YEARS IN THE MAKING?

As a young kid, I have memories of almost dreading dinner time. I love eating and I love my family so it was not the food or the fellowship that soured my soul. It was the manners. My dear mother had her work cut out for her when it came to me and my eating habits. I would argue that I wasn’t the most slovenly person around the dinner table, but clearly my manners were not up to my mother’s standards. She was bound and determined to make a lady out of me. I don’t really remember a dinner with my mom where she wasn’t giving me discrete (or not so discrete) visual and verbal cues to sit straighter, lift my hand higher, chew quieter, or sit farther away from the table, or (my personal favorite) to stop playing with my food. Every time she would flash me a signal I would think, “Shoot dang! I really should remember this by now. Why can’t I have one dinner where I get it right?” Perhaps I was taking the “Einstein approach” by not committing to memory the information that is readily available. I knew her commands would haunt me at any dinner table, so why bother actually learning to follow them without cues. Regardless of the reason, dinners were a challenge for me.

PREPARING... AND ALL THAT IMPLIES.

Happy New Year!

Count down to departure: 1 day

I have little to report regarding my imminent adventure, so I thought I would take this time to write about the mundane details of preparing for this trip. I imagine a post of this nature will put most to sleep, but there may be a few students who will be interested in knowing the minutia so they can plan their own trip. With that being said, this post will likely be long and boring.

BEGINNING... FIVE YEARS AGO.

Where do you start when you are not exactly sure where the beginning is?

In four days, I will “set sail” for a ninety-nine day adventure in Southern India. This will not be my first voyage to India. In January of 2008, I spent two weeks in Northern India skipping from Kolkata to Jaipur to small villages in West Bengal. I suppose that trip could be marked as “The Beginning.” The Beginning of my interest in the Indian culture. The Beginning of my desire to return to India and serve.