On the way to work today, I saw three crazy things. Actually, 4. Before we even left for work, the new guy who helps us the Singh's cook was putting Mr. Singh's bags in the car and on accident, Mr. Singh slammed the trunk door on his finger. He was really lucky because it was only the tip of his finger and nothing really happened to it. Just got really red. Then, I saw another accident. No one was hurt, but a car hit an autorickshaw. Since everyone is so impatient here, including Mr. Singh, we pulled up right on the accident, sat there for maybe 5 seconds, and then Mr. Singh started blowing his horn, telling them to get out of the way so we could proceed on our way to work. It would be way to nice to actually stop and get out of the car to make sure everyone was alright. Insurance doesn't really exist, so I guess that wasn't an issue. Then, I saw a small something similar to a pick up truck carrying 5 X 5 ft. slabs of ice. These slabs of ice were completely in the open and just melting in the sun. I have no idea how far he had to go, but it didn't make any sense! Right as I was thinking how stupid transporting those ice slabs was, we came to a stop. I looked over to the right and there were all of these "monks" carrying flags and water. I asked Mr. Singh what was going on and these "travelling monks" walk 500 kilometers every time during this month to pay tribute to Shiva. 500 kilometers!!! So traffic was stopped and we got to watch all of them march/walk towards to the temple, carrying water and flowers from the Ganges River.
I'll post more later, but this was an unusual drive to work and I didn't want to forget it. Hope everyone is doing well!
Family
Prayers
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Thank You and Prayer Request
6/17/2008
It is about 1 AM here in Jaipur and it has been a rather long past couple of weeks (stomach problems can really take a toll on the body). I’m in an online class, have an updated resume due for the masters program because the job application process is already beginning, and I am taking out loans for the masters program. You could say this is all a little overwhelming, especially trying to coordinate it from India. But that is not what this blog is about. I’ve reached the half way point and have spent a great deal of time reflecting on the past month in India. As many of you know and especially those that I have spoken with, it has really been a life changing experience. It is hard to explain how wonderful the past 4.5 weeks have been over here. I realized tonight that a BIG section has been missing from my blog (even though there is a picture at the top of my blog to remind me of this powerful concept).
Throughout the entire past month, my friends and family have commented on my blog and photos, emailed, Facebooked, IM’d, Skyped, G-Chatted, and some are flying over here to visit me! Through all of these communication networks, one thing has been consistent. You have all kept me in your thoughts and prayers for almost an entire month and your prayers have been felt! God has provided me with so many different opportunities that I never thought were possible. I put the picture of the kid praying with his dog as a reminder for myself at the beginning of the trip to keep my priorities straight and ask God to help me grow and learn as much as possible while I was in India. As I was getting ready to go to bed tonight, it dawned on me the power of prayer and keeping individuals in our thoughts (in whatever form you may believe in). It is funny that even though I see that picture almost everyday, I just take it all for granted. For me personally, I have experienced so much personal growth through your prayers and will never be able to thank all of you individually for this.
Tonight, I’m going to try and do my part to return the favor and spread the power of prayer through my blog for a close relative. Carol Isch (my Grandpa Ken Kipfer’s sister) is at the Mayo Clinic, has undergone surgery and is now in recovery. I firmly believe that if everyone who has been keeping me in their thoughts and prayers over the past month can just take a little extra time and do the same thing for Carol, she will have a full recovery and be in good health in no time!
Thanks again to everyone for all of your support and keeping me in your thoughts and prayers, and remember, please say a prayer for Carol and her family over the next few nights!
It is about 1 AM here in Jaipur and it has been a rather long past couple of weeks (stomach problems can really take a toll on the body). I’m in an online class, have an updated resume due for the masters program because the job application process is already beginning, and I am taking out loans for the masters program. You could say this is all a little overwhelming, especially trying to coordinate it from India. But that is not what this blog is about. I’ve reached the half way point and have spent a great deal of time reflecting on the past month in India. As many of you know and especially those that I have spoken with, it has really been a life changing experience. It is hard to explain how wonderful the past 4.5 weeks have been over here. I realized tonight that a BIG section has been missing from my blog (even though there is a picture at the top of my blog to remind me of this powerful concept).
Throughout the entire past month, my friends and family have commented on my blog and photos, emailed, Facebooked, IM’d, Skyped, G-Chatted, and some are flying over here to visit me! Through all of these communication networks, one thing has been consistent. You have all kept me in your thoughts and prayers for almost an entire month and your prayers have been felt! God has provided me with so many different opportunities that I never thought were possible. I put the picture of the kid praying with his dog as a reminder for myself at the beginning of the trip to keep my priorities straight and ask God to help me grow and learn as much as possible while I was in India. As I was getting ready to go to bed tonight, it dawned on me the power of prayer and keeping individuals in our thoughts (in whatever form you may believe in). It is funny that even though I see that picture almost everyday, I just take it all for granted. For me personally, I have experienced so much personal growth through your prayers and will never be able to thank all of you individually for this.
Tonight, I’m going to try and do my part to return the favor and spread the power of prayer through my blog for a close relative. Carol Isch (my Grandpa Ken Kipfer’s sister) is at the Mayo Clinic, has undergone surgery and is now in recovery. I firmly believe that if everyone who has been keeping me in their thoughts and prayers over the past month can just take a little extra time and do the same thing for Carol, she will have a full recovery and be in good health in no time!
Thanks again to everyone for all of your support and keeping me in your thoughts and prayers, and remember, please say a prayer for Carol and her family over the next few nights!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Alive and Doing Well
This is a pretty long post, with no editing, so there will probably be quite a few errors. I wrote it pretty quickly, but I just wanted to get something up to let everyone know what I was up to. Yes, I am still alive and doing very well over here in India. I apologize for not posting as frequently in the past week and a half; things have been pretty busy over here. So many things have happened that I don’t know where to start.
Work has been great. I actually enjoy working every single day, even though I’m probably working between 40-45 hours a week as an intern, including Saturdays. Most of the other interns get their Saturdays off so they can travel on weekends, but I don’t. I really don’t mind because I have a huge air conditioned office, my boss bought me a wireless data internet card so I can get on the internet anywhere in India, he bought me a calling card, and paid for me to go up to Delhi last weekend, which none of the other trainees have, so I’m really lucky at my job. It makes me work harder though and hopefully I can help BMIT build up some big global partners or relationships. Last week, I traveled with my boss to one of the most prestigious universities in Jaipur to make a presentation for a new university he is trying to build in Jaipur or Jodphur. The presentation was to a committee appointed by government officials, so it was a really big deal and worth quite a bit of money since the proposal included the new buildings, land, etc. He asked me to make a Power Point presentation about my project, which I was supposed to present to this committee. I did a lot of research around Second Life and other platforms for virtual collaboration. If you haven’t read about these types of programs, go online and start looking into them. It is probably the future of education in the United States and developed countries. My boss is a forward thinker and trying to apply this kind of technology to his universities and colleges in India, which would be groundbreaking, but the committee didn’t really like it. They were more traditionalists and thought that teaching should be done the old-fashioned way with text books and in the classrooms.
The actual presentation was a great learning experience for me, especially around doing business in India. I have already mentioned in my blog how Indians don’t use the traditional head nods to communicate yes and no. When the director would be stating some of his ideas, the officials would shake their head no, but it was really in agreement and then made some facial expressions, which I thought looked like they were disgusted, but really they were approving. This presentation was especially crazy. Since this committee was compromised of high government officials, they wanted to basically let us know that they were powerful and had the authority to do whatever they wanted. In the room at the time of the presentation, it was the Director, the Registrar for the University (Sandeep), me, and then the 4 government officials. During the Director’s presentation, the members of the committee would talk amongst each other and pick up their cell phones in the middle of the presentation! I have never seen anything like it! In the United States, it doesn’t matter who you are (normally), but you would never pick up a cell phone call in the middle of a presentation unless it was an emergency. These government officials seemed like they were just having casual conversations on their cell phones almost the entire time he was presenting his proposal for the new university! It was a great learning experience nonetheless. If I do ever come back, I’ll know what to expect when I’m making these types of proposals in front of government officials or big time business people. All in all, the presentation went really well. I never got to present because the officials cut us off and we ran out of time, but it was still a great learning opportunity for me. I’m sure I will get another opportunity to do something like that in the near future.
After the presentation, my boss took me and Sandeep out to the Comfort Inn and Suites, which is a really nice hotel here in Jaipur for a couple beers and then we ate dinner at this great Chinese restaurant in the hotel. It was a really short work day and it was nice to relax with my boss outside of the working environment.
Outside of that presentation, last week was pretty miserable because I was sick almost the whole week. The stationary bicycle that I work out on every morning broke, so now I don’t have any cardio in the mornings and I’m still waiting on the Singhs to get it fixed. This past weekend was really nice though. On Friday morning, my boss offered to send me up to Jaipur with three of my co-workers for this college fair. He told me I could go see the city while they work at the fair all day Saturday and Sunday. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get to know my co-workers and also go see the city for free!
Too good to be true? Well, a little. I had to wake up at 2:30 AM on Saturday morning to catch a ride with them in one of their cars. It is about a 5.5 hour drive to Delhi from Jaipur by car. Ravi, who also drives me home everyday from work, told me that he would pick me up at the gas station where he drops me off everyday on Tonk Road. The gas station is about a 20 minute walk from my house. I didn’t really think anything of it until I told Mrs. Singh that I was going to walk there around 3:30 AM. She said that it was a terrible idea and that it wasn’t safe. So when Ravi called the next morning to tell me he was on his way, I asked him if he could pick me up at home instead of at the gas station. He said that he would, but that didn’t think he would be able to find his way there because everything was dark and closed. Keep in mind there are not really any street signs, to my knowledge, so there was no way for me to tell him how to get to my house. I ended up walking. Scared out of my mind all of the way to the gas station at 3:30 AM in the dark with my 200 lb bookbag. The first street I turned on outside of my house, I could see an older man walking towards me on the street. Didn’t really bother me until I got about 75 yards away from him and noticed that he was carrying a long pole with a silver blade on the end of it! I almost turned around and started running the other way, but I just kept going. I’m alive, so everyone knows what happened, but walking past, I was basically reading to run for my life at any given second. I called home right after that and talked to the whole family at the lakehouse for the next 15 minutes. It was definitely one of the scariest moments of my life. There are a bunch of stray dogs and homeless people just kind of lying around and you never know what they are going to do, that is what makes it so scary that late at night. But I survived, couldn’t stop sweating (mix of fear and heat) in the car for the first hour of the trip, so that sucked. Finally cooled off and was able to sleep for a couple hours the rest of the way up to Delhi.
Luckily, the rest of the trip was great. We arrived in Delhi around 9:30 AM, ate breakfast, and then they all dropped me off at the India Gate and told me to meet them back there around 6 pm. It is a very famous site in Delhi, so it was not a hard place to get back to at the end of the day. I was on my own in Delhi, so I basically just stuck to the biggest and main tourist places. Delhi is a huge city with a population of nearly 14 million. I think it is the biggest city I have ever been to in terms of population. The main sites that I visited on Saturday were the India Gate, The President’s Place, Connaught Place, and the Red Fort. Connaught Place is a big circle area with a bunch of shopping. I didn’t buy any clothes, but I did buy a book called Common Wealth by Jeffrey Sachs. An appropriate to read while in India and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in globalization, poverty, and learning about the growing gap between the rich and the poor across the world. I’ll post pictures of all of these places soon so everyone can see what I’m talking about.
I went back to the India Gate around 5:15, waited on my three co-workers until around 7:30, so I just sat at the India gate and read my new book. I also watched a few games of cricket, even thought I still do not entirely understand how to play the game. We went to Jawaharlal Nehru University, which is where we stayed and another top notch university in India. Then we went out to eat in the diplomatic area of Delhi, which was a lot of fun. I slept really well that night, probably the best I have slept since I have been here. I had two twin beds pushed together, air conditioning, and a nice shower. It was great and free! Everything was paid for there except for my lunches!
Sunday I ended up going to the fair with everyone because I needed to get some homework done for my online class. After I finished that, I decided to treat myself and indulge a little bit since I was traveling and not spending any money. I decided to go to the Hyatt, a 5 Star Hotel in Delhi, and had a pepperoni pizza with a couple drinks. It was really relaxing and really expensive! I immediately regretted my decision after I saw the bill, but it was worth it. I probably won’t get anything like it the rest of the time I am in India. It rained all day, so I stayed at the Hyatt most of the day and then just headed back to the fair where I helped them clean up. We left Delhi around 7:30 pm and got back to Jaipur around midnight. It was a pretty intense weekend traveling, but a lot of fun. On the way home, my co-workers tried to start teaching me Hindi. This week I’m also supposed to start doing Hindi lessons with Mrs. Singh. She said she will teach me Hindi if I teach her English, so I think we will probably start tomorrow. It will help me so much to know the basics so I can get around here in Jaipur and communicate more with all of the local people.
If you are still reading this, I’m impressed. I’m not even sure what I’m talking about. I think I have been writing now for hours! Just kidding. I guess here would be a good place to slip in the fact that I have had 4 Pepsi’s now, but still no Mt. Dews. I had to have some kind of caffeine and carbonation last week because of my stomach, so in a sense, I have failed, but I had limited options. I thought by now giving up the Mt. Dew would be easy, but it is actually getting harder every day. Hopefully I can make it. Oh, and they don’t have any pretzels over here at all. That has been pretty rough too.
I have new roommates!! Steve (Manchester, UK), Fleur (Netherlands), Vicki (Shanghai, China), and Monique (Netherlands). They all arrived last Saturday when I was in Delhi. Most nights now, we all sit up on the rooftop and talk about so many different things. All of them know everything about American culture and I feel so dumb because I know nothing about their movie stars, movies, music, etc. They know everyone over in the States! It is unbelievable how popular American movies and music are all over the world! Two nights ago, we even talked with Vicki about her opinions regarding China and Tibet. She admitted that she thought what China was doing was okay, but that she could only access information provided by the Chinese government. Monique and Vicki both work together, so at work the next day, I guess Monique showed Vicki other international media sites to let her read about the rest of the world’s opinions. I’m really looking forward to learning about their cultures and way of life, it is so much different than back home. Last night (Wednesday), we had the trainee dinner and there are probably about 45 interns in Jaipur now from all over the world. We are having a lot of fun and everyone seems to get along so well. It is nothing like the Real World (TV show on MTV) or anything. Haha.
I’ll post some pictures later, but I think that is all for now. Say hello with some comments, it is always the first thing I check when I get to work! If you made it this far down, I’m sure you will post something! Love you all and miss you!
Work has been great. I actually enjoy working every single day, even though I’m probably working between 40-45 hours a week as an intern, including Saturdays. Most of the other interns get their Saturdays off so they can travel on weekends, but I don’t. I really don’t mind because I have a huge air conditioned office, my boss bought me a wireless data internet card so I can get on the internet anywhere in India, he bought me a calling card, and paid for me to go up to Delhi last weekend, which none of the other trainees have, so I’m really lucky at my job. It makes me work harder though and hopefully I can help BMIT build up some big global partners or relationships. Last week, I traveled with my boss to one of the most prestigious universities in Jaipur to make a presentation for a new university he is trying to build in Jaipur or Jodphur. The presentation was to a committee appointed by government officials, so it was a really big deal and worth quite a bit of money since the proposal included the new buildings, land, etc. He asked me to make a Power Point presentation about my project, which I was supposed to present to this committee. I did a lot of research around Second Life and other platforms for virtual collaboration. If you haven’t read about these types of programs, go online and start looking into them. It is probably the future of education in the United States and developed countries. My boss is a forward thinker and trying to apply this kind of technology to his universities and colleges in India, which would be groundbreaking, but the committee didn’t really like it. They were more traditionalists and thought that teaching should be done the old-fashioned way with text books and in the classrooms.
The actual presentation was a great learning experience for me, especially around doing business in India. I have already mentioned in my blog how Indians don’t use the traditional head nods to communicate yes and no. When the director would be stating some of his ideas, the officials would shake their head no, but it was really in agreement and then made some facial expressions, which I thought looked like they were disgusted, but really they were approving. This presentation was especially crazy. Since this committee was compromised of high government officials, they wanted to basically let us know that they were powerful and had the authority to do whatever they wanted. In the room at the time of the presentation, it was the Director, the Registrar for the University (Sandeep), me, and then the 4 government officials. During the Director’s presentation, the members of the committee would talk amongst each other and pick up their cell phones in the middle of the presentation! I have never seen anything like it! In the United States, it doesn’t matter who you are (normally), but you would never pick up a cell phone call in the middle of a presentation unless it was an emergency. These government officials seemed like they were just having casual conversations on their cell phones almost the entire time he was presenting his proposal for the new university! It was a great learning experience nonetheless. If I do ever come back, I’ll know what to expect when I’m making these types of proposals in front of government officials or big time business people. All in all, the presentation went really well. I never got to present because the officials cut us off and we ran out of time, but it was still a great learning opportunity for me. I’m sure I will get another opportunity to do something like that in the near future.
After the presentation, my boss took me and Sandeep out to the Comfort Inn and Suites, which is a really nice hotel here in Jaipur for a couple beers and then we ate dinner at this great Chinese restaurant in the hotel. It was a really short work day and it was nice to relax with my boss outside of the working environment.
Outside of that presentation, last week was pretty miserable because I was sick almost the whole week. The stationary bicycle that I work out on every morning broke, so now I don’t have any cardio in the mornings and I’m still waiting on the Singhs to get it fixed. This past weekend was really nice though. On Friday morning, my boss offered to send me up to Jaipur with three of my co-workers for this college fair. He told me I could go see the city while they work at the fair all day Saturday and Sunday. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get to know my co-workers and also go see the city for free!
Too good to be true? Well, a little. I had to wake up at 2:30 AM on Saturday morning to catch a ride with them in one of their cars. It is about a 5.5 hour drive to Delhi from Jaipur by car. Ravi, who also drives me home everyday from work, told me that he would pick me up at the gas station where he drops me off everyday on Tonk Road. The gas station is about a 20 minute walk from my house. I didn’t really think anything of it until I told Mrs. Singh that I was going to walk there around 3:30 AM. She said that it was a terrible idea and that it wasn’t safe. So when Ravi called the next morning to tell me he was on his way, I asked him if he could pick me up at home instead of at the gas station. He said that he would, but that didn’t think he would be able to find his way there because everything was dark and closed. Keep in mind there are not really any street signs, to my knowledge, so there was no way for me to tell him how to get to my house. I ended up walking. Scared out of my mind all of the way to the gas station at 3:30 AM in the dark with my 200 lb bookbag. The first street I turned on outside of my house, I could see an older man walking towards me on the street. Didn’t really bother me until I got about 75 yards away from him and noticed that he was carrying a long pole with a silver blade on the end of it! I almost turned around and started running the other way, but I just kept going. I’m alive, so everyone knows what happened, but walking past, I was basically reading to run for my life at any given second. I called home right after that and talked to the whole family at the lakehouse for the next 15 minutes. It was definitely one of the scariest moments of my life. There are a bunch of stray dogs and homeless people just kind of lying around and you never know what they are going to do, that is what makes it so scary that late at night. But I survived, couldn’t stop sweating (mix of fear and heat) in the car for the first hour of the trip, so that sucked. Finally cooled off and was able to sleep for a couple hours the rest of the way up to Delhi.
Luckily, the rest of the trip was great. We arrived in Delhi around 9:30 AM, ate breakfast, and then they all dropped me off at the India Gate and told me to meet them back there around 6 pm. It is a very famous site in Delhi, so it was not a hard place to get back to at the end of the day. I was on my own in Delhi, so I basically just stuck to the biggest and main tourist places. Delhi is a huge city with a population of nearly 14 million. I think it is the biggest city I have ever been to in terms of population. The main sites that I visited on Saturday were the India Gate, The President’s Place, Connaught Place, and the Red Fort. Connaught Place is a big circle area with a bunch of shopping. I didn’t buy any clothes, but I did buy a book called Common Wealth by Jeffrey Sachs. An appropriate to read while in India and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in globalization, poverty, and learning about the growing gap between the rich and the poor across the world. I’ll post pictures of all of these places soon so everyone can see what I’m talking about.
I went back to the India Gate around 5:15, waited on my three co-workers until around 7:30, so I just sat at the India gate and read my new book. I also watched a few games of cricket, even thought I still do not entirely understand how to play the game. We went to Jawaharlal Nehru University, which is where we stayed and another top notch university in India. Then we went out to eat in the diplomatic area of Delhi, which was a lot of fun. I slept really well that night, probably the best I have slept since I have been here. I had two twin beds pushed together, air conditioning, and a nice shower. It was great and free! Everything was paid for there except for my lunches!
Sunday I ended up going to the fair with everyone because I needed to get some homework done for my online class. After I finished that, I decided to treat myself and indulge a little bit since I was traveling and not spending any money. I decided to go to the Hyatt, a 5 Star Hotel in Delhi, and had a pepperoni pizza with a couple drinks. It was really relaxing and really expensive! I immediately regretted my decision after I saw the bill, but it was worth it. I probably won’t get anything like it the rest of the time I am in India. It rained all day, so I stayed at the Hyatt most of the day and then just headed back to the fair where I helped them clean up. We left Delhi around 7:30 pm and got back to Jaipur around midnight. It was a pretty intense weekend traveling, but a lot of fun. On the way home, my co-workers tried to start teaching me Hindi. This week I’m also supposed to start doing Hindi lessons with Mrs. Singh. She said she will teach me Hindi if I teach her English, so I think we will probably start tomorrow. It will help me so much to know the basics so I can get around here in Jaipur and communicate more with all of the local people.
If you are still reading this, I’m impressed. I’m not even sure what I’m talking about. I think I have been writing now for hours! Just kidding. I guess here would be a good place to slip in the fact that I have had 4 Pepsi’s now, but still no Mt. Dews. I had to have some kind of caffeine and carbonation last week because of my stomach, so in a sense, I have failed, but I had limited options. I thought by now giving up the Mt. Dew would be easy, but it is actually getting harder every day. Hopefully I can make it. Oh, and they don’t have any pretzels over here at all. That has been pretty rough too.
I have new roommates!! Steve (Manchester, UK), Fleur (Netherlands), Vicki (Shanghai, China), and Monique (Netherlands). They all arrived last Saturday when I was in Delhi. Most nights now, we all sit up on the rooftop and talk about so many different things. All of them know everything about American culture and I feel so dumb because I know nothing about their movie stars, movies, music, etc. They know everyone over in the States! It is unbelievable how popular American movies and music are all over the world! Two nights ago, we even talked with Vicki about her opinions regarding China and Tibet. She admitted that she thought what China was doing was okay, but that she could only access information provided by the Chinese government. Monique and Vicki both work together, so at work the next day, I guess Monique showed Vicki other international media sites to let her read about the rest of the world’s opinions. I’m really looking forward to learning about their cultures and way of life, it is so much different than back home. Last night (Wednesday), we had the trainee dinner and there are probably about 45 interns in Jaipur now from all over the world. We are having a lot of fun and everyone seems to get along so well. It is nothing like the Real World (TV show on MTV) or anything. Haha.
I’ll post some pictures later, but I think that is all for now. Say hello with some comments, it is always the first thing I check when I get to work! If you made it this far down, I’m sure you will post something! Love you all and miss you!
Friday, July 4, 2008
Happy 4th of July!
Thanks to the whole family for the phone call this morning, what a way to wake up and talk to like 20 different people on the phone at the same time! Happy holidays, I wish I could be with you all at Wawasee! I'm sure it will be a lot of fun!
So I have to make a confession. I just consumed my first soda of the trip, but it was not my fault and I resisted Mt. Dew. I looked all over at work for bottled water or juice and they didn't have it anywhere. I forgot my bottled water at home today, so I had to get something to drink with my lunch and the water at work makes me sick. So I had no choice. They only sold Mt. Dew and Pepsi, so I chose Pepsi. Hopefully this will be the only time I have any soda at all though.
At work now, so I will post more later, but I thought I would let everyone know about the soda, even though I really had no other choice. Happy July 4th! Enjoy the fireworks tonight!
So I have to make a confession. I just consumed my first soda of the trip, but it was not my fault and I resisted Mt. Dew. I looked all over at work for bottled water or juice and they didn't have it anywhere. I forgot my bottled water at home today, so I had to get something to drink with my lunch and the water at work makes me sick. So I had no choice. They only sold Mt. Dew and Pepsi, so I chose Pepsi. Hopefully this will be the only time I have any soda at all though.
At work now, so I will post more later, but I thought I would let everyone know about the soda, even though I really had no other choice. Happy July 4th! Enjoy the fireworks tonight!
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