4 days until Santa comes

Due to the nature of the schedule at Woodstock School, holidays are celebrated about a month in advance. Thanksgiving chapel was the end of October. Chirstmas chapel was the end of November. There's been a house on the top of the mountain with a Christmas tree decorated for well over a month. It's kind of nice, but it's all anti-climatic anyway. Thanksgiving without turkey? Christmas without a gathering of family bearing more and more children each year that I can no longer keep track of the baby names? No thank you.

The school year is coming to a close with four more days of teaching Junior School (senior school is in exam week). Then on Friday-Santa Breakfast! I hear this is a jolly time where the 6th graders dress up like elves and serve breakfast. The event is capped off with a visiting of Santa bearing gifts for all of the students. Then we are free until the 13th-staff banquet (which I am in charge of decorating for due to my judgment of error that put me on the staff social comittee) and finally, the closing staff meeting on the 14th.

After the final meeting, my friends and I are loading a taxi and getting the heck out of here. I imagine us singing Christmas carols or party rock the whole ride to Delhi, throwing up a peace sign, see ya later Mussoorie...

Our ventures will then proceed to Rajasthan, Goa, Mumbai, Malaysia, Cambodia, and finally Thailand before flying back to Calcutta in the end of January. Excited? What an understatement.

A reflection on the past semester is due, but I don't think I'm ready to chalk up the wins and loses of the year. I'll just try to make it through the next few days of junior school PE without the gym (due to exams) and wait for Santa to bring me something wonderful...

21 km of Indian Men

This past weekend, the Woodstock Running Team composing of 7 staff and 7 students took on the Delhi half marathon. We were a mix of Americans, Indians, Nepalese, Canadians, and a couple Germans-we were a running melting pot. I was pretty excited to experience what running a half marathon would be like in India. Luckily, there wasn’t a full marathon option because it was clear that training would not be a priority when I arrived at Woodstock School. My runs were few and far between, but I was really banking on the altitude and mountains to give me the upper hand.

From race packet pick-up to receiving my medal, the whole experience was better than I imagined. Things that are still interesting but are becoming less surprising is the separation of men and women. For example, we arrived at the race to find there were separate entrances for men and women. This is pretty common in India as you walk through a security scanner and get patted down immediately following when entering some malls, movie theaters, or tourist attractions. We get into the Nehru Stadium, and we made finding a bathroom our first priority. Next thing you know we are stumbling upon men and women segregated porta-potties. This would normally be a bad thing as men are much quicker, but when the ratio of men to women is about 10:1, this wasn’t the worst part of our day. Unfortunately, this being a race full of first-timers, the line did not move very quickly as people were unaware of the demand for bathrooms pre-race. As race time neared, the segregation ended, and I saw men in the women’s lines.

We entered the gate for the start and managed to find some more members of our group. I began to look around me to scope out the competition. It was clear that many of these people had never run 21 km before. I saw people carrying bags, wearing jeans, and simply looking unfit. There were obviously exceptions to this rule, but when people were walking before we got to the 1km marker sign, I knew I was in for a lot of weaving and dodging in the race.

The race was an out and back course, which made it exciting to look for my friends on the other side. I saw the leaders go by in a pack of Kenyans. Then there were some Indians, and before I knew it, I saw my friend Jay-probably the second white guy to pass by since the leaders. I was so happy for him, and I felt motivated. I began the race conservatively, but when I realized that I was in better shape than I thought, I started to switch gears.

The course was well marked, had an appropriate amount of water stations, and had entertainment as well-all things one would expect from a large city marathon. The thing that was the strangest was the people along the streets. I would call them fans, but the looks on their faces expressed otherwise. Most of the people on the streets would simply stare silently as thousands of runners passed by. There was some cheering now and then, but it was rare. Even when I would see my friends on the other side of the course heading the opposite direction of me, I’d let out a holler and felt like people thought I was an insane white lady.

I finished the race in 2:07. I was pretty happy with the time as I felt incredibly unprepared. The trouble is that now I think I should train for a full marathon because I wouldn’t have to work so hard. I should really look at it like, wow what an opportunity to succeed. Instead I see this as a way to complete marathons with minimal work.

someone funnier than me with a similar experience

http://katieverickson.blogspot.com/

Check out the blog of my fellow Badger and Indian roommate: Katie!

missing something

While Woodstock school has shown me lots of ups and downs since I arrived, I am finding myself becoming more satisfied each day. Since my arrival, I had plenty of, "what am I doing here?" moments. I didn't expect to adjust over night to living in India, but I think I pictured a much more dynamic and fulfilling life here.

I would never admit to be anything less than happy here because I know so many people thought coming here was crazy or just plain stupid. Maybe it was, but it's still too soon to say. I have a new emotion every hour about this place. Will I stay three years? Will I make it through the semester? Would I like a different job in the school more than my current one? Should I move to Thailand and get a real salary? Maybe America is calling me home?

I knew I'd miss my family and friends, sure. I just hoped that I would find such happiness here that I wouldn't be brought down by it. The trouble is that whenever I find myself struggling with adjusting, I think about my family. This creates a landslide of emotion. Now, I'm not just sad about the situation of my life, but I'm missing the people I love too.

What this place lacks in terms of making me truly happy is undetermined. I've talked about this up, down, in, out, and all around with Katie. There's just something that's not here that we had before. Perhaps, it's the stress of our first year teaching in a new country at a school unlike any school we have ever worked in or seen in action. Maybe it's the lack of freedom you feel in a country where you have to rely so heavily on others. It could be the suffocating environment of a boarding school in the mountains of India. We might be discovering that teaching isn't really our calling after all. Missing our families could be weighing us down so heavily that we can't make new families here. Maybe India isn't all we cracked it up to be...

Miss Shannon: My leg is paining. I'm feeling pukish.

This has been a crazy month. After quarter break, I was welcomed back to campus with parent/teacher conferences. Then immediately following that was the 1500 meter races, Interhouse, and Interschool Sports Day. It involved a lot of organized chaos for about three weeks of my life. Sports Day=Track and Field. I know what you might be thinking, "Shannon loves T&F, sounds awesome." I won't bore you with the nonsense that is sports at Woodstock school, but I'll just say that it was not the scene you're imagining.

After the final day of Interschool competition at the neighboring school, I was nothing short of relieved. This past week was Activity Week. The students head out on various adventures throughout the country. The older grades do hikes and such. I was paired up with the 4th graders. Our adventures entailed touring around Mussoorie and learning the history of the place. I was actually pretty excited about this assignment for several reasons.
1. No teaching for a week.
2. The 4th graders are awesome.
3. I would learn about the place I call home.
4. The 4th grade teacher is a ducks in a row kind of person, and I knew I had nothing to worry about.

I had a glorious time trekking around with the 4th graders. They are a very endearing group, but by the end of the week, I was ready for a 4th grade break. Highlights from the trip include: getting back to school and finding out the taxi we passed had pulled over so Rishabh could puke, seeing a stuffed tiger, riding the cable car in Mussoorie, a tour of the hotel Rokeby, and having students eat a smore mere minutes afrer discovering what a marshmallow was.

jumping off a train and landing at a wonder of the world

Quarter break was like waiting for Santa to come on Christmas morning. It couldn't come soon enough, and the odds were pretty good that you would get at least one thing you requested from Santa.

After a mild set back in the acquiring of our taxi, we were on our way. We were full of dreams and aspirations when we got to Dehradun to catch our train to Dehli.

I could not wait to get out of the Woodstock walls and head to the city. Despite getting to the train station and realizing half of the train was woodstock, I kept my hopes high. We did some mild street performing that involved me doing the worm on some dirty sidewalk with an audience of Indian men all for the sake of 10 rupees.

We boarded the train and started to situate ourselves for the journey. Then, as luck would have it, I realized I was actually seated next to a student. Luckily, he was not in a class of mine, nor would he ever be since he was a senior. This gave me hope that he would not pick up on the crazy that is my life when I'm not Miss Shannon.

We arrived in Dehli and with a combination of rickshaw and motorcycle got transported to our free accommodations. A friend of ours brother lives in Dehli and was generous enough to allow four crazy Americans to sleep on his floor. We crashed pretty quickly as our train to Agra was leaving around 6 am the next morning.

Our next train adventure was a little more adventuresome than the previous... As we were pulling into one of the stations, Ingrid questioned whether this was our stop. Anwar assured us that this was not. There weren't too many people getting off the train, so it seemed logical. Then as the train is starting to depart, Anwar decides this is in fact our stop. We gathered our belongings and scurried to the door. I had to turn back because I realized Lindsay's hair band got left behind. Even more comical, it was actually wrapped around her seat somehow. This was all happening as the train is slowly leaving the station. Moments later, we all had successfully jumped off a moving train.

The retelling of this story is pretty comical and unrealistic depending on who the storyteller is and who the audience is. All you need to know is that I jumped off a moving train and have now acquired the status of bad ass.

We then spent the day with our cleverly-master-of-the-taj-photo-shoot tour guide. He told us some what I assume and hope are detailed facts about the Taj Mahal. His most valuable skill was his aggressiveness when it came to demanding that we take all of these made for post card tourist photos. He rocked.

He was awesome, but he couldn't quite get the timing right on this one.

No, I don't know him.

 Tourists

 Ready, set..... fail.

We may have all felt like this at one point or another...

waking up in India

the sound of what I'd compare to crickets, dogs barking, and the sounds of children in the distance... I don't hear or notice the honking horns anymore.

I never imagined my life to be like this when I moved to India. I'm still not even sure I'm in India.

There are plenty of things about my life that are nearly the same as my American life:
I depend heavily on the internet, and I manage to waste plenty of time on it.
I get to eat ice cream and cheese to a slightly excessive extent.
I hang out with friends, eat out, and watch an illegally downloaded movie from time to time.
I walk around wearing Under Armour wishing they would sponsor me and my Physically Educating lifestyle.

Things that are so very different from my previous life:
I spent my Saturday hiking around the mountains with 5th/6th graders. The car ride back was radioless but filled with 6th grade boys belting out Justin Beiber hits.
I have to put my favorite things in a closet with a light bulb so they don't get moldy.
I have to pretend to pick up and throw rocks at monkeys on walks to school and hope they don't call my bluff.
I have to teach kids of all ages how the classic game of kickball works.
I keep my short-shorts in a drawer and only wear them in the comforts of my own home.
I can't avoid running uphill.
People stare at me (and not just in the oh my god, what is Shannon wearing today kind of staring). Some want to take my picture. Some want to hold my hand in said picture.
I live about 800 meters from many of my students. I get all of my groceries delivered to my home.
I also have a nice woman who cleans my house and cooks for me a couple times a week.
I live and work in a place that is more gossipy and small town than my hometown of Silver Lake, MN (pop. 761).
I go out to the bazaar and am guaranteed to see students, staff, employees, and be recognized by the local tailor who is dying for my business. The grocer knows my name, where I live, and the cornflakes I like.