4D$$AMMMNNNN

Hello.
My name is Nina and I possess frustration! Frustration, which I am letting go of… of course, because what else can you do in India? Just blow in the wind like a kite at milky sunset.

Frustration reason #1:
I have an effing RASH on my effing FACE.
Mystery rash, I like to call it. My little friend, as I ironically like to refer to it. A really large annoyance, as I most accurately can describe it.
This mystery rash jumped up on my cheek and chin and mouth area earlier this day. Did I eat something? Did that cream I got from the ‘chemist’ do something awful to my visage? Does India like to make my face itch inconsolably?
It feels like I smeared glue all over my cheek and upper lip, and now it’s dry and not letting me move my face very much. To the touch, my skin is roughed – swollen, too. It looks a bit like I got my wisdom teeth out, if my wisdom teeth were my incisors. MY FAAAAAAAAAAAACE.

Semi-Frustraion-but-mostly-humerous #2: Our apartment floods.
The monsoon knocked on our door today. This morning, actually – it was our wake up call. Claps of thunder and then the faucet turned on for a wash wash wash of thick pelting drops that flooded the street flooded the park* and flooded our front room. After stuffing two rugs underneath the door as a makeshift damn, we watched the rain from foggy windows until it let up enough for us to open the gates [doors] of our living room. The drains on our roof also were plugged, clogged, and choking on mud and leaves which made the roof well up with water and then the water spilled down our indoor stairwell and made the entirety of the spiraling steps a Titanic set of running water.
*By ‘flooded’ park/streets – I mean that the grassy knoll turned into a lake and the cement street into an ocean.

At least the monsoons keep the air fresh and the sky clear-er. Opens up the air, too; disintegrates the heat.

Frustration #3: Mosquitoes just LOVE my legs. I look like I was just in a paintball battle and have circled red wounds spiraling down my legs. It’s awesome.

Frustration #FOUR: Okay I JUST came up with this one; a fresh discovery of sorts. My ‘FOUR’ key no longer works!

Frustration #5: My face. Sweet sticky syrup on my face – that’s what it feels like, more than glue. If someone mistook my face for a pancake and loaded it up with some Auntie Em’s or whatever that syrup woman is called and now it’s just a mess…
Oh, life. GET OFF MY FACE.

In other news, I had my ‘first day’ of class last week. On Tuesday, I met with the head of the psychology department, as well as two other professors who teach some ‘papers’. For every class, there is only one hefty paper at the end of it, for which you must designate a topic with your professor and then mesh in all your new-found knowledge. So instead of being asked, “what classes are you interested in?” it was, “what papers are you interested in?” You don’t really sign up for classes here, by any means. It seems as though students just head to school in the morning and wander around the cracked white hallways until they find themselves ushered into a class they want to take. Anyway, that is why we met the head of our department – the only way to really get into a class for sure is to talk face to face with the professor and express your interest and why. The classes are small. Communication lines are thick.

I decided on a class called Indian Paradigms in Counseling Psychology, and another Buddhist Philosophy course in the philosophy department. Hindi, as well. So for the next four point five months I am going to write two papers and learn how to survive using Hinglish. That’s awesome.

MY FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE.