Let's look at the heat first. Chad warned me before I came here that I would just get really sick of the heat. I waived it off thinking, "Yeah it is going to be hot, but come on, it has got to be better than 8 months of winter!" Well, I think that I still agree with that statement, but not as strongly as I thought I would. The air is dry, my AC is still broken, I don't sleep soundly, and I wake up drenched in sweat every morning. Isn't that attractive.
It is only April, and it has been well over 110 degrees every day. It takes all the will power that I have to even crawl downstairs let alone venture outside. I promised my roommates that I would do brunch this morning. I was excited for pancakes too after a long time without, but we didn't have any fruit. And the only way to get it was to walk 20 minutes to the nearest market and then lug it all home. So determined for some Banana pancakes, my roommate and I challenged the morning heat and left our house. I think that we walked in silence for the first 10 minutes while we concentrated on not fainting :) The fresh Mangos, Pineapple, and Mellon were all worth it in the end and brunch was fab.
Reason #2 for not writing in a long time: Work.
Don't worry, I am not going to be bashing my company or complaining. Quite on the contrary. I am doing it to myself. I am now the Director of Production for ETIN and what that means is I am a giant puzzle-putter-together-er. What does that exactly mean, well to be specific I take whatever my sales team sells, find groups who want similar destinations and times match them together, figure out the Visa logistics, coordinate with the Flight team, and then try and fit the super late planning Indian mindset into the super strict German/French/Swedish timelines. It is not the easiest thing to do, and with all travel there are so many little minute details that can go wrong, so everything needs to be triple checked. I am learning a lot as I go, but it involves new programs that I have never worked with on top of learning about Indian Visas and flight routings.
On top of that I have taken on another project that I started when I first moved here. It is the Global Citizen Scholarship Program. I love it. Basically Kara in the US and I in India with the help of many, have orchestrated nationwide essay competitions in both India and the US to find bright talented students who want to explore education at a global level. We each selected 10 winners and we are going to be traveling with them this summer to China. After a ton of prep we have finally selected our winners and now we are working on collecting documents and talking to parents.
If you haven't watched it before you should check out the Documentary 2 Million Minutes. It explores the lives of 2 Indian, 2 American, and 2 Chinese students and what they do with their 2MM (the time in 4 years that they have in high school to prepare themselves for their future). This is the theme of our tour and I can't wait for all three cultures to interact.
I love having the connecting to the kids and the customers again. I find it so rewarding to interact with them after being behind the scenes for so long. Since there are no teachers going, Elizabeth LeLaurin and I are going to be the group leaders. I want to make sure that I am as prepared as possible so I have been reading books about China, Global Leadership and Cross -Cultural Communication.
One of the things that I found so interesting and I am not sure how the American students are going to react is that people don't see us as a lasting world power. I think that in America, myself included I came here thinking that everyone knows about culture in the US because of the movies and our world status and our Presidents...and that they looked at us as this super power that has it all, and that people wanted to be like us. I know that doesn't sound open minded, but I was a little shocked to read the essays of these students who think that the US is on its way out because of it's lazy lifestyle and China is the future. They overall feel is that Americans have the life right now, but we take for granted the opportunities presented to us and we in the long run will not be the most well educated.
Who knows how it is all going to shake out, but these kids that I am going on tour with are going to be the future of our world, so hopefully this experience is going to create some type of lasting impression.
I can't wait for the tour, but I also can't wait for it to be over so I can relax a little more and have a balanced life once again. For anyone out there who has not heard back from me in a while. I am sorry. I am still thinking of you and thanks for the amazing birthday wishes!
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