/kitchen facility, dorms, a schoolhouse, and a cricket field. This is for the college and the childrens home. I took some of these during playtime after school, when they get to change out of their uniforms and run around in the red dirt. Of course, a few kids will latch onto you at the beginning, rather claiming you as theirs for the week--so I have a few more pictures of "my girls" than the rest. I don't think my low res CD scans do a lot of justice to them...but anyhow, here they are.

Vijaya after school in her favorite (and only) dress. She and I got along because we have the same "super baby cut" haircut, according to her

buddies after school in their new recreation room

hanging all her laundry (one shirt)

Vijaya and her beads

the kitchen on campus

next door--look, another temple

Matt learning how to play a proper cricket game

matt getting attacked by vicious indians

raw sewage flowing through the streets like the river of life--yum

siamese twins?

Some girls after school--the two in the middle are my friends Dhanalaxmi and Vijaya

Dear Joe and Gigi, this is a ransom note...

Dear Public Restroom Users Everywhere....

public restroom etiquette 101: If one walks into a restroom which is host to more than 3 stalls, especially those containing up to 15 (BCC women's restroom building R, for example), and there is only 1 other person in the ENTIRE bathroom facility, use your common sense!!! DO NOT take the stall DIRECTLY next to an occupied stall. That's why there are many, so that during bathroom rush down time, you can pee in peace in a stall of your own. Leave me alone. Please tell me why anyone would want to come into a many stalled bathroom, find the only stall that's occupied, take the one right next to it, and then sit silently for many minutes? Or make weird noises (civica office commons bathroom lady, what ARE you doing? It sounds like you're tearing up all the seat covers for 5 straight minutes, or running a marathon, or shuffling your Payless flats, or marching in place--what the heck?) while sitting directly next to someone else? Why do you want to create awkwardness? Why do you sit there waiting for the other person to leave before you feel comfortable enough to pee when you can just move 4 stalls down? WHY? Every time, everyday. Why. Get some common sense and stop bothering me with your highly personal habits. I don't know you that well, and I don't want to. You ruin my day.

As we look over our subject, Frances', brain, you will notice an extremely well developed, uh, prefrontal cortex. In fact, we have reason to believe that it is one of the more developed of our webmaster's friends and family. Our proof for this is the extraordinary ability to remember Danelle's birthday. In fact, we may deduct that this is true because it was seemingly one of the few unpromted cases of this encountered. It was further augmented by the sending of a "birthday care package" consisting of many goodies--some of which looked as thought they were kicked in by the post master, much to the recipients disappointment. However, the small chunks were, when thoroughly tested, quite tasty. Thus we conclude from our study, fran gets a gold star. (thanks frannie)
(other notable stars include but are not limited to: other friends and fam, thanks guys:)

reflection of me before i lept from the speeding train. p.s.--i cant write a real post till some things get fixed, hopefully soon

yep, there it is again (i write these from bottom to top)

Dragonfly in Singapore

Our pastor Mike hanging out the side of the train while its moving--much faster than it actually looks!

The pictures that follow are from my birthday

he got stuck

Dungeness Spit

how

"oooh, he looks good..."

Matt looking way to content to be stuffed in a little cement block at Fort Warden

Sunset

port angeles, my birthday....(aka--a washington beach)

India

There is a post a few photos down that goes with these new pics...

Arjuna's apartment

The children begging for food (these were all taken with a little disposable camera, which i sort of had to hide and snap from the waist with)

a woman with a disease, begging at the station (as per mention in previous email)see hands...

kids at the train station begging for food at our taxi

The view from our hotel room!

our driver, keiran

Arjuna

and our bus

Our bling rides, yo

More, a little, India

So, only a bit cuz I'm tired tonight. I ditched my first 2 days of school, so I had to catch up!
So, we finally arrived in Visag (Vishakapatnum) late at night--whatever time it was I have no idea, our clocks were upside down. Keiran and some of the other drivers picked us up and drove us back to our hotel, which turned out to be quite nice! Though, anything at that point would have been good as long as it involved sleep. Arjuna set us up in the hotel, which was also right across the street from the ocean(Bay of Bengal).
Did I mention who arjuna is? If you click in the Vision Nationals link to the right, you can read about his ministry. He runs the program, which is a Bible college to teach and equip native pastors to plant churches throughout the Hindu dominated country. It is also a children's home for orphaned children, or for children whose families cannot care for them--because they live in little palm huts on the roadside.
Arjuna and his wife Raji are very good friends of our pastor, and studied in the US. They are excellent hosts and amazing people. It is amazing to see what God has done through his ministry, starting from little shacks where kids slept on the floors, to beautiful buildings, which include real beds for the children (the first they've ever slept in).
Well, I intended to write more, but I can't keep my eyes open, so I'll just include some pics below to illustrate said characters!

I START SCHOOL TOMORROW

:(

My birthday weekend

This weekend Matt and I stole away to Port Angeles (well, matt stole me away as a surprise). We took the long way there, all the way around the sound. One of my favorite things to do is to take road trips to places ive never been, and so matt happily obliged me. We drove along the water, through a lot of small Native towns. Too bad neither of us like seafood, as this would have been a great oppertunity to snag the cheap, fresh seafood and smoked salmon. Though, we were just as content to read the crazy signs of the fireworks stands as we drove by. Though, much to Matt's diappointment, the name of his future rap group was stolen by one of the stands--"Ill Eagle."
Port Angeles is beautiful. The rain cleared up finally, as well as the traffic around Hood Canal due to the remains of a bad accident. We got to see several overturned cars, and a man crying and holding his dog on the side of the road. It was sad.
P. A. is great cuz its right on the ocean, with the mountains only a couple hundred yards away, if that. We tried to go hike up to hurricane ridge, but the roads were closed for winter. We drove though part of Fort Warden, and ran around in the fort, but most of the rest of it was closed for winter as well.
Eventually we went ended up climbing down to the beautiful beach at Dungeness Spit (after taking the wrong trails and getting into stinging nettle). From the beach, you can see in the distance lots of deer, snowy mountains, and storms on the horizon. awww, how cute and romantic. And then we had a great Italian dinner. Ok, enough about my sappy weekend. It was fun, and Matt's great. pictures to follow in a few days.....

Its my birthday!

My Birthday!

For those who need a friendly reminder....SUNDAY is my BIRTHDAY!

from the train, going through the countryside

the local salon

A few more photos that go with the first email, ill try to keep sequencing them. This is one of the many roadside temples. I have almost all my pictures developed except for 3 rolls, one of which is from the train. so other than that, these should be following more of a sequence, with a couple of cute little kids thrown in!

Tsunami (a real dream, not a societal commentary!)

I find that when I travel abroad I always end up having the strangest dreams for a month or two afterward.
Last night I dreamt that I was down on the beach near my hotel in India. Me and some of my friends were playing in the sand with hundreds of other Indian people. Suddenly, we looked out to sea to find the tide receding quickly. It went out for hundreds of yards, leaving rocks and reefs exposed. People stopped and stared out to the horizon, confused. Someone shouted that there had been an earthquake, and now a second tsunami was coming. And then we saw a giant wave, 200 feet high. People began screaming and running in terror. I grabbed my friends and began to run, turning back to glance at the wave. I saw a girl in a red sari standing, casually eating an ice cream cone. I stopped and grabbed the edge of her dress and asked her why she wasn't running away from this certain death. She replied that she was sick of living in fear, sick of wondering when the next tsunami would hit, devastating the rest of her people. So she refused to believe the wave was coming. She sat down on a rock and continued eating her ice cream. I saw the wave envelop her, and I continued to run. I asked someone where to go to be safe, to live. He told me to go back to my hotel room on the 12th floor. We jumped from the ground to the 12th floor, into a window, and onto a bed. We all held hands and sat to watch the wave on our movie screen. So tragic, we thought. We should do something for those poor below us, being swallowed by that monster. But once safe, we didn't dare go back to save anyone. Instead, we watched contentedly. Until suddenly the wave swelled up to the 12th floor. We felt the building shake, and then sway back and forth. I clutched the hand of my best friend, and began to cry because I knew we were going to die. It was the kind of feeling that was so intense and so real, that I woke myself up in a panic.