Happy 4th of July, everyone! This means nothing in India, of course, but that’s OK. There will be other 4th of Julys to celebrate, I suppose. I’m at work today in the Department and it’s official—I only have this week left and then I’m done! Wednesday I may get the opportunity (barring approval) to go to a garment factory to do a little occupational public health observing, and Thursday I’ve arranged to go to Mugalur for one final visit (maternal and child health clinic day). I’m finishing up the manuscripts I’ve been working on this week and then it’s off to Pondicherry on Friday evening for the weekend. I bought some thank you cards for select people in the Dept. and will also bring in a cake for everyone some time later in the week. Monday I will be busy packing, tying up loose ends (like returning the cell phone and books I’ve borrowed), maybe getting one last cheap manicure and pedicure, some menhdi (henna), and perhaps visiting some of my favorite area pubs J. I’m going to try to get to the airport by mid-afternoon Tuesday even though my flight doesn’t leave until 6:15pm. There’s no way I can chance missing that flight! I think I’ll miss India but 2 months is starting to feeling like a while now—ready to get home soon.
I got to see a lot of Bangalore that I’ve been meaning to see this past weekend. It was the reason I stayed in town this weekend instead of traveling. Saturday I attended a presentation given by interns in the Department—some sort of economic evaluation of diabetes in a rural section of Bangalore. It was slightly interesting but once again it’s hard to watch a presentation here because the poor presenters get interrupted every 5 seconds and torn to pieces by the chairperson and faculty in attendance. Constructive, I guess, for the presenters to get the feedback, but I think maybe they should discuss all the problems and ways to improve the study at the end of the presentations so at least there’s some type of order. I think it’s mostly just unnerving for those presenting. After the presentation I went to a coffee shop (Café Coffee Day, India’s Starbucks) to work on my paper and got a solid 3 hours of work done. My epi. advisor gave me the long weekend to finish things up and I’m pretty close now; I have 20 pages written and the main table is 80% finished. I’ll breathe a huge sigh of relief when the whole thing finally gets signed off on and I can graduate.
Saturday night I went clubbing!! So much fun! I went with Vanita and 3 guys, including Steve and two of his friends. The place was called Athena and it was in the basement of Leela Palace hotel (www.theleela.com/hotel-bangalore.htm). It got pretty crowded by about 10:30 (bars close at 11:30 and the hotel was only open maybe a half an hour later!) We danced the night away! I felt totally comfortable dancing and everyone was just enjoying themselves. I feel like it was a lot less judgmental than clubs at home. A lot more modest dancing styles, too, if you know what I mean. For once I wasn’t stared at. Don’t know whether that was because it was dark or because there were a handful of white people there (it’s probably a combination of the two).
Sunday I slept in for once and then worked on my paper until about 1pm, at which time I went with some friends to the other side of Bangalore to the more “trendy” area. We ate a late lunch at this awesome restaurant called Queen’s and then went to Commercial Street for some shopping. It was similar to New York City in the sense that there were tons of stores and huge crowds, minus the skyscrapers. I liked that area and would go back if I had time (which I don’t). It was a bit overwhelming but there was definitely great shopping there. Didn’t buy anything as I’ve already finished my shopping, but it was nice to walk around. We went to Guzzler’s Pub on Church Street (off Brigade Rd, another popular area nearby) afterwards for a drink and then I actually got a personal pan pizza from Domino’s to take home to have for dinner. Yum!
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