Presley

Dear Rain,

I know. We've had our differences the last 22 years. I don't like you and you don't like me.

But please. I'm begging you.

Please rain! My hair can't handle the excessive humidity anymore! Just give me 5 minutes of frizz-less hair.

Sincerely,
Aditi

Yes this picture is from Instagram. And yes you should be following me on Insta: adje_luykx

Monday was Freshers for the Russian center. Freshers is a party organized by the second year students for the new students, the freshmen. There are three parts: formal, informal and really informal.

Well. That was interesting. The event started maybe 1.5 hours too late, but I mean this is India so that's fine. First up was the introductory speech by sophomores. It's not that it was a bad speech. On the contrary, the speech was decent but just lacked the enthusiasm that it needed.

One by one the new students were called up to the stage to say a few words about themselves and why they decided to join Russian.

If there's one thing I've learned about that day, is that "English language university" does not actually mean "English"-speaking.

I went on stage.

I had a whole speech prepared in my head as to how important it is to me to learn about my Indian side and how JNU is helping me accomplish that goal.

Of course I didn't say any of that.

I mean why would my brain allow that anyway.

I said: Hey guys. I'm from Belgium, a country about the size of Delhi. Okay so that's not true, but we only have 11 million people. I'm here as an exchange student so I'd like to thank you guys for welcoming me and I'm looking forward to the next two months. Thanks!

Clearly I work well under pressure.

Throughout the introductions the students performed songs, dances, etc. And I was actually really impressed with my classmates' performance. If you guys are reading, you guys did really well! For people who only had a few days to practice you guys did very well!

The informal part was next. I can't exactly say I approve of this part. I'm all for embarrassing people, but I mean really? On stage in front of 50+ people? Let them at least have some of their dignity. 

So I left. 

Sorry guys, but I can't sit somewhere when I don't approve of the actions. 

Yes. I'm lame. But I'm cool too, right?

I feel like I sound like the mom in Mean Girls. 

Now lets flash forward to Friday.

The Marines at the American embassy were throwing a party so a couple of us went. But before we went in I met a few Americans who seemed to be a bit perplexed at the idea of people actually going to one of these parties. 

Apparently it's very frat-party-esque. 

And well. Yes it was exactly like that. 

Red cups, Budweiser* and beer pong. 

I haven't been to a US frat party, but I've been to a few house parties thrown by Americans back in the day and its safe to say that I went back in time.

In other news, thanks everyone for the overwhelming response to last weeks' question! I got a total of zero answers! 

.....

Next weeks' post will be late as I'm off to Dharamshala for the weekend. And how are am I going you may ask? 

Well. Obviously by bus.

A whole wonderful 12.5 hour bus ride. My very easily motion-sickness susceptible stomach is really looking forward to this. I also in advance apologize to who ever is sitting next to me. Don't worry I've got my stash of baby approved anti-motion sickness pills ready! 

See you guys in a week and a half! 

*I'm never drinking Budweiser again. That's not beer. That's water (with a rather unpleasant aftertaste). For my Belgian friends, it's basically Cara Pils.