It's Official!

Well it's official. I have survived my first semester of school in India! Yesterday I took my 6th and last final. Now I am free until 2nd semester starts on November 24th!

As I mentioned before, the three finals I had remaining were Quantitative Research Analysis and Statistics, Understanding Society, and Economics. All in all, I feel okay about how I did on them. Me being the huge nerd that I am, Quantitative Research is probably my favorite subject, so I felt fairly confident while writing my essays for that class. I wrote one long essay about the use of literature review in the research process, another long essay about types of research designs, and four short essays on levels of measurement, probability sampling methods, bivariate tables, and Likert Scales. I wasn't always sure what they were asking for in the essay prompts, but I think I did alright. The statistics element was really basic, so I think I did well on that part too.

Understanding Society was a bit harder for me. This was a 3-hour exam, so they expected a little more out of us than they would for the 2-hour ones. I tried to prepare as best I could, but in the end, the subject matter was really vast, and some of the topics I had to choose from were not ones I felt comfortable with. At any rate, I ended up writing an essay on Conflict Theory, another on Perspectives of Caste, one on Class-Caste Dynamics, "drawing examples from either agrarian or industrial social structure", another on the Women's Movement in India, and two short notes on the Functionalist Approach and Secularism in India. Whew! Just typing all of that makes me tired again! I really have no idea how I did on this paper, though. I am trying not to stress too much and to just wait until I receive my grades to find out how much I really did end up "understanding society"!

My last exam was Economics. It was 3 hours as well, and covered both Micro and Macro concepts. This time I really lucked out, though, because the topics that came were the very ones I had studied. I wrote three essays for this exam. The first was about different types of elasticity of demand and the factors affecting it. The second essay talked about supply and demand curves and their relationship. The third talked about the Law of Diminishing Returns, the Law of Returns to Scale and long and short-run cost curves. The prompts were actually much more involved than I've indicated, but I figure I have bored you enough with talk of final exams. Plus, last post I promised you all some fun pictures and stories. So, without further ado...


To celebrate the end of my semester, I did something I have been wanting to do ever since my arrival in India. I got Mehendi! For those of you that don't know what Mehendi is, allow me to explain. Basically, Mehendi is a traditional body art that Indian women apply on special occasions. It's usually applied to the palms of your hands, and sometimes the tops of your feet. Mehendi ceremonies are really common at weddings, but there aren't any rules about when or why someone has it done.

Even though the end of a semester is not usually considered such a huge cause for celebration, I decided it was as good of a reason as any to experience this really beautiful Indian art form. And while just about any beauty parlor in India will be skilled in Mehendi application, I was fortunate enough to find someone in my class at school who offered to apply mine. So I went to the market and bought the henna dye for 5 rupees (or around 10 cents) and took it back to Sangeeta's dorm room.
2 hours later, I emerged with a thick layer of crusty, dried paste halfway up my arms. I wanted to take pictures of the whole process, but, silly me, I forgot my camera's memory card at home. These pictures are several hours after the application, when the paste had started flaking off. It takes quite a while for the color to fully develop. That's why my palms are orange here. The dark spots are where the paste is still clinging to me. At this point, I was a bit skeptical about whether or not I would end up with the pretty auburn hue I was desiring. Apparently there can be issues of not getting good dye. So even though the woman I bought it from assured me it was "bahot atcha" (very good), I didn't know what to expect.




Finally though, when I woke up this morning, the dye had taken full effect and I had exactly what I had envisioned:

This should stay on my palms for about a week. I wish it were longer! I know I will be sad to see this gorgeous design fade away, but I am sure I will find another excuse to have it applied again really soon!



















Oh, and as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I have the next month completely free for vacation. (Yay!) That of course means that I am going on an adventure! (Because living in India isn't enough of one already?) On Monday morning, I am heading to the airport and catching a flight to Bangkok, Thailand! I have ALWAYS wanted to see Thailand, so you can imagine how excited I am to finally be going!


I will only be there 3 days though, because on Wednesday evening, I am getting on another plane. This time, I will be going to Cambodia! Some friends of my family and really wonderful people are living in Phnom Penh. They agreed to let me camp out at their place for a few weeks while seeing the sights in this country. I've been trying to read up quite a bit on Cambodia's history so that when I get there, I will be able to fully appreciate all of the amazing things I will get to see. The temple ruins are supposed to be amazing, and the killing fields, really impacting. And, having lived through such recent political turmoil, I know this country's inhabitants will have incredible stories to tell as well. I can't wait to take it all in!


I promise to blog as much as I can while I am away. If it turns out that I can't post regularly while I'm in Cambodia, though, you can bet I will more than make up for it upon my return. A big part of the joy of my many adventures has been being able to share them with all of you. Thanks for coming along for the ride!