New Year's Eve, Top People of 2011

New Year's Eve was a blast. We went to a party hosted by family friends of the Thapas from Calcutta and spent the evening conversing and dancing around a fire to loud music. Around midnight, everyone gathered at the families altar for a makeshift ecumenical 'service' where everybody reflected on the past year and gave thanks for all of their blessings, past and future. It was a pleasant alternative to watching Ryan Seacrest and hoisting up plastic flutes of generic champagne as the big ball dropped. Happy 2012, everybody. (The rest has nothing to do with Nepal stuff)

I'm a sucker for any 'top 10' list where people/events/things are compared in terms of relevancy, quality, etc. I was not informed of the cancellation of a school meeting this morning so I had a good hour to think and map out the TOP 10 (became 11) PEOPLE OF 2011 TO KYLE. I kept the parameters of my list to things that I follow (sports, headline news, entertainment) so you won't be finding any impactful humanitarians or disease-curing scientists. I follow global happenings but didn't really feel like going back and doing any research on Euro politics or economic meltdowns. I thought about ranking the list but copped out and wrote this as they came into my head. Like Time magazine does for their "Person of the Year" list, I didn't shy away from including undesirables. Oh, and I don't feel like figuring out how to image size. Deal.

Honorable Mentions/Notable Omissions:

Amy Winehouse (sadly predictable)
Any US politician (yawn, same ol')
Osama Bin Laden (largely irrelevant in recent years)
David Stern (NBA has always been sleazy)

TOP PEOPLE: (no order)

Kim Jong Il:



Impressively avoided US muscle for years (even while being included on Dubya's 'axis of evil') whilst committing countless atrocities and locking up the title of Most Insane Dictator in modern times. Did just enough right to avoid getting stomped out, had incredible taste in fashion and was one of the few who always stayed fresh by continuously outdoing his own craziness. Given his track record, he died rather anticlimactically on a train due to health. Check out his Wikipedia page for some of his notable endeavors.

Charlie Sheen:



Perhaps you forgot about the interview. After 50+ hours of flying, I landed in Nepal and logged onto the internet to find it exploding with all things Charlie Sheen. The video demands to be funny and I wasn't disappointed after having to wait nearly 40 minutes for it to load. The rest was history, and it was impossible to avoid this man for a good six weeks, as even the Himalayan Times gave daily updates and oldTwo and a Half Men episodes played on Nepali TV as frequently as Law & Order reruns. Hopefully the video hammers home the message to today's youth that crack is still whack.

Robin van Persie:



I've always been wary of dudes named Robin but had to include RVP to acknowledge his successes and thank him for scoring almost every week, making both my EPL and total goals fantasy teams stress free and profitable. I gambled on taking him because he always gets hurt but has so far avoided injury. If you need a reason to start watching soccer, turn on an Arsenal match and watch this man do his job. He single-handedly makes Arsenal relevant.

Albert Pujols:



Is baseball slipping or did I just miss out on a lot of the coverage of this? Albert Pujols, one of the greatest players ever and the best of the last 10 years, won the World Series only to walk out on his lifelong team for more money to join the Anaheim Angels and help create the MLB's version of the in-trend 'dream team' concept, amassing superstars in the hopes of winning championships like the 2011 Miami Heat and Philadelphia Eagles. It would be like Kobe Bryant ditching the Lakers or Tom Brady leaving the Pats, only it seemed like a footnote on ESPN.com. Interest in America's Pastime must be fading.

Jerry Sandusky:

I don't follow college football but grew up in Big 10 country following the Ohio State Buckeyes and all things NCAA football. Aside from bringing down the winningest coach in history, Sandusky stayed plastered all over news sites as new allegations emerged and weirder things kept happening, like his willingness to give interviews and proclaim innocence while admitting to heinous acts. Hopefully this tragedy will lead to further awareness of child abuse and more conversations between parents and children regarding appropriate conduct. The social psychological phenomena in play are fascinating as it seems like a lot of people were in the know but failed to appropriately act (see Kitty Genovese) even in the face of possible child molestation. On a side note, this man ruined one of my favorite books of all time, Catcher in the Rye, as I reread it recently and the term 'horsing around' is prevalent throughout the novel. Gross all around, shame on humanity.

Saul Goodman:



Maybe my favorite supporting actor ever, Saul Goodman is the sleazy defense lawyer from Breaking Bad. One of myriad reasons for you to watch this show if you don't already. Check him out

Tim Tebow:



Made my list not for the reasons you'd think. I hate that the media has made him into a polarizing figure and don't care about what he does or what he believes in (as I am with any athlete), but I loved his stretch of comebacks and causing the statheads to explode with fury. I would go to bed for a good month knowing that I would wake up and read about another Broncos comeback where Timmy played like crap for three quarters but rallied his team to an undeserved win in the end. I'm sure it was forced down the throats of any American sports fan but I got just the right dose in Nepal. One guy even asked me about it, if I had heard of this "Tebow guy", and NOBODY cares about the NFL. Keep on ballin', Tim.

Rappers: (Lil' Wayne, Drake, The Roots, Kid Cudi)




I had largely abandoned rap music since middle school, when a bunch of us privileged white kids bought fake ice in Washington DC and memorized the likes of DMX and Master P albums. I don't remember what got me back into it, but about half of my iPod is now loaded with rap albums, past and present. I've realized that I've missed out on a lot of good music over the past few years and have enjoyed catching myself up. Being away from America for 8 months, I can't tell if liking Drake makes you cool or lame, but I'm all in. Give rap another try if you gave up on it like I did; there's a lot of good stuff out and Lil' Wayne and Drake are incredible.

Russian Kingpins:





Roman Abramovich, Mikhail Prokorov, Vladimir Putin. I've always been intrigued by the shadowiness of Russian power and the checkered pasts of the heavy hitters. Abramovich is one of the richest guys in the world, owns my favorite sports team (Chelsea) spends with impunity and has an extremely shady past. If I could trade lives with any human being on Earth, it would be him. Prokhorov is richer, bought the New Jersey Nets, is linked to prostitution scandals and overall shady dealings, is 6' 8" and is running for president of Russia. Putin likely rigged the election, was a gangster KGB agent and is one of the scarier human beings on the planet. A big year for Russian ballers.

Muammar Gaddafi (sp?):




Had a strong run as a global fugitive before getting whacked. Nepali papers aren't hesitant to show gore, and I was twice greeted with full-page shots of bin Laden and Gaddafi, half of their faces blown off. I didn't closely follow this story, but the sentiment in Nepal was that his demise was a result of the US again being unnecessarily involved with global happenings. Unlike Kim Jong, Gaddafi was a bit too flashy and could no longer be ignored. A bad year for dictators/terrorists.

Steve Jobs:



Apple products, you know the rest. RIP Steve, love your products.

Year in Review 2011, Trip to India, New Year's Goals

2011 was probably the most interesting year of my life, immersing myself into a completely foreign environment and adapting to a different type of lifestyle. Among the things I have learned...

Street Savviness: Spending my adolescence below the Mason-Dixon line instilled
the basic tenets of southern hospitality; I took cotillion classes, learned to foxtrot and waltz, started saying 'sir' and 'ma'am' to my elders and became generally polite to everyone to the point of being passive. Acting this way in Nepal will get you chewed up, spat out and broke faster than one can say 'namaste'. I've learned to be assertive and headstrong and don't accept rudeness from people anymore. I will cross the street without waiting for cars to slow down (playing lots of Frogger as a youth has paid off), aggressively haggle with cab drivers and merchants and have learned how to handle rude people. I used to allow the bank and immigration people to speak in their brusque, vulgar manner but have learned that almost everybody will become timid and withdrawn if you fire back at them. I previously blogged about some teenagers 'siccing' a pit bull on me as I ran past; the next day, I walked up to the leader of the pack and silently stared into his face without emotion until he apologized. There's a small chance that my newfound courage will lead to me being mugged and shanked but I've learned that it's the only way to be.

Eating with Hands: Lots of Nepali people eat their meals sans cutlery, preferring to eat foods such as rice with their hand. Having large fingers made this a difficult skill to master, but I am now fairly adept with eating meals by hand. The trick is the scooping motion from hand to mouth. I still prefer to eat with forks and knives though, as curries will stain your fingernails.

Multi-Tasking: Women often complain that men are incapable of doing multiple things simultaneously and I used to easily fall into this stereotype, but teaching a room full of 7-8 years for the past several months has empowered me with multi-tasking skills that I used to think were impossible. I can handle a disagreement, teach a new subject, prepare a lesson plan and check papers all at once without blinking an eye.

How to Stay Warm: Long Johns, a new scarf and hot-water bags have proven to be essential commodities to wintertime survival. I recently have been spending more time outside in the blazing winter sun, thinking that absorbing some rays and getting some pinkness would keep me warmer at night, but found that getting sunburnt only led to shivering chilliness. Spicy food offers temporary reprieve but not as much as you would think. I always weigh the pros and cons of showering at night, as the five minutes of intense warmth are heavenly but not worth the limb-chattering coldness that sets in as soon as the water turns off. Getting into bed and clutching my fancy hot-water bag has become one of the highlights of my day.

_____

After a fairly complex ordeal at the Indian embassy with an extremely rude secretary who refused to answer my questions, I now possess the coveted Indian visa and am flying to Delhi with Shehrish on the 14th of January. Americans and Russians have to pay twice as much as any other countries to go to India but whatever. Planned excursions include everything worthwhile in Delhi, visiting Rajasthan and possibly Agra, site of the Taj Mahal. The latter is out of the way and will be costly, but I'm leaning toward making it happen as it's the bloody Taj Mahal and I'll likely never get a chance to see it again. I am really looking forward to the food, as I trend toward more Indian dishes than Nepali and I have been told that the biryani in Delhi is fantastic. Contact me if you have any suggestions as to what to do in and around Delhi.

_____

New Year's Goals:

I prefer to make goals as opposed to resolutions as they're more attainable. For example, I could resolve to be more organized and less slobbish but I'd likely fail, as altering behavior can be difficult. So my goals for 2012 include (going from easiest to hardest):

Reading at least 50 books: I estimate that I read about 35-40 books last year but still waste a lot of time at night during the week feeling my brain atrophy by watching shows like Housewives of NJ and Kardashians when I could be reading instead. Setting the bar at 50 would be an improvement and is attainable with minimal effort. I made an organized list last June of things I wanted to read, and the next 10 up are..:

Ajax, the Dutch & the War by Simon Kuper
Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Persig
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Shaq Uncut by Shaquille O'Neal
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

...all of which I would recommend from having read previous stuff by most of the authors.

Running a Half Marathon: A preemptive effort to mitigate the inevitable weight gain upon returning to the land of obesity and cheap, unhealthy food. Setting a running goal is daunting as I usually just jog for around a half hour but I have recently been extending my lengths and made it a good 50 minutes this morning before calling it a day. It's only 21 km; I prefer thinking of distance in metric terms as I grew up dreading having to 'run the mile' in PE class. I don't care about speed, I just want to finish it. This goal is less likely to happen than reading 50 books, but more likely than...

Learning to Cook (some stuff): From living alone in an apartment, I tried some things out but my cooking prowess is pretty much limited to boiling pasta for the proper length and microwaving the accompanying sauce, perhaps chopping up some onions and garlic to give it some panache. Every other cooking endeavor I underwent was mediocre to disastrous in quality. I don't think I'll go back to eating meat and really enjoy the foods I eat in Nepal, which means that I'll have to learn to cook them. Rice is easy enough with a rice cooker and I'm going to set the bar low by making it a goal to cook dal (lentils), tofu, vegetables and paneer the way l like it. It will be trial and error and I'll likely have to stomach some horrible results but am looking forward to trying. Real men can cook.

Publishing unedited due to lack of power, please excuse poor grammar this time. Happy 2012!

Christmas in Nepal

*I'm completely free until January 2nd when I start working at a winter camp, so expect a lot of lengthy posts. I'm getting some of my older blogs published in a Nepali newspaper starting in January and will link them when they get published*

Merry Christmas to one and all. John Dewey (my school) had a staff picnic in Dolalghat on December 23rd. The plan was to leave by 7:00 am so I had to get to school before then. Of course, the bus needed petrol and the pumps don't open until 8:00 so we ended up leaving around 8:40, hooray for Nepali time. After a two hour bus ride we arrived and set up our picnic area on the bank of a river. Breakfast consisted of aloo dum and buttered bread and afterwards we moved onto playing cards. My winning streak in marriage unfortunately came to an end but I only lost around Rs. 200. Lunch consisted of rice, roasted pork for the carnivores, paneer and the hottest mushroom chilly I have ever had. I can handle spiciness really well nowadays, but this level of heat nearly caused me to vomit. Our presence brought an array of scavengers looking for scraps of food, including children, dogs, cows and pigs. I threw a scrap of pork to a pig to see if it would it eat it and it did. Who knew that pigs could be cannibals? The day was a lot of fun despite my getting really sunburnt and was a nice way to unwind after a heavy couple of weeks of teaching.

Shehrish's family threw a birthday party for Uzir on December 24th which became my makeshift Christmas celebration. Shehrish's mom even made gammon (a rich ham) with cranberry sauce, similar to the pork tenderloin that my mother makes annually during Christmas. I even tried a small piece of it, having meat for the first time since this summer when I ate lungs to show my parents that it wouldn't make them gag. The meat tasted the same to me and gave me no digestive problems. I'm considering going back to eating meat as in America being a vegetarian will be extremely difficult and not nearly as flavorful compared to the veg options in Nepal. At one point in the evening somebody's iPhone was synced to a British radio station and I got to hear all of the Christmas music that I had been missing out on. December 25th was a bit lacking in terms of a traditional Christmas day. It was nice and sunny and I was active this year, going running and doing p90X yoga, the complete opposite of my usual Christmas day which consists of sitting on the couch eating cookies and alternating between Bailey's and wine. We did go out to dinner with friends and had a big feast of momos, biryani and paneer chilly. It was certainly a different Christmas being away from family and festivities but fun nonetheless. I was even treated to live NBA action for the first time since being here, watching the Knicks-Celtics game which started around 11:00 pm here.


My gift haul this year was purely utilitarian. I requested and received a fancy 'hot water bag' through our secret Santa exchange at school, tripling the warmth of my sleeping conditions and enabling me to fall asleep cuddling a felt-sheathed bag of boiling water for the rest of the winter. One of my students got me a new backpack, as she thought my old one was "not so nice". Another student got me a new coffee mug with my pictures on it, including the photo where I am with tikka on my forehead and looking completely awkward (on Facebook). Nisha got me my first scarf since I was a child so I no longer have to borrow one of my student's pink princess ones. The only things I missed out on this year was my annual re-up of toiletries that Santa leaves me in my stocking, including razor blades, aftershave, dental floss, deodorant and cologne. I guess Santa doesn't visit the valley and I'll have to make a trip to Bhat Bhateni.

I hope that everyone enjoys the rest of their holidays and makes the most out of 2012!

'Tis the Season

Bullet point blog, too early for coherent writing:

-The Christmas season is upon us but the lack of decoration and activities makes the holiday feel empty for me. I see a tree here and there at the touristy spots but nothing more. My classroom, however, has been thoroughly decorated with lights, multicolored tissue paper snowflakes, a tree, Santa and Jesus drawings and hundreds of Stars of David (inadvertent Hanukkah tribute) which creates a convoluted festive environment for me. The biggest thing missing is the absence of the music. The only Christmas song I've heard so far is an off-key version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" sung repetitively by my children as they've been learning it in music class. I am currently downloading all of my favorites as the season feels too weird without any Christmas music. I would have laughed in your face If you had told me that I would miss Christmas music when I left in March, but I do. I hereby renounce my recent Scrooge-like attitude toward the holiday; I want my candy canes, commercialism and Christmas parties back. And the NBA games.

-I'm also missing out my annual viewing of Holiday movies: Home Alone, It's a Wonderful Life, The Grinch (obviously the cartoon and not the horrific Jim Carrey one) and my favorite, Christmas Vacation. I've looked for them at the shops but there must not be a demand for the mafias to bootleg Christmas movies. I'm having to settle for Mission Impossible 4 which I'm none too pleased about.

-Explaining Christmas to my children has been difficult. Grade two has been tasked with conducting a Christmas assembly and I am in charge of putting on a holiday program that touches on both the Jesus story and Santa Claus while downplaying the religious nature of the tale. In a previous blog, I mentioned that some of the parents hounded me with questions as to my motivations for being in Nepal, as they suspected I was a covert Christian missionary with the intention of indoctrinating their children, so I've had to be cautious in what I present to the kids. I've eliminated all but one reference to 'God's son', as the story cannot really be told without it and the kids know the basics of Christian faith.

-While I've avoided the toughest question so far (Is Santa real?), Christmas has left me unable to properly answer some questions. While reading the Jesus story, I mentioned the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh given by the wise men. "What is myrrh, Kyle sir?" I told the child it was some sort of oil, which was kind of a guess. "Why did Jesus want oil?" I said back then it was used to make stuff. "But why would a baby want oil?" I said it was for Mary and Joseph and it was valuable. "Is Jesus God's son or Joseph's son?" I said God's. "But then why was Joseph there?" Because Joseph was Mary's husband. "So was Joseph mad that his wife didn't have his baby?" No, he was fine with it because it was God's wish. "How did God get Mary pregnant from heaven?" At a loss for words, I moved onto Santa.

-I tied the Santa aspect of the holiday by saying he brings gifts to good children, and that gift-giving is symbolic of celebrating Jesus' birth, etc. Some of my kids do celebrate the holiday with the stocking thing, and coincidentally, all of the kids who are 'good' in class get visited by Santa, whereas the 'naughty' ones don't. I told the children that celebrating Christmas is up to their parents, but they are convinced that Santa rewards the well-behaved children with gifts, which has led to better behavior from some of my naughty ones seeking Santa presents. I feel kind of bad knowing their efforts are all for naught but at least I have a quieter classroom.

-Be careful what you tell children; one of my girls asked me if I had Santa's phone number, as she wanted to tell him what to bring her. I was busy and nonchalantly told her to look it up on the internet, not thinking that in today's world that of course there would be phone numbers listed for Santa. She came in the next day and told me that she couldn't call him because it was an international number but had emailed a list of gifts to him with the assistance of her parents (which was then, of course, sent to her parents). Fortunately the parents didn't mind.

-The weather is reminiscent of winters in Illinois/Ohio, as it's cold all the time and there's no central heating. Illinois/Ohio weather is definitely colder, but the absence of heat gives the nod to Nepal in terms of overall coldness. My classroom is located on the top level of the building facing away from the sun and we spend our mornings seeing our breath inside and shivering away. I have been doing a lot of lessons on the outdoor terrace where at least we get sunlight. I always run after school and sometimes do P90x as well, but have been doing a lot more of the P90x program as afterwards I retain the feeling of warmth from exercising for a good hour or so. Kind of strange to internally feel warm but be literally steaming after a workout. The only negative part about losing substantial weight (sick brag!) is I'm without my excess insulating blubber, meaning I'm cold all of the time. At night, I sleep with a 'hot water bag' which provides me some coziness. I actually appreciate the cold in the morning as it forces you to get up and move around to get warm.

Happy Holidays to all, enjoy yourselves and don't get annoyed at the traffic, long lines, music etc. You would miss it if it wasn't there.

Small World

I now have a better 'small world' encounter than you do, guaranteed.

I went out last night to Lazimpat to watch the Chelsea match and to later meet up with people in Thamel. A cab with passengers pulled up and the driver told me to get in. I have never 'shared' a cab before, but it was cold out and I had been waiting for some time already. While negotiating price, the couple in back (Americans) started asking me the routine questions until we got to where I am from. I'm not sure how to feel about the following exchange (which I swear on my dog's life happened verbatim):

Husband Guy: Where are you from?
Me: NC
HG: We used to live in Winston-Salem, but all of our family is in VA.

We then talk about Winston-Salem things for the next 5 minutes. I learn that they used to have a lake house near Roanoke.

Me: How strange, my family has a lake house near Roanoke.
HG: Smith Mountain Lake?
Me: ...yes, in Union Hall.
HG: What a small world! We vacationed there this summer! Have you eaten at Mexico Viejo (completely generic Mexican)?
Me: Yes, many times.

I ran into two Americans who used to live in Winston-Salem AND had a house on Smith Mountain Lake while in a cab in Kathmandu. I'm sure I came off weird to them because I was genuinely weirded out. While discussing Mexico Viejo, a small part of me thought I was going to be kidnapped or worse because seriously, what are odds of this scenario ever happening? I lied about living in Baluwatar, saying that I was only visiting a friend because I had no idea what was going on. They had only been in Nepal for a month but both spoke Nepali fluently. Both said they got language training before moving to Nepal for the guy's job. I joked about how utterly bizarre it was to run into them but they didn't seem at all rattled. If I go missing within the next few days, contact authorities and tell them that two white people have me, because this is either one of those bizarro 'small world' encounters or some calculated attempt to...abduct me or something? Given that I remain free, I assume that they are who they say they are, but I have been completely aware of my surroundings ever since. If they are out to get me, I'm sure they have access to my blog, so know that I'm on to your scheme!*

*The sheer impossibility of this encounter leaves me puzzled and creeped out; I'm partially writing this to protect myself, as I can't wrap my head around the strangeness of it.

Thanksgiving > Any Other Holiday

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to everybody that reads my blog. Thanksgiving is easily my favorite holiday and I dearly missed all of the traditions of being with family, eating, watching NFL and just hanging out all day. Mike's Breakfast, an American restaurant in Nepal, was offering a Thanksgiving array for Rs. 1600 a plate but I couldn't justify paying that much (over twice the price of the nicest entrees I've had in Nepal) for food from a restaurant whose enchiladas previously incapacitated me for a good two days. We ended up going out with Akriti and Nisha and ate pizza and tiramisu at an Italian restaurant in Thamel. Not the typical Thanksgiving but it still had all of the core elements of eating, drinking and hanging out with good people. The only dishes I really missed were stuffing and pecan pie. I hope that everyone had a good time.

In the spirit of being thankful, I've compiled a list of some of the things that I have been thankful for over the past eight months, aside from the obvious things which are not fun to write about.

Food Poisoning: Despite being relatively cautious with what I ate and drank for the first few weeks of being in Kathmandu, I developed a wicked stomach virus that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. After two weeks of digestive misery, I came out of it about twenty pounds lighter, subsequently became a vegetarian, started exercising again and am now close to being in the best shape of my life. Forget all of those infomercials, quick fix remedies or actual hard work; buy a ticket to Kathmandu, snag some street food, wash it down with some contaminated tap water and wait for the storm to hit. No pain, no gain...

Facebook: Trust me, nothing has surprised me more than how reliant I have become on Facebook for communcation and an enjoyable way to keep up with the American public sphere through the postings of friends and acquaintances. The libs supply me to all of the best Huffington articles, the neocons plaster my newsfeed with Tea Party propaganda and anti-Obama Drudge links, the smart economist people share their stuff, the hipsters love sharing their recent finds via Stereogum links and the funny people do a good job of relaying quality Youtube clips and articles. I don't have to do any work to stay culturally attuned, so thank you to everybody (even the couples who choose to flirt publically back and forth) for keeping me entertained.

Clever Children: I always have wanted to have kids but have always been pretty neutral overall toward the youth until I started teaching them. They make me think differently and amuse me more than most adults do. I recently started to chastise an incorrigible student before realizing that he was drawing a DNA sequence and doing a better job of explaining it to his nieghbor than I would have been able to. How could you stay mad about that? Another time, a little first grade girl came up to me and sheepishly asked me why I was so white. I gave some explanation about being from a different country and she asked me if America was the land of the rickshaws, as she always sees white people riding in them and maybe we are so white because we are always in the shade while travelling. Kids are awesome, and they have given me a renewed sense of hope for humanity in a world that is filled with greed and evil.

Mario Balotelli:





I love sports and have always been amused by people that set themselves apart through sheer flamboyancy. The role of Crazy American Athlete has become played out (see: Chad Ochocinco and TO) and nobody can ever really top Mike Tyson, but to me, the continuing antics of Super Mario have put him on a different plane of pure insanity. If you find soccer boring, read some of the following links. From trying to break into a women's prison to nearly blowing up his own home to cavorting with the mafia, Mr. Balotelli consistently outdoes himself and keeps me entertained in a year where my favorite team is utter shite. Do your own Google search, I probably left out better stories. He also sometimes plays crazy good football and was partially responsible for the most enjoyable football experience of my life, watching a sea of Man United fans in complete shock after getting trounced 6-1 by Mario's team, Man City.

Happy Holidays, y'all

Hooligans, Solar System, Culture and Sweater Jackets

I had a Saturday training yesterday that gave me time to jot down some things to blog about...

-I retract my previous remarks about the overall misery of Nepali winters. The fog has passed and today is bright and sunny. I went for an extended run and walked for about thirty minutes afterwards to soak up the sunlight. I'm told that the fog will be backsoon though..

-The drop in temperature seems to have brought out the amateur badmintoners from hibernation, as I now have to dodge several pairs of players haphazardly swinging rackets to whack a shuttlecock back and forth in the streets. Along with the badminton, my current list of daily obstacles includes stray dogs, cows, feces, pot holes with and without water, trash, fires, old people, cars, motorbikes and hooligans. Aside from nearly being creamed by a truck who failed to give the obligatory 'approaching honk', all of the other obstacles have been manageable, save the hooligans.

-A group of kids probably around 16-20 like to hang out near one of the shops that I run past. For awhile, they would just point, say things etc. Then it was sending guys out in the road to get in my way. Annoying, but whatever, Recently, I saw the presumed leader holding a pit bull mixed dog that I often run past. As I reached the group, the kid 'sicced' the beast at me and it came within inches of tearing off my ankle. This gave the bunch quite the laugh and nearly gave me a heart attack. I was only halfway through the run and would have to pass the group two more times in order to finish. The next time around, there were more people in the road, so they only had the dog bare his teeth at me. I was enraged but unwilling to stop running the route, so I had to think of a plan of action for the final pass. To feign toughness, I walked up to the group and simply stood in front of them, expressionless, while internally praying that they weren't going to jump me or worse. I stared at the leader for 20-30 seconds until he had wiped the stupid grin off of his face and walked away. I haven't had problems since but always make it a point to stare at the group as I jog by, hopefully to remind them of my 'toughness' and to thwart any shenanigans that they may be planning.

-In science, the class is learning about the solar system, and while prepapring a Powerpoint I was reminded of Pluto's demotion to a lowly dwarf planet a few years back. I remember being anti-Pluto when it was initally reclassified, but found an eight planet solar system to be missing something. I propose that some other object be promoted to planet status in order to fill the gap, ideally something that starts with a 'P' to go along with the childhood acronym. I threw in a slide mentioning Pluto as a former planet with a picture of the Disney dog on it because it bothered me so much to only have eight planets.

-Aside from my enjoyment of anything Kardashian, being away from American pop culture news has been so liberating. I am completely out of touch with anything E! news related, aside from extensive coverage of Amy Winehouse's death and Justin Beiber allegedly knocking up a fan. The lack of news is replaced with heavy Bollywood coverage which I can just ignore because I don't know anything about it. A quick browse of TMZ has informed me that Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore split and Paris Hilton's brother smashed into parked cars; oh no, I'm getting sucked in again!!...

-Along with no American pop culture to deal with, I've also thoroughly enjoyed being out of the political loop and have decided that anybody who wastes their free time following the back and forth politcal banter is completely out of touch and needs to pursue a diffrerent hobby. Knowing issues and having opinions is one thing; watching/follwing ANY source of 'he said, she said gotcha' news is unhealthy and fruitless. Some of it is unavoidable and the Rick Perry gaffe was good, but nothing can ever top Howard Dean


-Ever since coming to Nepal and visiting Thamel, I have been transfixed by the endless array of what I call Icelandic yak wool sweater jackets. I held off on buying one in the summer months, but when the temperature dropped I went to Thamel to get one; much to my dismay, wearing yak wool feels like shoving both of your arms into massive ant hills. I can get it lined, but the lining would cost more than the jacket itself. They're so goregous that I think I'm still going to buy one and represent myself as a Euro to see if I get stared at any differently.



SImilar to this, but better.

Black Lungs

I used to think that seasonal depression was some bullshit* excuse for people to justify going tanning and looking orange in the middle of January, but the last week in Nepal has convinced me otherwise. A thick, dense fog has settled into Kathmandu, trapping the already polluted air into a much smaller area and seemingly prompting about four times the normal amount of motorbikes to be on the roads. There is no longer day and night, only a window of about nine hours from 7:am-4:30 pm where the brightness is constant and resembles that of a fluorescent light with a black T-shirt draped over it. Post-4:30 pm, welcome to night. The present conditions make me feel like I'm living in a snow globe of pollution and despair.

While jogging through the filth today, I found myself trapped in the middle of a traffic jam in a corner of Baluwatar with nowhere to go. Some water truck was stupidly attempting what ended up being a 90-point turn and being subjected to the mixture of gasoline fumes and dust made me feel like some poor orphan kid out of a Dickens novel with grime all over my face. I normally walk a lap after finishing my route but was too short of breath and asthmatic today to continue. I hope the fogs clears up soon, or I'm going to grab some SPF 50 and try to find a tanning salon that isn't stationed next to a massage parlor or dance bar.

The absence of central heating in nearly all buildings is quickly becoming my biggest Foreigner Gripe about the country. I adjusted to no A/C without issue, but coupled with the wet, ubiquitous fog, Kathmandu is quite frigid day and night. I teach on the top level of a building, and my room stayed at a balmy 54 F throughout the day. I borrowed a student's scarf and spent the day looking moronic in a princess muffler, but at least it was warm. My warm breaks throughout the day include morning coffee, late morning tea, post-bathroom handwashing (assuming there's hot water) and crawling into bed. Unfortunately, showers cannot be included, which has led me to weigh the pros and cons before every rinse. It's amazing how superfluous a daily shower can quickly become.

On a lighter note, Kathmandu is abuzz with anticipation for the upcoming Michael Learns to Rock concert. I've gotten several weird looks from everyone when telling them "No, I'm not going. I've never even heard of them". A quick browse of their Wikipedia page and hearing the first 25 seconds of "Take me to your Heart" has convinced me to save the Rs. 5,000, as few bands on the planet can make someone like Michael Bolton or Yanni seem hip and unique. I was done at Danish pop-soft rock..

We've started to watch Weeds, which somehow passed season one of The Wire in the queue while we were midway through (Shehrish "couldn't get into it"). I can't decide if Weeds is an acceptable show to waste thirty minutes of life on or if it's completely embarassing to admit that I watch it. It kind of reminds me of The OC, the only real difference being Weeds takes advantage of the freedom of being on Showtime to throw gratuitous vulgarity at you. FIve episodes in, still can't decide whether to continue or not. The line-up at night has been pretty thin since Kardashians has concluded.

*I haven't forgotten my manners, mom; people here freely say 'shit', 'oh shit' etc. 'Crap' is worse than 'shit' in terms of crudeness. It's taken me months to stop correcting the kids; everyone still says it. When in Rome..

Tihar, Marriage, Habroks

-Tihar > Dashain, in my opinion, in terms of fun. The equivalent of Christmas carolers came to the house on Wednesday to sing for us. We would head up to the terrace after receiving blessings and light candles all over the railings. It was amazing to look out over the expanse of the valley and see every house lit up with candles and string lights and firecrackers/fireworks exploding all around. Christmas + 4th of July makes for one sweet holiday. We went to Thamel for dinner on Thursday and EVERY building was completely draped in lights. I wish the flash on my camera worked, as is was like Christmas had been rained on Thamel. (For the Salem girls) While walking to Cafe Mitra, Shehrish and I randomly bumped into Marvin and Linda, who were being shown around Thamel by Manisha. We knew they were in Nepal, but to run into people out of the blue is always quite strange. Small world.


-Tihar was a lot of fun. Family and friends arrived to Shehrish's house around 12 for the festivities and once the blessings were performed everybody had lunch. The meat eaters had some sort of pork dish that everybody loved and I was treated to vegetable biryani, my current favorite food ever since Anmol Foods got shut down for using inedible ghee in their cooking. Everybody ate and then gathered around to play marriage, a staple of any Nepali festival. I went into Dashain as a sucker but came out a little ahead for the festival. The Tihar crowd seemed a bit more fired up to play and I was not looking forward to getting cleaned out. The game started out rough, but I never lost my initial Rs. 1000 buy-in. When we were on for doubles I made a 56-point hand, which paid huge and put me way in the black. We played all day long, and my stack of money kept fluctuating, as it's quite the swingy game and I was playing with much better players than myself. My brain was scrambled by the Nepali banter after several hours of play. I can follow the dialogue back and forth for a time, but having to focus on card playing with all the chatter got to be too much. I cashed out around 6 o'clock, up a whopping Rs. 10, or about 15 cents. Not the greatest end result considering at one point I was up a few thousand, but at least I didn't lose. The big winners walked away with 6000-7000.


-John Dewey (my school) recently has installed the system of 'housing' kids, much like in the Harry Potter films. I was skeptical toward the practice at first, but am now thrilled to be the House Master of 'Habrok', which means something along the lines of legendary hawk. Since sorting hats don't really exist, we had the kids come up four at a time to select one of four colors which would put them into a house. I selected blue for the Habroks and we anxiously watched to see which kids would join our respective houses. I wasn't hoping for anybody specific, as I like probably 95% of the kids; rather, I was hoping to NOT get certain kids. In the end, everything worked out well for me and I avoided all of the undesirables. Since copyright laws are largely ignored in Nepal, I may just customize the Seattle Seahawks or Atlanta Hawks logo. We're essentially the Gryffindor from Harry Potter; full of the best and brightest. I'm only kidding, but I did get a really solid bunch. Habroks forever, happy Halloween.

TV Shows: What to Watch

Tihar is shaping up to be a lot of fun: good food, string lights everywhere, firecrackers going off at all hours, drinking, gambling, etc. We all got to give Missy (Shehrish's dog) a blessing yesterday and she wore a necklace of marigolds and was fed countless treats throughout the day. Tonight, people come around the neighborhood singing and they are given money, sort of similar to trick or treaters getting candy on Halloween. It's kind of a blend of Christmas, 4th of July and Halloween rolled into one; something for everybody.

Shehrish and I finished up a series last night and got into a discussion about the TV shows that we have watched recently. We watch TV series instead of movies because I have a horrible attention span and can only enjoy movies that are REALLY good or gripping, eliminating about 95% of what comes out these days. We started ranking the last ten shows that we have watched together and had lots of different opinions about the order of rankings. I woke up today still unsure of some of my placements, so I'm writing a blog in order to 'hash it out' for myself. If you read my blog only for Nepal experiences, exit now. I will do my best not to spoil anything unless absolutely necessary, as I hate spoilers. These are the last ten shows I have seen in entirety, not necessarily my overall top ten. Starting with #10 and going to #1...

10. Oz Oh, how I hated this show. I bought it in Thamel because it was on discount, I knew it was HBO and I had heard some positive things about it. The first season is okay, as characters are established and you feel like a narrative is coming together. Shocking things happen, with important characters being killed/executed/raped, etc., but season one ended with the show feeling like it had maintained some direction. Seasons two through six follow the exact same paradigm except with no connection to anything that came earlier. A new prisoner would come in, do some shocking things and eventually get whacked. Each season would outdo itself with countless scenes of violent imagery: swastika tattoos carved on an unwilling recipient, murders of any variety, defecating on someone's face, gang rapes etc. Stupid cameos include LL Cool J as an incarcerated drug dealer and Rick Fox (NBA guy) as a convicted rapist. One of the most important characters gets killed off in the sixth season with the murderer explaining that he did it because nothing matters in the world. The most telling scene of the entire series involves a naked Detective Stabler (Christopher Meloni, who has a big role in Oz) from Law and Order urinating into a trash can while being held in isolation. No dialogue, just five to six seconds of him actually pissing into a trash can. It symbolized the whole series: gratuitous and pointless, unless you like terrible writing and graphic violence. Big fail on my part in buying this garbage.

9. Masterchef Australia 3: This show combines three of my least favorite things in the world: reality television, cooking on television and Australian accents. It comes on cable at 9:15 nightly and I watch it with Shehrish because she sits through hours of football matches with me these days. The show basically follows the same structure as any of the other cooking shows, except for all of the contestants are smiling and beaming ALL OF THE TIME. I don't know if it's contractual for them to perpetually exude joy or Australian chefs are just the happiest demographic of humans anywhere on the planet, but everything and everyone is/are 'amazing' and 'life changing'. The show must have some serious pull somewhere in the world, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama came on as a guest judge, which I can't decide is somehow a testament to the show or a completely depressing example of how much is wrong with humanity. Watch it if you like cooking competitions and smiley Aussies.

8.Big Love: Not as well-known as the rest, but I started watching season one while visiting a friend in DC and stuck with it for awhile. I never was completely sold on the premise being particularly compelling (exploits of a polygamist family with an ambitious patriarch), but the acting and writing were good and it was filmed well with a good soundtrack. I put the last sentence in past tense because the show completely fell apart after two seasons. I Netflixed the third season about a year ago just to ride it out and passed over season four because I was into other shows and really didn't care about what happened anymore. It started being shown on HBO in Nepal, which was a pleasant reprieve from the usual prime-time movie that is shown (recent ones including Double Team with Jean Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman), and I rode out season five until it ended two nights ago.

**Spoiler time (I doubt anybody cares, but still), but I have to talk about it**

With about five minutes left in the episode, Bill, the protagonist whom the entire show is built around, gets killed by a disgruntled neighbor that did nothing important over the course of the series. Nine months later, we see that the family has remained intact and life goes on, and the show ends with a Dixie Chicks cover of the theme song. I have never been more astoundingly appalled by the ending of anything fictional in my life. The sole highlight of season five was a return cameo by Aaron Paul (Jesse of Breaking Bad), whose character was written off along with Amanda Seyfried after the third season. Only watch this show if you are intrigued by polygamy or are bed-ridden with mononucleosis and have watched everything else imaginable. You will tear out your hair over how bad it gets.

(#7-#1 are all high-quality)

7.Dexter: I know there are many out there who love this show and defend it passionately, but Dexter began to decline midway through season three, held on throughout season four due to a fantastic performance by John Lithegow as the Trinity killer and COMPLETELY fell off during season five with Julia Stiles playing serial killer sidekick throughout a comparatively weak story line. I loved the first two seasons and I think the acting is good overall, but the shows best days are long gone. The Batista-LaGuerta romance is awful, Quinn is a terrible character and Dexter's sister is just obnoxious. I think season six is currently airing, and I will watch it eventually but am certainly not missing it. I would recommend it to anyone, but would tell people to give up the moment they think the magic is gone, as it will only get weirder and cheesier.

6. Lost: I actually dropped Lost a spot down after writing about it and giving it more thought. I loved the first two seasons and most of the third, even amid some bad acting and bad characters. The show is suspenseful, innovative and becomes really intriguing as the plot thickens and layers. I remember blazing through season one with a roommate in college and immediately running over to Wal Mart to get season two, which is a strong indicator that the show is really good. Midway through season three, I felt like the show had still not really figured out what was going on, which was confirmed through a fourth season that introduced a slew of new characters and really did nothing to begin answering any of the mysteries established by seasons one through three. Then came season five, bringing a new wrinkle into the mix that literally enabled the writers to do anything and convoluting the plot to the point that it became more of an effort to follow than a show to watch and enjoy. I was so disappointed when time traveling became part of the narrative, as the mysteries of the first two seasons deserved far better treatment. It ended okay, and if the main purpose of TV is to entertain, Lost succeeds, but I still feel that the middle of the series was poor writing.

5. Boardwalk Empire: I have only seen the first season and will buy season two as soon as it comes out. This has been an amazing period piece so far with fantastic acting and is filmed in a really clever, intriguing manner. Steve Buscemi is perfectly casted as the unofficial head honcho of Prohibition-era Atlantic City and is surrounded by a great array of character actors that make for an entertaining hour of television. Having recently gone through season one, my only real complaint is a lack of real 'substance' that sets it apart. The show lacks a certain autonomy that makes better shows stand out. It's a really GOOD show, but I don't find much about it that is unique or different than many of its HBO predecessors; as much as I want to see more of Omar from The Wire, casting Michael K. Williams in a highly similar role is a bit disingenuous. But unless something I don't know about yet has surpassed it, Boardwalk is the best show that is currently halfway through a season; catch up and enjoy it.

3a. Mad Men: Dropped it a spot after really looking long and hard at what I replaced it with at #3. Mad Men is an incredible period drama that would be the only show on this list that I would recommend to anybody I know regardless of age, politics etc. Jon Hamm is simply flawless as the savvy Don Draper, the opening theme is the best of them all and the writing/directing makes an otherwise monotonous subject manner (at least compared to other top shows) seem fascinating. I would argue that of my top four, Mad Men has the largest collection of interesting characters and does the best job of balancing out story lines while maintaining direction. A character like Joan the secretary could easily become expendable (see Vito Spatafore: Sopranos) but the writing is balanced out and every single episode from season one to the present is compelling and leaving you wanting more. The ONLY negative is January Jones, the wife of the protagonist who simply cannot act to save her life. If you haven't seen it, put down what you are currently watching and rent/buy/Netflix/iPad Mad Men. I've talked myself back into it at #3.

3b. The Sopranos: I missed the bandwagon, growing up without HBO and went into the series knowing how it ended and knowing certain elements about the plot already and it still became my favorite show ever until I saw 1 and 2 on my list. Everything about the show is critically fantastic and it was the first of its kind to succeed with an antihero who is both charming and revolting at the same time. I may be off a bit on this, but it definitely was the first to thrive due to the freedom of airing on HBO; an edited episode of Sopranos simply isn't the same. It boasts the single best character in television history in Tony Soprano, a multi-faceted sociopath portrayed as a dad, mafia boss and susceptible patient in treatment for panic attacks whom you genuinely like. The only drawbacks to the series are a couple of cases of bad acting (mainly AJ Soprano) and a couple of unnecessary story lines (Ralph Cifaretto overall, Vito being outed as gay etc.), but any hate toward this show is ill-deserved. The ending is brilliant, and if you've seen the show and want to read more about it, read this. One of the only shows I would ever pay top dollar to own, and one of the best shows of all time.

2. Breaking Bad: I put it at #2 having not seen the fourth season and staying in the dark about what happens, but randomly discovering this show has been like striking oil in a field of television garbage. Shehrish was given it off of somebody's hard drive, and I went into it not knowing anything about it. I've since decided that it's the second best series I have ever seen with the best characters (debatable) and the most visually artistic/innovative style of any of the other shows (not debatable). I said that Tony Soprano was the best character ever, but Walter White of Breaking Bad is more compelling, as through three seasons he has gone from a cancer stricken family man to a ruthless drug lord who craves power and money. Unlike Tony, who constantly spills his guts to us as viewers through his psychiatrist, we can only deduce Walt's motivations through his actions. I said that Mad Men has the largest collection of good characters, but Breaking Bad has the best characters overall. The dynamic between Jesse and Walt is perfectly dichotomous and hysterical, Saul Goodman is the funniest sleazy character I have ever seen and Hank the DEA agent is incredible. Watch this show, it's the best thing currently going.

1. The Wire: I've been obsessed with this show ever since buying episode one on iTunes because I had just finished Sopranos and wanted more HBO. I was immediately hooked, but was able to watch it at the rate of one episode a night until toward the end of season one, when something absolutely crazy happens that pulls you in all the way. The Wire cult is a bit sanctimonious about its superiority, but I would argue that it deserves every bit of praise and more. The writing is hands down the best and riskiest of any show I have ever seen, and the way that different worlds of society (bureaucrats, police, drug dealers, gangsters, addicts) function under the same set of rules makes for fascinating TV. The acting is flawless, and in some cases, not really acting. The way that each season is a different narrative with different characters sets it apart. Season four largely leaves out the (arguable) protagonist of the entire series, and it is widely considered the best of the show (I say it's season 3, but whatever). I've seen it three times, read The Corner and am certainly biased, but I don't really think it can be passed by anything unless Breaking Bad turns up the quality and somehow passes it. I could write about The Wire and specific characters/scenes for hours, just watch it and thank me later.

Jazzmandu, Manchester dArby

After being back in school for one week after the Dashain holiday break, I am now on another break because of Tihar, which seems like it will be a lot of fun. The autumn weather in Kathmandu is sunny and pleasant, but I am missing the fall weather in America, particularly the leaves changing and the crisp drop in temperature (at least in NC). I was going to say that it has gotten quite chilly in Nepal, but I Googled the temperature and it is currently 75 fahrenheit. The only drawback to losing weight is that I get cold all of the time; I was expecting it to be about 65 at the moment and it's 12:45 pm.

Shehrish and I went to Jazzmandu this Saturday in Gokarna. A free shuttle was offered and we got to the Hyatt hotel as it was filling up. I knew we would be in for an interesting day as a gentleman toward the front was smoking ganja and singing "Danny Boy" at the top of his lungs. The shuttle was mostly comprised of foreigners who were quite displeased that the bus wasn't departing at the scheduled time. One gentleman was particularly incensed, spouting off profanity at a poor Nepali volunteer in a language that made Brad Pitt's pikey in Snatch sound like pretentious English. I'm not exactly sure what he was saying, but the profanity came out clearly. I later found this gentleman camped out at the bar for the majority of the day, perhaps explaining his irascible behavior. We got there around 2 and were lucky to snag a piece of carpet to sit on before the music began. I don't really like jazz, but any live music is good. The first couple of acts were traditional Nepali bands and then the jazz started. The first band was really slow, describing a couple of their songs as 'walking through a rice field' and 'riding on a bus'; more appropriate names would have been 'watching grass grow' or 'hanging wallpaper'. I got up to get something to eat and discovered that completely overpricing everything at concerts is not just an American phenomenon. A plate of 8 momos was Rs. 450, about 4.5 times the normal price. The music went on and as the sun went down it got really cold. The hotel had anticipated this and set up several small bonfires, conveniently locating one right next to the bar. We spent the last couple of hours or so hovering around one of these fires talking with some of Shehrish's friends. Following signs to the gentlemen's restroom, I found myself in the middle of the woods looking at a small trench that was dug on a downward slope. I have never had a problem with communal urination, having grown up going to ball games at Wrigley Field and concerts at Ziggy's where the 'urinals' are essentially metal troughs, but this 'bathroom' also had posted a warning sign to watch out for monkeys. The state of the bathroom worsened as the concert went on, and toward the end I just went deeper into the woods. Fortunately, the monkeys left me alone and we left the venue at 10:00 pm chilled to the bone but otherwise unscathed.

I woke up on Sunday and went for an especially long run, fired up for the football later in the day (I can't call it soccer anymore, people have started to make fun of me). My friend Paavan has been organizing events the last couple of weeks for the big matches, and we went to Cafe Reena in DurbarMarg for the Manchester Darby. It makes my skin crawl to hear the Brits refer to the word 'derby' as 'dArby', and most Nepali people do it as well. The Manchester clubs are kind of like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox of baseball; you either love one of the two or hate them both passionately (I fall into the latter category). However, both teams are world class and it seemed like it would be a classic game. The derby/darby started and the crowd at the restaurant was a sea of red Aon jerseys, almost everyone supporting Manchester United. When Manchester City scored around the 25th minute, the room became deathly silent except for me jumping up and screaming. I was hoping for a high-scoring draw but the obnoxious behavior of the Manchester United fans the week before had me rooting against them. City kept scoring and the final tally was 6-1, a ridiculous score for an English match featuring two of the best teams in the world. The United fans were devastated and I left thoroughly satisfied. Then Chelsea played and killed my fun, but I'm not going to write about that. Happy Tihar!

Dashain, etc.

The 30th of September was the last day of school before Dashain, the rough equivalent of Christmas for the people of Nepal. Many people leave Kathmandu to be with their families in India or elsewhere and the city was rather empty during the main days of the festival. One ritualistic aspect involves elders blessing the younger ones with tikka to encourage good fortune and happiness. The basic tenets are the same as the Christmas season (or 'holiday season' for the sanctimonious bunch): get together with family, cook and eat a lot of stuff, drink, hang out, exchange gifts, etc. The main differences are the 'hanging out' part involves gambling instead of watching sports on TV and the gift part comes in the form of money rather than wrapped presents. The card game of choice is 'marriage', a 21-card variant of gin rummy where the optimal number of players is 5. The objective is to accumulate as many points as possible at the end of a hand. It started rough, but toward the end I felt as if I was holding my own. I lost a bit on the first day and won a lot on the second day. I still contend that it's much less skillful than something like poker, as paying attention to what cards are played and knowing basic odds are the only things that separate players, but the sharks maintain that much more skill is involved.

My favorite part of Dashain is that it coincides with the end of monsoon season. The last couple of weeks have been hot and sunny as opposed to the perpetual gloominess that I had become accustomed to and I couldn't be happier with it. Running in the hot sun has given me the sickest farmer's tan ever, and strangely I have actually gotten dark(er) as opposed to my usual pink/red color from sun exposure. I'm torn on my new color; in America, paleness is undesirable, but in Nepal everybody wants to be white. Women walk around on sunny days with umbrellas to shield themselves from darkening UV rays. With the recent influx of tourists, I may no longer hold the crown of Whitest Cracker anymore, which was one thing that set me apart from every other non-trekking white person.

Unfortunately, my latest quirk was a negative one. Recently, my forehead decided to go through puberty and had broken out pretty thoroughly. I'm not sure if it was related to the sun, my diet, sweating from running every day or what, but until recently I have looked like a 'before' individual in a Proactiv commercial. I had pretty bad acne as a teenager, but never on my forehead. Thankfully, my regimen of apricot scrub-echinachea-cream is clearing me up. The kids kept asking me if they were mosquito bites...

Having days off with nothing to do has given me a lot of time to think and write about stuff, so I'll update the next few days with random lists, rants etc.

Things I Don't Miss that I Thought I Would:

-A/C: I used to be a big fan of conditioned air, keeping my thermostat at an expensive 67-68 (F) in the Winston apartment. The summer months in Kathmandu have been hot and most places in Nepal don't have air conditioning. The only time the heat has ever bothered me was at night, as my room is on the top floor and the thermometer on my clock would hover around 85 (F) at night for the majority of May and June, but I adjusted pretty quickly. I think drinking probably 3x more water here than I did in America somehow helps. Nowadays when I am around A/C (in hotels, malls, movie theatres etc.) I find it artificial and uncomfortable. I would now rather be a little too hot than be chilly from air conditioning.

-Food: Not fully applicable since I became a vegetarian but still noteworthy. I thought I would miss things like Utz Crab Chips, italian food, nachos etc. but the alternatives in Nepal are just as good, if not better. Chaat is my current favorite snack food and I get it everytime I go to Bhat Bhateni.

Shehrish, on the other hand, really misses American food, including funny things like McDoubles, Arby's roast beef, Chili's and Hooters, and recently expressed a desire for Andy's Hot Fries and fried food from the fair.

NFL: I miss watching it, but I can't say that I miss it overall because I seem to be better at handicapping games when I don't actually see them play out. I'm currently 41-33-3, crushing my pick 'em league, in 2nd place in normal fantasy and 6-2 in Bodog wagers. A small sample size, but still. I've drifted from the NFL the last few years due to getting into soccer, but only going by what I read and hear seems to be a formula for success. Who knew that the Vegas books actually want you to watch the games?

More blog tomorrow..

Indra Jatra, Fashion Show, Earthquake

We celebrated Indra Jatra, a Hindi holiday which Wikipedia summarizes better than I could:

Indrajatra (Devnagari:इन्द्रजात्रा, Sanskrit: Indrajatra) is a festival celebrated in Kathmandu, Nepal. The main attraction of the festival is the procession of chariots and masked dancers representing deities and demons.
Indrajatra is a holiday related to Hindu god king of heaven, Indra. The festival begins with the carnival-like erection of Yosin, a ceremonial pole, accompanied by the rare display of the deity Aakash Bhairab, represented by a massive mask spouting beer and liquor. Households throughout Kathmandu display images and sculptures of Indra and Bhairab only at this time of year. Finally, the Kumari, or virgin goddess (living goddess), leaves the seclusion of her temple in a palanquin and leads a procession through the streets of Kathmandu to thank Indra the rain god.

We went to a hotel in Durbar Square and had a Vo'ye feast, which was diverse and wonderful. This happened about a month ago and I am feeling lazy today, so here is another link : http://theweek.myrepublica.com/details.php?news_id=35793



After the meal, we were walking thru the Square when the living goddess came out (see image in Wikipedia article). She was being swarmed by people looking for photographs but was smiling and waving. The whole evening was unique and enjoyable.

A couple of weeks later, we were all invited to a fashion show at the famed Yak and Yeti hotel for the first ever Kathmandu Fashion Parade. I put up a weak protest because there was soccer I would miss and to ensure the preservation of my manhood, but part of me was secretly excited to attend. Everyone got dressed up and we got to the hotel, where in attendance were all of the elites and "celebrities" of Nepal gossiping and eating hor's doeuvres. We were seated in the front row and proceeded to wait for the show to begin. 45 minutes after teh scheduled starting time (welcome to Nepal!), the models started walking. My high expectations were quickly dashed as the first model proceeded to awkwardly walk the runway in high heels as if she were trudging through wet cement. The first couple of designers sent down variants of modernized 'kurtis', which were colorful and well-fitting (what else can be said?) Subsequent designs were office wear and business casual. One of the last showings was a series of girls in white t-shirts who appeared to all be wearing the same thing. I was struggling to appreciate the 'vision' of such a repetitive series until I realized that they were modeling the bags they were carrying.

Overall, I would give my entertainment rating a 6.8/10. The hotel itself is fantastic, and the excitement in the room before the show was palpable. The show itself lasted about 45 minutes, and I was entertained for about 15 of them before mentally checking out and pretending to score the outfits on my program like they do on Project Runway. My overall opinion of the clothes is irrelevant (as I know nothing about fashion) but I did notice that some of the items were unfinished, which I believe is a big fashion no-no. It also seemed like anyone with a pulse was allowed to be a model in this show, which is awful to say, but if ugliness distracts from the clothes something is wrong. All of the females that we went with were underwhelmed by the showing, but everyone had fun.

Two Sundays ago, Shehrish and I were walking back from the grocery store when suddenly everyone behind us started screaming and running. As I followed suit and started to run, I first thought of a truckload of gangsters approaching wielding assault rifles and machetes like in Blood Diamond due to all of the screaming. While running, I felt everything to start to shake, which then made me think a stampede of cattle were about to trample me. Only afterwards did Shehrish and I look at each other and realize that what we had felt was an earthquake. We got back to her home and quickly pulled out the earthquake survival kit that is kept in storage in the event of an aftershock that could have been worse. Amid the chaos, Shehrish had dropped her phone in the street, and we went back out to try and locate it with a flashlight. The streets were jammed with people (one of whom snatched up her phone) and the tension of the crowd was akin to that of my high school after the 9/11 attacks, where everyone felt scared, confused, helpless and full of adrenaline all at the same time. Post-earthquake aftershocks are oftentimes more devastating than the initial earthquake, so everybody was on high alert. We loaded up on bottled water and more Ramen noodles for the earthquake kit and went back to her home. Once my adrenaline cooled, I started feeling dizzy and nauseous from the shaking, which stayed with me into the next day.

The next day at school we accessed the earthquake kits and ran through a drill with all of the children. Some of the younger ones were still upset and scared, but my class of second graders were riled up and everyone shared their experience of where they were when it happened. There were some aftershocks, but I didn't feel any of them. The epicenter of the quake was in Sikkim and around 75 people died in India, Tibet and Nepal (six in Nepal). The magnitude was 6.8, making it the biggest earthquake to hit Nepal since 1934. I still find tornadoes scarier, but I'm thankful that everyone around me was fine.

Wildlife

It took me about a month to get used to the animal scene in Nepal, but I have since grown accustomed to walking alongside with cows, mangy dogs, chickens etc. However, this past week has been an adventurous one in terms of my interactions with wildlife.

I take a slightly different route while walking to school now, as I drop Shehrish off on the way. This Monday, we said our goodbyes, I put on my headphones and continued on, cutting through a different neighborhood in order to get to school. This route is a bit more rural, with goats and chickens running about, but as mentioned, after getting used to animals I pay them almost no mind. I was halfway through my detour and listening to music, when all of a sudden I hear a steady 'PAT-PAT-PAT' noise coming rapidly closer. I turn around to see a massively grotesque bird running towards me with wings spread and beak open that could only be described as a hybrid duck-chicken that was the size of a turkey. I walked a little bit faster, thinking that it was only feigning attack, but the mutated specimen continued gaining on me and began to hiss. At this point I was scared, and began running with a loaded backpack to avoid getting bit. I made it to the main road but lost a sandal in the process, and had to tiptoe my way back into the bird's territory to retrieve it.



School was off on Wednesday for a festival called 'Teej', a fasting day for Hindu women where they all wear red and honor their husbands. We were back on Thursday, and as the kids were sharing what they did on their day off, a big monkey jumped in the tree right outside our window and started to eat mangoes. The kids were excited and everybody flocked to the window to watch the monkey eat and jump around in the tree. I should have continued on as usual as monkeys can carry rabies and be fierce when provoked, but I was probably the most intrigued of anyone, having never seen a wild monkey outside of Swayambhunath, the monkey temple that I have previously talked about. All of a sudden, the monkey jumps out of sight. I quickly realize that it launched itself onto the patio where the artwork dries. The door to the outside is always left open to keep the floor cool, and I raced to close it to prevent the monkey from coming inside. I saw a big shadow upon getting to the door and realized the monkey was right above me. I slammed the door shut and ran into the third grade room to shut their door to the patio, as it is always left open. The monkey had jumped down and was three feet away from me as I slammed third grade's screen door shut. The students saw the monkey and went crazy, and the monkey came right up to the door to see what the commotion was. It eventually jumped back onto the roof and went on its way. Crisis averted.

Shehrish's house has recently been inhabited by a rat. Not just a normal rat, but one the size of a morbidly obese kitten. I want to buy traps, but Shehrish's mom is opposed to harming it and a conventional snap trap would probably only sting the neck of this gargantuan monstrosity. We were watching Boardwalk Empire on Thursday when it waddled into Sherry's room, causing her to scream and jump up on her bed. The rat skittered out, but that night I woke up at 3 in the morning and heard a thud on my door. Mr. Rat was outside and trying to get in. The crack between my door and the floor is small and realistically I knew it couldn't come under, but I still shoved my towel under the door to prevent the unwanted visitor. Last night, we got back from dinner and were watching TV when we heard a big crash in the bathroom. The rat was in my shower and had knocked over all of my soap and shampoo bottles. Shehrish's maid slammed the bathroom door shut, and the vermin was trapped inside the bathroom. Sherry and I went downstairs, shut all of the doors and opened the front door wide hoping that when we opened the bathroom door, Mr. Rat would scurry outside. The maid opened the bathroom door, and the rat beelined to the kitchen, realized the doors were closed, and proceeded its way up the stairs as Sherry and I sprinted to her room. We found the rat lodged between the bookcase, and Shehrish and her maid tried to get it out by banging the case with a big stick as I fearfully watched from Sherry's room. The rat didn't move, and we went to bed. This morning, Shehrish's doormat was shredded to bits, as if the rat was angry at her for messing with it. I currently am typing this in mild fear, as the rat is still at loose and we have found the majority of evidence of it in the computer room. If anyone has some tips for extermination, please share. As I did with the frogs, I have made my pleas for the rat to leave the house, but it has shown no signs of compliance thus far. Cat-sized rodents are serious business.

My Makeshift Chiropractor, Street-Level Game Theory, Girl Talk, EPL etc.

I recently received email from Blogger informing me that this blog nearly gets enough hits for me to sell advertising space on it. I consulted with a web-savvy friend as to how to make it more appealing to a widespread audience, and he told me to a) do more things in Nepal, b) put pictures from such adventures on the blog instead of telling people to Wikipedia them, and c) make it funnier. Doing more things is difficult when I'm working and I feel like I've done nearly everything noteworthy that is nearby. I've tried not to portray too many things in Nepal as 'shocking' or 'humorous' after being here for a few weeks, as I don't want to come off as disrespectful or insensitive, but if it leads to more viewership, which hopefully will enable me to sell ad space, I'm willing to throw caution to the wind. After all, money talks.

I haven't done anything particularly interesting since my parents left, so here is a blog that consists solely of observations and anecdotes from the last few weeks. As I mentioned, my web consultant told me to be funnier, so apologies in advance if I come off as trying too hard. I hope to grow my Finnish audience (where I have somehow gotten over 400 hits) and they just eat up my attempts at humor. I also am killing time while waiting for Tha Carter IV to download, so this one could run long.

-I went to get my haircut at the local barbershop early this morning, as Saturdays are when everybody seems to get their hair cut and I wanted to beat the crowd. My usual barber was occupied, so I was given the option of waiting or having his dad cut my hair. Being hungry and needing coffee, I opted for the latter. When he was ready, Barber Dad grabbed my wrist to pull me up and lead me to the chair. Unlike Barber Son, Dad speaks no English, so I had to rely on signs to communicate. I was expecting to come out of it looking like a solider, but he did a nice job. He broke twice for tea and a smoke, but whatever, I'm only paying Rs.100. The problem came after the cut. Barber Son always gives me a rough, post-cut massage that leads to soreness; Barber Dad proceeded to attack me with a hammering, spinal cord-relocating assault that brought tears to my eyes and has locked my neck at an awkward 10:00 position. I paid my money and staggered back home, only to find two cows grazing on opposite sides of the road, blocking my passage. When this happens, a car usually comes and they move, but it was early and there were no vehicles to be seen. The roads in Baluwatar are probably no more than eight feet apart, and I wasn't about to hit a cow to move them. A fruit guy comes by, sees my predicament, and proceeds to pelt one of the cows with stones, eventually causing it to trot away, but not before soiling the road with a trail of excrement.

-Sundays in Nepal during monsoon season give monotony a whole new level of meaning. Everybody sleeps in to recover from the weekend festivities, gets up late morning and than lazes around until lunch, where we all gorge on some combination of rice, legumes, leafy vegetable and grisly meat for the carnivores. Afterwards, I usually try to take a nap, but piano lessons are going on, and some kid is always repeatedly struggling through the same basic piece, which makes sleeping impossible. This past Sunday, there was a break in the rain, and Shehrish and I went to see Captain America (in 3D!) at the old theatre. Superhero movies have unfortunately destroyed most of my positive childhood memories of collecting comic books and Marvel cards, but at least The Red Skull was present as the antagonist and the producers took advantage of 3D technology by having Captain America throw his shield at my head a few times. There is always intermission at movies in Nepal, so I went to the heavily populated mens room to relieve myself. While standing at the urinal, I hear a voice shout out behind me:

"That's my sir! That's my sir!"

Recognizing the voice, I turn my head to see three of my students waving and pointing at me . The rest of the men in the bathroom start giving me menacing glares, probably confused as to why children are yelling at me while I'm urinating. To make matters worse, one of them came up to me and asked me what I thought of the movie thus far while I was still in the process. I couldn't really ignore him, so I said I thought it was 'cool', whatever, finished my business and booked it on out of the bathroom. One of the kids than offered me some of his Swedish Fish, but I politely declined.

-I think I'm close to mastering the art of haggling with cab drivers. If I'm with Shehrish or any Nepali person, the drivers will usually just run the meter, but when I walk up solo, they see glimmering white flesh and start drooling over how much to gouge me for. Here's an example:

I need to get to Lazimpat, which on meter from Baluwatar is about Rs. 85-100, about $1.25 USD, on meter. I sidle up to a cab, make sure to slowly enunciate my desired destination (twice I've said 'Baluwatar' and ended up in 'Boudha'), and the driver subsequently motions for me to get in. I used to always fall for this and than ask price, but have learned to wait, as they know that I'm unlikely to jump out once they start driving. A typical exchange in a populated area:

Kyle: 'Kati ho?' which roughly translates to 'how much'. If I start with Nepali, they're less likely to hose me, although it probably doesn't matter.

Cab Driver: 300. They usually start with three times the metered rate. I used to fall victim to immediately converting to the dollar, but have since learned the market and know the rates. If they give me a tripled rate, I'll just walk away. If they follow me, I will haggle them hard, as I know they're desperate for money and I'll subsequently lowball him with an offer of 100. If they don't I'll just hit up another cab, but they usually do and counter with 125-150, and depending on my mood and the condition of the car, I'll bite. I have to get from A to B, and don't really mind paying the white tax. This move works in populated areas, as they know I can just ask another car and get my desired rate. If the area is empty and there are no other cabs nearby, I have to resort to different methods:

Kyle: Kati ho?
Cab Driver: 300

If the area is empty or the weather is rainy, the power shifts to the driver, as he knows I'm the desperate one and will likely pay more. The walking away move doesn't work here. I used to try it, but it always ends up in walking back to the cab and then really coughing up, as you're essentially conceding defeat. The power move is to assertively decline, and say something like 'I know the rates, I've lived here 5 months etc.' If they know English, this move has some moxie, but they usually don't understand, so I usually split the difference and counter with 150. The driver than counters with 175-200. I always used to give in here, but have since learned to break out the money as if to say 'This is all I've got'. Half of the time they give in, half of the time not. If not, I'm out of moves, and will either walk away and hope he follows or just give in to his offer, depending on various factors such as weather, the time etc. I used to 'lose' in these scenarios every time, but feel like I carry about a 65% 'win' rate, which must be good for a white person. These zero-sum games take place once or twice a day, and as my Nepali improves, I hope to fully get this game down pat and turn the tables on these hustling cabbies.

-I consider myself reasonably tolerant, and only find a handful of things to be unbearable (Nickelback, Friends and Israeli hipsters to name a few), but I can't really come up with a more unbearable scenario than how I spend my day from 10:40-11:00 am Monday through Friday: tea time in the teacher's lounge, which consists of myself and fourteen women, ages ranging from 25 to 50. The topics of conversation are always a rotating quintet of the following, which I've ranked from least to most insufferable to listen to. I'm not sexist, it just is what it is:

Movies; how (movie) was so cute, usually referring to the mid-90's atrocity that aired on HBO the night before.
-Food; cooking it, eating it, what is fattening, what has carbs, what causes gas etc.
-Clothes; (especially if somebody wears something new) which stores have sales, how so and so's sandals are soft, which brands are cheap/nice, etc.
Men; who likes whom, what this guy said, what it means, why are men like _______, etc. Overall gossip, overall awful.
Me; Being the only male, I get a lot of unwanted attention pertaining to my clothes, something I said/did, how I don't eat meat, when I'm getting married etc.

The conversation is a mixture of 90% Nepali/10% English, which enables me to block out most of it and focus on my Sudoku puzzle until I'm interrogated about one of the five subjects. As of late, I've been grabbing my tea and going up to the classroom to dish on Dragonball Z or have the girls teach me Nepali phrases. Which would you prefer?

Hope all is well, I will add pictures and update the template to sexify the blog soon and hopefully sell ads.

*Soccer Disclaimer - the rest is all soccer*


-Soccer is finally underway, and I have already spent countless hours watching EPL, Europa League, UEFA qualifiers etc. Sherry begrudgingly accompanies me to the Irish Pub and sits through hours of English football. Her favorite team is Man City, as "they're the only team that's fun to watch and they have nice jerserys". In America, matches come on at 7 am and you only get about 2 games a day unless you have a soccer package, and one of them is almost always Man U beating up on a weak sister team. In Nepal, games start around 5 pm and last until midnight, absolute prime time for sports enjoyment. The only obnoxious thing is that EVERYONE likes Barcelona in La Liga, AC Milan in Serie A and either Man U or Arsenal in EPL, which makes for the composite bandwagon idiot fan that is impossible to talk to. I only got into soccer a few years ago and am still learning the ropes, but have greatly benefitted from the blunt, harsh commentary of the British/Indian pundits. Unlike ESPN mouthpieces who usually sugarcoat criticism, these guys will straight tell it like it is and rip teams and managers apart. They also break down games according to the gambling lines, which is infinitely more interesting than simply hearing people pontificate on who will win. I love learning why a team will/won't cover a goal differential, and the breakdown of props is great. If I still made wagers, Man City winning EPL at 9/2 seemed really juicy. Here's to Liverpool and Man City losing but Suarez and Silva still individually killing it for my fantasy team. RVP, start scoring goals or I'm dumping you for Rooney or Bent. Oh, and go Chelsea. Not a great first couple of games, but already looking good enough for at least third. The Torres/Drogba issue is annoying, as Drogba, along with being the nemesis of Man U, is why I started liking Chelsea after I gave up on Arsenal for selling Henry-A.Cole-Adebayor and more in the first few months of my following soccer, and I have always hated Torres. He ruined their chances in UEFA last year and cost Ancelotti his job, and has now given Chelsea a Man City-like dilemma of which strikers to play. Anelka will probably be chopped, which is unfortunate as he and Drogba play well together. I hate Kalou and have never seen him play well, but he gets a lot of minutes. Midfield looks a bit suspect; I'm not too fond of Ramires and miss the days when Lampard was world class. Hopefully Mata adds some punch. I must say, though, it's great being a fan of a team that is owned by a corrupt Russian oligarch with unlimited spending monies. If only he had spent wisely and bought Aguero or Suarez. /endrant